Begin again

Bonfire night in UK. I can remember as a young boy in London making a ‘guy’ and taking it out into the streets with my brothers and friends asking passers-by for a “penny for the guy”. What money we collected would be spent on fireworks. All that effort eventually going up in smoke. I can’t imagine allowing all the energy I expend in my writing to go up in smoke, although I sometimes wonder what makes a writer do the metaphorical equivalent. When I see my efforts disappearing without trace, I tend to be a little philosophical about it and accept that it is part of a writer’s lot: not always getting the success he or she hoped for or expected. When I had my first novel published in 1980 by Macmillan of London (one of the big, publishing houses), I thought I had made it: I was going to be a full time, best-selling author. Now, many years later I find myself still spending a great deal of time as a writer, but still not hitting the heights that I once dreamed of. But I’m not disheartened, and in fact I believe that there is more to come for me, providing I can establish a readership among the on-line readers who search the categories for their kind of novel.

I am currently reading a 50 page booklet (PDF) about selling eBooks. It’s about marketing and promotion, and what you need to do in order to avoid the many traps that inexperience brings. And I don’t mean inexperience in writing, but in marketing and promotion. A year ago I embarked on a campaign, if that’s the right word of blogging and social networking. I read all the right articles and a couple of advice books, but realized after several months that I was pouring my energies into a big, black hole. Now it looks as though I am about to renew my efforts as I bring my latest offering, THE DEVIL’S TRINITY to Amazon and other, on-line outlets. And coupled with the launch of THE BOY FROM BERLIN this month as an e-book by my publisher, it will mean I will have six titles of mine available. I still have two titles to go, so maybe that readership I long for will now start growing. Wish me luck!