Yep, the front cover of George Benson’s album certainly knows what year it’ll be, a few hours from now….

Hello, and a very Happy New Year to you and yours!

I hope that 2019 has been a happy, safe and prosperous year for you. It’s been a good one over here at HTWGS HQ, with a quite a few more interviews, guest posts, industry insider reminiscences, and (hopefully) a lot more helpful game show hints and tips for you.

I know I haven’t managed to bring you something every week this year – there have been quite a few other demands on my time* – but I hope you’ll forgive me for that, and that what I have managed to bring you here has been interesting and / or useful.

Now, there is something that I need to talk to you about….

Back in March, I know I promised you a second How To Win Game Shows eBook by the end of the year.

This news just in…

It’s not done.

Yeah look, I’m sorry about that. You see, after finally getting the first HTWGS eBook properly published (and priced!) on Amazon in January, the plan was that I’d finish my second (non game show-related) eBook, get that up on Amazon in February, and then go straight into the second HTWGS eBook.

That second eBook was just days away from being finished and uploaded when, for reasons I won’t go into here, it all came to a screaming halt. This meant that the two years I’d spent working on it did not result in a polished, fascinating, jam-packed 250 page finished product after all… but they did result in an extremely valuable learning experience.

Cést la vie.

After that, in the course of re-examining my writing and publishing goals, I came up with my Bold Literary Experiment / Frustrated Novelist / Mid Life Crisis idea… This is my 52-chapter novel, which I’m writing over the course of a year, from my 50th birthday to my 51st birthday. I’ve been releasing a new chapter each Friday at noon, and you can read them all here. This project has been taking a lot of my time and creative energy this year; time and creative energy which I think would otherwise have been poured into the second How To Win Game Shows book. I hope you forgive me. The second HTWGS book is still on the way – it will still be a mini memoir about my time working on various game shows over the last 20 years. Its working title is Tales From The Shiny Floor, and here’s an early idea for a cover photo….

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, this eBook will be a compilation of all of my Patented HowToWinGameShowsReminiscenses, from a career spanning 20 years in the industry. There’ll also be insider interviews, behind the scenes photos, more ‘Interesting Facts’, with quite a few game show tips and hints sprinkled throughout.

I’ll be throwing myself into the writing of this as soon as the novel’s finished. That’s scheduled for May 2020, but I’m happy to report that I’m currently five weeks ahead on the writing of that. Hopefully, if I can continue to work at my current pace, I can increase that lead time, and get the novel finished even further ahead of schedule. Which will mean that I can get to work on the second HTWGS book sooner.

Anyway, so that’s where all that’s at. I’ll sign off for this week – and for 2019 – with a reminder that my EXCLUSIVE interview with Australian Sole Survivor Pia Miranda continues here next week, and once more – a wish for all good things for you and yours in 2020!

As always, I thank you for your patience, and your continued interest in this site.

Cheers,

Stephen.

* Apart from the serialised novel, some of the other demands on my time have been this, this, this, this and this.