Spot UV triumph! I'm delighted to confirm that the paperback of The End of Magic will have lovely, shiny spot UV finishes that will really make it stand out on a display and look utterly gorgeous in your hot little hands. Compare these two images:

The black and white image shows where the spot UV will be...

So, just imagine this finished cover with all that spot UV shininess...

Hey…

Morning all!

That's it, we're done. No more funding and the shutters have gone up (actually, at the time of writing the 'Pledge' button is still live, but I suspect that someone, somewhere has to tap some other buttons to make that button go away... stop me if I'm getting too technical).

We're 113% funded, with 270 amazing, beautiful and, frankly, sexy backers like your good self. To you I say…

Look at it! LOOK AT IT!!

Designed by the very patient Mark Ecob (I think I drove him nuts with my tweaks) this is everything I hoped for...

Tell your friends! Please share this Tweet far and wide: https://twitter.com/markstay/status/1072871844141658113

Or this video: https://youtu.be/9sOjp3IUxEg 

Or this Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/markstaywriter/videos/613255139106365…

Over the moon to see a few pre-publication quotes coming in for The End of Magic from some amazing authors!

Edward Cox, author of the epic Relic Guild series, says... "Slick and entertaining, The End of Magic is powerful fantasy."

Gavin G Smith, author of the superb Bastard Legion series, says... “Mark Stay takes the tropes of high fantasy and uses them to wield an original, compelling and intricately…

The proof pages for The End Of Magic arrived at the end of last week. Unbound sent them to me as a PDF, and the temptation was to read from the screen, but I was about to take a bit of advice first given to me by my friend and former audio director at Orion, Pandora White.

Pan said that, almost without fail, whenever she recorded an audiobook they would find typos and errors throughout the book…

Hello everyone - I can officially confirm that The End of Magic will be released on 7th February 2019!

Just in time for the predicted snowmaggedon... You wonderful pledgers will be the first to recieve your copies and Unbound tell me they will be despatched as soon as the stock arrives at their warehouse, so there's a good chance you'll get yours well before the release date.

Thanks again for…

Hello everyone – After two rounds, the copy edits on The End of Magic are done. I was so happy to get Lisa Rogers as the copy editor. Lisa worked on Robot Overlords and I loved her attention to detail, her forensic knowledge of the English language and all its wonderful nuances, but most of all I loved how she saved me from looking like a complete and utter numpty on countless occasions.

A…

Hello folks - a quick update for you: after a bit of a lull over the summer, the book has survived the edit and is now with the copy editor Lisa Rogers.

"What the hell is a copy editor?" you may ask... Well, after working on structural and character stuff with Simon, we now move onto what is sometimes also called the line edit, where another editor goes through the book line-by-line and looks for…

Over lunch today I finished the latest phase of the edit. I’ve been picking away at Simon’s notes (over 350 suggested changes and comments) for a little over three weeks now.

I started with the easy stuff, namely all the extraneous crap marked ‘Delete’ by Simon. Suggestions to re-word awkwardly phrased sentences, clarity where there was confusion, repetitions, and a whole section where I had a…

Hello everyone - just a quick note to say that I received my edit notes from my editor Simon this week, and they are everything I hoped they would be. I've blogged about it here in more detail... 

It's curious to edit knowing that you're all out there waiting for this book to arrive, and I hope that it meets/exceeds your expectations. Thanks again for your patience... I'd better get back to work…

Ahead of the publication of The End of Magic (and while I wait for the dreaded edit notes to come back) I’ve been writing a short story set in the same world.

How Drust Krax Lost Two Fingers introduces the novel’s main villain Haldor Frang, and it’s told from the point of view of the hapless Drust Krax. A defeated warlord, awaiting certain death, who really, really needs…

It happened overnight while I was sleeping, but one of you beautiful people nudged me over the finish line with less than 24 hours to go. A massive thank you to you everyone who pledged (some of you more than once!), banged the drum and kept the faith - this has been an incredible experience and a massive learning curve. 

Already I've had a few messages from you asking when the book might come…

There's about a week to go until the 90 days of pledging are up and there's just £519 to raise for my fantasy novel The End of Magic.

That's roughly...

52 pledges for the £10 eBook

35 pledges for the paperback

26 Patron paperback pledges (you get your name in the front)

21 'For a friend' pledges(you get two copies),

11 Robot Overlords pledges

or just 7 of the five-copy bundles! (Why not…

Hello - 80% funded! Wallop and thank you... Though I've not had a single pledge in the last few days, and I've contacted everyone I know (twice) and chased everyone who hasn't pledged (two or three times) and what was fundraising is now bordering on harrassment! But all is not lost, and I'm hoping to make an exciting announcement very soon...

Please keep spreading the word!

All the best,

Hi everyone - the three-quarters funded marker is just a couple of pledges away and it's kind of crept up on me. Again, massive thanks to everyone who's pledged so far, and do please continue to spread the word. In the meantime, here's little quiz you can share with anyone who's not yet pledged...

Till next week!

Mark

Big love and thanks to all new backers this week. It was great to see some of the 5-pack bundles get pledges... I must confess I bought a 5-pack myself last week to get copies of the book for a few friends who aren't fans of the internet (and after the news these past few weeks you can hardly blame them!).

If you know someone who loves a bit of fantasy but doesn't relish the idea of shopping online…

I've been at this for 7 weeks now, which is fairly mind-boggling, and I'm still astounded by the number of people who have backed this book. You're all beautiful people... especially you... yeah, you know who you are. We're 63% funded at the time of writing, which is amazing, but there's still some way to go, so I'm about to embark on some social media experiments. One thing I've discovered is that…

Hello - and a huge thanks to all the new backers who've joined us in the last week. I'm still hitting my 1% per day target, which is great, and as a treat (punishment?) here's another clip of me reading from the book with another terrible accent... Enjoy and please keep spreading the word!

All the best,

Mark

Huge thanks to everyone who's pledged so far!

Here's a quick extract from THE END OF MAGIC... I apologise in advance for the Scots accent. a) The character was written that way, and b) I'm an old ham and can't help myself.

Just a mere 50% to go now... 

All the best,

Mark

The End of Magic now has over 100 backers, which is amazing and I would hug you all but I suspect there are laws against that sort of thing and my arms aren't nearly big enough. Didn't quite make my aspirational 50% target this week, but I'm really happy at 46%. Still, almost, just, maybe making my 1% per day target... But next week, folks, next week it's 50% or bust! I've been told that getting to…

This morning I was delighted to discover that we've hit 42% funded, with 93 wonderful, beautiful backers!

42, of course, is the answer to the question of Life, the Universe and Everything as featured in the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy (my Desert Island Discs book), and so I'm doubly happy. I'm still hitting my 1% per day target, and it would be great to hit 50% this time next week.

I'm…

Hello everyone - another week passes and I'm currently at 35% funded with 73 wonderful backers. A big welcome to everyone who's joined us in the last week. Your pledges mean the world to me. I'm also amazed to see that the 'Be in the book' pledges have sold out! Thank you Craig, Phill and Andy... I look forward to giving you all glorious deaths on paper very soon.

I'm currently hitting my target…

One week on from launch and we're at 27% already - a massive thank you to every who has pledged and spread the word already! It's my birthday today (preciousssss!) and it's made my day to get this far so soon.

A few of you have asked about the music on the video. It was composed and recorded by my good friend Dominic Currie. He's recorded music and sound effects for my plays and short films for…