Sink or Swim - I'm taking the plunge

It's all change here at Archive Towers - well, it's actually my spare room but Archive Towers sounds cooler. I've been at this writing game for my entire life, and a lot of water's gone under the bridge since I saw my first novel published back in 2009. Immediately the book was accepted my Robert Hale and before the contract was signed I started promoting and the book benefited by topping many western charts. My second book, Arkansas Smith did even better and is still getting strong chart showings.

After that it was a slight departure and I saw my crime novel, A Policeman's Lot published first as an eBook and then in print by Solstice Publishing. The book didn't do as well as I'd expected and so I recently had my rights reverted and republished the book as The Rhondda Ripper on both Amazon and Smashwords, and you know what the book is doing much better. It's still to find the audience I think it deserves but I have faith.

My third western, The Ballad of Delta Rose came out from Robert Hale last year and in a few months my fourth,  Wild Bill Williams will see print. I am currently working on a book entitled The Afterlife of Slim McCord which will hopefully be my fifth book for the Black Horse group. I love writing the westerns and will continue to so so even if my current self pubbing activities are proving much more profitable.

And speaking of self pubbing - I have published a novella straight to Kindle which is a sequel to Arkansas Smith, and can currently be found on Amazon. Add to that you have The Dead Walked Book One written using the pen name Vincent Stark, with the second part coming out at the end of this month.


My latest book is a cozy crime thriller called Granny Smith Investigates and it is proving my first real self published hit - it's selling a few hundred copies a week which provides a healthy income.

I've been working towards this position for a long time and I've made some mistakes - particularly in self publishing where I learned not to rush product onto the market until they had been properly proofed. Still  the beauty of self pubbing is the ease in which editions can be revised, and by the time Granny Smith had gone off its free promotion, I had sorted out all the issues with the book.

And so I have now decided to take the plunge and devote myself full time to my writing, for only by giving 100% can I hope to grow and develop and take myself further in my chosen career path. I've been driving a taxi for several years and it does pay the bills, but it takes up a disproportionate amount of my time. And so I'm going to stick with it until the New Year - Christmas being a very profitable period - and then on JAN 1ST 2012 I am going to hand in my license and become a full time writer.

It's a scary prospect but if my sales remain as they are at the moment and I see no reason why they should not get better, then I can make a better than average living. I will also have the time to develop and grow as a writer And besides I'll still take the odd acting job when I can get it, but I am now at a point where if I do not allow myself the luxury of writing full time I feel my work will stagnate.


And that is not good - I'm a writer. I've been writing since I knew how and I feel that I am at the stage where if I put everything I have into it, I can make quantum leaps. And that's what I intend to do.

The Archive will be kept up as much as usual, hopefully improved upon because it is my hope that by providing good content I will encourage some of you to buy a book and support my work. I will also have more time to devote to my sister blog, Let's Write and hopefully this will provide a useful source for other writers. And of course there's old Vincent Stark's blog,  Scary Motherfucker to maintain. Blogs, social networks are, I think, or paramount importance to the modern writer.

There's also the fact that The Tarnished Star is still under development for a big screen version, which will be directed by Neil Jones under the title, LawMaster and hopefully this will get off the ground before too much longer.

Readers of the Archive can help by Tweeting, Blogging or leaving a review on Amazon when you enjoy any of my books. After all the Archive takes a heck of a lot of time to produce, so think of it as supporting this writer and thus this blog. It's one way of ensuring you get more and more of the eclectic shit the Archive serves up.

Anyway...wish me luck.


Available now:
Granny Smith Investigates
The Dead Walked Book One
Tarnished Star
The Ballad of Delta Rose
Arkansas Smith
Arkansas Smith II

And soon

Wild Bill Williams
The Walking Dead Book Two