Looking Ahead

Just had a weekend away from broadband, PC’s et al. We visited friends in Andalucia and had a pleasant time travelling around, looking in at the markets and visiting a delightful little spot called Villaricos on the coast. Even though I was nowhere near a PC, I still continued to write in my head. Do all writers do that? When my wife catches me daydreaming, she insists I am writing my next novel. She’s not far wrong; I’m usually sorting something out that I can use in my books. There’s one thing I cannot do though (amongst others), and that is to find some way of promoting my books so that they catch the eye of the reading public. I have dropped the price of the last book I published on Amazon: THE DEVIL’S TRINITY. I had it priced at $4.99 when it was released as a Kindle last October/November, working on the premise that readers will go for a higher priced book rather than the lower ones which often contain so much rubbish. It didn’t work: my title just languished in the very low ranks. It was during this period that my latest novel, THE BOY FROM BERLIN (my publisher still has the rights to that) was reduced in price on an Amazon Daily deal. It sold 1700 copies in a day at £0.99p. Once that price was restored to about £5.50p, the sales died away. And that was in the UK only. Imagine how well it would have done had it been available at the low price on Amazon.com. Anyway, I have reduced the price of my title and hopefully it will result in sales. I did drop the price of HELL’S GATE to a minimum, but the sales were disappointing. It just goes to show that without a strong campaign behind you, there’s little chance of achieving much. But I will keep on trying. The latest addition to my books on Amazon will be SHADOW OF THE WOLF. This is a war story of about 60,000 words in length, so it will not have a high price tag. I’m hoping for a lift because of this. One of my sons believes this is the best book I’ve written, but time will tell of course. Incidentally, my latest hardback, THE BOY FROM BERLIN, which did so well on that daily deal as a Kindle, is now available in paperback. This is from Harlequin Books who have the rights to North America and Canada for this title. Once again I hope this will give me a lift. Who knows? Wish me luck.

One Star Reviewers

What makes a good, book reviewer? And why can some of them be so wantonly damaging? As a writer I know I should listen to the advice about book reviews: don’t read them! From time to time I sneak a look, and sometimes I am delighted with what I read, and sometimes I am disappointed. It serves me right for looking. But I believe that a book review can say more about the reviewer than the book itself. A professional reviewer (one hopes) will give an opinion about style, quality of the writing, content and anything else they wish to say about the book. But I don’t think they would ever make damaging comments about the writer, who they have probably never met, because that would damage their own integrity as a book reviewer. Writers deserve to be criticised if they are sloppy and careless, but the majority of writers probably believe they are creditable and their work deserves some kind of recognition. If you’re a pulp fiction writer, knocking out stuff as a ghost writer, you would probably not have a great deal of interest in the quality of the writing so long as it sticks to the required style and pattern, and meets the publisher’s needs for that particular market. And if a reviewer decided to insult the ‘named author’ of a ghost written novel, they would be very wide of the mark. But inevitably we’re all in the mix together: writers good and bad, reviewers good and bad, and the paying public. But what has happened now that Amazon has burst the publishing bubble? Readers are invited to review books they have read and award a rating. It’s nice to get five stars of course, and really anything from three stars is good. But when some pumped up, self-important reviewer slaughters a writer and awards a one star review, it drops the average that appears alongside the book on the Amazon page, and all because the reviewer believes he or she is qualified to make an informed opinion not only about the content but about the writer as well. The reader of this blog will gather, by now, that I have been subjected to what amounts to a personal attack because the reviewer did not like my work. Unfortunately it goes with the territory, but I do wish reviewers would stop and think that reviews are not to be trifled with: they are an important guide to how well or how badly a book has been written. Slagging off the author simply shows what kind of person you are: not very pleasant.

Bargain Daily Deal

Daily Deal at http//www.thebookawards.com HELL’S GATE. $0.99 & £0.77 Today only. Also on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008N3MT6E/?tag. Historical Novel about British & German colonialism in British East Africa 1898. Political intrigue, slavery, romance and building a railway line across the Rift Valley.

Bargain Book

My historical novel, set in British East Africa in 1898 will be on sale at $0.99 in USA and £0.75 in UK for one day only on February 15th. This is being promoted by http://www.thebookawards.com and is available through their store or on Amazon. Fans of Wilbur Smith would probably like this tale, which is about British & German colonialism, slavery, political intrigue, romance and a railway line. You can learn more at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008N3MT6E/?tag It's worth a look.

Juggling My Hats

How did I miss posting last week? Perhaps I’m running out of things to say on my blog posts. But if I did that, then there would be no hope for me as a writer trying to contact his readers and anyone else who likes my work. So what have I been up to? Well, I finally completed my final read through of SHADOW OF THE WOLF. I increased the word length from 55,000 to a little over 60,000. This just scrapes in then as a novel. The final read through was done prior to copying it to a Createspace template, which will be sent to Acclaimed Books Ltd. This is the group of which I am a member and one of the ‘founders’. I like that word. Actually it’s a group of six authors who publish their work through AB.c. Makes things easier for people like me who live outside the USA and have to deal with tax laws etc. Anyway, I’m digressing. It was important for me to complete this, and to have it ready for my son to complete the book jacket. He always does a superb job. My next task is to convert the Word file to Kindle. This will then be forwarded to AB.c for submission to Amazon. Something else that has also imposed itself upon my time is my other ‘job’. Those of you who have read my author bio will know that I am a practicing Christian and worship at an English speaking fellowship here in Spain. The church is called TCF (Torrevieja Christian Fellowship). I was asked to bring the message (sermon) last Wednesday, and it took me a while to prepare it which of course meant I had to leave my book preparation for a while. The sermon was titled “How much further are you prepared to go?”. If any of you out there would like to hear what I had to say, have a look at www.tcf-spain.org. I promise you the sermon was well received: an absolute belter in fact. I wish my books could be as well received as that. So, after this I will get on with the Kindle conversion and then, hopefully I can begin (again) my next novel. This will be for my publisher and hopefully I will produce something that will be acceptable (there are no guarantees in this life!). So that’s it then. Wish me luck!

Daily deal

On the 15th. February my historical novel, HELL'S GATE will be a daily deal on www.thebookawards.com and will be available on Amazon.com and .co.uk at the low price of $0.99. The story is set in British East Africa in 1898, and is inspired by events that took place in that protectorate where British colonialism vied with Imperial Germany in the neighbouring protectorate to establish a foothold in Uganda. The story includes everything: romance, polticial intrigue, slavery, heroism etc. Why not have a look on Amazon and put a note in your diary? You can see the book at http:/www.amazon.com/dp/B008N3MT6E/?tag