New review of 'The Valley of the Shadow of Death'

Not an unmixed reception from reviewer Cryselle at Jessewave for Julie's THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, to which she gave three stars out of five.

The ending is as tragic as the title promises, the last line the most moving in the entire work. The entire story improves as it goes on; had I not been reading for review, I would have bailed before page 60 for insta-love and implausibility, and would have missed the best parts.

It's a shame the book didn't work for this particular reviewer, but you can't please all of the people all of the time; that doesn't mean we're going to stop trying, though! ;-D

More kudos for Julie Bozza and R. A. Padmos

We learned yesterday that reviewer 'Lady M' on the Jessewave website had named THE DEFINITIVE ALBERT J. STERNE as her 'Top Pick' of 2011, and RAVAGES appeared in the top ten list of another reviewer, 'Sirius'. Well done to both authors for leaving a lasting impression on reviewers who must get through millions of words in a year, which we feel is quite a considerable achievement!

Year Two Week Thirty-Four

It may be Christmas Day, but it's also a regular Sunday and therefore here's a quick update on the week.

We sold a lot of copies of RAVAGES on the back of the recent excellent review, so although it's not the only title we've sold this week it was by far and away our best-seller. We had a few computer glitches, which resulted in the responsibility for order-filling being switched back and forth a couple of times, but nevertheless were able to produce a decent average response time of four hours and 37 minutes.

Preparations for the two 1 February titles are almost complete - aforementioned glitches notwithstanding. The layouts are done on both, and all that remains is what we call 'topping and tailing' - adding things like the ISBN, the credit for the cover photograph, and any personal messages or dedications from the author. Details of the two new titles will be posted to the LJ, blog and website on 1 January ... which, by an interesting coincidence, also happens to be next Sunday, so we'll see you back here then! Meanwhile, if you're celebrating any seasonal festival, we hope you will enjoy it ... and we'd like to close by thanking the friends who sent Christmas cards to the Press; we weren't expecting that, and it came as a delightful surprise!

New review of 'Ravages'

Reviewer Sirius at Jessewave has reviewed RAVAGES in most glowing terms here.

"I loved watching how what happened to Steve forced these two to see what their real priorities were, and how Dan fought to help Steve to come back from the dead. Even if Steve’s body would never be one of a fit, healthy man because of the horrors they lived through, they have and support each other, and Dan being there made all the difference in the world. I enjoyed reading about their doubts and their fears and how their love kept winning over those doubts and fears, and how they achieved their happily ever after. It is a very hard earned happy ending, but it is truly happy."

We'd call that a pretty fair summation, ourselves!

Year Two Week Thirty-Three

Another quiet week sales-wise, with GHOST STATION our highest-selling title this time around and response time averaging out at two hours and forty minutes.

Here at Megaheadquarters, however, we're gearing up for a very busy few weeks; we've had two new books submitted and both our two 1 February titles have come back from their proof-readers, which means that doing the layout/making the ebook files is now looming on the horizon. (No rest for the wicked, even at this time of year!) We're also looking at possible titles for later in 2012; there's plenty of good stuff in the pipeline, from old friends and new, and just at the moment the only limitation on our potential achievements is the ridiculously small number of hours in every day - whoever made that decision, in our humble opinion, just wasn't thinking big enough!

Year Two Week Thirty-Two

Only a very slight bump in sales to reflect our outstanding showing in the Rainbow Awards, alas, but with a well-publicised 'Special Offer' coming up in two weeks' time we're expecting to be rather busier then.

Our leading title this week was Julie's THE DEFINITIVE ALBERT J. STERNE, and average response time snappy enough at 41 minutes.

Progress is good on our two new titles for February - details of which we will be announcing soon - and one of our 1 May titles is already with its proof-reader. The other, we expect, won't be far behind, although obviously at this time of year deadlines have to be a little more flexible.

We'll close today with extra thanks to those loyal readers who congratulated us after the Rainbow Awards were announced; we know you're out there and we always appreciate hearing from you - it makes all our hard and often solitary endeavours seem very worthwhile, somehow. Thank you for being with us for the ride!

CONGRATULATIONS

Elisa Rolle's annual Rainbow Awards were published yesterday. Hearty congratulations go to:

PENELOPE FRIDAY for THRACE
Second in the Best Bisexual/Transgender SciFi/Paranormal/Fantasy category
Tenth in the Best Bisexual/Transgender Novel category

MORGAN CHESHIRE for SOLEMN CONTRACT
Third in the Best Gay Debut Novel/Book category
Ninth in the Best Gay Historical category

JULIE BOZZA for THE DEFINITIVE ALBERT J. STERNE
Third equal in the Best LGBT Mystery/Thriller category

CHRIS QUINTON for FOOL'S ERRAND
Sixth in the Best Sci Fi/Futuristic category

R. A. PADMOS for RAVAGES
Sixth equal in the Best Gay Debut Novel/Book category

ADAM FITZROY for STAGE WHISPERS
Honourable Mention in the One Perfect Rate category

Chris also got an Honourable Mention in the Best Sci Fi/Futuristic category for a book with another publisher!

[This post has been expanded as news of further awards came in.]

Year Two Week Thirty-One

A little quieter this week, which is only to be expected; people tend not to have a lot of time for reading in this part of the year. However we've sold a broad range of titles, with Chris's SEA CHANGE unexpectedly emerging as the week's leading seller. Despite one or two minor glitches - one poor reader's books had to be sent four times! - our average response time was three hours 16 minutes.

We've had the chance to do some 'big picture' thinking this week, which has resulted in a couple of technical decisions about the way we handle our accounts. We're changing the dates when we pay our authors, for a start, and it's also likely that we'll adjust our business year to fit in a bit more closely with the UK tax year - albeit we don't pay direct tax as a business because we're still too small, but some of our authors do and it may make life easier for them.

If you think that sounds boring, we've also had the first look at another new book which has been submitted for publication next year and we like the way it's shaping up. Plus we've been putting everything in place for our Christmas special offer, which is going to be a bit fiddly to organise but we feel it's definitely worth a try!

So, on the whole, a modestly productive and mercifully stress-free week; this can only be a good thing, right?