Year of the Royal Rear

It’s been surprisingly easy to forget just how much has happened this past year. The usual glut of New Year news round-up shows have reminded me about the Arab Spring, the death of Osama bin Laden, Colonel Gaddafi and Kim Jong-il, the Royal wedding, a historic event eclipsed by the excitement caused by some posh tart’s bum, the horrifying Japanese tsunami, the UK riots, Europe’s surreal economic implosion and countless other events of similar social, economic and historical magnitude around the world. If people are right about the ancient Mayans and the world is going to end this year, we’re certainly going out not with a whimper, but a bang.

An Arse

All of which serves to make my end-of-year witterings about personal highs (I’m in a good mood this morning, I’m not dwelling on lows! Come back to me around the middle of January…) seem rather insignificant and pointless in comparison. I was going to tell you, for instance, about my experiences making Jinn Nation free across all e-reader formats for a few weeks in November. Over 5000 copies were downloaded to Kindle alone and there was much fun to be had pretending they were real sales and that now I was practically rich, mwahaha! It really was fascinating seeing it climb Amazon’s free chart; I took this screenshot when I climbed as high as #5 and overtook Amanda Hocking on the Horror chart:

Wooo, very exciting It’s still too soon to tell if my free experiment has produced any positive results. I’ve heard that it can boost sales of your other books or at the very least get you some more reviews. I’ve yet to see much evidence of either but I should probably give everyone a chance to read the damn thing before I call the exercise a failure. There are still over 5000 people out there with a book I’ve written sitting on their e-reader, and that in itself is fairly awesome.

If I was to continue with my woefully inadequate personal end-of-year review, I might also have waxed lyrical about my plans for 2012, which include a novella set in a dilapidated coastal theme park beset by harridan-esque merwomen (they’re far too skanky to be thought of as maids) and a long planned novel about a fictional, dream-like town dealing with an influx of (largely) well meaning fae…

Of course, my biggest achievement and proudest moment this year and of my life was giving birth to the Sprogling in April. Cue yet another excuse to post a photo of said Sprogling…

All her clothes are nicer than mine...

I hope you all have a positive and fruitful 2012, despite whatever flavour of shit-storm the world deemed fit to sling at you this past year. If you’re like me and you prefer to hide from a harsh reality behind stories and fantasy, Book Chick City’s Horror and Urban Fantasy Reading Challenge 2012 might interest you. I’ve always wanted to try one of these challenges but my ridiculously slow reading pace scares me off. If you’re braver than me and want to challenge yourself to read twenty-four or forty-eight horror novels this year, sign up here.

See you in the New Year