More Big Changes!!

Following on from the announcement of the new titles and covers for the Dust of Centuries Series (previously the Rare Traits Trilogy), this post announces the rest of the changes relating to my seven novels.

Yes, there are four more new covers and another replacement title now out there.

The new title is ‘The Cambroni Vendetta’, a title that far more reflects the content of the third book in the cotton & Silk Thrillers than the previous ‘The Assassin’s Dog’.

But don’t worry, I still have the wonderful model of dear Goccia that will go with me to any book presentations.

Below are the new covers for the series. Click on any of them to head to the Amazon store for the kindle versions or head over to The Great British Book Shop for high quality and inexpensive paperback versions.

You can also go to the My Books page to read more about them.

 

And finally, the stand-alone novel An Imperfect Revenge has a new, punchier cover.

 

[Right now, writing this on 22 July, two of the above covers have no links. This is because an Imperfect Revenge and The Cambroni Vendetta are still enrolled in KDP Select. However, that will change in mid-August and the links to sales on other retail sites for those two books will go live and this note will disappear].

Even More Big News!!!

There’s one other big project that occupied me over the last few months, taking far longer than I anticipated, which has been the production of my first Audiobook. Big learning curve and lots of fun, not to mention a certain amount of frustration at times, the book is now ready.

The intention all along has been to give the audiobook away to anyone who joins my email list. Not a big ask and I’ll have details very soon. The audiobook is An Imperfect Revenge, read by me (Yay!!) and will be available to listen to on the Book Funnel reader, a free app that works pretty much like the Audible app. I have to say that I have been incredibly impressed by the folks at Book Funnel who have expanded their service to include full versions of audiobooks and made the whole process very easy.

 

Big Changes

Ever since I self-published my first novel Rare Traits back in 2012, I have had a nagging feeling about the title and the cover: they didn’t quite cut it, but alternatives were heard to conjure up, for me, at least.

That feeling persisted with the second and third parts of the Rare Traits Trilogy: Delusional Traits and Murderous Traits.

I then went on to write the three books (so far) in the Cotton & Silk Thriller series and although the titles of the first two: Irrefutable Evidence and Remorseless were fine, with the third part, The Assassin’s Dog, neither the title nor the cover really chimed after a while.

So with the great lockdown of winter 2020-2021, I got to thinking about all the above matters of state and the result is new covers for all seven on my books and new titles for four of them.

OUT WITH THE OLD.

The array in the banner shows the new line-up. Gone is the Rare Traits Trilogy and the three titles it comprised and…

ON WITH THE NEW

in their place we have The Dust of Centuries, the new series title. The three books within the series are:

Quincentenarian (The Dust of Centuries I)

The Delusion Gambit (The Dust of Centuries II)

Fatal Consequences (The Dust of Centuries III)

along with three new themed covers to reflect both the dust of centuries and the mists of time.

WHAT HASN’T CHANGED are the books themselves. The Dust of Centuries series are the same books, so if you read them under the Rare Traits titles, there’s no need to hit the buy button, unless you would like to have the paperbacks of the new versions adorning your shelves – and they do look rather fetching …

Here are the new titles and covers. The details are all on the My Books page but if you really can’t wait and want to buy now, just click on one of the cover images to the Amazon store to buy the kinmedle version.

If you would prefer the paperback versions, high quality, inexpensive versions of all my books are available from The Great British Book Shop, who, despite their name, ship worldwide.

To complete the Dust of Centuries saga, for now, there is also a new eBook box set available at most online ebook stores at the bargain price of £6.99 or equivalent.

Details of the other changes will be in the next post.cool

New Logo

Introducing the new logo for the Clarke Fiction websites and brand.

It has an interesting history starting with a street market in the Karen suburb of Nairobi in Kenya. from where the original model on which it was based was carried to Phuket where it is now languishing.

A slightly different, non-animated version has been in use as my Instagram avatar for a while (check out @davidgeorgeclarke for a collection of my photos) and is also begging to be updated.

