The Last Six Months

I’ve just been looking over the last six months.

Though Condor: The Inner Circle Writers’ Group Inaugural Anthology 2018 was published in December last year, from February this year a whole stream of books have been published by Clarendon House Publications, including ten anthologies. At one point there was a new release of some kind every single week for three months.

Altogether, that amounts to over a million words in six months.

It also adds up to over 100 authors helped to get published - some of them brand new, and some of them published multiple times in several different collections.

Certain names may have become familiar to you over the last few months as a result of the work done here at CHP. These are the ‘rising stars’ of the fiction field, people whose work deserved to see the light of day and who have gained in confidence by being given a chance to reach readers for real, sometimes again and again.

Such tremendous talents were only looking for recognition and a channel to reach people.

I realise that many authors have provided their work for free - stories appearing quite often in multiple anthologies, but without any financial return as such, yet. But, feeling uncomfortable with that (even though I haven’t experienced financial returns enough to cover my own costs) I developed a line through which authors could create the beginnings of a career from their own writing: if they wrote a high quality story, and it was accepted for one of the Clarendon House anthologies, a vote amongst readers could provide a chance to win a paid anthology for that author.

At this writing there have been four winners - R. A. Goli for Flashpoint; Alexander Marshall for Galaxy; Brent A. Harris for Storm; and David Bowmore for Vortex. Each of these is at some stage of compiling their collections, ready for your reading pleasure. Their anthologies will appear over the next few months.

In due course, winners will be announced for Window, Carrier Wave, Cadence, Rapture, Enigma and Miracle.

If you want to know more about all these wonderful books, just click here.

Early on, I offered to publish collections for Steve Carr and Gary Bonn, which you can see on the anthologies page too - but there will be other story-telling geniuses to follow those two as the months unfold. Several authors have approached me independently and their books are lining up for publication too.

Clarendon House Publications also produces books written by me, including the popular and revolutionary books How Stories Really Work and A Marketing Handbook for Writers Part 1. For writers who want to go further, there’s also the unique writing course, How to Write Stories That Work - and Get Them Published!, which takes a writer through the whole process of writing a successful story and teaches them how to publish it for themselves.

Why am I telling you all this?

I wanted you to see what was happening here and how much has been accomplished in such a short space of time. I haven’t even mentioned the growth of the Inner Circle Writers’ Group from a few hundred to almost 3,000 members in just over a year. (Oops, I have now.)

By being part of this, you are contributing to something in its early stages of growth - because this is just the beginning.

The next twelve months will bring a whole host of new and exciting initiatives designed with writers in mind, including an incredible and value-packed digital magazine, and a new extended writing course which will overload your senses with goodness. There will also be further announcements about the Clarendon House Master Author Programme, something so unique and amazing that it’s going to be difficult to make you believe what it is.

Yes, Clarendon House Publications is a one-man show: this will mostly be done by me, from my armchair on the edge of the moors in Yorkshire, England. But I’m getting help with various aspects and, as things continue to grow, other roles will open up. It will be worth staying in touch on a number of levels - there may be ways you can help, and as-yet-unimagined ways that you could benefit.

Here’s to another six months at least as exciting as the last! And to a year which includes your own career as a writer flourishing! Thanks for being there and for being who you are!

You help just by being.