A New Start for Collins and Clark

Hi Folks,

It’s been a while since I wrote a blog. As many of you know my aim for this year was to get a commercial publishing deal for my Collins and Clark books. At times since January it seemed as if that would never happen. It wasn’t as if I was getting masses of rejections. It was that I didn’t even get an acknowledgement from any of the publishers I approached. I’ve got to admit I was pretty down hearted at times. So I really do want to thank several of my followers on Goodreads for their encouraging words and reviews during those dispiriting days.

My Big News Is:
That thanks to Hugh Ashton, a fellow member of the Lichfield Writers Group, his publisher Jo Lowe agreed to read the first two books in the Collins and Clark Series. Her feedback was so positive and encouraging that I had no hesitation in accepting her offer of a contract with Inknbeans Press, California.

Inknbeans is a boutique size publisher that has 33 writers, who between them have produced approximately 150 books. Jo made it clear that she couldn’t promise to make me a millionaire, but she did promise to try and create a genuine partnership between Inknbeans and myself. What more can a writer ask for?

So what does this all mean for Clark and Collins? Well, Inknbeans will reissue A Death in Winter in November 2017 as both a paperback and an ebook. The remaining three books, A Death in Spring/Summer/Autumn will then follow. After that the series will continue with A Death in the Bullion Room. A story about the theft of £2.5 million in gold bullion. In which Collins and Clark find themselves up to their necks in dead bodies as an epidemic of murders in the Birmingham underworld breaks out.

Finally, I really do wish to thank Hugh Ashton for his help and encouragement. Hugh has written a wide variety of books. I can truly recommend his thrillers. However, it’s probably his Sherlock Holmes stories that he is best known for. It seems that he was fortunate enough to come across a deeds box belonging to Dr John Watson which contained many unpublished tales of the great detective. With the full approval of Mr Conan Doyle’s Estate he has edited and published a number of these stories to widespread approval from many Sherlockian experts. I can particularly recommend Some Adventures of Mr Sherlock Holmes – 1894.

Take care.

Jim