She Who dares!

In these dark times of recession, we rely on entrepreneurs to help lift us out of the financial doldrums and turn our economy around. A lot of us rely on the big guns like the manufacturing industry and financial services (they got us into it in the first place), but there are the small outlets and businesses who need a pat on the back for facing the problems and getting on with it, recession or not. My daughter-in-law, Bryony has been in book-keeping for many years and is now branching out on her own. She has been employed as a book-keeper for a small company which now has to close down. However, they have asked her to continue looking after the books for as long as she can until the axe falls. In the face of this, Bryony has invested a small sum in setting up her own book keeping business. She is extremely well qualified and hopes to attract small businesses to her website with a view to doing business with her. I think she deserves a great deal of credit for doing this, and would ask anybody out there who could do with some help in this direction to have a look at her website: www.oakleafbook-keepingservices.co.uk. I wish her all the best and lots of luck. She’ll need it!


Are things changing on Amazon? There is dissention in the Kindle Select ranks over the way in which Amazon uses algorithms to decide rankings and consequently sales. It’s all very confusing to someone as simple as me, but I can only go by what posts are appearing on the Mega Thread forum on the Kindle site. A month ago everything in the garden was lovely: writers were jumping through hoops (including me) over the free downloads and subsequent ‘paid sales’. Now there are a lot of disillusioned writers complaining that Amazon have not been straight with them. There are those who are actually planning to pull their books from the KDP programme. I get the feeling that Amazon is so big and unwieldy now; it has conceived and bred its own, almost unmanageable problem child.

Getting it Right!

Just when you think you’re in front, something comes along and pulls you back. I’ve been battling with the Kindle version of NORTH SLOPE, trying to eradicate the mistakes that have been picked up by others. Having enjoyed tremendous, relative success, and riding the crest of a wave, I was a little crestfallen to realise my work needed editing again. You see, I believe the author has the final responsibility for the accuracy and content of his work, whether he has handed the final proofs over or not. Editing is an exacting task and best left to professionals, but having said that I still find mistakes in the best of books. So, I began the long struggle of re-creating a Kindle version of NORTH SLOPE. And that’s where it went wrong: for some reason I couldn’t open the file once I had completed the build with mobipocket. I had to involve two colleagues of mine with Acclaimed Books and eventually I ended up with a workable file for building. Then it all went to rats, as they say. But today, after sweating in front of my PC, I learned of the need to scrutinize carefully the html codes that can be seen in the text file. I found an error in a BODY code; just one stroke where it wasn’t needed. Took a bit of finding too. Now I have to carry on and re-edit the file so I can send it to Acclaimed Books for re-publishing on Amazon.

Apart from the angst of struggling with html codes, last Saturday Pat and I were at church during the afternoon for the Easter Fayre. Sunday afternoon we were at friends for lunch. This meant that I had little time to do battle with my Kindle. And this morning it was gardening.

Oh, and another thing: I had to read through THE BOY FROM BERLIN over the weekend to check for a few typos that had appeared in the book so that I could notify Harlequin. No doubt they will want their paperback imprint to be 100%. So do I! More later.

All Change

How things change in a few days: I will not be sending THE EAGLE’S COVENANT to Amazon because of a request from Harlequin Books. They want to see my other titles after having made an offer for the English Language paperback rights to my latest book, THE BOY FROM BERLIN. This is so they can ‘assess’ them with a view to offering to take more of my books on. It may come to nothing, but I knew when I received the e-mail from my publisher that I had to hold THE EAGLE’S COVENANT back. I had to do a bit of negotiating with Hale over the percentages, but in the end we reached an amicable agreement. It’s quite exciting and I hope it will get me established over the pond, as they say.

It was good to hear that the young footballer, Fabrice Muamba is recovering well. So many people responded to the near tragedy that it was really heartwarming to know that there beats a heart beneath the savage breast of footballers and football fans.

