New fiction update, an award, starting a Substack and a belated happy new year

Hello. It’s semi-lauded fiction writer Andrew Shanahan here, you remember me! Old Shanface! The Shanster! Lord Andrew James Shanahan. I’m this guy (minus the cigarette, the hair and with a slightly more dated laptop):

So, it’s January 31st 2024 and I believe the last time I emailed an update was January 2023. That’s either a pretty poor marketing strategy, or it’s simply living by my promise to only write to you when I had something of passing interest to say. Maybe it’s both of these things.

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Updates:

I have started a Substack. Mailchimp wanted to charge me an exorbitant fee per month, and I’ve always liked the cut of Substack’s jib, so I thought I’d make a clean breast of it and make one. This is what you’re reading now. Substack wants me to offer podcasts, stratified subscriptions, premium content and razzle-dazzle. I thought I’d start with one post and maybe a little razzle and we’ll see where we get to.

I won an award from Amazon. It’s called the KDP Select All-Stars award and it’s given

to recognize KDP Select Kindle eBooks that delight readers

So there. I’m pretty pleased with that as it recognises that people are reading my books on Kindle Unlimited (Before and After, Flesh and Blood, and In The Room) and that they’re saying positive things about them. If that was you, then thank you most sincerely. If you want to know I won some money and I spent it on becoming a Lord of Sealand.

I’m writing a new book (still). I will update more on this specifically as the year goes by, in part to hold myself accountable and in part because writing about writing and not actually writing is the quintessential writer’s activity. I’m somewhere in the middle of the second draft and I’ve reached the point where I’ve told myself it’s terrible for the Nth time. Despite this, beta readers have said it’s very funny, so take that, me! I won’t spoil my high-octane marketing efforts by telling you the book title yet, but I will say:

You want a prediction about when it will be ready to read? For beta readers I’m going to say July-ish. For subscribers to the Substack, about a month before the paying public get to read it. Exciting, huh? Are Ben and Brown in it? They are not. But lots of people from I Will Literarily Kill You are in it.

That’s the end of the update. There will be more.

Hello. Happy New Year. I hope your 2024 is going well.

Thanks for reading Andrew Shanahan! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.