First off, I was delighted to do a piece for Reading and Writing Urban Fantasy – yes, am writing about writing sequels again! You can also enter to win a copy of Wolf Night, so why not pop over?

There’s also some great news from the friends of Dark Dates that I’m so excited I had to share! As anyone who reads this blog will know, I have had a huge amount of help getting these books out there, much of it from independent publisher Red Button Publishing. I’m friends with the two women who run it, so I’m obviously personally biased, but as someone who has worked in publishing myself, I think it’s genuinely exciting to see a new, digitally focused publisher (and one run by two women), and it was great to see their efforts already being recognised as their first book, The Human Script by Johnny Rich, was included in the Not the Booker Longlist. It’s great that digitally premiered work is now being recognised, and that awards bodies are starting to realise it’s the content, not the format, that makes a book a book.

If you’re an aspiring novelist, Red Button not only are looking for quality novels, but they offer a consultancy service for indies like me, and I’ve found them really, really helpful, especially in terms of doing the covers, since I was so keen to avoid the ‘shirtless guy/woman in silhouette with floaty hair’ cliches that seem to be on offer from most indie cover designers… You can contact Caroline or Karen via their website, redbuttonpublishing.net