Death's Shadow held onto the 1 spot on the UK Children's Best Sellers Chart for an incredible third week in a row!!! I'm over the moon about this! It was great to get to the top, brilliant to hold that position for a second week, but absolutely amazing to still be there!!! As I've said before, charts don't always tell the true story -- Demon Apocalypse actually sold better than Blood Beast, but because lots of other popular books were released at the same time, it didn't get to the top, while BB did. A book with poor sale might top the chart in a weak week, whereas a book with strong sales might not place very highly in a strong week. But in this instance I'm delighted that the new book is doing well in the chart AND selling very strongly -- the best of both worlds!!!!! I'll always takes sales over chart positions -- but it's delicious to have both!! HarperCollins very kindly sent me a bottle of top-notch champagne to celebrate, and I'll be cracking it open VERY soon to toast Death's Shadow's very fine health!!!!

I finally finished archiving my tour dates!! It was a much bigger job that I thought, and I've been working on it non-stop since the weekend, even doing some night shifts! But now it's finally up in place, every date, every event, every signing. I'm sure there are one or two errors in there, events that were cancelled, or last-minute additions which I forgot to add to my site at the time. But for the very most part it's accurate -- and exhausting!!! You can find the tour archive page in Secret Shanville (you'll have to join if you haven't already) by clicking here:


Hard to believe I've covered that much ground, given that many talks and signed that many books!! It was interesting to see how much I'd forgotten -- for instance, I took most of 2003 off from touring!! That goes to answer the questions I posed here a few days ago -- my sales rocketed in the UK during the two years when I wasn't doing much touring here, which I guess proves that at a certain point you DON'T have to tour to boost sales!!! I think it's a bit like a landslide -- if you can get it started, it takes on a life of its own. I certainly think touring definitely helps during an author's first few years, but as word spreads, and sales snowball, it probably becomes less vital. Then again, who can say for certain -- maybe sales would have been even stronger if I'd toured for those 2 years!!!!!! Anyway, it's all academic, because I'm going to continue touring regardless, partly because I like it -- as I often say in interviews, meeting fans is the fun part of the job! -- and also because I think I owe it to you guys, and I like to give as many of you as possible the chance to come and meet me, have a little chat, and have your books signed.