Daynote - Tue 3 Dec

A gorgeous morning walk today, a little frosty, red streaks in the clouds from sunrise, a couple of deer watching as I passed with steam rising from their breath. I sometimes don't want to go on my morning walk, but I never regret it once I'm out there.

Yesterday brought the fantastic news that my novel, A RELUCTANT SPY, has gone to a second printing after the last copies were shipped out from the warehouse! It was brought home to me when I went to sign special edition copies for Goldsboro Books just how much trade publishing is a logistics business as much as a creative one, and as we know, logistics and warehousing comes down to meeting demand as precisely as you can, so that you're not left with hundreds of unsold books or an empty warehouse and customer orders going unfulfilled.

In that context, a second print run after less than three months is a very good sign, indicating strong, ongoing demand for the book and an initial print run that handily covered orders for the launch and the first 8-12 weeks. This doesn't, however, mean all those books have been sold. They are on out on shelves and in retailer warehouses and in the back of vans on their way to customers. And, of course, some of them may come back as returns. But a second printing of the hardback, for a debut novel, is a really great thing and I'm hugely pleased. Thank you to all the readers who have picked up a copy and got us to this point.

Speaking of which - the Crime Fiction Lover Awards 2024 close tomorrow. You can vote in the poll here. If you were one of those people who got me to my second printing and you enjoyed the book, please do vote. I'm shortlisted in the Best Debut Novel category.

ON DECK: Buoyed by the news from yesterday, I had a really excellent, focused session this morning, cutting 257 words out of three chapters over about an hour and a half. Doesn't sound like much, but I'm also adding words as I cut, so that low cut count hides a lot of new words.

I had a really great call with Ed McKeon from WESU FM last night, pre-recording for an episode of his show 'Hoot and Holler', where he interviews authors about their work and asks them to choose music they love. He also interviews musicians about their favourite books, which is kind of awesome. It will be broadcast in early January, so if you're in Connecticut, tune in! I'll post a livestream and catch up link once I have them.

TOOLS AND PROCESS: I continue to be delighted by Croissant. There's something so extremely handy about being able to cross-post to three sites at once. And now it lets you create threads, AND find and tag the same people across multiple platforms. It's a tiny bit buggy on the Mac, but it's indispensable for posting promo, I've found.

LISTENING: I've been digging through some podcast archives this week and really enjoyed this interview with Will Dean on the Talking Scared podcast. It's still really weird to hear interviews from the early days of the pandemic. Strange little time capsules.

WATCHING: A bit more DUNE PROPHECY last night. The Harkonnens continue to evil pretty hard.

READING: More JUSTICE OF KINGS and now swords are being swung. With predictable results.

LINK: Really enjoyed this talk with Caro Perny about effective book marketing. Hat tip to Anna Stephens for the link.

UP NEXT: Today might be Decision Day for one of my projects, but I've learned in publishing that it's always best to just keep going on what's in front of you and try not to think about these things until they're actually in your inbox. So I'll continue to plough through my front-to-back edit of SHARD. Only 10,500 words to cut until I'm at my target word count.