Body Scans and Bodice Rippers

Good news: my scan results showed I am now clear of
tumours. Remedial medication has started and so have our plans to return to the
UK. After three hours on the drip my next appointment is 23^rd.
September. I told my specialist here in Spain that we planned to return
permanently after that. I will carry on with the treatment once we’re back in
England. The change in our lives means we can plan ahead. I have also knuckled
down and made headway with my WIP (work in progress). I am about half-way
through (45000 words), but I cannot say the end is in sight because I am still
struggling with which direction I want to go with it. I think it’s extremely
unlikely that I will have made much more progress before we return to UK
because all the other diversions (excuses) that will be coming up. Perhaps I
should say it will be done by Christmas.

I seem to be getting some positive signs as a result of
my promotions this month. I’m not exactly soaring into the best-seller ranks,
but my rankings have responded with sharp increases (followed by falls),
lifting me up to the top 2000 in the thriller category, and about an average of
30000 or so in the kindle e-book store. Each rise is followed by a fall, but
there is an impetus there that is measureable. If I didn’t promote, I wouldn’t
see any reaction.

I have almost completed my website: www.michaelparkerbooks.com
I do intend to keep dressing it up from time to time. One of my sons tells me
its lacking something. But the essential information is there, and hopefully
potential readers will be satisfied with that. I will keep my other website live
www.michaeljparker.com
until I am completely happy with the work I’ve done on mine. One thing I do
need though is widgets. At the moment they are linked to the Wix pages, so I
must get busy and check out the right links.

I often read of other writers who appear to enjoy a good
connection with their readers. They talk about keeping their fans up to date
with how the latest WIP is progressing, and giving them advance warning of book
releases, signing sessions etc. Oh, and blog tours. I signed up for a blog tour
last week but realised I had wandered into something that wasn’t really my cup
of tea. I had to accept an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) of a novel and pick a date
when I would appear on the blog. I was invited to interview the author in
return for a small promotion for me. Nothing wrong with that, you say, and I agree:
no problem at all. The trouble was; the novel was a romance with a strong sexual
content. The book jacket of a man and woman semi naked on a bed gave the game
away really. I’m not into that kind of book; never have been, never will be. I
felt that to go ahead with the tour would make me feel like an interloper, and I
would be well out of my depth. And let’s face it: what would a hard-boiled
thriller writer want with mixing with bodice rippers? By the way; just to show
I have nothing against the writer whose blog tour I thought I would be involved
in, her name is Sherri Hayes. Her book is called, Crossing The Line and will be
available in September on Amazon. I’ve had to eat humble pie and pull out of
the blog tour. Perhaps I should stick to my own kind of bodice rippers. Wish me
luck!

Things done and things to do.

I had my scan last Tuesday.
No dramas there and back home in time for lunch. Wednesday we picked up our
friends, Kath and Don, from the airport; back home in time for lunch. Thursday
was different: we drove down to Alfoquia in Almeria province to visit more
friends; Ray and Lynn. Spent a few hours with them and had lunch in Albox, then
departed for a small village up in the hills called Los Colorados. This was
where our niece, Becky was on holiday with her husband Jason and daughter Lox
(Lauren). We haven’t seen Becky for about ten years, so it was a wonderful
opportunity to see her and chat about all sorts of things. We left there early
evening and arrived home, no, not in time for lunch, but in time for bed! The
remainder of the week was normal of course: back to shopping and writing.

I had a book promotion last
Monday with BookBlast (Book Sends). I could tell by the change in my rankings
that the promotion was successful. One earlier than that also resulted in a
positive rank change. I’m in a transitional period at the moment (in more way
than one) and am in the process of transferring my titles from Acclaimed Books
Ltd. to my own account on Amazon. To date I have published THE EAGLE’S COVENANT
on Smashwords and uploaded it today on Amazon with my name as publisher. I
withdrew all my titles from the Kindle Select programme because it was of
little use to me and prevented me having the freedom to market and promote my
books in the way I felt was more beneficial to me; bearing in mind that I am
not a best-selling author. For
that reason I have no interest in Amazon’s new initiative: Kindle Unlimited. Now
that I have joined
Smashwords, my titles that are with them will also be available on Sony, Nook,
iBooks, B&N, Kobo, Scrib’d and Overview. I intend using their marketing
tools. At the moment THE EAGLE’S COVENANT is listed as free on their current
promotion which expires July 31^st. I probably don’t have enough of a
name with them (if any), but at least I was able to catch the tail end of the
promotion.
Hopefully I will have another of my fiction titles with them soon.

