I'm planning to release the next three books in my Archibald Lox series (which together will form Volume 2) this summer -- they'll be released close together, because it's one big storyline and I don't want readers to have to wait too long between installments. They'll be available as eBooks and paperbacks, with a collected bind-up edition (hardback, paperback and eBook) to follow either later in the year or in the first half of 2022. I'll be confirming the release dates next month, but for now, if you haven't read read Volume 1, read on for where you can get the best deals... 

1) If you're looking to buy a hardback edition of The Missing Princess, (which collects the three books into a single edition) the best deal seems to be on Book Depository. CLICK HERE to be directed to your country's branch, where you'll be shown the cost in your local currency.

2) You can get the paperback of The Missing Princess on Amazon or Book Depository at the same price,and they seem to be the stores offering the best price -- CLICK HERE to be sent to your local Amazon store, or CLICK HERE to be directed to your local Book Depository branch.

3) The cheapest way to buy Volume One in a physical edtion is to buy The Missing Princess, which collects the three shorter books into a single Volume, and is significantly cheaper than buying them individually. BUT if you would prefer to buy the three shorter books as individual books, I've produced paperback editions, but only through Amazon stores worldwide. CLICK HERE to buy Book 1... CLICK HERE to buy Book 2... and CLICK HERE to buy Book 3.

4) As I said above, the very cheapest way to buy the books is in digital format. You can buy Volume One as three separate books (book 1 is always FREE if you want to try before you buy) or as one big bind-up called The Missing Princess. In either case, the price is the same, just under $5 or your local equivalent. Click on any of the links below to find out more about the books and to buy:

Book 1 on Amazon: CLICK HERE   Book 1 on Google Play: CLICK HERE   Book 1 on Apple, Kobo, B&N, etc: CLICK HERE

The Missing Princess on Amazon: CLICK HERE   The Missing Princess on Google Play: CLICK HERE   The Missing Princess on Apple, Kobo, B&N, etc: CLICK HERE

WORLD BOOK DAY

Although I didn't actively do anything for World Book Day this year, I ended up posting quite a few posts linking in with it. First up, you can check out videos of me and 152 (that's right -- one hundred and fifty-two!!!) other authors wishing everyone a Happy World Book Day. It was put together by a team who emailed lots of writers and got back an incredible number of responses. You can watch them all, or jump to your favourites, by CLICKING HERE

Secondly, a fan of my books, called Christopher, created some vampire vegetarian recipes, specifically for WBD this year -- yummy!!! You can check them out in the photo above.

Thirdly, in Ireland, the arts and features staff of the Irish Examiner newspaper put together an article celebrating their love of books, and mentioning some of the authors and books that have left a lasting impression with them. There were three categories -- Childhood Classics, All-Time Faves, and What We're Reading Now. There was a nice mention for my books in the first category, though it does make me feel rather old these days when journalists talk about growing up with my books... :-) You can check out the article by CLICKING HERE

Fourthly, I shared this story by a fan called Eytan because it tickled me. "Happy World Book Day!! Featuring my favorite series from my youth, The Demonata by Darren Shan. Story time: When I was in high school on a trip with my youth group, we had a hypnotist visit our group. I was one of the people hypnotized. At one point the hypnotist had us believe that a famous celebrity was in the room. Me being me considers authors to be famous celebrities, because let's face it, they are. I looked into the crowd and believed that the Master of Horror, Darren Shan himself was there. Then the hypnotist had me believe that I was Darren Shan, so I started talking about The Demonata. Needless to say, I might have scared a few people with my descriptions of his books." And here's a photo of Eytan with the books:

Finally, although schools in many countries were closed this year for World Book Day, that didn't stop a lot of students from dressing as characters from their favourite books at home, and sharing some images online. Two grisly-minded fans of mine got in on the act, and I think you'll agree that they pulled off a couple of extreme, and extremely impressive, transformations!! First up, a girl called Kate decided to step into the shoes of everyone's favourite demon master, Lord Loss! (Hmm... of course, Lord Loss doesn't actually wear shoes, because he doesn't have feet, but you know what I mean!) Kate looks too young to be reading the books, never mind taking on the mantle of one of the scariest characters in all of children's literature, but I like her style!!

