Square Eyes!

North Slope finished its free run with a free download of about 4700. I won’t know the final figures until the end of this week when Acclaimed Books (AB.c) publish them for me. Then I’ll be interested in my post-promotion sales figures. I have been working on HELL’S GATE (Hale, 2007), proof reading and copying the file on to a Createspace template. This will be converted by AB.c to a PDF file, which, if there are no problems, will mean the paperback will be available by the end of this week. I have great hopes for this book. It is set in British East Africa in 1898, and is inspired by true events there: the building of a railway line from Mombassa to Lake Victoria by the British, and the problems caused by the politicians of the day, and the sheer, physical endurance of the men who worked on the line. Terrific stuff. It’s a must for Wilbur Smith fans, believe me. I have also been scanning pages from THE DEVIL’S TRINITY, which could be available by the end of the year. It’s another thriller that was published by Robert Hale, and now that I have the paperback rights, it will go on Amazon. I used to have the file on disc, but I’ve lost it, or thrown it away. Never throw your discs away! I’ve also been busy arranging our trip to Australia and the Far East. We’ll be visiting our son who emigrated out there with his young family about seven years ago. Stephen is in the Royal Australian Air Force. He’s a Flight Lieutenant Air Traffic Controller. His wife, Lisa works as a local school assistant. She’s a qualified teacher but prefers the hours that her current job gives her. Their eldest boy, Sam is a member of the Australian swimming squad and is currently at Auburn University in Texas on a swimming scholarship. Jake, their second lad is studying medicine at Sydney University, while their third boy, Jamie is still at school but training hard in the pool hoping to emulate his eldest brother. Been glued to the box every evening watching the Olympics. I always feel sorry for those who don’t quite make a medal after all the years of hard work they’ve put into their sport. But failure is something most of us have experienced. But then failure isn’t really that; failure is when you don’t even try. Keep the faith!

Fonts Before My Eyes

Busy again. Where does the time go? I’ve been working on THE DEVIL’S TRINITY, scanning each page and compiling a Word doc. which I will be formatting for Kindle and a POD version for Amazon. I wrote this book five or six years ago and had it published in 2008. Recently I submitted it to Harlequin at their request, but they decided not to publish it. This has given me the opportunity to publish it myself in Kindle and paperback. Hence the work I’m doing on scanning the book. There have been interruptions of course, so I’m a long way from finishing it. Over the weekend we went visiting our friends down at Arboleas in Almeria. We visited a couple of good restaurants and went for a stroll round Mojacar village high up in the hills behind the main town. Yesterday I received the proof copy of my latest Amazon novel, HELL’S GATE. I’m glad I asked for a proof copy because this one needed some corrections. The problem cropped up somewhere in the transition from Word format to PDF format. But in the end, it’s my responsibility to ensure the final version is 100% correct, so I have no-one else to blame but myself. Just means more work and more expense. The re-edit is finished now and hopefully it will soon be available on Amazon. The Kindle version is there now. Another part of my busy period has been planning a holiday. We’re off to Australia in September to see our son and his family. We’ll also be visiting friends and taking in some of the Orient. Should be away for about four weeks or so. I have put NORTH SLOPE up for a free promotion on Amazon. It will be available on July 26/27. It means more promotional work and hoping I’ll be able to lift my public name. It’s in need of a lift right now because sales are falling off and need a fillip. I’m hoping that being part of Harlequin’s client list will enhance my name and produce more readers for me. I can live in hopes though, can’t I? Wish me luck.

Proofs and Publishing

Another busy week for me as I worked my way through Word files and Kindle formats checking that nothing has gone wrong (again). This is all the result of painful experiences as a result of failing to ensure that the finished product I send to Acclaimed Books for publication on Amazon is 100% accurate. All authors have to take responsibility for the book they present to their readers in order to avoid critical reviews and subsequent loss of readership. That’s the reason I’ve been busy. I pulled A COVERT WAR off Amazon because of typos and grammar errors, and re-edited the Word doc and Kindle file. I scrutinised everything before satisfying myself that the work was error free (if that’s possible) and asking AB.c to restore the books to Amazon. Also during that time I have been reading HELL’S GATE in Kindle, which I have prepared, looking for that elusive error that the keenest of reader will spot. Often the mistakes are quite small, like a space after a hyphen (fast- reader). It’s irritating, I know because I get irritated whenever I come across mistakes in other writers’ works, and believe me, there are plenty, and not necessarily the unknown writers. But I have had to put that on hold because AB.c has sent me the PDF file for A COVERT WAR. This needs to be checked before submission to Amazon. Another aspect of preparing a book for Amazon is the book jacket, and together me and my son, Terry have been putting together ideas for a suitable jacket. Usually I give Terry an idea of what I imagine the jacket would look like. He then comes up with jacket number one, and we go on from there. It’s usually something like No.8 before we agree on the jacket. I’m pleased to say that we are finished with that and the .jpg file is in the AB.c dropbox ready for processing. And in amongst all that I have been in to my local church (TCF) working on a faulty alarm system, trying to figure out why I can’t do what the manual tells me I can. The trouble with software programmes is that they are fairly straightforward to the guy who writes them, but when a willing soul tries to interpret the inner workings of the system, it’s as clear as mud! I did manage to leave the system in a workable condition, but it now needs the expert to dive in. I had a piece of excellent news today: Harlequin Books who are publishing my latest hardback novel (THE BOY FROM BERLIN) in paperback, have agreed to publish another of mine, THE EAGLE’S COVENANT. Great news indeed!

How Busy?

I have just finished re-editing A COVERT WAR because of some reports of typos etc. in the Kindle version. One of the problems with reading reviews that complain of typos is that you have no idea where those errors are because you have assumed, wrongly, that there was nothing wrong with your work. So after being told of a particular error by a friend of mine, I set about comparing the Kindle version to my original, hardback copy. I won’t go into details; suffice it to say that it was a proverbial bloodbath. Mercifully, the majority of typos (and I do mean ‘majority’) were simple mistakes which most readers would ignore. For example: Prime Minister should be spelt with small case letters unless the term is used as an address to the PM himself, etc. etc. My next task is to convert the document to kindle format. Meanwhile my two books that were on promotion, A Covert War and Roselli’s Gold seem to have performed well. I ended up with about 4500 free downloads, which lifted both books right up to the virtual top of their categories and into the top one hundred briefly. I won’t know until tomorrow how well the paid sales have done. What I’m hoping for (unless the books go viral!) is to maintain my previous average of 25 books per day, and perhaps even exceed that. My other project; bringing HELL’S GATE to Amazon is going well. My son, Terry has come up with different concepts for the book jacket design, and I think we are getting very close to a decision about that. I have proofed the Word doc., but that will need to be converted for kindle; something I’ll get on to sometime next week. I’m very keen to get this novel on to Amazon because it’s one I hold very dear. If I was to eulogize about it, I would say that if I was a painter, this would be my masterpiece. It has a real, special place in my heart and I’m really looking forward and hoping that it will be well received. I also hope it will show readers that I can turn out a good read, and that I am not a formulaic writer. I am hoping that HELL’S GATE will be ready by the middle of August. The reason it will take that long is because I intend to ask for a proof copy before submitting the Kindle version. I don’t want any mistakes this time.