crime thriller

Last Chance Train

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Blog title is a song from “100,000,000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong”.

You know what makes an author happy? Come on, you do. You got this … say it with me, “REVIEWS.” There ya go. I knew you had it. I would be ridiculously delighted if you’d leave a review of the Byte Books you’ve read – but especially ridiculously delighted if you left the review/s on Smashwords, Kobo, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble … pretty well anywhere that’s NOT Amazon or Goodreads. Why? Because most of my books are no longer available on Amazon and I don’t think “3rd party sellers” should be benefiting from my reviews. Thanks in advance for being cool about this.

In other news: I went home. I came back. That’s all I have to say about that.

I’m working on Crashbyte – and kinda feel like it might get a name change because of Cryptobyte. Do we want to C’s back to back? No we do not. So, I’ll be fossicking through my Byte list shortly looking for something suitable … meanwhile, I know where this story is headed location wise. Ellie is going home. Where is home? Where is she really from? If you’ve read the series so far, you’ll know, or maybe have enough information to guess. It’s going to be a fun book. I can feel it in my bones. There’s a few things my bones are good for 1) detecting weather changes and 2) knowing when a story is going to be fun to write.

EDITED TO ADD: Crashbyte is now known as Vaporbyte.

FYI it’s cold and building up to a storm this afternoon. So here’s a picture of Mahau, (where I was for the weekend).

Mahau Sound, Marlborough Sounds.

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My life is a book …

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Seriously! Saw a text from TBH when I woke this morning about strange noises and something/one outside our house – in the front yard. She also said it sounded like something ‘heavier than a bird’ landed in the tree.

The tree in question is a huge camellia tree, right outside my bedroom window. Yeah, I was asleep.

It’s still dark – I have yet to open the curtains to discover what may or may not be in my tree. Of course last night I read a passage in KILLERBYTE about something in a tree (while looking for a few sentences for a graphic). I can assure you that I am in NO hurry to check out the camellia tree this morning. No hurry whatsoever.

As a special treat The Byte Series Boxed Sets are 50% off via smashwords. Until June 1st. Don’t daly. Get in there are enjoy. The Boxed Sets have additional stories – they’re not just three books sandwiched inside a glorious umbrella cover. 🙂 So if you fancy 9 books for well under $10, grab them now.

A lot of you know that Romeo (my faithful greyhound companion) crossed the rainbow bridge on May 5th. He was involved in the writing process of flashbyte, soundbyte, snakebyte, databyte, eraserbyte, psychobyte, metabyte (he was the rock that helped me write that ending), qubyte, cryptobyte … and all the Byte shorts that go along with the series, including the poetry book. Ro was my sounding board. He very much approved of readers reading the Byte Series.

Here he is rocking his killerbyte bandana (original cover)

Walking in sunshine

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Stunning albeit cold day today. The walk to the bookshop was all sunshine and glorious. Don’t mind cold starts when the day is lovely!

So, what’s been happening here?

I have the proofs for snakebyte and the new version of Whispers in the Water. Whispers needs some tweaks. Which I knew and had already mostly done … then I had another idea. So, now it’s twenty pages longer. ha! Guess I’ll be re-doing the cover now. 🙂 Same amazing image – but a slightly wider spine. Kinda a fun project to be honest. Might do it next weekend when I’m home in Mahau. At this stage the books won’t be in the bookshop until July.

There is an important thing I need to remember before we leave on Thursday. THA doesn’t sail well. [She’s the only one of us that doesn’t.] So she’ll need good ol’ phenergan for the trip. Weather forecast is for wind, so it could be a wee bit bumpy out in the Strait. Best to be safe than sorry especially as immediately after the 3.5 hours on the sea we’ll be sitting in a car going over windy roads for 40 minutes! I’m all good on the sea – but man even I hate those twisty freaking roads. 🙂

I did try the whole ‘outlining’ thing for a new novel [non-byte]. Failed. It killed my desire to write and I shelved it. Pretty annoying really, because I was looking forward to this particular story. I might go back to it at some stage. I know it’s good. I know it’ll be fun to write. I just lost the will to do so with the whole outlining process. Maybe I need to find a different way of doing it?