So what’s next? Well,
tomorrow is D-Day in more ways than one. I have an appointment with my
specialist and should be getting the results of the PET scan I had last week. Depending
on what she has to say, we will either be making plans to return to UK or
bedding down for the long haul in Spain. Wish me luck!

Branching out and looking forward

I didn’t get to the scan; it was postponed at the last
moment. I’m on my way there tomorrow. Results to come next Tuesday 22^nd.
So, what have I been up to? I had a weekend in UK; travelled over there to see
the British Speedway Grand Prix at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff. I always stay
with our son, John and we go together. It’s nice in that it gives me a lot of
time to be with my boy; something most fathers treasure. I certainly do. The
speedway was good too. The trip back from Bournemouth with RyanAir was one of
the best I’ve had. My flight was the only one out which meant the airport was
virtually empty. We left on time and landed ten minutes earlier than expected.
Before leaving UK I took the family out for a pub lunch. Nice one just outside
Bournemouth airport called The Curlew.

On the book front, I have a promotion going today for    THE DEVIL’S TRINITY. It will be free. At the
moment it is on www.digitalbookday.com as well as Amazon. I’ll leave it on free
for a while; see how it goes. I haven’t sold any of that title for several
weeks, so it needs a bit of a lift.

I have also started a new website through the web builder
WIX. I have been trying to build a new site with the help of our son, Terry,
but it got too complicated in the end. Eventually we decided to go with WIX.
Within ninety minutes I had almost completed the website and couldn’t believe
how simple it was. I will be going public with it later this week, once I have
played around with it.

My next step in the book game is to load THE EAGLE’S
COVENANT on to Smashwords, and then Amazon. I have had the book on Amazon for a
couple of years now, but it has always been under the publisher’s name of
Acclaimed Books. I will be listed as the publisher, which gives me hands on control
of price changes and promotions etc. Eventually I will have all my titles with
me as publisher. If I can do this right, have a manageable website and a good
marketing strategy (I live in hopes), then I should be able to enjoy the kind
of sales figures I see with other, more successful writers. Wish me luck!

Keeping the balls in the air.

I’m off for a scan tomorrow, Monday. Before last week
I’d never heard of a PET scan (thought I’d misheard the word), but since then
I’ve seen it mentioned several times and have even spoke to people who have had
one. I will get the results in two weeks’ time when I see my specialist. On the
book front I’ve just had a three day promotion for ROSELLI’S GOLD. I won’t know
how successful it has been, but I expect to make at least one sale out of it;
maybe more. I have a promotion scheduled for a week tomorrow. This one is for
HELL’S GATE, which I believe is probably my best book, although of all my
titles, NORTH SLOPE sells consistently more. My current project is slowly
taking shape, but I have other diversions coming up. On Friday I will be
heading off to UK for the British Speedway Grand Prix at Cardiff, returning
Sunday. It means I will miss the World Cup final, but that’s something I have
to put up with. I will also be setting up a Smashwords doc for my book, THE
EAGLE’S COVENANT. It will be free of Amazon’s clutches after the 21^st
because that is the date the Kindle Select programme finishes for that title. I
have had all my other titles taken out of the Select programme in readiness for
publishing them on Smashwords. I will still keep them on Amazon, but with
myself as publisher. Once I have THE EAGLE’S COVENANT re-published on both
sites, I will run a promotion for that. It’s an excellent thriller, even if I
say so myself. And even though I wrote the story several years ago, my forecast
about Europe was quite accurate. I sometimes wonder if it’s because the story
is set in Germany that it puts a lot of English and American readers off.
German police procedure may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but there’s a
similarity between all police organisations that readers will recognise.

One of the Facebook sites I follow, a site populated by
writers, I have noticed a fair amount of Sci-Fi, paranormal titles, fantasy and
YA. Naturally there are thrillers and romance too, but I do wonder if I’m in
the wrong game and should be writing about blood sucking vampires and men from Mars.
I couldn’t imagine trying to dream up a storyline that stretched fiction beyond
its natural limits, but then I suppose any fiction can be construed as Sci-fi
because that’s what it amounts to: it’s all make-believe. Might be fun trying
one day. Wish me luck!