The next book's taking shape

I haven't been resting on my writing laurels.  It's not yet three weeks since the publication of my latest novel, 'Stand Against The Storm', but I've already written 75% of the second volume of the Laredo Trilogy, 'Forge A New Blade'.

It's a lot of fun having to switch mental gears, reverting to the setting of 'War To The Knife' and working out how the Laredo Resistance is going to establish a meaningful space-based combat capability.  Steve Maxwell, my protagonist from the Maxwell Saga series, makes a couple of appearances and contributes some good ideas (of course).  Readers of earlier Maxwell books will recognize some familiar names and places that reappear, as they will in future books as well.

I hope to have the latest book out to beta readers within a couple of weeks;  then I'll be taking a couple of weeks off from writing while they send back their comments.  I'll use the time to sort out our storage unit, which still contains boxes and bits and pieces from our move last year.  The idea is to get rid of as much as possible, and keep only what can fit into our present small duplex.  Over the course of the year we'll be deciding whether we'd like to stay in our present area, or move to be closer to our writing 'center of gravity'.  Once that decision is made, we'll start looking for a home of our own.  There's no hurry - I have to sell a lot more books before we can afford it!

I've been very encouraged by sales of 'Stand Against The Storm' so far.  I'll be writing about its first three weeks on the market over at Mad Genius Club this Friday (I'm one of the guest bloggers there).  This is my first book launch after Amazon.com launched its 'Kindle Unlimited' subscription library service.  I've certainly lost sales to KU readers, and because KU pays authors only about half what they'd earn from a sale at my price point, it's cost me money to participate in the program.  On the other hand, the volume of KU readers boosts one's sales rank in the Kindle Bookstore.  In this case, it's pushed me more than 300 positions higher than I've ever been with previous books (the highest rank I reached, last week, was 503).  That translates into higher visibility for the book, and greater sales . . . so what I've lost on the swings, I seem to have regained on the roundabouts, so to speak.  It's a very interesting study in marketing data, and Miss D. will have more to say about it on Friday too.

Thanks again to everyone for your support.

Peter