AUGUST 2025 This month’s “missive” essentially writes itself. Even so, I would probably have started by going on about the summer weather, the beach, my new implement for securing the bottom of the umbrella in the sand, and my lingering doubts about yellow as a colour for ankle socks, but having a son in Australia …
Agatha Christie in space or just Death En Route to Neptune?💉🗡️💣 Read More »
JULY 2025 I’ve recently started taking swimming lessons. I’m going to have a total of eight one-on-one sessions. It’s expensive (a very generous gift from my wife!) but only about the same price as taking four people out to dinner in a decent restaurant, or slightly less than a meal for one in the kind …
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master … 🏊 🏊 🏊 Read More »
MAY 2025 So, I was going to apologise for sticking the new novel in another Bookfunnel promo, but I’ve been studying the dark arts of book marketing for “indies” recently, and the received logic seems to be that I should offer discounts and deals on early books in the series and sell the new one …
A Martian Ending launched at last (and FREE until Monday!) 🌎🚀🪐 Read More »
MAY 2025 Book news at last! A Martian Ending is (WAS!) now available as an “Advance Review Copy”. I know I’m always saying how much I want reviews, so you’d think I’d be encouraging you to go and grab one. But next month the damn thing will be free on Amazon for a few days …
APRIL 2025 A few weeks ago, we were out for lunch with my wife’s sister and her brother-in-law. She’s retired, but he’s a lawyer and shows little sign of slowing down. He also teaches at the university in the fine Spanish city where they live, and for some reason we got talking about taboo subjects …
FEBRUARY 2025 It’s all too easy to get overtaken by events. There I was around January 16 thinking about comparing myself to Jeff Bezos as he waited to finally get his New Glenn rocket off the ground after any number of frustrating setbacks and delays over the last few years. There are a few differences …
JANUARY 2025 First of all, Happy New Year! If you spend any time on social media, you’ll already know that 2025 is a “perfect square year” and the only one you’ll ever see (the last was 1936 and the next will be 2116). In other words, 2025 is equal to 45 x 45, as well …
OCTOBER 2024 Almost as soon as I’d finished getting An Ultrakey for Dione ready for the big bookstore in the cloud, I was almost literally struck down by a bout of sciatica. I think it might have been my back complaining about the end of summer and the start of the cooler, even wetter weather. …
What IS an ultrakey and what’s with all this punching? Read More »
SEPTEMBER 2024 Self-publishing is like a dark tunnel that has suddenly filled with people poking flashlights in my face and telling me to follow them to the light at the end of the tunnel, before taking me back the way I came and then handing me the bill for their services. What to do? Well, …
Is there light at the end of the self-publishing tunnel? Read More »
March 2024 Since I’m currently sailing joyously through the final revision of a second edition of Anything But Accidental (the subject line is a quote from that novel, by the way), this month I was going to say very little and simply include this link to an article about “enshittification”. Revisiting the link, I see …