And another young lady, with the Twitter user name of Kismet, pinned her sights on Mr Dowling, the world's creepiest clown, from my Zom-B books. This is a really tough challenge, not least because the character always has a human eyeball pinned to his nose -- easy to describe in a book, but far trickier to replicate in real life! Kismet did an amazing job, and it's probably for the best that schools were locked down, as she'd probably have sent kids and teachers racing for the fire exits if she'd turned up looking like this!!!

KOYASAN REMEMBERED

World Book Day put me in mind of my World Book Day novella -- KOYASAN. I wrote it for World Book Day back in 2006, and it introduced a lot of new readers to my work. It's a ghost story, about a girl whose younger sister gets kidnapped by evil spirits, but it's not as horrific as most of my books, and is actually a rather sweet little concoction. It's been out of print for a long time, but you can buy it fairly cheaply as an eBook through Amazon stores worldwide -- just CLICK HERE on the following link to be directed to your local branch.

I actually tried to turn Koyasan into a stage musical a few years ago. It was looking promising for a while -- we attracted the interest of a composer, who was keen to take things forward -- but we never quite managed to find the right writer for it, even though a couple came close to working on it. The project has slipped back under the radar for the time being, but it's still circling around inside my brain, and if the chance ever comes along to resurrect it, I'll be on it like a shot!!

A MOTORING AFFAIR

A fan called Evy sent me the lovely drawing that you can see above, which features Gavner Purl and the true love of his life... Liz Carr. Now, Liz was never mentioned in the books, but she appeared in a short story that I wrote to tie in with Book 5, Trials Of Death. It appears on my website, in the EXTRAS section, along with quite a few other short stories and articles that I wrote back when the Cirque Du Freak books were first released. Not all of them are intended to be taken as canon, but An Affair of the Night certainly is, and casts light on two things that might still be puzzling readers of the Vampire Mountain trilogy all these years later -- why was Gavner wearing yellow boxer shorts decorated with tiny pink elephants? And who exactly were his final words directed towards? CLICK HERE to read the story, but be warned -- you might want to keep a handkerchief close to hand, as it's a bit of a tearjerker...

INTERNATIONAL REVIEWS

There was a nice German review a few months back for The Vampire Prince, book 6 of my Saga Of Darren Shan / Cirque Du Freak series. You can check it out by CLICKING HERE, and if, like me, German isn't your native tongue, you can copy the text and paste it into Google Translate or some such similar service for a very clear translation.

There was an Italian review for Lord Loss, the first book in my Demonata series, a while back, and you can find out what the reviewer thought by CLICKING HERE -- again, if you don't speak Italian, you can copy the text and paste it into Google Translate for an accurate translation.

A YouTuber with the user name of Shelos1Life has been posting reviews of the Cirque Du Freak manga over the last few months, taking it several chapters at a time. He posted his latest, for chapters 60 to 65, in the middle of March, and you can check it out by CLICKING HERE. The review is in Spanish, which meant I wasn't really able to make much sense of it, but Spanish-speaking Shansters let me know that it's more of a summary than a review -- he comes across as quite tired and grumpy in the video, so I guess he just wasn;' in the mood for a full-on revew this time! :-)

Finally, there was an American review for Archibald Lox And The Vote Of Alignment, the third book of the first Volume of my latest series. It appeared on Goodreads, and is by a reader called Thomas Paxton. I think, if you're unfamiliar with my Archibald Lox books, it will give you a nice feel for the series, without including any spoilers. You can check it out by CLICKING HERE

If you've enjoyed the covers from different countries that I've included above, and found yourself wishing there was a page where you could check out the covers for every Darren Shan book ever published, from all the different countries around the world where they have been printed... you can!!! Just CLICK HERE to be directed to the Covers page on my site, alphabetically arranged from Australia to Vietnam, and in some cases broken down into series, to make it a bit easier to scroll through them. Some countries used the British or American covers, but most came up with their own covers, and it's fascinating to see how widely they differ. The only covers I haven't included are the illegally published Iranian editions of my books. My work has been very successful in Iran, but almost of my books have been published there by publishers of low moral standing who neither sought my permission to publish my work, nor paid me a penny from the huge profits they have made selling them. The only exceptions to date are the first two Zom-B books, which WERE published legally in Iran, by a publisher who agreed a deal with my agents -- that's the eye-catching cover of book 2 in the photo above.

