Paul’s Comments (group member since Jul 15, 2012)

Paul’s comments from the Q&A with Paul Vincent group.

It's going to be a few months at least before this one is published. I've written a few chapters and planned most of the rest of it, but I'm still working and polishing the plan.

So far it looks like this will be the lightest of the Astronomicon books. It's going to feature mystery, an alien, pirates, a near impossible quest and more humour than ever before. Should be fun!

It's been a great deal of work, but the paperback edition of The Beginning will be available for ordering in the next few days. If all goes to plan this will be quickly followed by my very first hardback edition.

Obviously the work doesn't stop there. Once The Beginning is out I'll start work on getting Distant Relatives, Those Left Behind and Icarus converted too.

Does this count as confirmation that the revamped version of the first Astronomicon book is a big improvement on the original? Voyage of the Elysian (the original version) got a 3 star average here on GoodReads.com, whereas The Beginning is currently averaging 5 stars! It's also got a better rating on Amazon, so it looks like my efforts have paid off.

Finally got a review!!! Better still, it's actually a GOOD review. You never really know until you get at least one, what readers are actually going to think of it. Personally I think it's a good book but, as the author, my opinion really doesn't count for much!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-revie...

Has anyone found that getting one review leads to getting more?

Woohoo!! Finally got a review on Amazon! And it only took just over 500 downloads to get it (and I'm not being negative - that's a big improvement on previous results).

Best of all the reviewer gave me 4 stars. I'm very happy with that. I know that my other books are all better than Astronomicon: The Beginning so I wouldn't have been sensible to hope for any more than 4 stars.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Beginning...

Okay, so it took a little longer than I expected, but Astronomicon: Those Left Behind is finally available to buy from Amazon.

I've tried my very best to get this one perfectly correct first time. The editor has worked harder, it's been proofread more times by more people and I've polished it until it shines. There's bound to be a couple of minor typos in it (I don't think I've ever read a book that doesn't have a couple of mistakes in it).

I don't think I'm going to do any launch offers on this one, but I will organise another freebie promotion for book 1, The Beginning very soon.

Just applying the final polish to this novel now. Hopefully it will be available to download as an e-book by early next week. I think it's safe to say that this book has undergone more editing and proofreading than any I've written before.

The freebie promotion well fairly well, but I missed my download count target. Seems that the pull of a free Kindle book isn't what is was early last year :(

Preparing for the free download days is taking up SO much of my time. So many places to notify...

Just letting you know:
Astronomicon: The Beginning is going to be available as a FREE download on 12th and 13th of June 2013. This is too good an offer to miss!

The advice I've been getting is don't do a freebie until you have a few decent reviews of your book on Amazon, but getting reviews seems to be borderline impossible. What proportion of book purchasers usually go as far as writing a review?

The new blurb is a BIG improvement over the old one. This has been re-engineered from the ground up and (scarily) bears almost no resemblance at all to the original:


3 Space craft, 240 colonists, 25 trillion miles and a discovery that changes everything.

Classic science fiction that will appeal to fans of Arthur C. Clarke. Astronomicon: The Beginning follows the human race's intrepid first steps into interstellar space, a colonisation mission to Proxima Centauri. The colossal distance and harsh environment are not all that stand between them and survival.

This first volume in the epic Astronomicon series is the story of their desperate adventures and the political machinations that are unfolding back on Earth, which threaten to end space exploration permanently. With colonies on Mars and a thriving mining community around Jupiter, will everyone want to come home?

I will get a freebie day sorted for this one soon. I never seem to have any free time to get things organised.

Finally, here's the link to Astronomicon: The Beginning.

Having just uploaded the finished version of this book to Amazon, it should only be a matter of hours before it goes on sale. A big moment for me, but the work is far from over. I've got to change the structure here, make large changes to my blog and make alterations on Google+ and Facebook.

The revamp of Astronomicon: Voyage of the Elysian and Astronomicon: The Beginning into a single volume has been a massive undertaking. Proofreading, editing and polishing has been taken to a whole new level and the book is almost 5000 words longer than the original two combined.

Revamping Astronomicon Book 2 is almost finished now. As soon as that's done I'll turn my attention to Those Left behind. It will be so good to get that on sale after being sat on my HDD for half a year

US sales are still steady, but the UK is lagging behind.

What I really need to do is work out how to get readers to write reviews.

The big launch of Astronomicon: Those Left Behind is going to be a bit later than I originally thought. This is mainly due to lack of time for me to work. I still haven't finished the revamp of Astronomicon Book 2 (The Discovery). I've also been doing a little planning work for the next Astronomicon book (can't risk forgetting ideas because I didn't write them down), so things really haven't gone to plan.

I'll keep you posted. Sorry for the delay.

UK sales for this one are now almost non-existent! Still, our friends in the US seem to like it. Would still be good to get some reviews (preferably good ones :) )

I guess I will just have to be happy with sales. I don't know how many people are downloading the free chapters from Amazon, but assuming that most try before they buy, I have to assume that a decent number of readers are enjoying the book. It I could only get a .5% review rate I would be happy!