I am delighted to say that I have signed with literary agent John Jarrold.

Due to the unusual nature of the contract I had with HarperVoyager for my first three books, there was no possible work for an agent to do for me at that time. Now that I have a new book (Blood of Antiquity) written, however, it is vital that I have someone who knows the industry to guide me and represent me.

It is therefore not only an honour but also a massive benefit to have someone of John's renown and experience at the top levels of the publishing industry on my side. Having headed up and even established fantasy imprints and worked (in publishing and as an agent) with many authors who are giants in fantasy and science fiction, as well as helping many new authors to launch their careers and in turn go on to great things, John is himself a legend in UK publishing and you can see why I am so excited and elated at the thought of joining his agency and working with him on Blood of Antiquity and future books.

You can find John's press release regarding my signing with him on his website here. 

I have written two further books! One is on hold at the moment but the other is my current focus for achieving publication.

The one on hold is the next one to follow Brann's story. The plan for these books always was to write a trilogy of trilogies, forming in total one overall story, so this is the first in the second trilogy. However, the harsh reality of publishing is that, because of the way that first three (the Seed of Destiny trilogy) were produced as a digital project and were not regarded as a more mainstream publishing contract would have been in terms of investment and marketing, the sales - while encouraging for a first-time author - not sufficient for a new book in the series to be financially viable. However, it is ready and poised to be unleashed on the world should the situation change.

The new book is a completely different set of characters in a completely different setting and time. With the provisional title Blood of Antiquity, it is post-apocalyptic where great cities have regrown with lawless lands between and where technology has largely recovered to the level of the early 1900s. It is a a bit grittier than Hero Born et al, and follows the story of one character but that story is told through the eyes of several characters, all of whom I hope you'll enjoy reading about. The first draft is now out seeking an agent, so I am at the 'hopes and nerves' stage!

I'll keep you posted if/when there is anything to tell. 

To my shame, I had never, until recently, heard of the concept of a video wiki site, but I am now delighted to have become acquainted with them because I came across the Ezvid site on discovering that some nice, and obviously highly astute and of great literary taste, person had uploaded a video of their top 12 Action-Packed Fantasy Books That Will Make You Yearn For Adventure. And first up was Hero Born!

To put you in the picture, having been founded in 2011, Ezvid Wiki was the world's first video wiki and is now among the top 3000 websites in the United States. Their YouTube channel has more than 425,000 subscribers and has had 250 million views since founding, it may come as a surprise, but those stats are slightly higher than for andylivingstone.com, so I’m impressed.


Anyway, if you would like to see the video, or wiki as it is known, you’ll find it by clicking here.

With today's paperback publication of Hero Risen, the Seeds of Destiny trilogy is fully complete!

The book is the longest one yet, but at £13.99 is £4 cheaper on release than the other two were, so is the best value for money of any of my books!

You can only buy it online, and it can be found on Amazon here.

I hope you enjoy it!

As of today, the Seeds of Destiny trilogy is complete! Hero Risen is published - you can buy it from all good digital booksellers - and my heartfelt thanks go to all the good people of HarperVoyager UK for everything they have done to make this possible. I really can't believe this trilogy has made the leap from my fevered imagination to real life books - it is a dream come true.

Click here for the link to Amazon;
here for Apple;
here for Kobo;
and here for Google Play.

And now on to starting the next one...!

As a quick update on Hero Risen, the first set of edits have now been done - these are the structural edits, which cover the major matters like plot, characters, development of certain issues, expanding on some things and cutting back on others.

Next up will be the line edits, which is basically the proof-reading. An eagle-eyed expert will go through the whole book, letter by letter and punctuation mark by punctuation mark, meticulously checking everything from spelling to making sure I have the right name beside whoever is talking at the time.

Both sets of edits rely heavily on the quality of the editors, and I have been extremely lucky with those I have had with the previous two books, combining as they have done technical knowledge with a real feel for the books. Yet again, this time with Hero Risen, I have been lucky with the standard of editing. Throughout the notes I was given, there were great suggestions for sections I could add, tweak or cut that made the book flow so much better and that added greatly to the story and the characters. I have so often read of authors dying how much they value their editors and how they couldn't do without them, and over the course of these three books I now completely understand that.

While the line edits are being worked upon, a designer is crafting a cover, which will be revealed in due course - another exciting part of the development of the book.

Thanks to all of these experts, Hero Risen is on course for its publication date of 1st June (for the ebook), so the end of this part of Brann's story is looming.

This morning, HarperVoyager received Hero Risen, the third book in the Seeds of Destiny trilogy. Twelve years after I wrote the first line of Hero Born, the story that was in my head has been completed (although, for clarity, books 2 and 3 were written in years 11 and 12 of that period)! The editing process will begin in the new year and the ebook is expected to be published in Summer 2017, hopefully June-ish.

In the meantime, I will start work on the next trilogy. After all, we can't let Brann & Co get too fat and idle, can we?

Hero Grown is published today! The sequel to Hero Born is now available as an ebook for £1.99/$2.99 from all good ebook sellers. If you want the link to Amazon, here it is:

​https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0155OP8LG/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469694880&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=hero+grown

The publication date for Hero Grown has been confirmed as 28th July, so only a few weeks to go. The good people at Voyager have been working like Trojans to get all the final arrangements made and, as part of this, the cover design has been officially revealed. You can find the official announcement and a hint of the storyline at their website here but, in the meantime, you can see the great work done by designers Ben Gardiner and Cherie Chapman right here:  
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The shoe is on the other foot this week as, after spending the majority of my working life interviewing other people, I have now been interviewed myself. American writer David Alan Binder takes the time to interview a range of authors and you can find my answers to his questions here.