Wrapping it up

December 17th. 2016 Nearly there: just eight days to go. This will be my last post in 2016 for obvious reasons. So much to do, so much already done. Those of you who have been following my posts will know that I am getting close to finishing my novel. My wife is doing the final edit, which should be complete by the end of the day. I will read it through again and, hopefully, not find any more errors. Pat has found plenty of those already. I’m still deliberating over the book jacket, but expect to resolve this soon. My next problem is how I’m going to launch the book. I expect to send it out to some beta readers while I’m thinking about it, but I’m also toying with the idea of submitting it to Kindle Scout. If I do that I can expect to wait about seven weeks before I can publish, which will get me close to early March. Seems a long way away, but I need to push the boat out for this. Next year the CHINDI group will be looking ahead to improving our book sales and getting involved in charity events. Because we have a Company in the Community (CIC) established, it’s necessary to have directors. The company is non-profit making (by law), but it helps to move any money we make for the charities into and out of a bank account so that we can account for all monies received and distributed. I’m a director of the company along with three other members, and we’ll be having a meeting early January to brain storm our ideas for 2017. We have some events lined up, which we hope will pay dividends. I have a live interview in the programme with an American writer, Debbie Mack, and hope to be teaming up with other writers in my genre to do some cross promotions. There are so many ways to keep your name live in the public eye, but it usually comes down to how much of an investment you’re prepared to make and for how long. Looking back through the year I can at least say I have improved my public presence having built my subscriber list up to 1100. I also managed to sell about 5000 books, largely due to a successful BookBub promotion. Now I need to find some way of sustaining that. Meanwhile, let me wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. See you all in 2017.

Bits and Pieces

December 11th 2016 Do you ever read novels for a second time intentionally? About a third of the way into the Sam Bourne novel I started last week, I realised I read it a few years ago. It couldn’t have left that much of an impression on me. I sometimes read my own books again, often a few years after they have been published. I remember Barbara Cartland once saying she often read her own novels when she was feeling unwell and not in the mood for writing. Mind you, she had about three hundred titles to choose from! I’ve been toying with my jacket cover, trying this and that with Photoshop. I still can’t make up my mind just how I want to present the cover. I have two so far, and will begin a third jacket in a day or so. I could ask my boys for their opinions, but if I do that I can only expect saucy remarks from them. It all comes down to opinions in the end, so I’ll probably go with my own. The editing has reached a lull at the moment because of the usual Christmas work load: putting decorations up, shopping for presents, writing cards out and queueing at the Post Office. Hopefully it will be finished by the end of the month and I can ask a few beta readers to run their eyes over it. I’m a bit reluctant to ask my subscribers because I may get inundated with offers to read it, and I’m hoping to rely on them buying it on launch day. I don’t know if it’s my age or what, but I find myself doubting the quality of my current work. I remember my publisher, John Hale, telling me that as authors age, so their ability diminishes. So far I have always received good comments about my books and my reviews maintain a reasonable average, but the doubts are there. Silly really, but maybe it’s because I have struggled with this one. And maybe because it isn’t the kind of novel I write. Time will tell though. Looking back over the year with CHINDI, we have managed to raise money for charities — over £1000 I believe — most of it raised through bookstalls etc. Next year we have a few events planned, most which will run current with the Chichester Festival — always a good time to attract readers and wannabe authors. We lost a few members over the year, thankfully for personal reasons rather than ill health, but we are already planning for next year’s events. Two weeks from today and it will be Christmas Day and we’ll all be nice to one another for a while. Hopefully we can look ahead to a peaceful New Year all over the world, but that really is wishful thinking. From a personal perspective I hope I can manage another novel, but I have kind of promised myself to finish my autobiography. I published a short version last year called The Sum of my Life (The early years). Now I hope I can extend it to completion as well as write another book. Two in one year? Wish me luck!

Infections, corrections and displacements.

December 3rd. 2016. Regular readers of my weekly blog may have noticed that I missed a week. That was because I got laid low by an infection that seriously impeded my work-flow. But I’m back in harness now and making good progress on my manuscript. I tried to get a little more reading in while I was poorly. I’m afraid I didn’t make it through to the end of Jack Reacher; it became tedious. I’ve started on a Sam Bourne novel now. Hope this one is more engaging. I had a book promotion last week — sold nine books. The return on the cost of the promotion is difficult to quantify or even justify, but fortunately I didn’t pay much for it. I’ve been avoiding all the adverts for Black Friday and whatever they call Monday. I can’t see the point because if you respond to these enticements, it kind of propels you into unplanned promotion that could be useless. No, I’m gritting my teeth and will hold on to my money until early next year when my next book will be ready. At the moment my wife is going through the manuscript with her red pen, and I am playing around with Photoshop and learning about ‘displacements’. Brilliant stuff, but may be a bit too technical for me. I enjoy playing around with it though. I came up with a title for my book eventually. I’m not going to say what it is yet, but it came out of the blue. Once it had settled in my brain, it became permanent. This is one of the reasons I’m learning about displacements on Photoshop: to match the cover design with the title. Last week I joined up with the Dream Team Network. This is a group of writers who are part of Nick Stephenson’s 10,000 reader group. It’s a closed group. The idea is to cross promote other writers who work in your genre. It’s going to be difficult to match up with a writer who covers several genres like myself. But more importantly, there’s a need to ensure cooperation with a writer who can offer a similar fan base of subscribers. I have 1100 subscribers, so it would be wrong to team up with a new writer who has one book, no reviews and no fan base. I was asked by one of our group if we could come up with something, but I realised it wouldn’t work. Another problem with cross promotion is how much you trust the other writer. I have to ask myself if I would promote someone whose work I haven’t read. And it’s reciprocal as well: that other writer has to trust me. I’ll have to go with my gut instinct, see how it pans out. On the domestic front, my wife has just de-knotted our Cockapoo, Tuppence, and given me a haircut. Now me and the dog look tidy enough to go out. Life doesn’t get any better, does it? Wish me luck.