A new start

Greetings, Bloggerland!

How have you been? I know, it's been a long time, hasn't it. Sorry about that. Had some time off to think things over and work out what to do next...

You see, 2012 and 2013 have been quite eventful, emotional and trying at times. The excitement of publishing the Cypress Branches trilogy, and learning my way around the self-publishing world, has been tempered by some very sad and difficult events.

William's wife, my grandmother, passed away earlier this year, just before we released It Never Was You. With the family's blessing, I decided to go ahead with a low-key launch and the blog tour. But to be honest, it took it out of me, and I decided that I'd have to take a break.

And I'm glad I did. I'd been concentrating on publishing the books pretty much constantly for about 18 months, and the strain was beginning to show. I just wasn't enjoying it any more, and when you stop enjoying something, that's when you need to take a step back.


But the trilogy has rarely been far from my thoughts, and I've used the last few months to have a really good think about what direction I want to take the project from here on in. I think I have a plan nailed, and once again I'm pretty excited about it, which is great. There are going to be changes, but all for the good, I think.

So, where to begin?

Online spring clean


Well, for a start, the main website (acuteanglebooks.co.uk) is having a makeover to bring it right into the 21st century. With the new format, it will now work just as well on mobile and tablet devices as it did on PCs, rather than being re-formatted into a poor HTML version, which has always been a bugbear of mine. I'm also making it a bit more streamlined and user-friendly, both for the reader and for me making updates!

There will also be changes around this blog. I'm going to do a spring clean as soon as the website is up and running, then I'll start to pen some posts I've been planning for a long time now, but have never managed to get round to...

New blog content


Earlier in the year, I pledged to blog more often. Alas, events overtook that resolution, and the extra content never materialised. But it's never too late to make a start, and hopefully soon, there will be more opportunities to create some really interesting content.

One of the things I've realised since taking my sabbatical is that I've never done any really meaty research into Gramps's past. This really is a rich seam to explore, what with his career as a paratrooper, merchant seaman, engineer and university lab technician. I'd love to get in touch with others who might know of a parent or grandparent who may have served with William during the war, or at sea. I want to find out more about what his life would have been like back then, and get a better understanding of where his ideas for the book came from.

And there's all the posts around the books themselves that I'd like to do. They are set against the backdrop of some incredible moments in the history of the 20th century, and I'd love to explore them more. In Pegasus Falling alone, we take in the ill-fated Operation Market Garden at Arnhem, the concentration camps, the refugee crisis in Germany after the war, the Jewish settlers trying to reach Palestine, and the whole Middle East situation flaring up. All of these are fascinating aspects of history that I'd love to read more about. As I do, I'll be documenting my research here.

I'm teeming with ideas, and can't wait to get stuck in.

Building the audience


The key aim all along has been to get the books into the hands of the audience William's work deserves, and for the first 18 months of this project I was searching out readers right across the globe. Drunk on the possibilities that ebook publishing offers, I cast the net wide hoping to build an audience wherever I could. That tactic had some success, but not enough to warrant continuing down that road. Because our readers are scattered across the continents, building momentum has been difficult, and I feel that now a bit of consolidation closer to home is what's needed.

For the time being I'll be concentrating on building an audience on this side of the Atlantic. Whilst the US market offers a huge number of readers, and I have managed to find a few out there (thanks guys!), I really should be doing more in the UK first. (Don't worry, international readers, I'm not forsaking you totally, and the books will continue to be available around the world wherever possible, so if you're in the States (or Australia, Spain, Portugal, or anywhere else the books have sold) and you know your friends will love the books as much as you have, go tell them to buy them - they're still there in the Kindle Store.

Building a bigger fan base closer to home over the coming months makes a lot of sense for several reasons. For a start, although we now live in a global marketplace, and Facebook and Twitter have transformed how word of mouth is spread, I think it still makes sense to start small. I suspect that building excitement around the books will be easier to do in a small area to begin with. I can visit places in the UK, bringing that personal touch. Plus, with the second and third books being set primarily in the UK, there are places here that I can (and will!) target, and that's my next step (watch out, Liverpool!)

...But what about the books themselves?!


And then, of course, there's the small matter of publishing part three of the trilogy. Work hasn't begun on it yet, which I know will dismay many readers eagerly awaiting its release. But I can assure you, work will begin soon. The first job is to re-read the manuscript - something I haven't done since putting together the hardback. I can't wait to get stuck in!

So, that's the plan. What the next 18 months actually holds in store, who knows. But I'm looking forward to getting started.

Watch this space!

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