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I’m Jon Lymon, an indie book author whose best selling titles are the novel The Wronged and the novella The Ghost of Christmas Threeve . Not heard of either? Well, like I said, I’m an indie book author.   For the whole of 2025 I tracked the sales, giveaways, and KENP performance of my books (10 novels, 3 novellas and several children’s books). The tracking was manually conducted, looking at reports from Amazon and D2D. No Ai was used, because Ai never needs to be used when y

I write to be read, remember. This is way I'm not averse to making snippets of my many and varied works available for your free perusal. And here's the opening of my debut novel The Diamond Rush to prove it: ‘The Whittington’ crashed in a treasure chest of flames onto the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the early hours. The charred body parts, burnt bones and sinew of the crew littered the ancient grey stone cobbles. Fried metallic wings lay bent amid discarded fried chicken

I’m Jon Lymon, an indie book author whose best selling titles are the novel The Wronged and the novella The Ghost of Christmas Threeve . Not heard of either? Well, like I said, I’m an indie book author.   For the whole of 2025 I tracked the sales, giveaways, and KENP performance of my books (10 novels, 3 novellas and several children’s books). The tracking was manually conducted, looking at reports from Amazon and D2D. No Ai was used, because Ai never needs to be used when yo

I’m Jon Lymon, an indie book author whose best selling titles are the novel The Wronged and the novella The Ghost of Christmas Threeve . Not heard of either? Well, like I said, I’m an indie book author.   For the whole of 2025 I tracked the sales, giveaway, and KENP performance of my books (10 novels, 3 novellas and several children’s books). The tracking was manually conducted, looking at reports from Amazon and D2D. No Ai was used, because Ai never needs to be used when yo

Tricky things to write, blurbs. Trying to condense multi thousand word novels into a couple of hundred? That’s not easy. But I put mine up for your perusal and look forward to any criticism or complements you send my way: A KILLING SPREE AND SOME BLOODY ZOMBIES by Jon Lymon Bluff Cove. Cornwall. England. The unwitting epicentre of a bloody zombie uprising, freak alien invasion and fake chemical spillage is now in lockdown. Armed forces have been deployed to take out the remai

If there’s ever an apocalypse, have this book about your person. It’ll provide a handy guide to survival in the most extreme circumstances.   Be sure to have plenty of cans of chicken noodle soup to hand. And it’ll help if you can fly a microlite. That’s what Max does in this gripping, highly detailed tale of survival in the wake of the complete breakdown of the world.   Max, (his surname redacted presumably by whoever found his account of his exploits) is guilty of aiding an

Here are some of the books on my To Read List for 2026. Some I’ll listen to via Audible. Others I’ll buy in paperback. One, I’ll be writing myself and reading it multiple times until I get to the point where I read through and don’t want or need to make any changes. Look out for Dead Headz coming when I finish it in 2026.   TBR 2026:   ANIMALS – Emma Jane Unsworth   DEAD HEADZ – Jon Lymon I’ll be reading through this multiple times, getting it ready for release this year.   P

Blubbering into your laptop.   That’s how having to write your book synopsis can leave you (and it’s such a technical sounding word!)   After slaving away over your novel for months/years/decades, you’re finally finished. Except you’re not.   Unless you’re lucky enough to have someone else to do it for you, you’re going to have to sum up all those multiple thousands of words in a few snappy, salesy paragraphs if you want to attract readers, publishers, agents.   Good luck.  

Vicious Circle   Danny Gibb had a U-bend scar on his face that his girl used to like. Said it gave him character. Made him look hard. But trouble attracts trouble and soon their relationship was in it. The end came the night he hit his girlfriend for the first and last time. Hard on the right side of her face which was the wrong side because it was her good side. He hit her after finding out about   Dr Hambell, who hadn’t always had letters and women after his name. Sitting i

I like pubs a lot, to the extent that I have invested several thousand of my hard-earned in them over the years. So it’s always sad to read about one closing, especially if it’s somewhere I’ve spent many happy times with friends in the past.   Indeed, many of the pubs of my youth, which extended from the late 1980s to the late 2000s have either closed and been turned into apartments or shops, closed and not turned into anything, or changed their name.   So those that survive

