Hey everyone. Hope you’re all having a productive 2025, even in the face of all the insanity going on in the world these days. I’ve been feeling very stressed out lately, as are a lot of people. Writing is my one solace and escape from the madness of the people running things.     

I just want to offer a quick update on Snake River. In January I decided to go ahead with hiring a proofreader to carry on with the next stage in the production process. Proofreading is an important step to ensure that the writing flows. It’s something you really can’t do yourself, so I found it was 100% necessary to invest a little more into hiring outside help.

The next step in the process is formatting and cover design. For this I’ve stuck with the same person who did my proofreading.  She is currently working on the cover design, and I eagerly await the finished product.

With the proofreading done, I had to read through the full manuscript again to check for any errors that may have made it through. At this point I have read my own manuscript from start to finish at least seven or eight times! At this point I feel the book is at a very high quality standard and it’s ready for publication.

After the book is released, next comes the marketing phase and, once again, this is something I will need to call on the services of a freelancer for. I know absolutely nothing about marketing analysis, and if I just throw my book up on Amazon it will probably get lost in the noise and no one will buy it. Hiring a marketing pro to take care of this is another necessary investment.

If I had a traditional publisher, all this stuff would be provided at no cost but I do not have a traditional publishing deal and have no desire to go through that process. Spending money on freelancers is a cost of doing business.

While I have freelancers taking care of this stuff, I’m working on the second book which I’m calling Night Shift. Currently, I’m about 10k words into the rough manuscript, and I have a bunch of character sketches and an outline just like I did when I started writing Snake River. It feels good so far, and its shaping up to be a little different from Snake River too. The story of RCMP Cpl Robert Monroe, and journalist and criminologist Alex Carson, continue in this next adventure set in Toronto in 1996.