Today, Saturday 12th September 2026, marks exactly two calendar years since my debut novel, A RELUCTANT SPY, came out in the UK.
The last one of these updates that I wrote was after I'd been published for one year (before that I wrote one when I'd been published for six months, a two-month update and a one-month update).
It has been a very different second year, but also an incredible one. For one thing, I have more than one book out now. And, the very day I wrote the one year update, I won the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize.
Looking back, in fact, on that first year from the end of my second year, I had no idea what was coming. You can see some of that in this post I wrote for Goldsboro Books, on the publishing of my Crime Collective special edition. Thanks to Goldsboro for allowing me to re-publish that, two years on.
But there's been a lot more going on. Let's get into it.
As before, I'll break things down into a Q&A format.
What have been the highlights of your second year as a published author?
A year, in the course of a person's life, isn't really that long. But one thing I've found since I started this whole second chapter (pun very much intended) of my life is that the sheer variety of things that happen means that it's actually kind of hard to remember everything. My 'possibility cone' has expanded hugely, and along with it, many, many things to remember.
Thankfully, I am an exhaustive, nay borderline hypergraphic, chronicler of my own experiences. So I have a pretty good record, actually, of the past twelve months.
September last year was a blur - there was Bloody Scotland and the Debut Prize win, followed by being interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland by Len Penny, then a trip down to London and a bunch of signing books.
My paperback was out at that point and I started to be reasonably sure I'd find a copy of A RELUCTANT SPY in most bookshops, which made the whole signing books thing a lot more fun.
In October, I interviewed Gareth Brown about his second book, THE SOCIETY OF UNKNOWABLE OBJECTS, and did a load of podcasts and video interviews about the award wins.
In November I pitched a book and got the go-ahead to start working on it, under the codename Project VAULT. That started with a fairly exhaustive outline that I then mostly ignored. I also had a short story get reprinted in the THINK WEIRDER anthology and I did my first library event at Denny Library.
I had another library event in Glasgow with Neil Broadfoot, Andrew Raymond and Natalie Jayne Clark that I forgot to take any pictures of, then a four-fifths reunion with the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize shortlisters to cap off the month (Natalie couldn't make it to that, so I was glad I'd seen her the week before in Glasgow).
Around this time I was doing a lot of thinking about money and spreadsheets and the future, and I put in a request to go part-time at my day job, who have been incredibly supportive of my writing and agreed to me going down to four days. I then spent most of December worrying about whether that was the right move or not, but I finished the year on a high, having recovered my overall annual word count from an all-time low in 2024.
In January of this year I fulfilled an ambition, appearing on the Spybrary podcast. The Spybrary website and community is an incredibly passionate and engaged group of genre readers who have been very supportive of my work and it was a delight to talk to Bryan Boling.
Right at the end of the month, I also appeared at Stockport Noir, a fantastic one-day (two next year!) book festival in Stockport. I appeared alongside three incredible crime writers talking about the balance of suspense and action and it was a brilliant weekend.
Mostly in January the part-time thing was used for events, family stuff and just rebalancing my workload, rather than a lot of writing, but it felt amazing. So amazing that the loss of 20% of my salary stung a lot less than I'd feared.
In February I headed down to London for a day of writing and publishing stuff, including appearing on Confessions of a Book Collector with David Headley, who runs Goldsboro Books, DHH Literary Agency and the Capital Crime festival.
That same month I also recorded the first of several live roleplay games with the crew from Narrative Damage, including Nick Binge, Marco Rinaldi and Tariq Ashkanani. This was our first Call of Cthulu scenario and it was a hoot.
In a very peculiar full-circle moment, it turned out the studio we recorded in was the exact same meeting room where I found out I was being made redundant fifteen years ago, after the agency I worked for closed the Scottish branch office I'd moved to in 2010. It was quite a trip to imagine what a beardless 29 year old David, worrying if he'd be able to pay rent in a month's time, would have made of my sitting there in 2026. I like to think he'd be quite pleased?
