Keith's June Newsletter

Don’t forget to vote!
Don’t forget your ID!

Hello Folks. It’s election day here in the UK. Make sure you get out there and vote, and make sure you vote tactically if you have to, to oust the current government. It’d be great if we could drive them into third place, but driving them out of No.10 will do for now.

My apologies for this newsletter being late. I was away over the weekend at The Town That Never Was, and I haven’t stopped working since. This is my first day off in what feels like weeks.

The Dreaded Lurgy Strikes Again

I spent most of this month sick as a dog with covid. I was off work for ten days, had a fever of 39C for two days, and I’ve still got one hell of a cough that just won’t go away. Covid always hits me so bad, I can’t keep doing this all the time. I’m going to get the jab every year from now on, whether I have to pay for it or not.

As mentioned before, I did get to do one thing this month, and that was go to The Town That Never Was steampunk festival at Blists Hill. Been there a few times, once as a seller, but this time I was just there to enjoy the vibes.

Had a nice time on the Saturday. Went round, talked to a lot of people, bought a bunch of stuff to make a new outfit (see above). The Sunday I was less enthusiastic about. Think I spent all my fun tokens the day before because I was tired, my feet hurt, I’d run out of money, and quite frankly I just wanted a lie down.

The festival quieter than usual, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. Less people and not much going on. Not sure why that is, or if it was just my perception of things, but I still had a good time and was glad I went. I just wish I’d planned ahead and booked some time off. I left work Friday, got on a train, was there all weekend, then came back Monday to go right back to work. That was a bit much.

I also could have done without the couple having a very loud, very angry break-up in the room next door to mine at the YHA. Bless the staff for dealing with it as best they could. They got them to quieten down for the most part, but there was still some sniping at 2am Friday night that thankfully didn’t last long.

I applied recently for some positions with the Youth Hostel Association, neither of which got as far as the interview stage. I’m a bit disappointed about that, but at the same time I don’t have to deal with screaming lunatics in my day-to-day so, y’know, swings and roundabouts.

News From The Steam Factory

June saw International Steampunk Day roll around, and the launch of my short story collection The Hammersmyth Tales.

Available as a free download from Amazon, as well as other popular online retailers, I don’t know what I expected from it, as in I didn’t know how much interest there would be? Everyone loves a freebie, but would they be interested if that freebie was steampunk, and would that translate into any sales?

I was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm. Since launch there have been 268 downloads of The Hammermsyth Tales (including Smashwords sales), pushing it to no.2 in the Amazon steampunk charts. It was kept off the top spot by a trilogy of books with 24,000 reviews by an author of over 60 books with an massive following. I don’t feel too bad about that. Compared to that it did really well.

It has also, if we attribute all sales in the last month to The Hammersmyth Tales, resulted in 4 copies of Dexter & Sinister and 1 copy of The Dragonlfy Delivery Company being bought, along with an increase of Kindle Page Reads by Kindle Unlimited subscribers. That’s roughly a 2% return, for anyone trying to do the maths.

I’m pretty pleased with how things have turned out, although I wish I could say for certain what worked so well, so I can do it again next time. I know I posted a lot on social media - reports every day for over a week - to encourage people to download now rather than later, to push it up the charts, I put posts in groups on Facebook, which I never normally do, and I got featured in the newsletter the Steampunk Explorer which got a lot of attention, but which of them was the silver bullet I’ll never know.

I do know that I’ve stopped going on about it all the time and somehow I’m still getting downloads: 10 on Monday, 7 on Tuesday, 10 on Wednesday, and 5 so far today, mostly from America. I’ve reached some kind of critial mass where the book is pushing itself, which is awesome. I’ve no idea how long it will last, I’m just glad so many people are willing to give it a try. Now if they’d just give the other two books a try as well…

When I’m Not Writing

Being sick meant there has been very little new going on here at the Steam Factory, just lots of lying around watching old TV shows instead. But I have recently started knocking off pages of The Bromeliad Trilogy, Terry Pratchett’s trio of books for Young Adults - Truckers, Diggers, and Wings. The story of several groups of quarrelsome (g)nomes trying to make their way in a human world, they’re a fun, easy read that don’t need a lot of attention to enjoy.

They’re Pratchett so of course they’re superbly written. Gentler in their politics/humour than his Discworld novels, they’re still full of clever turns of phrase and razor sharp insights that will make you smile. Pratchett is very good at making his readers feel clever, never talking down to them, and even though this is a YA novel he still manages to do that with consummate skill.

I’d recommend giving it a read, or if you have an early years teen who’s looking for something a little different, giving it to them to read as well.

And there you have it. A strange month for me, with lots of interest in my work whilst at the same time me being sick as a dog. I’m hoping July will be better, with more sales, less coughing, and a chance to get back to writing the third one in my steampunk series, Attack Mars!!

But I need to finish typing up rewrites on In The Valley Of The Wind first. It’s almost ready for submission. I just need to get the words from the page onto the screen and I’m done. Shouldn’t take too long. Rewrites went really well so it’s just a case of typing them up.

Have a lovely July everyone. See you at the other end, when we have a new government, and hopefully some more consistent sunshine to go with it.

Toodle-pip for now.

Keith