News update.

Yet again, I haven’t been keeping this poor blog up very well. Though lots of things have been happening, I’ve simply not had time to write about it! So here’s an update.

News Item 1. Since June, I've completed the entire set of covers for The FRUGALITY Trilogy by Stuart Ayris (for ebooks and print – including an anthology of the three). As I said in an earlier post, I’ve been a fan of Stuart’s since I read his first book, Tollesbury Time Forever, so I was thrilled to bits to be able to do his covers. If you love something literary, but far more interesting than the usual plotless literary novels, have a read of Stuart’s books. Guaranteed to be something different!

News Item 2. I finally got my book cover site up and I’ve been busy (very happily busy I might add) filling it with pre-made covers. There was a slight hitch when I discovered that ‘KWSDesign’ which I’d planned to call it, was already a company in America (furniture designers, I think) so after much thought and difficulty finding anything that wasn’t already taken, I came up with the name of Magic Owl Design. After a month, I still haven’t sold any pre-made covers, but I have had lots of views and  got a customer for a custom cover, so it’s on its way. 

To add to the excitement, Rosen Trevithick, for whom I did the illustrations for ‘The Troll Trap’, has started a pre-made cover page on her ‘Indie Book Bargains’ site which she kindly let me join. By far the greatest percentage of traffic since she started it has come from her page. Thanks, Rosen!

News Item 3. As reported in my last blog post, I’ve been working to get my books into print. Last week, I finally experienced that precious moment when I held my first book in my hands. Treespeaker is a real book at last. 5x8 inches, cream paper and 320 pages. Beautiful. Sigh.

It’s now available from Createspace and Amazon. I set the price at $13.99, but Amazon immediately took 10% off. I don’t know how long that will last though.

I’ve ordered myself a box of them to try to sell at the local Writers Festival to be held in September. I felt very left out last year when all the other presenters had a table of books to sell and all I could do was hold up a picture on my iPad. This year, I’ll have the real deal.

A proof copy of Mark of the Dragon Queen should arrive in a couple of weeks. I doubt I’d be able to get any of them here by the day of the Writers Festival, but it will be nice to be able to say it’s available as well.