Category: Chronicles of Marsh

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Celebrating the Chronicles of Marsh

Chronicles of Marsh

It may sounds daft, but I’m celebrating the first paperback sale at a craft fair of Chronicles of Marsh.

chronicles of marsh small version

I generally assumed that most people would start at the first one, the fourth at a pinch, and then… well some may be continuing to work their way through, and some have probably switched to ebooks, since they are cheaper and readily obtained. But I have reread all the books in the last year, doing my best to imagine coming to them with no prior experience. I concluded that if you are happy with jumping into a series in the middle, you can start with any of them.

At Lymington of Saturday, I had several conversations about the series, taking my potential buyers from start to finish in about ten breaths. I did that in Lyndhurst too, a couple of weeks earlier, but the only ‘odd purchase’ was when I realised that buying books 1,2,3,4,and 6 was a more logical choice of five from the series (five attracts a discount) than including book 5 (Talent Seekers). The 1234-6 group cover most of the key Hugo/Mariusz elements. There’s a small matter of book 10 to finish his involvement, but he’s the main link for those books. (Well 123 is the trilogy, which is its own link).

At Lyndhurst, without the book rack finished
At Lymington, without me!

So what would make someone start with book 9? It was an older person, who liked the idea of seeing the timeline through Fred’s eyes, as part of the introduction to his reign. Of course, it maps the downward spiral of contentment in the Realms against the uptick of technology. I’ve wondered whether the two are necessarily connected, or whether it’s just one of those things. Do people just aspire to new technology, whatever the cost to their happiness? Anyway, I think it will probably work, and if he wants to go back and see ‘how it unfolded’ he can do so.

I suppose it’s a bit like seeing the third Lord of the Rings film without seeing the first two.

I’m sure he’ll enjoy it, and that’s the main thing.

But I’m really happy to have sold a copy of Book 9 at a fair in person. The only one still to be treated to that honour is The Princelings of the North, book 8. I have hopes that one of the younger readers might jump straight in there after Messenger Misadventures! Time will tell.

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Revised Chronicles paperback now available

chronicles of marsh small version

This was embarrassing. I looked through the paperback edition of Chronicles of Marsh when it arrived in late October last year, and didn’t spot any problems. Imagine my shock and horror when I read through it before finalising Princelings Revolution and found several chapters with many of the paragraphs misformatted.

chronicles of marsh small version

Technical difficulty – seeing the editing box

It was all down to the need to format the paragraphs individually, in my paperback publishing system. If you want indented starts or a line between paragraphs you do it manually. Tedious but simple. Blurb has made many improvements to its BookWright interface over the years, but the font on screen is around 8pt, and you can’t enlarge the box. I’ve tried, including using the accessibility features.

Generally speaking, I can scroll down a mass of text and see where a paragraph ends. Then tab, and scroll on to the next one. I was either tired, or suffering visibility problems, because I missed a lot of them – mostly when the paragraph ended at the end of a line. Equally disturbing were the tabs in the middle of paragraphs. I’d obviously thought the end of a sentence was the end of a paragraph.

These are understandable mistakes. What I can’t understand is first, why I didn’t see this when going through the online proofing tool, and second, why I didn’t see it when I got the paperback in my hand.

Excuses

The only excuse I can offer is the stress of moving. I uploaded Chronicles on 2nd November. We were trying to complete the legal stuff (I desperately wanted it completed by 25th in order to qualify to vote in my new constituency). Eventually we completed on 13th December. First one hitch with my buyers, who were allowing me three months free tenancy, and then with my solicitors simply seeming slow. I think once Chronicles was out in all formats, I got on with the moving stuff.

But failing to check is no excuse. Unfortunately, Blurb will not adjust the book without issuing a new ISBN, so I’ve been through the pages on here changing the ISBN for ordering. The old version is now not available, but Amazon will probably continue to list it forever – but I did change the book information to say it was withdrawn, so I hope that helps.

Buy the paperback!

The Ingram distribution system is now rolling out the new version (ed 1.1) to all bookstores. It will probably show at Amazon, B&N, etc in a few days although up to six weeks is possible. You can order it by its new ISBN 9781715725402 at your favourite store. Sorry about that.

If you’ve already bought the paperback, it’s readable. But if you want to exchange it, let me know, including an example of an obvious formatting mistake (page number), and I’ll send you the new version via Book Depository.

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Chronicles of Marsh – now in paperback

Chronicles of Marsh

The paperback version of Chronicles of Marsh is now available through Ingram’s distribution network.

You may have to order it, in which case use the ISBN number: 978-0-46-445403-8. It should show up on Amazon and B&N sites shortly. [Update 2020: the second edition ISBN is 978-1-71572540-2]

Chronicles of Marsh is available to buy as an ebook at

Chronicles of Marsh (Princelings book 9) is published on Thursday 14th November.

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Author interview for Chronicles launch

Chronicles of Marsh draft cover

I’ve done a new interview for Smashwords about the latest book, Chronicles of Marsh, so I thought you’d like to see it here.

What’s the story behind your latest book?

Chronicles of Marsh is book 9 in the Princelings of the East series. I finished the first draft, and immediately continued to the first draft of book 10, which is the last in the series. 

I had the idea of everything ending in revolution as far back as 2012, and even wrote the first four chapters in 2014. Not much of that draft has made it into the book, though some of the concepts survived. But I couldn’t write it then, because so much time would elapse between where I was in 2014, and the scenario for the last book, which is set in 2020-21.

Then a couple of years back I noticed I was running out of time.

That was when I realised how closely my saga of the Realms was reflecting life in post-referendum Britain. The UK has been really a horrible place to live since 2016; the lies we are told by the politicians, and the media, turn people against each other; hate crimes have risen tremendously. It was painful to write my dysfunctional story at all, just continued the stress.  

Then something in me changed, and I was able to get that stress out through writing again.

I made a forecast of events through from 2017 to 2021, what ‘had’ to happen, and started writing book 9. The title had been in me for some time, and I turned it into Fred’s memoir, with some aid from his nearest and dearest. With help from my editors and beta-readers, it has now turned into something that I think stands as a book on its own pretty well. Although I apologise that I’ve nearly left it in a cliff-hanger. You just know what has gone over the cliff; it isn’t really important to the book. A bit like ‘The Italian Job’!

So, I’m all set to get on with editing the last in the series. I hope it doesn’t all end in tears.  

I should tell you there’s a chapter in Chronicles that leaves me in tears, every time I read it. I’ve put it down as a possible trigger warning for people in the Princelings website entry for the book.

Oh, and I’m working on the audiobook for the first in the series, just to test the water. If you’re keen to get audiobooks, let me know.

You can buy the audiobook at the following online retailers: Audible, Amazon, Apple (iTunes)