Dear Readers,
I promised you I’d tell you as soon as I knew myself. So here it is: just 7 days from now:
What is the Surprise?
I hear you ask. Quite right. To help any readers who would like to catch up with the series so far, Book 7, the previous one, Amanda Cadabra and The Hanging Tree, will be 99c for the whole of the launch weekend. So if you know anyone who’d like a taste of mystery and magic for very little outlay, please pass on the news.
Six Impossible Things Before Launch?
You may be wondering why this exciting announcement is coming so close to the launch day. The reason is that a total of six essential ingredients had to be in place first. I’m sure you can guess the first two: the manuscript for the Kindle/e-book edition and the cover for that. Relatively simple? Well, the former involved our venerated editor Kim and the VIP beta readers. Once they had busied away, and I had incorporated their admirable recommendations into the script, then it was ready to go? Almost. I’ll come back to that, if I may.
For the Kindle cover, Daniel had to work his magic, and I had to supply spend many hours finding costume, furniture and architectural image references to help him realise our vision. So ebook cover and script done?
They could have been, but I wanted to give you more on the day than just the ebook.
Touchy-Feely
For me, nothing beats the reading experience of actual pages that I can turn with my fingers. So, once the ebook manuscript was completed, off it had to be shipped to Daria, our formatter. Daniel went to work on the paperback cover, which means adding the spine and back. Neither of these is a quick job. They require several proofs from the professionals and detailed feedback from me each time. Furthermore, in the course of her formatting, it was possible that Daria would turn up one or two tweaks that needed to be applied to the ebook, and so it proved.
The Other Two
As I was planning to do a special price for Book 7, I wanted it to look as beautiful as possible. Because of time constraints, we had yet to be able to implement a couple of final tweaks, so Daniel fine-tuned the cover of the ebook and then the paperback editions. As soon as he’d finished, it was time to fix The Date. Six impossible thing in the bag. I didn’t want to 
wait a day more than necessary, and a Sunday launch is something of a tradition for the series, so … 13th it is. And if you’re curious, here are all the ways in which that number is auspicious!
If you’re well ahead of the game and looking for presents for the Winter Solstice and associated music, lights and pretty trees, then the paperback of the new sequel might fit the bill for a friend who loves a cozy mystery. Having said that, I’ll have another suggestion for you nearer the time.
The Lineup?
On Tuesday, there will be the launch of the trailer for Amanda Cadabra and The Nightstairs, on Thursday, the Chapter 1 read-aloud video by me, leading up to the book release on Sunday, with a short video for your entertainment, and the 99c offer for Book 7 for the entire weekend.
Thank you for sharing the excitement with me. And if you’d like to help, please share this article or any of the pre-launch posts on the Holly Bell Facebook page. I hope you know how much I appreciate your support in all its wondrous forms.
See you on Tuesday.
Happy Sunday,
Holly
PS If you want to start the series now:
