October the third of 2019

This is a writer buried under piles of scrapped paper notes. This is me, after sending off The Weaponsmaker to be reformatted in ePub after I severely cut it, rewrote the opening, chased down every last typo I do sincerely hope and pray although they breed like guppies. It is now in the hands of the formatter to arrive in the world now fresh, clean of typos, superbly readable.

I am going fishing! On the Hundred and Two Mile River.

Also contracted for a new cover for Viking Bard. I tried twice with the maker of the present cover, to get him to make the figure of the bard more dynamic, and (ahem) better-looking and not so (I am groping for words here) sickly? Creepy? I think he was trying for ‘ethereal’ but it came out as somebody with a latex skin and a comatose expression.

It’s very absorbing and entertaining, much fun is had, this fooling about with covers and re-writing. What’s not so fun is the confusing, incomprehensible and frustrating Amazon advertising system. Or maybe it’s not a system but a sort of random, confusing stab at getting your book somewhere, anywhere, it can be seen and then paying for it. Lots. Paying lots. Then messing about with the new dashboard for hours trying to figure out how to see results.

 

At any rate, all aboard for the new Viking Bard cover! Ahoy! and so on.