Finding reviews, sales and publicity

January 17, 2015

I’m in the process of re-publishing seven of my titles
which up until now have been published under the name of Acclaimed Books Ltd.
The reason is simple: I want to manage my own titles now that me and my wife
have settled back in UK. One of the problems with changing the name of the
publisher — in this case from AB.c to Michael Parker — is that any reviews
accumulated can be lost unless you keep the same ISBN number and don’t change
the edition number. I learned the hard way with my first title and lost the
reviews. But another oddity has cropped up: I have a different number of
reviews for my titles depending on which Amazon site I log onto. In US for
instance, my latest upload, Roselli’s
Gold, has thirteen reviews, with an average showing of around four stars.
But in UK there is only one review. It makes me wonder if my reviews are
determined by the website from where the titles are purchased. I’ll have to ask
Amazon. I suspect that my ‘readership’ in UK is very low, and I’m hoping that
now I am living back in England, I can build my following.

I was once advised by someone in publishing that unless
you’re on to a major thing with a publisher; the only way to build is to begin
locally. It has to be the way now for a lot of self-published writers, and to
begin my building project I am hoping that membership of the Chichester
Independent Writers group will help me do that. I’ve only attended one meeting
so far, but I am impressed with the current members who have achieved something
quite significant in the twelve months they have been in existence; so much so
that I am really looking forward to being a part of their programme for 2015.

I do feel as though I have a foot in two camps though,
because I am traditionally published as well as being an independent. My latest
novel, Past Imperfect, will be
released on January 30^th. while my latest title to be uploaded as an
indie is Roselli’s Gold. Although I
have seven titles on Amazon for which I own the rights, until now all seven
have been published by Acclaimed Books Ltd. Now three of them have me as the publisher,
and within a couple of months I expect to have all seven under my name. I am
also using Smashwords because I want my titles available on as many platforms
as possible, and Smashwords are bigger than Amazon when it comes to e-books,
according to their statistics. Can you believe statistics?

I have reached something of a milestone with my current
manuscript: I have run out of ideas! I finished transferring the 50,000 words I
had completed thus far to Scrivener and now have no idea where or how to take
the story forward. My wife says that I am like this with all my books, and this
one is no different. She could be right, but I am concerned about this one
because I started it about three years ago, interrupting it to write Past Imperfect. Oh the things we writers
put ourselves through.

Looking ahead, I have to pick up on my promotion and
social media stuff. Tomorrow I am at hospital for my ongoing cancer treatment,
although this is simply medication and not chemo, thank God. And I have a
couple of thoughts running around in my head with regard to local publicity
etc. Maybe I'll contact some friendly radio stations. Must prepare a sales
pitch though and offer my book for review. Wish me luck!

Starting Well

January 10, 2015

I’m a little early with my blog post this week, but sometimes
I’m a little late. The first couple of weeks of 2015 look promising for what my
progress in the literary world could be like. I have seen a short lift in my
book sales, although nothing to get too excited about. I also attended the
Chindi writers group in Chichester, and will be going up to London for the
International Thriller Writers’ Organization’s European meeting.

Meeting with the Chindi group was something of an
eye-opener, considering the progress the group has made since it began one year
ago. Looking at their website (www.chindi-authors.co.uk) will give it
all in greater detail, but suffice it to say that they have engaged with the
reading public locally through seminars, workshops, TV and radio, and on You
Tube. They have a good programme lined up for 2015 and I am looking forward to
being an active member of the group.

The International Thriller Writers (ITW) meeting came
right out of the blue. I joined this group about five years ago and became a
contributing editor for them. I gave that up after a couple of years because I
could see little benefit for me in what was a predominantly, American group
whose meetings were always held in USA, and celebrated with a big bash in New
York once a year. Many of the big hitters in the thriller game were members
including such big names as Lee Child, Steve Berry, Jeffrey Deavour etc. So for
a small fish like me swimming in a big pool, it was largely a waste of time.
But out of the blue I received an e-mail from J. Penn of the ITW to say they
would be holding their second meeting for European members in February. Having
put myself out of the loop, so to speak, I had been unaware there had been a
first meeting. Apparently it had been held at the home of Peter James: one of
UK’s biggest crime writers. This second meeting will be in London, and I’m
looking forward tremendously to rubbing shoulders with the big guns. It won’t
be a complete waste of time for me because I will be meeting my grandson, Adam,
and taking him out to lunch.

On the home front I have been busy uploading my second
title, Hell’s Gate, to Amazon and CreateSpace. The proof copy of the Eagle’s
Covenant is already on its way (took me ages to get that right), and I have
ordered a proof copy of Hell’s Gate. At the same time I am still battling with
PhotoShop; trying to learn the rudiments of that programme for when I prepare
my other titles for Amazon and Smashwords.

Domestically it has been a time of buying furniture,
arranging hospital appointments, birthday celebrations and looking forward to
celebrating our 55^th wedding anniversary. Oh, and giving serious
thought to booking a cruise to Alaska. Busy times ahead, eh? Wish me luck!

New Book, New Year, New Hope.

January 4, 2015

A new year and most of us are filled with hopes and
dreams for the future. I’m no different and among my hopes and dreams is the
advent of another of my books. My latest, Past
Imperfect, is due for release on January 30^th. Even after all
these years of writing and experiencing the ups and downs of a literary life; I
still can’t help but get excited at the prospect. I feel like an anachronism in
today’s digital market place though, and the literary storm engulfing the
world. Whereas a new release for writers like me was offered at a more
sedentary pace, but one that promised a process that built on the excitement;
it’s more like “so what you getting all worked up about?” Nowadays writers
disgorge novels at an enormous pace to fill an ever growing digital shelf of
mostly, unreadable books; and they lose the unforgettable expectation as publishing
day approaches.

A lot of readers have confessed to having an enormous
collection of eBooks in their digital libraries, and have admitted they will
probably never read them. In the early days of Kindle tablets, I downloaded about
sixty, free eBooks (not all at once) before I realised I was downloading novels
that would never have seen the light of day in the traditional market. But as a
traditionally published writer, does this make me any different from the Amazon
writers today? Maybe because writing is my hobby I can claim to be different.
After all, there are a great deal of writers out there who rely on their work
as a career, and those who hope to make a livable income from it. I can only
hope to achieve success based on the strength of my writing and an established
readership. But there’s the rub: how can I establish a readership when I am
fighting against the 3,000,000 books that Amazon currently has on its database?
I need to muscle my way into this nightmare by promotion and marketing, but in
the right direction and in the right places. Where do I go for advice? There’s
plenty of it on the net. I could spend thousands on “guaranteed promotions” and
sell a couple of books. And whose fault would that be? It would be nobody’s
fault. So now I need to find a new angle: a new, different approach to my own,
old fashioned methods. I read yesterday of how successful one author had been
by promoting in places like Sweden (no Amazon there yet), Germany, Japan, India
among other places. I contacted a national newspaper in Nairobi in an effort to
promote my novel, Hell’s Gate. I
advertised in a Juneau newspaper about my Alaska novel, North Slope. I got nothing from either approach. But despite my
results, I still feel an anticipation building in me as I get closer to my next
novel’s release date. If I was a racehorse, I wouldn’t put any money on me to come
first. But what the hell: it isn’t unusual for an outsider to win. Wish me
luck!