THE VALUE OF AN EDITOR

My editor, Zoe, returned her notes for the Volume 2 Archibald Lox books to me towards the end of March, and I'll be getting stuck into those over the first few weeks of April, as I work my way through the very final draft of the three books, ahead of their release in the summer. (There will probably only be a month between book 1 and 2, and book 2 and 3, which is why I'm working on all three together.) But Zoe already pointed out one enormous gaffe in her covering email, which all by itself justifies every penny that I'm paying her!!

Basically, there are royals in these books, each one of whom has a unique aura. It's not a big thing in the first Volume, as Archie can't see the auras, and they're only mentioned in passing. But they get mentioned a few times in Volume 2, and feature even more heavily in Volume 3. They're not a MAJOR plot thing, but they certainly ARE a plot thing, and readers are going to notice if I muck them up... which I did!!!

Without giving too much away, one of the royals disguises himself in the Volume 2 books. (Characters can be remolded in the Merge, to look like different people.) He wanders around, with a completely different face, and nobody recognises him. Fine. No problem. It all makes perfect sense. EXCEPT I somehow completely forgot about his aura, which would still be visible, meaning everyone who saw him would know he was a royal, and anyone who'd seen him before would know his identity because, as I said, each aura is unique.

It's the kind of mistake that would have blown a canon ball sized hole in my credibility if Zoe hadn't picked up on it. Hard to imagine an author can make such a huge mistake, but hey, we're only human, and these things happen. (My favourite all-time mistake, which was missed by its editor at the time and still exists in all printed versions, comes from Robinson Crusoe. Early in the book, he strips naked to swim out to the wreck of his ship, but Daniel Defoe then forgot that he was naked, and describes him filling his pockets with loot before swimming back to shore!)

Anyway, now that Zoe has drawn it to my attention (she was very polite about it -- if the shoe had been on the other foot, I'd have howled with laughter and screamed, "You don't know what you're doing!!" Which is why I probably wouldn't make a very good editor...), I can go in and fix it before the books see print. It's actually easy enough to fix, because there's a scene in Volume 1 which hints that auras CAN be hidden. Indeed, if I hadn't made THIS mistake, eagle-eyed readers would have pointed me back towards Volume 1 after they'd read the later books, to ask what the hell was going on in THAT scene?!? As things have worked out, I'll be able to tie the aura aspects neatly together across all three Volumes now, and won't end up looking like the bumbling halfwit that in reality, at times, I must confess I am...

The moral of all this, for any budding authors who are reading this, is to respect and rely on your editors. They're hugely important to the publishing process. Your agent can be massively important too -- Chris Little (my agent who died early this year) and his team always read carefully through my early drafts, before they went to my editor, and often picked up on boo-books like this. If you end up being taken on by a traditional publisher, you'll be assigned an editor, and it's something you'll just take for granted for the rest of your career in that world.

BUT if you self-publish, as I'm doing with the Archibald Lox books, it's VITAL that you hire an editor to work on your books with you. Self-publishing is a lot easier and cheaper these days than it has ever been before, which is why more authors are doing it themselves. If you're prepared to do some research and put in a lot of hard work, you can do the vast majority of the self-publishing jobs yourself -- you almost certainly won't do them as well as the people in traditional publishing houses will do them, but they CAN be roughly handled.

The two exceptions -- the two things you should ALWAYS pay someone to do -- are covers and editing. My advice, based on a LOT of experience, is to ALWAYS hire someone to design your cover (including the spine and back cover), and ALWAYS hire someone to edit your book before you put it on sale. If you search around, you'll find they're not massive costs -- if someone is charging you an arm and a leg, keep looking for someone who'll only charge a finger and a toe! We're talking a few hundred pounds for each service (and that's for a GOOD artist and editor), and while I know that might be a lot of money to an awful lot of writers, it's money you really do NEED to invest. If you want people to pay for the story you've created, there are certain standards that have to be met, and no author is an island. If the cover and the editing aren't up to scratch, you're going to get a lot of angry feedback, and you might even -- as I would have in this situation -- end up looking like a fool who can't remember the rules of their own books... :-)

COMPETITION