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This month I’ve been mainly preparing for a project that I have mentioned before in this blog, and it’s one I am very excited about. If I manage to pull it off I might even have spawned a whole new genre of fiction; the spreadsheet novel. Of course NaNoWriMo is no more, but many writers have vowed to continue the challenge of writing a fifty-thousand word novel in a month, mainly because it’s become a tradition and it’s a great way to add another first draft to your projects

END OF YEAR REPORT September marks the first anniversary of the launch of The Quanta-B Tales, and also of Bellmason Books; the company I formed to publish it. Though it is called a company, it’s really only a hobby at the moment. I have no need to trouble HMRC with my accounts as I have only received £4 in revenue, and lost many more times that amount in costs. My life has changed a lot in the last twelve months as well, though not because of the book. I retired from my job i

UPDATES: The Interloper's Tale is now available as an interactive game on this site. (This chapter from The Quanta-B Tales contains spoilers.) Last month I published the first part of a new Star Trek serial based on the adventures of Rachel Garrett. The novella Flagship is a story in ten parts that follows the adventures of the USS Enterprise-C during the Lost Era of Trek between the movies and TNG. Each part will be released on the last Sunday of each month. RPG NIGHT Recent

Forthcoming Attractions Cover Design (Work in Progress) In July I have been working on two forthcoming projects that will both be released by Bellmason Books. One is a commission from a friend and the other is a puzzle book of my own creation. The Man Who Started The War That Saved The Universe features a hapless hero who is good natured but extremely clumsy. He is very loosely based on me and I suppose appearing in a book is an honour, one that very few people get to experi

THE QUANTA-B TALES is now FREE on Amazon for a limited time! Get your copy here. 26Q3 The end of June marks the end of Bellmason Books’ third quarter, and it was our worst so far. Sales of The Quanta-B Tales have been non-existent, mainly due to their being no marketing budget for the quarter. This proves that marketing does indeed work, or rather it doesn’t if you don’t do any. Marketing is something that a lot of writers struggle with (as if struggling with writing wasn’t e

This month I'm going to be doing something slightly different and instead of droning on and on about what I did last month I'm going to be droning on and on about something I did for the last twelve years. So forget everything you think you know about GTA: Online because it's actually a really complex and deep multi-layered experiment in social interation, and yes, I am serious. GTA ONLINE: A RETROSPECTIVE Or My Love Letter to a really complex and deep multi-layered experimen

THE PRISONER OF ZARAGOZA Ok, so this didn’t technically happen in April, but I don’t want to leave it a whole month to mention the launch of a new book by the Leicester author Daniel Ribot. The launch party was on Friday and we were treated to a detailed backstory of the development of the book and a reading of some of the highlights by the author himself. The tale is set in the late 16th century, against the backdrop of the Spanish Armada. The main character is a sailor name

Easter Eggs Q2 The end of March marks the conclusion of Bellmason Books' second quarter, and I'll have to admit that I have not been as active in this space as I was in Q1; mainly because I'm still in the process of moving house. The Quanta-B Tales is our first book and I'm still using it to learn about marketing and self-promotion. In March, for my birthday, I decided to offer the book for free for one week, and I asked everyone I know to put a review up on Amazon if they c

I have been reading a lot of H.P. Lovecraft lately, from a giant book of his collected works that I bought last year. This book is huge, by the way, and weighs enough to take down an elk. It's best read at night, in bed, in an old house at the top of a hill in a village with a churchyard, which is how I have been reading it. February is definitely the perfect season to read Lovecraft, with the rain lashing the windows, and it is made all the more relevant by my current situat

Last Day (Night) on the Job A lot of writers say that they fear the blank page, but not me. The page is very rarely blank for long anyway. If I can’t think of anything else to write down I put the date in the top left corner. Then I write the name of the project I’m working on, and underline it. This year’s project is simply called ‘2026’, which is a date anyway. As last year was all about launching the Quanta-B Tales, this year is about filling in my time with something else

Q1 REPORT At the end of December Bellmason Books completed its first quarter as a publisher, and with only one title currently in our catalogue the sales results are very surprising. When I first uploaded The Quanta-B Tales to Amazon I was worried that I wouldn’t sell a single copy, but I am pleased to announce that I have sold a single copy. Added to the three hardback books sold at the launch this makes four copies of the book sold, which averages out to 1.3 books per mont

CRAFTING Many years ago, I was given a set of Enterprise models by a friend who was having a clear out. The ships were all to scale and went from the original NCC 1701 all the way through to the Enterprise-E. None of the models were painted, and there was a single sheet with all the decals on. I used to make model aeroplanes when I was a teenager, but my set of paints and brushes had long since dried out, and I never really felt the urge to go out and spend money on new paint

Luke Bellmason and Daniel Ribot at the launch of The Quanta-B Tales After the success of the book launch for the Quanta-B Tales in September, October marks the start of Q1 for Bellmason Books. This is new ground for me, having never run a publishing house before, but every journey begins with a single step. So far I have sold a few copies of the launch edition hardback, though I did give most of them away to my guests. PROJECTS QBT : Now that the Quanta-B Tales is on Amazon a

I had been under the impression over the last several years that blogging was something people did in the first decade of the 21st...