Greetings from my attic in the Blue Mountains!
Like most of you, my wife and I have settled into our new ‘Covid-19 Isolation Lockdown routine’ in our home up here in the Blue Mountains. Fortunately, we are experiencing a wonderful autumn at the moment, which makes staying at home and spending time in our garden a delight that lifts the spirit.
For me, the routine hasn’t changed that much, as writing is a solitary endeavour at the best of times. In fact, the new regulations that now govern our lives, and the cancellation of all travel plans, have allowed me to devote a lot more time to writing and research than usual. I am pleased to tell you, that this has had a positive impact on a number of exciting matters I would like to share with you now:
THE NEXT BOOK
After the release of The Curious Case of the Missing Head in November last year, many of you have asked when the next book in the Jack Rogan Mysteries series would be available, as you were apparently already looking forward to Jack’s next adventure, and didn’t want to wait too long.
As you know, I encourage feedback and enjoy nothing more than beginning the day with answering emails from readers like yourself, writing to me from different parts of the world. While this can be very demanding at times, the benefits have been huge, because by communicating with my readers, I am able to find out not only how my books resonate and are received, but learn about other matters that are relevant and important to my readership generally.
One of those matters has been the publication time gap between books in the series. (Usually a little over a year). I have been asked countless times if I could somehow shorten this gap, because a year was far too long a time to wait for the next book in the series. While I take this as a huge compliment, all of my books are big reads involving a lot of research and travel, which means that writing a book of this scope and complexity takes time.
However, because of the impact of the coronavirus lockdown and the cancellation of all of my travel plans for the year, I have been able to accelerate writing the next book which, I am pleased to tell you, is already well advanced.
This has only been possible because most of the research has been completed during my extensive travels through Europe – especially Russia – last year. As they say, there’s no ill wind that doesn’t blow some good.
But wait, there is more! Because the next book is turning out to be a much bigger in size than I had originally envisaged, with many new colourful characters, exciting locations and a lot of historic material to tease the imagination, I have decided to divide the storyline into two parts. All going well and to plan, this will obviously shorten the time between publications, and will allow me to release book 1 towards the middle of the year, with the sequel to follow by Christmas. I believe this will work well in the circumstances and give you, my readers, what you’ve been asking for.
For now, my friends, that’s all I can share with you. I will be telling you more about the proposed publication dates and the exciting books to come, in our next newsletter. I hope I have piqued your interest…
AUDIO BOOKS
Another important matter many of you have raised again recently, relates to audio books. You wanted to know when the Jack Rogan Mysteries series would be available in audio format. Well, the good news is, my publication team and I are working on this right now! We are using the extra time we now have at our disposal due to the lockdown, to address this complex subject, and are confident that we will have audio books available before the end of the year! I will certainly keep you informed in that regard.
To make this possible, my team and I are working on a little surprise for you right now, which I am sure you, and your friends will welcome and enjoy. As planning is still in progress, I will write to you separately about this shortly.
So please, do keep an eye on your emails, and open the one I will send you about this because I don’t want you to miss out! You won’t be disappointed; promise!
I have recently received this delightful email from one of my readers in the US I would like to share with you here. Little gems like this, make sitting up here in the attic late at night, plotting my storylines worthwhile!
Hello, I purchased your Kindle series and am enjoying it so much. I am ending and beginning every day during this Covid 19 quarantine with your words. I love the adventure, relationships, and settings. I was supposed to be in Italy, but of course had to cancel. I am traveling vicariously with Jack. Thank you!
As I’ve mentioned before, due to the coronavirus situation, all of my travel plans for this year have been cancelled. I will therefore be spending a lot more time here in our garden in the Blue Mountains. As you know, I am a keen gardener, and we have just come through a harrowing time with our bushfires up here that made it difficult to keep the garden alive with all of our water restrictions, and temperatures in the forties!
Be that as it may, all the hard work has paid off, and the garden has survived and is in fact rewarding us with a spectacular autumn display. Here, let me show you:
