Hello, everyone! Sorry to have been a bit silent of late, I’ve been spending most of lockdown working on various freelance and personal writing projects. Now that lockdown is slowly but surely coming to an end, I figure I need to start thinking about marketing, promotion and all of that other good stuff.

See, despite the fact that I used to work in marketing and spend half of my working life creating marketing materials, I’ve never been particularly good at promoting myself. It’s a surprisingly common situation.

Anyway, the upshot is that I’m trialling out a revitalised approach to my social media profiles, including starting to use Twitter again and using Instagram stories to keep people up-to-date with what I’ve been reading. I’m hoping to get a new website built at some point, too.

But that’s all boring marketing stuff, and you probably don’t want to hear about that. Instead, let’s take a look at some of the projects that I’ve been working on.

Scarlet Sins: Stories and Songs: This is set for release sometime over the next six weeks or so and will be my tenth published work, collecting together short stories and song lyrics as well as a few other goodies. It’s all complete and ready for release, so watch this space.

The Lexicologist’s Handbook: This one is a dictionary of strange and obscure words that’s designed to be a reference book for fellow language nerds. It’s been through editing with my editor, Pam Elise Harris, and is just going through its final proofing before we gear up for publication.

Boys in Blue: This is Leipfold book #3 or book #4, depending upon how you look at it. I have a collection of Leipfold short stories called Jailed and Other Stories that’s been edited and is ready to go, while Boys in Blue is set to be the third novel in the series. I’ve completed the first draft of that and need to give it a read through before it goes over to Pam.

Monsters of Rock: This is a comic fantasy novel about a band that’s made up of real monsters and which follows the highs and lows of the band’s career. I’ve finished my first draft and need to give it another read through before it’s ready for Pam.

My Life in Books: Another book that I’ve finished the first draft of. This one is a bibliomemoir, or a memoir about books, in which I talk about some of the books and authors who’ve shaped my life. I’m still adding to this here and there, but the first draft is pretty much complete. It needs another read-through before I send it to Pam.

Dutch Courage: This is the working title for the fifth Leipfold book and fourth novel. I’ve plotted out the book and at the moment, I’m just sitting on it and letting it ferment. The plan is to revisit it in a couple of months and to give the plan a second pass to enhance it all.

Minis: This isn’t one book but rather a mini series of them, in which I’ll be tackling subjects including writing, veganism and anxiety. The plan is to have them run to around 15-20,000 words each and to print them with a small font and page size so that you can carry them around in your pocket.

Greebos: This is essentially my primary current work in progress and the first draft that I’m putting most of my time into. It’s set in the Summer of 2005 in my hometown of Tamworth and is essentially an attempt to recapture my youth and to tell untold stories through an ensemble cast of fictional characters.

So there we have it: that’s about it for now. I’m hoping to average at least three books per year over the next couple of years, and I’m excited to see some of these projects coming to fruition.

As always, thanks a lot for checking in with me on my writing journey and be sure to check out my Amazon and Goodreads pages if you want to learn more about my books. You can give me a follow there while you’re at it!

And of course, you can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter for further information. I’ll see you soon!