THE RED GAMBIT SERIES

Greetings folks, I have just finished updating the previously written chateau sequences and started into the chateau chapter proper. I have also tidied up a chapter in book#2 dealing with matters in Spain that had drawn adverse reaction from my Irish critic!

It has been a long and tiring week for me at work and I havent progressed as I had hoped so im going to revise the completion date of 'Opening Moves' to the end of next week. Hopefully we are still on target to go to Amazon by the end of November though.

fingers crossed :-)

Hi all. Despite being quite busy at work I seem to have managed to complete about 1/3rd of the chateau chapter....not sure how I managed that to be frank. All things being equal [and I am working an additional night again this week] I hope to see the finished thing before my readers by friday [fingers crossed.]

Enjoy your weekend ;-)

Progress now being made once more. Doing the graphics has slowed me down a little but the Chateau battle will definitely be completed next week and i would anticipate the final proof reading will be well underway by next weekend. kindle by second week in december seems most likely!

The Chateau chapter is complete, and with all graphics too.

Presently away for critique before the whole package is edited and organised for Kindle.

i firmly believe it will be available for Xmas downloading.

Thanks to all for their patience!

Its all coming together folks. My youtube movie buffs are hard at work, as is the family graphical whizz who is doing the book cover. Final proof-reading is underway and its all systems go for next week.

The only major problem is transferring it to kindle, which doesnt seem as easy as it should be!!!

incredibly long haul to get to where I am now. Book finished, proof read, spell and grammar checked. Free Biography also done. Glossary nearly complete.

With luck tonight the kindle version will go live and I can relax for a wee while before pursuing volume two again!

Opening Moves and the companion biographies put on Kindle today, so should be available in 12 hours folks :-)

proofing the final version of OM continues. Got the proof read copy back from publisher and it looks marvellous despite the few little niggles.

inserting a table of figures in the new version :-)

You might have guessed that Im new to writing! Perhaps I should say new to writing for others paid consumption! I have read the book through for content, for spelling and for flow, and yet my best mate presents me with issues from page !!

I am now reading the whole book word by word, not seeing what I thought I wrote but actually what I did write.

Quite a number of minor corrections thsu far but thankfully nothing major as yet.

This means that the version on Kindle is not yet the final version, but I will let you know when it is posted.

The bios are being updated to contain all the maps and orders of battle too.

The physical version will be available in mid-february I suspect, the actual book shortly after that.

Book two moves on slowly but I expect to pick up the pace soon.

Latest, hot off the press. it seems I have wasted a few days updating the book file on kindle. Amazons software is faulty, so each time I looked inside the book and saw onlythe old version it was software not me that was at fault! Shame amazon didnt say anything!

the biographies have been prepared and now contain all the figures from OM, plus the full range of 'orders of battle'.

However, these do not wish to update on Kindle and I dont doubt it is a graphical size issue.

Im not going to get hung up on it at the moment, and may just rip the graphics out and post them all here. Was just trying to put more in the bios book.

I am now up to Chapter 66 [Book#2 Stalemate starts at Chapter 55] and starting to get into the swing again.

Hi folks, as it is proving impossible to create the kindle bios with maps and orbats, I have posted them here.

Please feel free to download, print and play as you wish.

Biography [fourth edition] is now on Kindle. Update if you have the older version. There are a number of new names, and many biographies have been expanded to include events within 'Opening Moves'.

I tried to attach the maps and orders of battle but Kindle couldnt cope with them at all.

The maps are here at the moment and the orders of battle will follow.

The hard version of both books will shortly be available on Amazon, via the createspace facility. I have hard copies of both and 'OM' is quite a size! The Bios version will include printed maps and orders of battle.

However, at this time the real book is extremely expensive and the royalty I receive is extremely low!

'Stalemate' is progressing slowly, as I have had to dedicate extra time to reviewing the hard copies of both 'OM' and 'OM' bios. I had no idea that the review side was such a heavy piece of work. What I did know is that authors find it hard to leave books alone, constantly finding things to tweak, and that it is essential that they cut and run at some point. To this end, 'Opening Moves' is now completed and I will NOT look at it again unless it is for the pleasure of reading it lolol SImilarly the Bios, although I must say, reviewing that was such a pain for a small book.

Have a nice day y'all :-)

Book#2 is back in full production at last, with over 3500 words last night alone. Chapter called - THE LUNATIC. Started going one way and being called THE MASSACRE and ended up going the other way lol

Even though I hooked a few chapters out and into Book#3, #2 is still well over 60k at the moment.

i suspect it will be less than the 800 pages/240k words of Opening Moves but you never know!

Just started sorting the new orders of battle for late august onwards, which are somewhat different to the originals. given the losses. I suspect I wont post them here as yet as they will obviously contain spoiling info.

Found a few glitches in two of the ORBATS, which are now revised.

Just writing a battle including the 1st Free Polish Armoured Division, one of my favourite WW2 units. Have redone the work that was lost last week when the power cut claimed my file! New orbats will be issued with book#2 and added here.

Right! That's it now. No more tinkering with Opening moves or the biographies. Both are on Amazon Kindle and now createspace as books proper.

Now, 'Stalemate' is over 80,000 words, even though I removed the sunderland flyingboat section and all the stuff that went with it, all of which is now in 'Impasse'.

All efforts from now on will be spent advancing 'Stalemate', which should see 5-10k words a week minimum.

Apologies for not posting for a while but I have been a busy little bee. Amazon sales are steady but, royalty-wise, nothing that will buy a weekend away in a half decent hotel as yet.

'Stalemate' exceeds 105,000 words and is developing nicely, although hanging on to the story threads proves increasingly difficult.

Again, a sub-plot has blossomed and will become a major string.

I am still peturbed by the lack of feedback on the amazon sites, both .com and .co.uk. Whilst the two reviews are both 5* I really want more, even if it is of a lesser rank, just so that people get more to make a judgement upon.

Back to writing. take care y'all.

Hi all, Stalemate is now in excess of 118,000 and climbing rapidly. Ive had some more feedback on amazon.com but still only the one on .co.uk.

I'm unsure how much more writing is left before stalemate finishes. The days are being skipped occasionally but I still think the 2nd book will be nearly as big as the first.

perhaps #3 and #4 may be a little smaller but I will avoid squeezing a sixth book in if I can lol

Hi all. Ive been on leave for two weeks and have taken a break from the writing [apart from a bit of tinkering here and there obviously.]

Sales in USA are still going at 3 a day whereas the UK has stopped dead!

Spread the word please. thanks.

Back to work shortly.

Stalemate stands at 135000 at the moment and I am aching to progress it further.

Ive had to update all the 'Opening Moves' both online and real book, removing the reference to help for Heroes. this was done on the advice of H4H who informed me that HMRC would take a dim view of my statement.

Strange that they should obstruct it in uich a way but hey ho. never mess with HMRC if you know whats good for you!