Amazon announced the February results of their library loan scheme. They have paid $2.01 for each loan. That’s a very generous payout when compared to the Public Lending Library scheme in UK and Ireland. Long may it continue.

After our burglary scare a couple of weeks ago I have now fitted security locks and bolts to all out shutters and windows. We’ve only lived in the house for ten years, so it was about time I got round to doing something about our lack of security. I suppose I have to thank the unknown, would-be burglar for that, eh? More later.

Birthday Boy

It was my birthday yesterday which meant I got to be No.1 for a day. We had friends round to celebrate, but it was the septuagenarian version of celebrating. Had a couple of drinks, a game of cards and dominoes, a good laugh and still managed to get a bit of TV viewing in before we went to bed. That wouldn’t have happened a few years ago! How times change.

I got the update on my book sales last Saturday. It was like all my birthdays had come at once. I have sold almost 6000 e-books so far. I’ve no idea how my paperback sales have gone, but I expect Pete (Acclaimed Books) will provide that information at the end of the month. I’ve asked him to put ROSELLI’S GOLD on a free promotion for three days, beginning March 28th. I’m hoping it can emulate the downloads achieved with NORTH SLOPE and bring my profile up even higher.

Sad news yesterday about the young footballer, Fabrice Muamba collapsing with a heart attack on the field of play. Suddenly the whole football family in UK and parts of Spain are united in sadness and grief about the struggle this young lad and his family are going through. I sure all of us who felt that sense of emotion will also be united in praying for his full recovery. I certainly will.

I’ve just finished proof reading a section of Pete Lihou’s new novel; BOOK. Hopefully when all the faults have been ironed out, Pete will have it available on Amazon. The proof reading is a joint effort by the members of Acclaimed Books. They have just finished THE EAGLE’S COVENANT for me. With luck, and a little more work on my part, I should have it ready for publishing by the end of the month.

Waiting Rooms

Waiting around in waiting rooms has been my lot these last few days. Took Pat to the clinic on Tuesday (missed my snooker!) and waited best part of an hour there. Didn’t take an interpreter and relied on my version of Spanish. Not too bad; I managed to understand what the specialist told us. Today was my turn. It was my six monthly appointment to see the eye specialist. Had drops and blurred vision for a while. I was given the OK until my next appointment in six months’ time. ‘You must keep taking the drops’ she warned me.

I prepared THE EAGLE’S COVENANT for Acclaimed Books and posted for the group to proof read it for me. I thought it was perfect seeing as the book has already been edited and published before. This version was simply my original document being formatted for the template size required by AB.c. Anyway, two of my colleagues have found all manner of typos which is down to me to put right. So far I have completed half. Two more of the group have to report in yet! More work, I suspect. But never mind, it’s all for a good cause: mine!

I managed to get some gardening in on Monday. Pruned the Jacarandas. Also sorted out the security on the shutters. They all lock now. Pat is still anxious but it should pass – eventually!
I might have some news before my next blog entry about how my books are performing on Amazon, but only the figures for December January; just before my e-book went ballistic.

Fright Night

Had a fright on Saturday night about midnight; some guy was trying to break into our bedroom by lifting up the shutters. I was asleep but Pat thought she could hear someone prowling about outside. She thought it was the cat at first, but then she saw the shutters on our double window being raised slowly. They dropped and then the big shutters on our patio doors were being hoisted up from the outside. Pat yelled out, I woke up just in time to see the moonlight coming through as the shutters were dropped very rapidly. Being very brave and foolish (at my age) I leapt out of bed and went through to the dining room, peered out of the ‘fixed’ windows there that look out on to the pool terrace, then did a search of the house. Eventually, after going outside and hearing all the dogs barking in the neighbourhood, we went back to bed. I couldn’t get to sleep for about an hour or more because I could feel tension in my stomach and my heart wouldn’t settle down. The following morning, our neighbour phoned quite early to say she had been burgled during the night. She had been out at a party and came home to find the place had been turned over. We found her jewellery box in our garden. It was empty of course. Quite upsetting for her because she lives on her own too. Anyway, the police were called and details taken, but it’s unlikely she will get any of her jewels back.