Over the next few weeks, this Clarke Fiction version will start to appear in our about-to-be-vamped up advertising and the front matter in my books at least.

I hope the little guy doesn’t run out of steam!

Audiobooks

Also pleased to let you know that I have finished the first version of the audiobook of ‘An Imperfect Revenge’ and it is about to be scrutinised by a few beta listeners. At the moment, it is not intended for sale, rather it will be offered free to anyone who signs up to my email list.

What email list?

You are right, it has yet to be resurrected, but it will happen soon. Meanwhile, watch this space, and if you are interested in the free audiobook, all eight and three-quarter hours of it, drop me a line and I’ll sort it out.

January Catch Up

I don’t have any book-related images to post at present, so here’s a shot from the garden of a hardy Camellia sasanqua flower searching out the sun on a very frosty morning earlier this week. The camellia is a beautiful plant made all the more special by its habit of flowering throughout the winter, adding colour to an otherwise drab winter outlook.

On the book front, things have been a little slow since my last post, although this week I have picked up the ball again and made some progress.

Firstly, the book-in-progress now has a new title (although of course, that might change again!). Right now, the working title is ‘The Kegby Gene’, which I hope is suitably enigmatic. The entire plot has had an extensive rewrite, but now I have a full working plan for the new chapter layout, so all that remains is to write the additional chapters. Simple, really!

Progress with the audiobooks is rather slower than I originally hoped, largely because I’m a bit of a perfectionist in that I want the books to sound as professional as possible. This means injecting a lot of time into the editing of the soundtrack for each chapter. However, piano piano, as they say around here in Tuscany, slowly slowly. So far, I have seventeen chapters of An Imperfect Revenge sorted and my initial critic, Mrs C, who listens to dozens of audiobooks every year, reckons it sounds good. Whatever the outcome, it’s great fun and as an author it gives an interesting different perspective on how I view my books and how I might pay more attention to phraseology in future — fewer tongue-twisting groups of adjectives!

Catch up

Where does the time go?

After leaving Phuket, finally, at the end of July, it was back to Italy, high summer and a ton of work to do in a garden intent on returning to nature. Needless to say, more creative pursuits were put on the back burner for a while.

However, as the virus spirals every which way and as of last weekend, our part of Italy is in the red zone — maximum lockdown — we are hunkering down for a fast-approaching winter. Loads of wood cut and split, wine a-plenty and the olive harvest done and dusted, it’s time to get back to the keyboard and hit creative mode.

Progress on The Whistling Man is that the tale has been largely rewritten, although far from finished yet, and since there’s no longer any whistling, I’m looking for a new title. As yet nothing has materialised from the ether, but it’s out there somewhere, waiting to be recognised.

Meanwhile, there’s another project in hand, something I’ve been thinking about for a while — audiobooks. There’s an ever-increasing market out there for audiobooks and now seems like a good time to join in. However, if you go down the route of engaging a professional narrator, it all gets rather expensive, so I’m trying the alternative approach of doing it myself.

I’ve now bought a fancy mike, fancy headphones, a pop filter and downloaded free recording software — Audacity. Most importantly of all, I’ve created a sound studio. But before you start thinking of a Radio One state-of-the-art set-up, think instead of a Bedouin tent! Following the guidelines of a course I subscribed to  — Audiobooks Made Easy by Derek Doepker — I commandeered a pile of old duvets and bedspreads and built a sort of Wendy House that the average six-year-old would sell his or her younger sibling for. The aim is to minimise external sound, which up here in the woods is not a huge problem anyway. It works well enough, so over the next few weeks and months. I’ll be working my way through my seven titles with a view to getting some onto Audible, and one at least as part of a giveaway deal.

As it turns out, the timing is good since literally today, 21 November, Book Funnel have announced an expansion of their services into Audiobooks that will roll out in the new year. All very exciting.

The first book I’m recording is An Imperfect Revenge and I may well be releasing it chapter by chapter before long. I’ll keep you posted.

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