If ever some days deserved some branding, it's the quartet that finds itself turkey sandwiched betwixt and between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve. And Betwixtmas works perfectly as the unifying brand name for December 27, 28, 29 and 30. (I'm not claiming the name as mine, but if this is the first time you've encountered it, I'm happy to take the credit.) These four days are days a good percentage of people take as holiday. A chance to chill with family and friends without the

Tricky things to write, blurbs. Trying to condense multi thousand word novels into a couple of hundred? That’s not easy. But I put mine up for your perusal and look forward to any criticism or complements you send my way: A BIG BLUFF AND SOME GREEN STUFF by Jon Lymon Jake Rodwell has a big problem that’s getting worse. His boss DCI Bannen has dubbed it criminal magnetism - a knack of being in the right place at the right time to witness crime. But the crimes Rodwell is witnes

Obviously, my 2025 novel Seller V tops my best books of the year list, but the judges (my conscience) have told me I can’t vote for my own writing.   So here’s a run down of the books I’ve read or that have been read to me (via Audible) in 2025, in order of preference:   BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025   1. ANY HUMAN HEART – William Boyd 2. THE KELLERBY CODE – Jonny Sweet 3. MEN IN LOVE – Irvine Welsh 4. SO MUCH LIFE LEFT OVER – Louis de Bernieres 5. AUTUMN: THE LONDON TRILOGY – D

Dark humour? Sign me up, buttercup (a link to the design of the original cover, which for me trumps the subsequent version. It was the category that attracted me to this, billed as a black comedy cum thriller.   I enjoyed it, but found following lead character Edward’s subservient role in a world of upper class, big country house, socialites Robert and Stanza who exploit Edward’s good nature to the extent that they call him Jeeves behind his back. No accident, as it inhabits

A free sample of a Christmas book this close to Christmas? What is this, Christmas come early? Here's an excerpt from The Ghost of Christmas Threeve by Jon Lymon. He flung his legs off the bed and assumed a sitting position. As he did so, he sensed the bedroom change colour from a pale grey/blue to a vivid yellow/orange like the sun making a rare December appearance. He turned back to the window to confirm no break in the slate grey sky. The source of the light was in the roo

Cards on the table – I can’t stand AI in any form in the creative industries. There’s no need for it. Develop your own talent, people. Don’t surrender your thinking and doing to useless machines that just generate slop. You’re better than that, and even if you think you’re not, you can get better than that by applying yourself. Learning to write and draw.   The stuff AI spews out is mere bile that’s been trained on the works of other writers and artists. Their works have, in

Flying Ant Day. Such a big event, they named a book after it. Or at least I did. Although my Flying Ant Day contains not a single reference to oversized winged insects within its pages.   But it’s not the purpose of this blog to wax lyrical about the most under-rated of my books. It’s to shed more light on the annual event that inspired its title.   Sex.   That’s at the heart of Flying Ant Day. The reason why male ants and new queens take to the skies is to mate. Fair play. T

Tricky things to write, blurbs. Trying to condense multi thousand word novels into a couple of hundred? That’s not easy. But I put mine up for your perusal and look forward to any criticism or complements you send my way: A DEAD CHICK AND SOME DIRTY TRICKS by Jon Lymon Jake Rodwell’s uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time to witness crime has seen him become the force’s top thief-taker. But he wants out before his ‘skill’ for attracting criminals gets his

How to grade magic when, let’s face it, most of it is trickery, sleight of hand and distraction? Well, let’s just give these people credit. What they do is amazing, and however they do it, they should be treasured for the ability to amaze and entertain.   TOMMY COOPER As far as making magic fun and accessible, there’s none better than Tommy Cooper. As with Les Dawson’s bad piano playing, you need to be good at magic to know how to do it badly. And Tommy performed tricks delib

I've seen this several times from ebook reviewers in my (so far fruitless) search to find someone to review my books: reviewers asking that authors only send in their novels if they are truly exceptional. Did I read that and think, shit, hold on, mine's decidedly average, I'd best keep looking for a reviewer who's after a bit of run of the mill? Of course I didn't. Every author out there believes their work's the dog's testes, and we're all clogging up Kindle, hoping someone