The whole episode threatened to derail my appointment at church to preach the sermon that morning. This had been planned for a few weeks and I was keyed up for it. The lack of sleep didn’t help either, and I felt quite nervous as I sat in church waiting to be called up to the front. In the end the sermon went down well and I received a lot of nice words from a lot of people.

Later that day I received a phone call from a friend in England to tell me that he had seen my e-book, NORTH SLOPE listed in the top ten in the Daily Mail’s Weekend colour supplement. The book was at No.7. What a joy!

This morning we’ve been out shopping and buying security locks for our shutters. Better late than never!

Up in the Clouds

There was a great deal of excitement in the Parker household yesterday when I received an e-mail from my publisher telling me that Harlequin had made an offer for the paperback rights to my latest novel, THE BOY FROM BERLIN. The rights would be for North America. Naturally I accepted the offer because I know how difficult it is to break into the American market. Even though Harlequin are not as big as the main publishers in the USA, and sell their books in a different way, they are a brand name and will at least be getting Michael Parker into the consciousness of the American book buying public. This can only be good for me. Meanwhile my stock rises on Amazon. Not only are the sales of my e-books rising, but so are the paperback sales of A COVERT WAR and NORTH SLOPE. ROSELLI’S GOLD isn’t doing as well as those two, but I am hopeful that once I have put it on a free promotion at the end of this month, that situation will change. My Swedish ‘agent’ has contacted a publishing house in Sweden with the news of Harlequin’s offer in the hope that this will persuade them to consider taking on THE BOY FROM BERLIN. At the moment my head is filled with books, books and more books. I need to filter some of this out and concentrate on other areas of my life. I’m preparing a sermon for my local church here in Spain which I will be delivering on Sunday. This means a great deal to me and I need to concentrate, but then I’m a wordsmith and it’s what I do; I shouldn’t have problems then, should I?

Incidentally, if anybody reading this wants any advice or tips, then don’t hesitate to contact me through the contact page on my blog. If I can help, I will. I’ve had a few questions filtering through from people who have not really known where to go for the answers. I may not have all the answers but I can try.

Dizzy Heights

What a weekend it’s been; straight into the stratosphere with my Kindle ‘free, unpaid’ promotion of NORTH SLOPE. It began on Thursday and within 24 hours I had registered 14,000 downloads, and went up to No.6 in all Kindle titles. By the end of the second day it had reached 27000 downloads and actually hit No.2 in all Kindle titles. By the end of day 3 it has reached a total of 37000 downloads, sitting at No. 3 in all titles and No.1 in the Kindle free titles. Then Amazon made a mess of things and left the book on ‘free’ for a further eighteen hours. This meant I missed out on possible sales. But once it had come off the free promotion it began to sell. The first count I received from Acclaimed Books was that it had reached 300 paid sales, and would probably continue to climb for a day or so before slipping back down the rankings. Me and Pat have been walking round with big smiles on our faces all weekend. To put all this in context, you need to realise that NORTH SLOPE was first published in 1980. It sold 2000 copies in the first year and then I was dumped by my publisher. Over the years it has simply been my ‘first novel’. When I put it on Amazon as a POD paperback and Kindle, the e-book version sold about 1 or 2 a month. Nothing spectacular. But now, suddenly a lot of people know about my work and can judge for themselves whether I am worth keeping an eye on or not. And the knock-on effect has been felt by my other two Kindle titles: A COVERT WAR and ROSELLI’S GOLD. ACW has gone up to 10,000 in the rankings from its usual, low position of about 120,000, while RG has simply rocketed up to 20,000 from 450,000; quite simply meteoric. I will be putting RG on promotion at the end of this month. Hopefully it will be another stellar time for Michael Parker.

Free Book

My novel NORTH SLOPE is available for a free download today, tomorrow and Saturday (1,2,3 March). Great read. Great writing.