My first novel is published and the second one to follow soon

I have seen a great response for my first novel, which was published last month. Sales are good and I hope them to increase so that the story can get out there. I am very proud of the work I have put together for this first book and it took up a fair chunk of my life. It is the eleventh book I have published, but the first fiction book. Before that I had written and published ten non-fiction books that are based on my areas of knowledge and experience such as buying and selling a home, obtaining a mortgage and writing. I have written these guides with others in mind and the idea behind them I to share my knowledge of writing in an easy-to-follow format.

Check out my Amazon Author page.

Writing fiction has taken over a large part of my spare time at the moment. With the success of the first book, I have started on the second and am around a third of the way through now. It is very different to the first novel, which was based on the internal monologue of one character a great deal. The second book is a detective fiction book that looks into the way that a killer leaves clues for the police. The killer is in control and the police are waiting for clues to lead them one way or another in the investigation. It means that they don't get to make massive strides with the investigation until the killer lets them.

Here is the opening scene -

He stood over her looking down at his prey. She looked for all the world like a normal person. But he knew differently. She was chosen to be here at this time, in this place. He knew what he had to do next. She would be the first. She would set an example to others. This was the start of his work.

She looked up at the man above her. He was stood in front of a bright light. He wasn't familiar to her in any way. She wondered who he was. She couldn't see his face. He spoke not much louder than a whisper so she couldn't make out his voice either. She wanted to know who he was. But that wasn't the biggest or the most pressing thing on her mind. She wanted to know what he has planned for her. She didn't have to wait long.

He moved with clinical speed. Just before she saw his hands move quickly towards her, she heard him say something. Again, she couldn't make it out. A few seconds later she was lying in a small pool of her own blood. He dropped something before walking away. He was glad that he lived alone so he could get cleaned up without interruption or detection. He smiled to himself as he strode towards home. The dark of the night shielded him from any prying eyes that might have been present on the short journey.

There is a twist with the identity of the killer which I won't reveal here, but it means that the detective team, lead by Augustine Boyle, take some wrong turns along the way. The way that the killer and the police interact means that there is a lot of dialogue and a lot of tension. I am really proud of it already, and I am only around a third of the way through writing it. Please keep tuned to see how it progresses. I will put small excerpts on this blog so you can see parts of the book before it is written.

Assessing your startup - where you have been, where you are now and where you are going

This is my moment to look both backwards and forwards in my startup journey. For those that have been with me from the start you will know how my journey has gone. For everyone else I will give you a short recap-

• The idea was to start an estate agency in the town where I live
• As I set about getting things in place I decided that I needed a residual income
• I started writing
• I blogged and I wrote my own eBooks
• From there I found freelance writing
• I started writing for others in my spare time
• I then abandoned plans for the estate agency and became a full-time writer

This has been the journey of a few years summed up in a few bullets points so there have been highs and lows but this is the basic timeline that has brought me to here. Writing is now my life, so as well as this blog I write several others for myself. I write my own books still and publish them on the Amazon Kindle store.I write for other people. And I write whatever comes my way-

• I ghostwrite books for people
• I write marketing materials for people
• I write the content for websites
• I write social media post on behalf of companies
• I write customer brochures
• I write business plans

I pretty much write what people need, with the exceptions of school work and reviews.From this my business has grown and I will use this blog to briefly outline where I am today and where I think I will be over the next 6 to 9 months.

Currently

I have two websites that give me an internet presence. They can be found here-

http://contentedwriting.co.uk/

http://ghostwriterservices.co.uk/

They let the world know that I exists and along with my social media presence are the outward face of my business. They give me access to customers and also give customers the opportunity to check out what I am and what I do before they get in touch.

A lot of my work comes from existing relationships that have come from varied sources and developed over the years. I work for people all over the United Kingdom, and indeed the world, on a regular basis and write for certain people month in, month out.

A great source of business is going to be the BNI networking chapter that I have joined. It is going to break all records as the biggest group to launch in the UK and Ireland and is doing this at lightning pace. I am very proud to be a part of the group and I look forward to being able to give my fellow chapter members a lot of business from my contacts in the future.

The future

I am growing at a much faster rate than I expected at all. The business is flowing and I am being asked more and more to help people with their writing, especially content writing for businesses. I can see a pint in the future 6 to 9 months where I will be looking for someone to help with the writing and join me. I haven't got through Christmas and January yet as my first year of full-time trading so I don't know how quiet it might go. But I am quietly confident that this will be more than I can produce fr myself in the not-too-distant future.

My new novel is being written now and I am around a third of the way through the writing process. It does tens to take a back seat when I am working hard for other people but the idea is to have it ready to be published in the early part of the new year and be generating sales from then.It will be the first fiction book I have written for myself and I am really looking forward to seeing it out there and marketing it. I think it will make a splash.

This has helped me as I have been writing to clear my mind and look to the future. I suggest that if you are looking for a bit of clarity in your startup business right now then you go through a similar exercise. It allows you to focus on what is important and where you want to take your business.

Ghostwriting and self-publishing startup in earnest today

Today is the first day of my new life. That may sound a little dramatic but that is exactly what it is. I finished my employment in Sunday, the kids were off school yesterday so today marks the start of my solely self-employed life. I find it a refreshing change already! I am now a writer. As regular readers of this blog will know-

I started out looking to set up my own estate agency.

I have fallen into writing for myself and others.

The estate agency idea is firmly on the back-burner today, but will come through in some of the other things I do because I still write an estate agency blog, I have an estate agency/real estate gig on fiverr and I will be writing a guide on how to set up your own estate agency.

This blog will now take the form of something that informs readers about my progress, something that informs you about other startups and products that might be useful to you.

So with the start today I have planned out my next ten books so that I know what I will be able to produce over the next few weeks. The reason that I have done this is do that I don't have any downtime. My main source of income initially will be to write for others. This is so I can gain immediate income from producing things got other people. I am paid up front for this work and I don' t have to wait for sales. This puts me in a position where I can warm straight away. But I can't guarantee that I can fill every minute of every day with this. There will be times where I don't have anything to write for anyone else. In those times I will write got myself, add to my portfolio and give myself a chance of long-term income.

Today will also see three telephone calls-

• The inland revenue to register as self-employed
• The tax credit people with a change in my circumstances
• A charity called Tax Assist to see if they can help me with my accounts

I'll let you know how all of these went on the next blog entry.

In the meantime check out my books that are already available-