Still Buzzing

The week has flown by as usual and no progress on my
planned novel for this year, but only because of the project I have been
working on lately. I thought I might launch a new website to coincide with this
and was intrigued by the Wix.com adverts on national TV. I shouldn’t have
bothered because it never works out the way you think. The website domain name
would have included my user name which Wix decided would be mpmick0, goodness
knows why. This preceded Wix.com, and my name was attached at the rear. When it
came to uploading an image file, it couldn’t handle the small size. Enlarging
the image was a waste of time too because it lost focus. I tried addressing the
problem using Paint, but that didn’t work either. There were other, niggling
issues which are largely down to the fact that when someone designs something,
it becomes difficult to interpret by the unenlightened: me in particular. After
a fruitless waste of time in front of my laptop, I decided to give up and ask
my son to revamp my main website (www.michaeljparker.com)

Another technical hitch occurred but not with Wix. I
uploaded an html file after using Amazon’s ‘Build Your Kindle Book’ for my
first, self-published book (not a novel). There was a problem with the font
size in one chapter, which I decided was down to me. I went back to the html
file but could not see why the error had occurred, even when using the
‘show/hide’ paragraph code. I uploaded the file again but with the same result:
a font change in part of chapter 3. Back to the html file and I thought I could
see a problem: the codes were shown in a large font size in the same places
where the errors occurred. I addressed that problem and uploaded again. No
change. Back to the html file and I reloaded the entire chapter from my
original word doc, making sure that the font sizes were correct. Still no
change. But here’s the rub: the errors don’t show on my Kindle Fire tablet;
only on the ‘Look Inside’ facility on Amazon’s book page and also on my Windows
8 laptop. I’ve sent a message to Amazon support and hope they can explain why
this is happening and how it can be resolved. Anyone taking a look inside will
see the sudden change in font and assume I haven’t prepared the file correctly.
It’s a rum one.

On the health front my Cat scan revealed that the
tumours are shrinking (two have disappeared), so progress is being made. I’m
back on chemo tomorrow and expect the same progress to be made. Wish me luck!

Penthouses and Promotions

Apart from a promotion on
Jill Edmonson’s website for THE DEVIL’S TRINITY, I have done very little
towards my next novel, although I have pushed on with another project which I
will finish first. I keep
an eye on my book sales through NovelRank and hope to see some improvement in
that title’s results. I must say though, that Jill Edmonson is pretty good when
it comes to doing what she says by tweeting often about promotions submitted by
authors. It costs nothing. I always retweet whenever I see her tweets about my
work. You can look Jill up at http://www.jilledmondson.com  

Looking back through the
week, much of it is to do with our intended move from Spain and my ongoing
treatment for Lymphoma. We began our search for an apartment in the village and
were shown round what was described as a ‘penthouse’ with a solarium. It was
very disappointing: I believe the person who described it as such should take
up a job as an advertising copywriter. We were offered good terms in view of
the fact that we couldn’t give a firm end-date, but after a day or so we
decided not to take it on. We will be looking at a ‘bungalow’ on Wednesday. One
can only hope that the description is on a more prosaic level.

Sunday was our fifty
fourth wedding anniversary. We had a lovely meal with friends at a local
restaurant. We also enjoyed Skype and telephone calls with our family. Pat
received a huge bouquet of flowers from Australia for her birthday which was
five days earlier.

This morning I had a
Cat-scan, and tomorrow I should find out what progress is being made before
beginning my fourth chemo session.

Today the PLR results
were made available. I was delighted to see that I had achieved loans of just
over 3700. I look at figures like individual readers going into the library and
looking for a Michael Parker novel, knowing they liked what they’ve read and
want more. A large percentage of those figures were for the large print
editions of my books. Thank goodness for pensioners (I assume it’s mainly
pensioners who need large print editions). It’s a pity the UK government have
forced councils to close a lot of libraries, otherwise I could have hoped for
more loans. The highest figure I achieved, which was about three years ago was
just over 6000. The good news is that the government has given the go-ahead for
audio and e-book loans. This could lift my PLR returns. Let’s hope so. Wish me
luck.

Technically challenged.

It has been something of a technical challenge for me this past few days, because modern technology strides ever further away from my aging abilities. I was reading a blog about improving your connection to the wider audience as a writer, and one of the suggestions was that I should have an e-mail subscriber list. Having just been asked by a contact on LinkedIn if I had such a list, I thought it would be a good idea to start one. Mail Chimp seemed to be the best one for me, so I joined the Mail Chimp site and began the process. That was my first mistake: I followed the instructions and wasn’t surprised to find that my efforts had fallen well short of success. I contacted Mail Chimp’s support department and was pointed in the right direction, which meant uninstalling and starting again. I am into the second stage, meaning I have achieved what I set out to do up to a point. The Mail Chimp tab has appeared but in the wrong place, so another SOS to Mail Chimp. I have received a reply which I will act on in the fullness of time. Whether I’ll ever achieve what I’m after remains to be seen. The e-mail subscribers list will be for ‘Michael Parker’s Book News’. Not that I have anything to report, but once up and running, I will keep my willing fans up to date. (There must be a couple out there).