Meanwhile, I’m back working on the 12th Byte novel. And that is fun. No outlining, no messing around at all. Just fun.

Now what?

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I left Perth a week ago – it’s been a busy week. Got to spend time with my youngest son while he was over from Sydney. That was a great distraction. Cryptobyte is now ready for editing. I heard back from my new beta readers and dealt with the raised points and enjoyed the fabulous feedback.

I just finished reformatting Databyte for kindle. It should be live soonish. Pain in the arse job but it’s done. Started the reformatting of Soundbyte but have given up for the moment. I’m going to have to strip the file and start again, and I’m not in the mood.

Not sure what I’m going to do now. I need something to look forward to because if there’s nothing on the horizon I tend to lose the fucking plot. So far this year it’s been busy. I was getting things organized for the Qubyte launch for the first 3 months of the year – there was a lot to make and do, plus I was leaving a few days later. So, that kept me occupied. And I had Cryptobyte to finish and beta readers to find and whatnot. Busy Busy.

At the moment I’m looking at a great big void and wondering how to fill it until the countdown to My Knight arriving happens – and that won’t be for awhile.

I’m not planning on releasing book 11 until December, so, that’s a little far into the future for me to worry about. I’ve not even started talking cover details with my cover designer (aka daughter #3).

Book 12 is underway but I need something on top of that. Something less isolating! Also something fun, creative, and productive.

youngest son/oldest daughter: Family

Read an eBook week!

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Smsahwords Read an eBook week is on now!

Here are the links you’ll need for the Byte Series books:

In-between bytes are mostly free this week.

Byte novels (including Qubyte) are 50% off.

Boxed sets are 50% off.  

That is exceptional value for money right there! Remember the Boxed Sets have an extra story each that you cannot get anywhere else, and those stories give a bit of insight into other things that have happened in the SSA Conway/Delta A timeline.

Get amongst this folks. These are some great deals!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes …

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Remember when I said my publisher changed? Yeah? Of course, you do. Due to this change, my books are NOT available in a paperback version from any overseas site. Waiting for it to happen is futile. There are NO plans to make The Byte Series paperbacks available overseas. Remember I am a kiwi. Overseas is EVERYWHERE that is not New Zealand. 🙂

If you like reading paperbacks you can purchase them from Writers Plot Bookshop. 

Writers Plot website has a gorgeous shopping cart and Paypal.

When I say they are ONLY available from Writers Plot Bookshop, I mean it. The decision was made to stay away from Amazon with my paperbacks. Why? A few reasons but the biggest is that they allow 3rd Party Sellers to flog off authors books at whatever price they see fit … but (for mine at least) I can find nothing that says those books were purchased from Amazon (or anywhere else) via my former publisher. That means there was no royalty payment. So how exactly are these 3rd Party Sellers getting the books they’re selling? I have no idea! How are they allowed to sell books and cut the author out completely? Again no fucking clue. But I will not be part of this shitty scheme. So, my books are available from New Zealand. And ONLY NEW ZEALAND. For absolute clarity, they are ONLY available from Writers Plot bookshop. Should you see them anywhere else, please do not purchase them. They are not authorized copies, I have not and do not receive any royalty when they’re sold.

Digital versions of my books are available from all good digital retailers. But not all of my books are available from Amazon. Some have been reformatted and are available, for example: Eraserbyte, Psychobyte, Metabyte. Qubyte is available on Amazon. The first six novels are not yet available. Mostly because I don’t have the files for Flashbyte, Soundbyte or Databyte. I didn’t have the files for Eraserbyte, Psychobyte or Metabyte either, so had to find the last edit I did have for those files, cross my fingers and format those. It’s a little bit frustrating and annoying.

On the plus side, you can buy them all in ePub from ePub distributors everywhere. Why? Because Smashwords allows publishers to revert rights to the author and Amazon does not.