A few things about the books, all of which are connected.

Firstly: the hardcovers have been removed from sale for the time being. If you have an order being processed it will continue, but no new orders can be made on Amazon. But don't worry, they will be returning soon in a much better and more affordable form.

There may also be... something special in them.

Over the past couple of weeks the eagle-eyed may have noticed the cover images of the Armada Wars books changing. This was A:B testing of new designs. The current favourites are in the image gallery on the home page.

The covers have been standardised across the range, and some have had their artwork tweaked. The interiors have also been spruced up using new software, which has also been used to create new interiors for the paper editions. There are now no discrepancies between Kindle, paperback, and hardcover, guaranteed — they all come from the same source file.

I Dream of Damastion and A Storm to the Savage have the new interiors, and their new covers are being processed now. Both Kindle and paperback editions are on revision 1.5 for both books. They are the example of what the main sequence novels will look like once the interior files are ready.

And because of the new layout, the page counts have been reduced, making both of those paperbacks cheaper.

The following books are now updated, and you can download the updates for your Kindle immediately:

• Steal from the Devil — Fourth Edition (rev. 4.0),
• List of the Dead — minor updates (rev. 1.2),
• The Ravening Deep — minor updates (rev. 1.2),
• From Shattered Stars — minor updates (rev. 1.2).

You can check which version of each book you have by looking for the revision number on the copyright page. If there is no revision number, your edition pre-dates the adoption of that system.

If you don't have automatic updates turned on, you can push the updated files to your Kindle device/s or app/s using the "Manage My Content and Devices" page in the Kindle area of Amazon's web site. That page is also available in the "Digital content and devices" list, found on the "My Account" page.

Please leave a comment if you have any problems obtaining updates — KDP had some communication issues this week, and I'm eager to ensure everything has gone smoothly.

The Fourth Edition of Steal from the Devil adds some new material, and changes the order of scenes up to the climax in order to make the flow of text far better. The climax is more robust, and key characters have enhanced scenes or background added throughout the book. Grammar and punctuation have received a very comprehensive scrubbing.

In all other books, including SFTD, other tweaks have been made. MAGA is now CAGA, fonts have been replaced since their accidental removal, the NCX files which build the "Go To..." menu have been repaired in the omnibus editions, typography has been brought in line with the printed editions, and so on.

Armadaverse Kindle books have always included "publisher fonts", so that you can read the book exactly as it was intended to be presented. These cause the eBooks to mimic the printed editions, both in style and typography. You can turn them on in the display options for your Kindle device or app.

A previous update accidentally omitted the font data, but it has been replaced across the updates above.

Another advantage of including fonts is that it allows stylistic differentiation in the text, such as for the incident in which Bruiser discovers anti-human graffiti in his home town:

If you're a regular visitor to the site you probably noticed these changes sneaking in over the past two weeks. If not, here they all are:

1. Most pages have now been redesigned to use section layouts, which are neater and cleaner on both computers and mobile devices. Subtle colour differences now break up large pages.
2. Many characters now have an "appearances and mentions" section which links directly to books in the store.
3. On all pages where it is possible, the style of the "you are here" breadcrumb trail has been improved (the store and blog-style pages do not support it).
4. Main sections of the site now have a snippet of customer feedback at the top of the page, with a link offering more. On book pages, the same area tells you how that volume is positioned in its series.
5. Many pages now have a jump link which takes you directly to the search box.
6. Pages that were heavy with links have been calmed down a bit.
7. There are now dedicated error pages for discontinued items and deleted blog posts, which will prevent ugly 404 errors for any products or posts deleted after this date.
8. The books, novels, and novellas pages have been tidied up.
9. A new collapsible warning box has been implemented in some places, to ensure visitors do not accidentally read major spoilers.
10. With the arrival of the cover art for From Shattered Stars, its book page has been updated and some areas of the site have received a facelift.

In the run-up to the delayed release of From Shattered Stars, many of you will no doubt be planning to re-read the first three books of the series. If you're reading on Kindle, or using the Kindle app on another device, then before you start you may wish to update to the latest versions.

Steal from the Devil and List of the Dead have only minor changes, however The Ravening Deep has some corrections which put right a very silly mistake that slipped into the battle for Ramm Stallahad.

During that fight, Admiral Betombe and his task force use their wormhole generators in a novel way, with the intention of making life difficult for the intruding Shaeld Hrathan fleet. The problem is... the way I originally wrote that scene, interdiction had already begun throughout the system. So all of the admiral's ships' GNGs should have stalled.

That sequence has now been fixed, and a number of other minor edits have been made to clarify sentences and paragraphs. All volumes have also had their back matter updated to reflect the delayed release of FSS.

If you are uncertain about how to download the updated eBooks to your device, please refer to the final section of the FAQ page.

All the updates are now available for existing customers. You will know if you have the latest versions by checking the back matter — the release date given for From Shattered Stars will have changed to 2017.

Various changes have been made to the web site in the past few days and weeks, to improve your experience:

1. The Events page was added to the News section, to let you know about upcoming conventions and other real world commotion.
2. Clutter has been removed from the home page.
3. You can now preview the Kindle version of all published books (e.g. Steal from the Devil) using the buttons under the cover image.
4. Book pages now include snippets of reader feedback for published volumes, with a link to see more. The volume's acronym is included in the volume details. The 'position in series' box now gives a natural language description as well as a bullet list.
5. The Universe page now has a list of subsections before the main content. Wouldn't want you to miss anything!
6. A site map was added to the About section.
7. The main menu was reorganised. Reader feedback now appears under Books. Features and Newsletter sign-up have been made children of the News section.
8. The series page for The Great War of the Shaeld has been redesigned, to improve its appearance and include all the future volumes.
9. Various subtle layout improvements have been made throughout the site.

Phew! Think that's everything. If you have any thoughts about these changes, please do leave a comment.