The Muffler's Mission: First Steps

As the time approaches for the publication of The Muffler's Ministry – more of which later – I thought I'd try to find a way to tell you something of what comes next.

Although The Muffler's Ministry is a self-contained novel, the world of The Mufflers leaves it nicely open for additional stories. Indeed, I've already written two short stories which you can find in my collections, Mutterings of Consequence. My next project will be another novel set in this world.

It will be called The Muffler's Mission and starts only a couple of weeks after the events of the first novel, exploring the immediate impact of its events on the world, and the new mission it imposes on the Mufflers. Now the first novel took place entirely in the region of the south coast known as Portsea, whereas our heroes' missions take them further afield this time.

I'm currently planning* on splitting the story into five parts, each of which is named after the different region within which it primarily takes place, as follows:

• Portsea

• Brightgate

• Emforth

• Ringwall

• Glaundon

* It always changes!

What else can I safely tell you? Well, not all the story will be told from Rowan Webb's perspective this time, but I'm not telling you who else, so as to avoid spoilers for the first book. There will also be short interludes between each section, which definitely won't be from Rowan's perspective. I'll probably tag a short epilogue onto the end too.

As you can imagine, there's a lot more travelling in this novel, but it won't just be about the journey. Still, it gave inspiration for a very early draft of the front cover, above.

Now all I have to do is write it. I'm currently on chapter one of part one, which I'm planning on having five chapters, probably called Consummation, Recuperation, Reorganisation, Confrontation and Embarkation. So there's a little way to go yet...

That's probably all I can safely say at this stage. You really need to read The Muffler's Ministry first. What that? It's not released yet? Oh yes, good point. Well, that's about to change...

Around the end of this week, probably the 15th January 2021, I'm expecting to publish The Muffler's Ministry on Amazon only, for Kindle and in paperback. Depending on the speed of Amazon's systems, it may pop out a day either side of that. I'll then publish it on the other platforms (Apple Books, Kobo etc) in three months, around mid-April.

There won't always be this three-month gap between platforms when I publish in future, but it gives me a bit more flexibility in promoting the first book in the series this way using Amazon only initially. I'll see how things work out this time around before deciding what to do next.