Ooh, shiny!
The End of Magic website has been given a spring clean and looks magnificent with the new artwork by Alejandro Colucci. Have a gander by visiting TheEndOfMagic.com
I’ll be at the MCM Comic Con in London all weekend, flogging and signing my wares! As well as the Witches of Woodville books, I’ll also have paperbacks of The End of Magic with the new artwork by Alejandro Colucci, and maybe a few surprises!
See you there. CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS.
As revealed on tonight’s live show, here’s the new cover design for THE END OF MAGIC by the breathtakingly talented Alejandro Colucci…
And here it is without all those words getting in the way of the beautiful art…
For the moment, the cover is on the Kindle edition only, but there will be a paperback coming soon. Stay tuned for that soon. In the meantime, you can enjoy more of Alejandro’s work here.
Join me on Monday 11th March, 8pm GMT for a livestream with updates on…
I’ll also be joined by the splendid bestselling author Caimh McDonnell. We’ll be discussing the editing process and why it doesn’t always have to be traumatic.
Facebook folk: Apologies for the issues with Facebook stream last time around. Mr Zuckerberg’s gremlins don’t make livestreaming as simple as it could be and there’s a good chance it could all go horribly wrong again. If it does, there will be a link to Youtube in the description and comments on the Facebook page.
Here’s a quick update on The End of Dragons in this month’s livestream catch up. I also have a couple of special guests: my beta readers Ian W Sainsbury and Julian Barr…
Join me on THURSDAY 1ST FEBRUARY, 8PM GMT for an update on the progress of my next book The End of Dragons with two people who have actually read it! The very splendid Ian W Sainsbury and Julian Barr are not only amazing authors, but they are also beta readers for The End of Dragons and they will be joining me in a spoiler-free chat about what they thought of the book.
There will also be updates on…
It’s all go! So do please join us for a chance to quiz me and Ian and Julian about the new book, their books, the meaning of life and anything else that might be rattling around your noggin!
Here’s tonight’s livestream with an update on the sequel to The End of Magic, THE END OF DRAGONS…
This is the first of a series of live monthly updates in the run-up to the publication of THE END OF DRAGONS in May 2024.
Yes, you heard that right: I’ve written a sequel to THE END OF MAGIC, something I said I’d never do. Stay tuned to discover how you can be one of the first to read THE END OF DRAGONS before anyone else and for free!
Here’s the publication timeline (when the sound cut out on the vid, I was basically reading this out loud, so you didn’t miss anything):
And this is where you lovely people come in.
I’m building a launch team for THE END OF DRAGONS.
Members of that team will receive an advanced reading copy of the novel in the hope of an honest review.
A few basic terms and conditions…
I can only offer digital copies: eBook, Kindle, PDF. I can’t do print copies. Sorry, I know many of you would prefer print, but it’s too costly.
Also, this will be the version that goes to Julian for proofreading, so you’ll see all the typos and other errors that he’ll see (that’s why we call them proof copies in the UK).
If you’re still interested to be part of the launch team, then you’ll need to sign up to the Woodville Village Library newsletter before the end of January 2024.
Why? Because if I’m going to email you this stuff, then I want to ensure that your private email address is safe and the best way to do that is via the newsletter. It’s all GDPR approved and you can unsubscribe at any time.
And the Woodville Village newsletter is lots of fun: it’s where you can download all sorts of free short stories too, and it’s run by the Woodville Village Library’s head librarian Araminta Cranberry who is totally a real person who loves the Witches of Woodville books, but disapproves of all the swearing and violence in my other works.
Sign up to the newsletter by clicking here: https://witchesofwoodville.com/#library
Oh, and if you’ve not yet read THE END OF MAGIC, or you fancy a digital re-read then you can get a special reviewer’s copy of that too.
I’m going to send an email tonight at 9pm UK time with all the details, so sign up now!
And just to reassure readers of THE WITCHES OF WOODVILLE that I’m hard at work on a draft of THE CORN BRIDE, which is scheduled to come out in Spring 2025.
NEXT MONTH…
Next month I’ll be updating stuff like pre-order links, new cover art for the End of Magic and End of Dragons, and audiobook versions of both books and maybe even a special guest. Exciting stuff! Until then, happy reading!
In the first of a series of monthly live catch-ups I’ll be outlining what lies ahead in 2024, the year of the dragon! Yes, there’s going to be a sequel to The End of Magic called The End of Dragons, and this will be where you can find out how you can read it before anyone else. I’ll also give updates on the next Witches of Woodville book and more. And because it’s a live stream you can ask me questions, too… (And yes, I’m aware that the artwork for this event makes it look like my head is growing out of the horizon… I think it’s a fetching new look). See you soon!
Good gravy, can The End of Magic really be a year old already? I guess if you’ve been keeping up with the blog and me constantly banging on about it, it must feel more like a decade, but as I get older the years become more of a blur and it’s good to take stock occasionally.
Below are some select diary entries from around the time of publication, along with a few asides to put them in perspective. Once again, a huge thank you to everyone who supported the book. It would not have been possible without you.
The End of Magic has arrived!
My finished copies were delivered this afternoon and I’m very happy with them. They’re reassuringly chunky, the spot UV on the cover will help them stand out, and the cover art is magnificent in the flesh.
Claire and Emily helped with a little social media video where we played out the where George McFly gets his books and I’m happy to say it’s getting lots of love online.
A good writing start this morning, but when I had a mid-morning cuppa I checked social media and discovered that folk were getting their copies of The End of Magic! There followed a day of social media madness as the good people who pledged for the book sent photos and congratulations. It was euphoric, overwhelming, and I could get very used to it.
