Another week slips by in my CWAP life. And another busy one. I know how this guy feels. Just replace the plates with books. Oh, and replace the smile with an exhausted grimace.

I have three finished books in various stages of post-production. Three Short Blasts is available for pre-order. Still only 99p and 99c while stocks last. Available here Amazon UK and here Amazon US

(Interesting fact: did you know that three short blasts is a maritime signal for ‘I am operating astern propulsion?’ [snigger] In other words ‘I’m going backwards’. Here’s hoping that doesn’t turn out to be a portentous title regarding the consensus of opinion for this offering.)

I ummed and ahhed about how to release this and when. In the end I chose the release date to coincide with the date that my Kindle Scout campaign finishes – Saturday, March 12th. My thinking is that if Deep State doesn’t make it through to consideration for publication then I’ll have something to cheer myself up with, and if Deep State does make it then I’ll be celebrating with a book release. Sound like a plan? It works for me. (If you have no idea what I’m on about, see further down the page.)

Three Short Blasts is a collection of three original stories that are not to be found anywhere else. There is one story in each of the three series that I write: The Romney and Marsh Files, Acer Sansom and Booker & Cash.

Going on industry standard word count, the three stories range from forty to sixty pages of a paperback novel in length – significantly longer than short stories but not quite novellas.

There’s also an introduction in the book where I explain the motivation behind it. You can skip that bit if you like and get straight into the reads, which I hope you will enjoy.

Deep State (Acer#4) is with the Kindle Scout programme. Please see this link to an older blog-post for details. Kindle Scout – Deep State (Acer#4)

That’s still got nearly three weeks left to run and I’ve just about run out of people to hassle to vote for me. Bugger! (Ha! I’ve even asked my children. I repeat: ha! My son said, ‘I didn’t know you’d written a book.’) I would like to say a huge thank you to all who have nominated the book for consideration by Amazon and please consider a cherry on top if you were able to retweet me or re-blog me or post my begging letter on your FB page. (This is now reading like a foreign language.) It’s all helped tremendously and I am very grateful. If you haven’t YET, I would be very grateful if you would consider doing so. Deep State needs exposure and nominations!!!

The Kindle Scout programme is quite demanding on the social networking side of things. It’s important to keep the profile of the entry in question in the ‘Hot and Trending’ list for as long as possible during its 30 day campaign for it to have any chance of the Amazon team even looking at it. There are no guarantees that they will publish anything, no matter how popular a book has seemed with nominators.

And this week I finished my final read-throughs of A White-Knuckle Christmas (Romney and Marsh File #7). That’s now gone off to the menders.

Regarding R&M#7 I have a question for anyone who might have an opinion to share regarding the answer.

R&M#7 is set in the run up to a very white Christmas on the south coast. If all goes to plan, the book will be available for submitting to Amazon in March. The book has a Christmassy title and a Christmassy cover. Is it something that readers will want to read in spring, with the winter well behind us? Or should I keep it back and make it a Christmas 2016 release?
I have my own view, but I would be very interested in the views of others.

What am I up to now? Let me just have a look at that little list I made for myself back in early January.

1) Release Deep State Acer#4 – check, sort of.
2) Release A White-Knuckle Christmas (Romney and Marsh File #7) – nearly there.
3) Finish and release Booker & Cash #3 Waifs and Strays (provisional title).
4) Finish and release the short story bundle. – check
5) Devote some serious time to getting my books more widely known about and doing some promotional work. – check

Looks like it’s back to Booker & Cash #3 – Waifs and Strays. I’m actually looking forward to doing some writing again.

I’ve got seven weeks left before I’m out of here. Yikes!