[From the latest Legion Bulletin]

Special welcome to the new Legionaries who’ve joined this month on the back of the TimeDogz novels. All I can say is that if you liked those books, there’s plenty more where that came from 😊

The big news this month is the launch of the first three TimeDogz novels, but that’s not what I wanted to focus on this time.

First off, I’ve launched five new books since the last TimeDogz novel with four more on the way.

The paperbacks look great on my bookshelf, but you don’t need to buy them because I’ll be giving them away shortly through the Legion. Free downloads.

That was a surprise. These books weren’t part of the plan for this year.

Don’t believe me? Here we are.

They’re called Tales of the Legion, and the lead story of each book is one of the stories I’ve given away for years as a starter library for people joining the Legion (the link is at the bottom of each Legion Bulletin).

Here are two examples.

Tales of the Legion#2 (the yellow one in the picture) kicks off with The Hero of Azoth-Zol, my Special Operations Executive, James Bond in space adventure that’s been available for download for years. I added three more stories that have been published over the years in varies anthologies and magazines.

It’s allowed me to do some neat things. For example, the blue one (book 3) collects my Midnight Sun novelettes in one place and puts them in chronological order. That’s new.

Anyway, more info to follow soon. But the basic idea is that instead of offering nine starter stories for free download, I’ll replace them with nine Tales of the Legion collections instead.

I will say now, though, that of the thirty-five stories in the nine Tales of the Legion paperbacks, there are six new ones that I can’t provide as free downloads due to rights issues, including the middle Midnight Sun novelette. But there are ways to get hold them in other ways. More on that soon.

TimeDogz: how’s the launch going?

Thanks for asking.

I set myself a sales target for the first 30 days. I’ve sold about 500 copies so far, which is better than a poke with a sharp stick, but sales are slackening off and I’m on course to undershoot my target. So it looks as if I’ll be looking for a proper job next month. I can’t complain. I’ve had a good run as an author. And I’ll still be writing.

I do still have a few tricks up my sleeve, and it is still all to play for. If you did enjoy the books, please do leave a review or rating. It can make all the difference. Thank you to everyone who has helped by doing so so far.

I managed to briefly hit #1 in the time travel new releases chart on amazon.com. That means a lot to me as it’s looking like that might be my final #1.

Another statistic that’s putting a smile on my face: I can see that the sales for book3 are 96% of the sales for book 2. It seems that once readers get a taste of Stiletto, they’re hooked.

Which is exactly how I feel about writing the books. Just as well, because I properly started writing book 4 on Monday night: The Year of the Ox.

The Bourne Identity… but better

One of the nicest things about having been in the biz so long is that I’ve seen many authors start off with their first books, show off their talent from the start, and continue to grow in skills and success. Several of them have gone on to become million-selling authors.

One of those is Jonathan Yanez, whose books I’ve recommended here before, and who recently reached his million milestone.

We had an online chat the other week. I think he’d caught wind of my new time travel series and wanted to catch up with what I was up to.

He said he was launching a new series too.  I asked him for an advanced copy, which I read over a couple of days. It’s very good.

His new series launches today. It’s called Jack Voss and Jonathan describes it as a near future thriller.

Loved it. Every word is a good choice. It feels like a thriller written by… well, a million-selling author who has been doing this for years, and it shows.

Jack Voss is caught up in a world he has no knowledge of but knows everything about him.

Whom can he trust?

Nobody. That’s what his instincts say, at any rate. But this is NOT one of those books where the main character is instantly proficient at everything they try, outperforming the professionals who have been training and doing for years.

No, Jack Voss needs allies who have more skills and knowledge than him if he’s any chance of living through this. He has to make hard choices and sometimes make them in the blink of an eye. That includes picking whom to trust. Because if he doesn’t have the right allies, Voss isn’t going to last five minutes.

It kept me reading right through to the end, because I needed to know what happened next.

And that is the essence of why we read thrillers.

Highly recommended.

Once you’ve read all of Stiletto’s adventures, turn to Jack Voss next. You won’t regret it.

Tim