I have an email dated 5th February where I inform Unbound that a reader noticed two typos. This is pretty standard with any book, despite all the proofreading. We fixed the eBooks pronto.
No writing today for two reasons…
I took it to Stormfront this afternoon and the guy held it up to his ear. “I think there’s something rattling about in there,” he said. He ran a diagnostic, restored it a few times and it was fine. Phew.
The End of Magic is out now!
Well, yesterday… Quite an exhausting day yesterday, so let’s take it one step at a time.
Yes, the book is out and off to a good start with reviews: three five-star reviews on Amazon, and a four and a five on Goodreads.
I had a day in London yesterday, starting with an attempt at uploading all kinds of social media for the book via the wifi at Waterstones, Tottenham Court Road. It was too slow to the point of stopping, so I took myself off to the Byron at Farringdon where I was meeting Graeme (author Gray Williams) for lunch, got there early and gobbled up most of my spare data using the hotspot on my phone*
*It still astonishes me how much money I spend on data
(After lunch I met with two of my uncles who showed me where they grew up with my dad. We’ll skip that bit!)
After that I met with writer and comedian Caimh McDonnell. We’re both Ed Wilson’s clients and Caimh is a fan of the podcast. I interviewed him and we had a good chat and drink afterwards. He’s a great guy — generous and funny.
And finally I made my way to the Inn on the Court for Gollancz drinks. Great to catch up with Gavin Smith, Chris Wooding, Ed Cox and Joe Hill.*
*Yes, I do shameless namedropping even in my own diary. It’s partly why I started a diary. I kept meeting amazing people and then forgetting that I met them.
Told you, my memory is like a sieve.
This morning I put together a couple of ad campaigns and caught up on emails.
Tonight, Claire and I went to Vicky Newham’s book launch at Harbour Books and chatted with Vicky and her editor Clio.
It was around this time that I discovered that Unbound had published the eBook with two of the chapters in the wrong order! A bit of a panic as I kept readers updated, while Unbound made the fix. To be fair, they were pretty quick about it.
Tonight I drove down to Tunbridge Wells for the Dominic King show (on BBC Radio Kent) and I got to plug the book and tomorrow’s launch big time. Also started to notice that complete strangers are mentioning me and The End of Magic and saying nice things. Exciting stuff!
Last night was the launch party for The End of Magic and I’m still coming down from the giddy high it gave me.
Claire made amazing cupcakes, George handed them out and charmed the crowd (Yes! A crowd — 20+ people), and Emily live-streamed it and did cool time-lapse videos.
Rich Boarman — The Steam Wizard! — was there with Steam Witch Katie, and the Steam Sorcerer Andrew, and they stood by the door of Harbour Books getting admiring honks from passing cars and drawing the punters in.
(There’s a bit here where I name people who turned up, but I’m bound to have forgotten someone, so I’m leaving it out here)
I gave a speech thanking basically everyone I know, I read a short extract, and I offered to donate a pound for every copy sold to Nordoff Robbins as part of Jason Ritchie’s 50 Gigs in a Day event (we raised forty quid!).
It was overwhelming. Olivia (from Harbour Books) said it was one of the best and busiest launches they could remember.
Once we figured out how to fit the magic staff in the car — it had been presented to me at the start of the event by Rich, and it is magnificent! — we went for chips.
What an incredible evening.
Faversham Literary Festival
In the evening I was back for my event with David John Griffin. We had about twenty people and it was good event with excellent questions. We started selling our own books, but then the room was swamped by bloody poets turning up for their open mic session, so few people could actually get close to us… Which was not conducive to sales.
It was around this time that I started planning to self-publish The End of Magic in the US. Unbound don’t have much of a presence there, and I fancied self-publishing it after my experiences with Back to Reality. This had all been agreed at the contract stage with Unbound, but they still fed their edition out to the world, including the US. Having seen this sort of thing happen many times when I was Orion, I knew it was a simple fix and I asked Unbound to sort the feed. They promptly did… but also accidentally removed it from the UK Amazon store… This was after a successful AMS ad campaign that placed it in the top 100 Fantasy titles. It never really got the same momentum again. Sigh.
I sent a signed a contract to Amazon for The End of Magic, finally proving that I have US rights, so with any luck I can get that live soon, too.
And thus ended a barrage of emails between me, Unbound and Amazon sorting the rights situation. Would I do it again? Possibly, but it was a right old faff and accidentally removing the book from Amazon was a real blow. Amazon’s algorithms were behind me, I was making my up the charts and becoming more and more visible and then… nothing. Ah well. Onwards. Upwards.
The question I get asked the most is will there be a sequel. Probably not. At least, not with Unbound. As publisher, they have first dibs on any sequels and I don’t fancy going through the fundraising process again, lest I become like that guy in the office who goes on a 5k charity fun run every few months and expects you to donate every time (that said, I am mulling over the idea of doing a Kickstarter for something very different). I have ideas for a sequel, but I had planned for the book to work as a stand-alone, which is does.
The biggest surprise is how many reviews I get that say, “I don’t normally read fantasy, but I really enjoyed this.” That’s my market. Which might explain why it’s been so blooming difficult trying to target them with ads to keep the sale momentum.
But I must stop griping. Overall, The End of Magic has been a terrific experience. I had great editors, fantastic cover art, and incredible support from readers.
Thank you all!
If you want to buy The End of Magic, it’s available from all the usual places, and also here.
Mark Stay Writes 