Daynote - Mon 27 Jan

A very rainy morning today, so no walk, but that's fine because I was playing catchup. I didn't end up doing my little 300 word plan catchup over the weekend (due to travel/beta reading on Sunday and the very distracting Kindle Daily Deal on Saturday) but I made up for it today thanks to the pouring rain.

We also survived Storm Éowyn mostly unscathed. Our rickety old fence stayed up (despite a lot of wobbling and our neighbour's fence going down) but the catch on our garden gate got snapped clean in half and one of our garden arches was blown over. It was a long day of nervously watching various things and hoping they'd survive.

Saturday was my first Kindle Daily Deal, in the US, where my book has only recently launched in hardback. I posted about it through the day, but it was fascinating to see it pick up steam as it climbed the charts. I peaked at around #767 for the entire US Kindle Store (I won't know exactly until the data updates in my Kindle Author views, which takes a day or two) and hit Number 1 in the Political Thriller and Suspense category (as of this post, I'm still at Number 5!) as well as #4 in both Espionage Thrillers and Legal Thrillers.

I fully expected to immediately slide back down the rankings, but two days later I'm still hovering in the top 20 for all three categories, which is brilliant. I suspect the increased exposure to US Kindle customers will be as valuable as the actual 99 cent sales, if I can stick around in the top 50 or so for a couple more days. I'm sure I'll be duly crushed when I drop way down tomorrow.

And of course, the important bit is now I can legitimately describe myself as a bestselling author. Sure, it was in one category, for one day, based on an extremely good deal, but I'm counting it. And it definitely got me in front of readers who otherwise wouldn't have seen the book. As we all know, the number one issue facing debut authors is simply having readers know that you and your book even exist. So from that perspective, this was a roaring success. I can't wait to see the detailed numbers when I get them eventually.

ON DECK: The rain this morning was welcome because it let me catch up to my drafting plan, with a chunky 2,508 words across three scenes. That's taken me from 300-odd words behind plan (since I re-planned based on a change to how I want to edit the first draft) to about 300 words ahead of my minimums. Which is excellent - as long as I maintain my five-days-a-week pace and add a hundred words or two whenever I can, I will comfortably hit my targets.

It's not quite NaNoWriMo pace (that's 1,667 words per day) but it's in the same ballpark. But I've also done this enough times that I'm feeling pretty good about hitting it. And the main reason I'm taking this first draft pretty fast is because I want to give me (and my crit partners) enough time for a proper edit.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I've been continuing to work with the Supernote Manta (that's a link to an extremely in-depth review) and starting to use it in earnest and it's really an amazing tool. I did some outlining and drew a couple of little sketch maps on it, and I've been starting to use it for taking notes when I'm on calls with publishing folks, and it's so good to have the ability to link and connect notes together, insert new pages and so on. I'm really looking forward to trying it out for a read-through of the current draft of PROJECT SCARLET, once I get to that point.

LISTENING: Absolutely loved this episode of The Real Writing Process with Trip Galey. This one is a real deep-dive with lots of specifics. And as we all know, I love talking about (and hearing about) writing process.

WATCHING: We finished off THE RIG at the weekend (bonkers but a lot of fun) and then I rewatched the first few episodes of SAS ROGUE HEROES with my wife Valerie, because she liked the sound of the second season but wanted to watch the first season with me. It's fun watching it the second time, as I'm picking up a lot more of the great dialogue and character moments, rather than concentrating on the explosions.

READING: I finished MK Hardy's Boat Book beta read yesterday thanks to some long bus journeys and sent them a long and praise-filled feedback email. Great book. I hope you all get the chance to read it soon. Next, I started on an early proof I've received of Eve Smith's new novel THE CURE, which comes out in April. Loving it so far, a convincingly grimy future world and a core hook that grabs you by the throat from the first few pages. Excellent stuff.

LINK: If you missed hearing my radio interview on the Hoot and Holler show on WESU FM, the host Ed McKeon now has a show website where he's archiving all of his author and musician interviews. You can find mine here.

UP NEXT: I have an extremely busy week coming up, with a bunch of words to write and THREE book events on consecutive nights - first of all Annabel Campbell's launch event for THE OUTCAST MAGE in Glasgow tomorrow (with Justin Lee Anderson and L.R. Lam to boot!), then David McCloskey at Toppings for his new book THE SEVENTH FLOOR on Wednesday and finally fellow DHH client Tom Hindle for his new book DEATH IN THE ARCTIC on Thursday.

Phew. A lot of events for one week.

I'm going to be quite tired by Friday, I'd guess. Onward!