My next technological battle was with my wife’s iPad. She couldn’t go on-line even though there was no problem with our broadband because I could go on with my laptop. My diagnosis was that it was a server fault; not her iPad. The next day the problem was still there, so I fiddled around with it to see if my technical fault finding ability could crack the problem. In the end I had to log on to Apple’s technical support department where I found the solution in their FAQ page. I had to reset the iPad and ‘forget the network’. Instructions followed produced the result I needed and my wife was able to use her iPad again. Peace reigns!

The proposed change to the book jacket for THE EAGLE’S COVENANT hasn’t materialised yet, but I know my son will come up with the goods. He’s planning to visit m in a few weeks’ time, so I guess he’ll have something before then. I’m hoping it will prove to be the turning point. Although my books sales are not fantastic, I haven’t sold one copy of that book for almost fifty days: far too long.

Readers of this blog will know that I have set aside my current manuscript to work on another project. It should be finished by the end of the month, and then hopefully I can crack on with my next novel.

I’m hoping to see the PDF galley proofs of my forthcoming book, PAST IMPERFECT soon. Once I have checked them through, the sooner the book will be available: something to look forward to.

One Year to the Next

Somehow I have lost my entries between November 11^th and December 23^rd. Had to have been when I had PC problems and needed Windows 8 to be re-loaded. I lost a few things then.

December 23^rd.

As Christmas approaches we are getting close to that ‘looking back’ over the year time. For many it would have been average, but for me, and in some respects, Pat, it has been nothing like that. My book sales have improved, although not into stratospheric proportions, but enough to be encouraging. My latest manuscript, PAST IMPERFECT, was accepted by my publisher, and I had another paperback, THE EAGLE’S COVENANT, released by Harlequin Books in North America. We sold our house here in Spain; something we have been trying to do for about four years, although we don’t have to move out until April. This is a God-send because I am on chemo therapy until the end of March. Oh, and we had to have our dog and cat put down. Not at the same time of course. Lucy (the dog) went in March, and Treacle went last month. Very sad. We have now decided we will not have any more animals. So, by and large nothing like an average year. But what now for Christmas and my writing schedule? We are both looking forward to Christmas Day, opening our presents and having a laugh and joke with our two friends who will be here with us. No family of course; that’s something that fill our memories with smiles. It’s the kids turn to fill their houses with their offspring and toddlers. I wish them luck.

As far as my writing is concerned, I have made a decision about the story I have been working on. I gave it up earlier this year and it looks like it’s going to happen again. The reason for that is because I have decided to embark on another project. I’m keeping it under wraps at the moment, but I think a lot of people will be surprised with the result. It isn’t likely to earn me any money, but it’s something that has been on my mind for a few years.
I’m still managing to keep upright even though my chemo wants to knock me down. It’s no fun but there’s not a lot I can do about it. Time now for me to wish all those of you who read my blog a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year. God bless.

January 5^th 2014

So, a new year begins. What’s in store for us all, I wonder? In his message this morning at church our pastor said we should not look back on our successes and build monuments to them; we should press forward and look for more. He was not talking about selling more books of course, but achieving goals; more so in our walk with God. But we are all human and inevitably we want to improve and do better in whatever walk of life or circumstance we are in. My own circumstances hinge round beating my cancer and moving back to the UK once I have been given the all-clear by my Consultant. It is something to look forward to, naturally, and my faith in God tells me that this will happen.

My other goals are to finish two writing projects: one of which I mentioned in my last blog post. I am making good headway with that at the moment, and hope to embark on a renewed attempt at writing my latest thriller. I am fast coming to the conclusion that it will need a complete revamp, even though I have achieved something like 30,000 words. I have already binned a lot of the research.

I will also be looking at ways of improving my marketing approach. There is so much, well-meaning advice on the web these days that it makes it difficult to know which way to go. I have saved an article by David Gaughran in which he expounds some solid advice. He’s a successful writer, so it might be wise to take note of what he is saying. One thing that I often come across though is the de-bunking of the Twitter and Facebook myth that you need these sites to improve your public face and book sales. Another “must” I am told is Goodreads. I have used that site for over two years now and have thirteen followers. Not exactly pulling up any trees yet, am I? I still believe in the old saying: “Big oak trees from little acorns grow”. I can build a readership in the fullness of time, of course, and maybe one day I’ll have a big band of readers who want to buy my books. Trouble is: I’m getting on in years and may not be around when I have that trusty group. So it looks like it will have to be encouraged by skilful marketing techniques. Anyone know any? Oh yes; on the web. So that’s where I’ll be headed. And no doubt sometime in the New Year I’ll do a promotion on BookBub. I had some good results with that when I promoted NORTH SLOPE in October. I am still seeing a knock-on effect even now.

One other change I will be making is to the book jacket for EAGLE’S COVENANT. Sales for that are abysmal, and I honestly believe it’s because the jacket just doesn’t sell it. I was responsible for the design, but when I saw the paperback release of this book by Harlequin Books in November, I realised there was so much more I could do. So I have given my son, Terry, who produces my book jackets, something to get his teeth into. I’m sure he’ll come up