Surprising Developments

So much happened this weekend that it's almost difficult to keep up.

Firstly, through a combination of devilment and throwing caution to the wind, I started telling people that The Long Second was now available on Kindle (UK and US/International) and Smashwords. I hadn't really planned on doing this for another couple of weeks, but I guess the excitement got the better of me (Catherine Howard will be so annoyed at my lack of restraint).

As of the time of writing, it's reached #21 in it's genre on Amazon.co.uk - which is bizarrely exciting (even if the real numbers behind that figure aren't quite as exciting). Watching the sales is - unsurprisingly - addictive. I just need to try to remember to do some actual work in between checking...

Then the offer to produce the audiobook version came in. This is something I simply hadn't considered and, to be honest, am a little unfamiliar with. But it's too good an offer to pass by, so it's been grabbed with both hands. This will obviously take a few weeks to come to fruition, but I'll keep you posted.

Then, almost on a whim, a small Facebook advertising campaign was started. This is so appropriate, given that the book was conceived over Facebook. It's efficacy remains unknown, of course, but it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

The Long Second also gained its very own Facebook page - please do pop over there and "like" it. The plan is to offer some bonus content there shortly, so it will hopefully be worth your while.

I'm also planning on some guest blog posts, but need to work on those.

And I'm preparing a Press Release for the local papers...

Given my reluctance to engage in the publicity side, all this seems quite remarkable. Will it translate into sales success? I've honestly no idea. I really didn't expect to enjoy this stage of the process, but I'm actually having a ball!

And finally, on Friday I saw a post on Twitter which, during the course of the morning's journey to work, morphed into a new book idea, which then morphed again into the amalgamation of about 3 separate ideas... At least I remembered to write them down before they disappeared.

Of course, trying to make time to do some actual writing is another matter altogether.