By the end of February I'd hit 60,000 words on Project VAULT and I was feeling pretty good about it, which was good because it carried the momentum through into March, when I added another 30,000 words and got within touching distance of the end. March was a quieter month on the event front, though I did do a lovely event at a local community centre and managed to sell out the local bookshop's entire stock of copies. I also did a photoshoot in various places around Edinburgh and got a load of very nice author photos out of it. Check them out on my press kit page.
In April I got to announce a new book sale!
As is the way with publishing things, this book is now coming in Spring 2028 (since Solaris got acquired by Profile Books and had to shoogle things around a bit), but I'm extremely excited to be embarking on my planned dual writing career.
April was a busy one, launching the programme for Cymera Festival, looking after my friend's dog, zipping down to London and York and generally typing really hard and not getting enough sleep.
May was even more busy, with multiple events for friends, buying our first car and recording a load of podcasts in advance of the release of my second book, SOLITARY AGENTS.
Mostly, however, I was just sort of buzzing with suppressed anxiety and excitement for the book launch. I turned in the first draft of Project VAULT at the end of May and girded my loins to dive into the release of my second book.
June was a wild month - the Bloody Scotland programme launch, my own book launch (on the same day!), Cymera Festival, Capital Crime and more.
I did a release week roundup and a writeup of Capital Crime, so I won't recap in detail, but by the end of that month I was a shell of a human being.
I got to meet a lot of writers I really admire, interview some of them, be interviewed by others and generally live the dream. It was worth the frazzle.
July and August were, by comparison, a lot quieter, mostly at home. In retrospect it was pretty severe burnout - I realised I hadn't actually taken any holiday in the first seven months of the year, except for the odd day off for events. Though I'm working four days a week and thus less frazzled overall, that means I can go far longer between breaks. So when I do run out of steam, I do so hard.
The month did start off on a high though - SOLITARY AGENTS got longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize.
It was an incredible honour, and deeply weird/cool to be on the list alongside authors I've been reading since my teens. It was also very reassuring to think that maybe I hadn't peaked with my first book - a side effect of winning two awards is worrying about having only one direction in which to go after such an amazing first year.
In July I also got included in Tim Shipman's list of the best spy books of the year. It's a living list he updates through the year, but I started at number 3 and, as of this writing, I'm still there! Also very reassuring.
And that brings us to August, when we went camping, I did an event with Doug Johnstone and edited Project VAULT into its final form.
And, next week, to bring the whole thing full-circle, I'll be heading back to Stirling to get up on stage and hand this year's Debut Prize trophy to one of the five shortlisters. I can't wait.
Phew! Second year as an author complete. And closing in on nine months part-time, which is so far an absolute dream. It all makes me wonder where I'll be a year from now. And it makes me glad that I write a lot on my website, because otherwise this whole thing would be one giant blur of coffee and early mornings and microphones and typing.
How are the books doing?
Yes, books! Plural!
Two released and a third on the way (as well as more I can't talk about yet). From a purely statistical point of view, if you manage to get a second book published you're already beating the odds, overall. So I'm feeling good about having more than that out, contracted and on the way.
Things are going, frankly, great. My first book earned out in under three months and the award wins did a fantastic job of sustaining sales. I can't share specific figures, but suffice to say that between my first two books I've now handily filled a good-sized stadium with readers. Which makes my brain hurt a bit whenever I think about it. That's a lot of people.
My second book is also well on the way to earning out, which means I am starting to see royalties coming through. It's not quite up to quit-the-dayjob levels (and I'm very risk averse in any case, so I'd want a year or two of steady income before I took that leap). But it's the start of something that may one day lead to that outcome. And that's very exciting.
I was particularly encouraged to see that when SOLITARY AGENTS came out, we got a correlated surge in sales for A RELUCTANT SPY and both of them are still selling really well. It's absolutely not a given that a book will still be on shelves and selling well in multiple formats two years after release, but A RELUCTANT SPY continues to defy expectations in a bunch of pleasing ways.
