With all 186,000 words of the new novel delivered to my publisher I’ve been considering a sneak preview by offering a chapter to those who check out my website; a single chapter that gives a taste of what’s to come, probably in Spring 2012.
My editor Martin Fletcher agrees it’s a good idea but we’ve yet to confirm which chapter it might be. This book, my fourth, is somewhat different from those that went before; Kit and Ossie are nowhere to be seen, kicking their heels in North Africa somewhere waiting for the invasion of Sicily to begin. They’ll remain grounded for a while yet, as I await Headline’s judgement on the new MS. I’m nervous that they might demand cuts, given its length, but like most writers I maintain that it’s like pick-a-stick. Remove the wrong stick and the whole damned thing collapses. Besides, when you’ve laboured over every word, sentence, paragraph, chapter you’re loathe to bin anything.
Whatever sales, marketing and publicity plans Headline may have, I’m still constantly assured that a book’s success depends on word of mouth. So this is a device to get readers talking well ahead of publication. I look forward to hearing how many would like to accept the offer.
