Rock, Paper, Swords‪!‬ Matthew Harffy & Steven A. McKay

Something a little different today - we have no guests for a change! Instead, Steven interviews Matthew about his brand new book A DAY OF RECKONING, the third in his A Time for Swords series, which came out yesterday. It's a fun episode covering various aspects of the writing/publishing process, and Matthew even tells us the title of his NEXT book (the Western he's been talking about for ages, it's finished)!

Give it a listen, and make sure you buy A Day of Reckoning...

Our guest today is Angus Donald, author of the Outlaw Chronicles, about a medieval gangster called Robin Hood, a 17th-century series about an unusual but rather brilliant chap called Holcroft Blood. And writing as Angus Macallan, he has also tried his hand at fantasy with the Gates of Stone.

His most recent novels are in the Fire Born series, set in 8th century Europe. Book four in the series, King of the North is published by Canelo on 28th September. 

Welcome to RPS, Angus.

http://angusdonaldbooks.com/

Our guest today is Paul Finch. Paul Finch is an English author and scriptwriter. He has a diverse and very successful career, from the popular TV programme The Bill, to horror and fantasy stories and films, Doctor Who spin-off stories and the incredibly successful gritty crime series of DS Mark Heck Heckenberg novels, with over 1 MILLION book sales!

Paul’s latest pivot has been to move into the historical fiction genre, writing under the name P.W. Finch. USURPER, set in the cataclysmic year of 1066, was published earlier this year. 

Welcome to RPS, Paul.

Our guest today is Dr Joanne Ball. Joanne is a Roman archaeologist and battlefield archaeologist based at the University of Liverpool, with a PhD in Archaeology on the subject of Roman battlefield archaeology. 

She is a regular contributor to several magazines focused on ancient history and was co-editor of Ancient World Magazine. And is soon to have published the Publius Quinctilius Varus: The Man Who Lost Three Roman Legions in the Teutoburg Disaster.

Welcome to RPS, Joanne.

Our guest today is Ethan Bale, author of The Swords of the White Rose series.

Book 1, Hawker and the King's Jewel came out last year and the follow up, The Lost Prince, has just been published.

Ethan Bale (Clifford Beal), is a former defence journalist. Despite writing about modern military technology for much of his career, he was always passionate about history, particularly the Renaissance and early modern Europe. 

Over the years he has been flung about in military aircraft, trained in 17th century rapier, fired flintlock pistols, messed about in boats, and ridden both horses and motorcycles. These days he is usually found wielding a pen and not a sword.

Welcome to RPS, Ethan!

Our guest today is Darren Hardy, manager of the UK Author and Editorial Programmes at Amazon. Before that Darren was UK Manager for Kindle Direct Publishing. With nearly 20 years working at Amazon, Darren is the perfect person to answer all our questions about what goes on behind the scenes at KDP and what new and exciting plans Amazon has for the future.

Join us today as we chat about things like:

The Kindle Storyteller Award - how to enter, and what you can win (20 grand!)

The "magic formula" for understanding Amazon's algorithms (there isn't one!)

Amazon's new book categories and how to use them best

Amazon's charts

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it might affect KDP in future be it for "writing" nonsensical books, or affecting the charts

Paperback printing

And a load more!

If you have a question that we didn't ask Darren please post it here, or on our social media pages and we'll pass them on!


https://www.facebook.com/RockPaperSwordsPodcast and Twitter @rock_swords