How are you feeling?
Pretty happy, overall, though once again I didn't do the best job this year of managing stress, burnout and workload. However, this is now my second go-around at this whole publishing game and I'm beginning to get a better handle on pacing myself, taking enough breaks and setting myself sustainable goals.
My Writing Fridays, when I can clear the decks of tons of admin work, handle edits, organise myself and otherwise get on top of things, have helped immensely. I dread to think how I'd be feeling right now if I didn't have a day a week to manage everything.
Where can I get your books?
A RELUCTANT SPY is now available in all formats (hardback, paperback, eBook and audio) worldwide, including paperback in the US. My second book SOLITARY AGENTS is available in hardback, eBook and audio worldwide, with the paperback releasing in the UK in November (it'd make an excellent Christmas present, just saying).
Check out my links page for a whole range of editions, including signed first edition hardbacks from Goldsboro Books.
Are you doing more books in the Legends series?
It's not been announced yet, but if you go to any large book retailer and search for my name, you might find a book that I have been writing under the Project VAULT codename. But I didn't tell you that.
Any news on the TV show?
It's still under option with Carnival Films. Progress is happening. I have seen a script. It is being 'received positively' in certain quarters. The whole thing has been a profoundly cool experience.
I cross my fingers every time I think about it and try really, really hard not to get my hopes up. But, wow, it would be so cool if it did happen.
What else is going on?
I've turned in the edits on Project VAULT and I've been helping draft cover blurbs, looking at designs and generally getting excited. And right now I'm writing a completely different book (DRIFT), fiddling around with short stories, outlining a project in a totally different format and generally taking as many shots on goal as I can.
One very exciting recent development is that I started a membership programme, which has already covered its own costs and given me a bunch of new ideas and engaged readers. I've been mulling doing something like this for ages and I'm very glad I finally got up the gumption to actually do it.
Has your second year lived up to your hopes?
Last year, I was reeling from the combination of a slow, quiet first half of the debut year, followed by the absolutely bananas six months I had leading up to my first and second award wins. This year has been really quite different - I've achieved some goals I thought might take years to get to, but I'm settling now into a regular publishing rhythm, trying out a lot of new things and fighting quite hard to manage stress, workload, energy and my health.
So far, I'm doing okay at that, although I have a bad habit of only recognising when I'm running on fumes after I crash. And it's been a tough year, personally, outside of the writing.
So the first job for the rest of this year and 2027 will be to work on my own self-awareness and the mental safeguards that keep me sane and healthy. I can't quite believe that I'm working part-time, even after doing it for the last nine months. So I really want to slow down slightly and appreciate how far I've come. It makes the whole thing a lot more enjoyable (and sustainable) if you do that occasionally.
What does Year 3 look like?
We'll be announcing more books, and I'll be going to more festivals and events. I will be trying to protect my time, energy and money by not hanging out for 3-4 days at a stretch at every festival in 2027, but I will still be around. Just not as intensely. Because I need to write books, not sit around in marquees feeling utterly drained on a Sunday morning.
I'm hoping that over the next year I'll also find a solid working routine for my Writing Fridays - I tried to be quite flexible with these dedicated days and that has... uh, not worked. I need routine and structure, even on days when I have full control of my own schedule. So I hope those will be both less stressful and more productive.
There's also a bunch of things hovering in the background that might happen, but which I have little control over (the TV option being chief among them). Mostly I have to try and not think about those, while simultaneously trying to take more shots and get more irons in the fire.
And... that's it! This post could easily be twice the length, honestly. Having a new writing career in your forties is like opening a door inside your own head where there's this whole other parallel life that just sort of unfolds, elbowing things aside, and suddenly you're doing things, going places and having experiences you never even dared to dream about. But it's also a lot of typing at six in the morning and delayed trains and bad food in motorway service stations.
Frankly, though, it's everything I ever dreamed of. And I deeply hope it continues. If you're reading this, you're part of why it has.
Onward to Year 3, and beyond!