WOW! 3 Books in 3 Months by Chris Longmuir
No wonder I’m feeling exhausted. I’ve just published my third book in the space of three months. Now, I’m usually a book a year writer, so where did that spurt of productivity come from?
I suppose it all started at the end of last year’s summer. I
was working on my historical crime novel, The
Death Game, but I’d taken a bit of time out to act as the Crime Writer in Residence
for the Edinburgh Ebook Festival, and during that time I posted a series of
twelve posts on the different subgenres of crime. Once that was out of the way
I got my head down to complete The Death
Game. Things were trundling along and the book was taking shape when a
chance meeting with another indie author, Bill Kirton, suggested I turn my Writer
in Residence posts into book form. That was what planted the seed.
I went back to the Edinburgh Ebook Festival posts and
discovered they were no longer online. They had vanished into internet
cyberspace. All my lovely Pinterest postings now had no information behind
them. I suppose that was what spurred me on because I knew the posts had been
popular. The result of that find was all I needed to start working on my
nonfiction book Crime Writing and the
Indie Contribution.
So, I was now working on two books, one fiction and one
nonfiction. And, what I had assumed to be an easy task of converting the
festival posts into book form, suddenly became a massive task with lots of
research, new sections and rewriting the original posts. It’s damnable when you’re
a perfectionist who is never satisfied with your own work!
Anyway, the head was down and I was working hard, and it was
a race to see which book would be finished first. Well, the race was won by The Death Game, and the Kindle version
was published at the beginning of March, although the paperback is only being
launched today.
Crime Fiction and the
Indie Contribution wasn’t long in catching up, and it was published at the
beginning of May. I must say I heaved a sigh of relief, both my babies had been
launched into the reading world, although I still had the paperback launch of The Death Game to look forward to. It
will be the usual Waterstones launch in Dundee with, I hope, masses of
interested readers.
I relaxed a little, although anyone who knows me will
realise that I never truly relax. So, in between getting the next book underway
and preparing for my paperback launch, I gave a little bit of thought to my
Dundee International Prize winning book, Dead
Wood, which the publisher had allowed to go out of print at the end of
2013. I had contacted them at the time with queries about this, but no response
was forthcoming. Since that time Dead
Wood had never been far from my thoughts because it is book two of the
Dundee Crime Series, which meant there was a gap in the series.
I decided to do something about it, if only to give me peace
of mind, and consulted the Society of Authors. I followed their advice and was
rewarded with an immediate result. Yes, you’ve guessed it, I got the publishing
rights back. I am now free to do what I like with this book which makes it my
number three to be published.
Of course, I needed a new cover for Dead Wood. It may not be obvious to readers, but it certainly is to writers, that although the author retains a book's copyright, the cover belongs to the publisher. So, I thought I'd give you a peek at the new cover which has been designed by the talented Cathy Helms, of Avalon Graphics, and here it is.
Of course, I needed a new cover for Dead Wood. It may not be obvious to readers, but it certainly is to writers, that although the author retains a book's copyright, the cover belongs to the publisher. So, I thought I'd give you a peek at the new cover which has been designed by the talented Cathy Helms, of Avalon Graphics, and here it is.
So, as they say in all good stories “All’s well that ends
well” and I think I’m going to make three my lucky number.
But now that’s all out of the way maybe I’ll find time to
getting back to writing the next Kirsty Campbell book. Watch this space folks!
Chris Longmuir
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