Looking at fact from fiction

July 30th. 2017 I made another small step forward in my WIP: managed to write up a ‘mystery’ flight into the Negev desert. Now I don’t know what to do or where to go with this. It isn’t too bad a problem because although I now have to figure out how to resolve it; if I can do that, the reader will probably think I’m really clever. I know of one author, Helen Macinnes, when asked how she managed to get her characters out of the impossible situations they got themselves into, she said she put them there so had to figure a way out. She was a best-selling crime writer who died over thirty years ago. I did some work on my website, trying to improve the way I present some of the pages. I’ve redesigned a couple that are hidden from the main menu, hopefully making it easier for those who visit my site. Although my rate of progress with this is quite slow, I do hope eventually to have something a little more professional looking. I’ve been looking into Facebook advertising again. I have a promotion coming up during August and need to support it with other social media efforts. I will also look at EReaderNewsToday (ENT), plus others that have been recommended to defray the cost. My book sales have just about flat-lined this month. I’m hoping it’s because readers are spending more time out of doors at BBQs, at the beach, on holiday and other such pursuits where there isn’t much time, or the desire, to be stuck in a book. I just hope August proves to be different, which means I’ll have to be a “glass half-full” optimist. Earlier this week we went to see the film, Dunkirk. Enjoyed it immensely. Bit noisy though, and with hearing aids it practically blew my ears off. When I think of what those men and women had to put up with, it makes my problem with book sales and marketing pale into insignificance. I also watched the film, American Sniper, on Amazon last night. If you haven’t seen the film, and know nothing about the sniper Chris Kyle, I suggest you Google it first before you watch it. I thought it was fiction until I saw the caption as the credits rolled. Yesterday we travelled up to Baldock, north of London to pick up a friend of ours. She will be staying with us for a week. The traffic was horrendous, and while I was crawling along the motorways etc., I thought about the government’s plan to ban all petrol and diesel cars from the roads by 2040. Something tells me that the government are talking themselves into an impossible position which they will have to sort out just like my fictionalised plane trip into the Negev desert. Wish them luck!

Inquest of the Vanities

July 22nd. 2017 A friend of mine asked me to comment on a publishing contract he had been offered with a Vanity publisher. I don’t like using the word “Vanity”, because there are a lot of wannabe writers who have no idea how to self-publish a book using Amazon, or other on-line companies such as Lulu.com, and perhaps feel compelled to go down the vanity route. I prefer to call it “Assisted” publishing. Anyway, my friend was asked to pay £2300 to get his book into print. I warned him against it, but agreed to put the question to my author groups on Facebook. I was overwhelmed with the response — well over 200 comments, all advising against the deal. There were a few cheeky comments offering their services, but I suppose that was to be expected. When I had my first book published by Macmillan almost forty years ago, I was a complete novice and also very naïve about the book business. In fact I didn’t have a clue, and I think it was my naïveté that prevented me from making a career out of writing. I did contact a Vanity publisher a couple of years after my book had been published, and it was obvious I was going nowhere. I was asked to pay $5000 for the privilege (American company). Of course, the company offered to finance the deal for me at very generous terms. It was a non-starter anyway, but I had my curiosity satisfied and that was the end of my attempts at making it in the book world. But if I could replay that scenario over again in the present climate, I know there would be a whole host of experts out there willing to help me, at a price, to make a success of my work. It wouldn’t be too difficult to cough up £2300 and still not find success though. So I don’t blame people for seeking out vanity publishers, although, like my friend, it is sensible to seek advice first and save yourself a lot of heartache. I pressed on with my Conor Lenihan ‘revival’ during the week. I’m still trying to come up with a plot line that will give me the impact I achieved with Conor’s first escapade in The Eagle’s Covenant. I need to achieve a dramatic arc that will lift the reader’s expectations to a high level, but it seems too distant at the moment. I often find myself looking for inspiration when reading the newspaper, or watching dramas on TV. I have to say, though, that the scripts produced in a lot of TV and Film crime dramas I’ve seen recently would never find room in one of my books because they are so thin. My wife and I have just finished watching Pride & Prejudice: the six-part BBC TV production of Jane Austen’s book. The script was written by Andrew Davies. I found myself wishing I could write as cleverly as Mr. Davies. But those kinds of productions are put together by some very clever people, and I guess I’m no match for those, so its back to the ‘smash and grab’ production line of my thriller journey. Networking is an essential part of business, in whatever form. Mine is through connecting up with other writers and finding publicity (free) on their respective websites. The latest is on Jessie Cahalin’s website: Books in my handbag (http://jessiecahalin.com/handbag-gallery/) I put A Dangerous Game in my wife’s backpack (I don’t have a handbag!), and Jessie has included it for me. I have also agreed to take part in a box-set deal with Mike Stop. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, and this week I received confirmation from Mike that the planned box-set deal should be available on line in October. It’s an unusual promotion in that it is for stand-alone novels only. It makes sense for me to participate because, as you all probably know, I am a stand-alone writer. In fact, in a recent survey conducted by BookBub and published earlier this week, it seems that over 70% of ebook readers go for the series books as opposed to just over 20% who go for the stand-alone books. It’s food for thought. Our Chindi authors http://chindi-authors.co.uk are getting ready for the Arundel Festival which starts August 19th. in the historic town of Arundel in West Sussex. We will be supporting the Cancer UK charity and donating a percentage of our book sales. It was a tremendous success for us last year, not that we all sold a ton of books, but collectively we were able to give the charity a decent gift for their invaluable work. On the domestic front, there’s a social evening tonight down at the village hall: bingo and fish & chips. I don’t like bingo but have little choice. It’s the fish & chips that sell it though. Now there’s a thought — prizes for buying my books. Can you get a fish & chip voucher for Amazon? You never know. Wish me luck!

Dogged Tales and Doggy Tales

I’ve spent a little more time this past week thinking about writing and promotion, more of the former than the latter though. I pressed on with my Conor Lenihan revival story and reached a point where I managed to come up with three complications in Joanna’s life. I got Conor into her room once she was in bed asleep. Joanna was terrified at first but soon relaxed when she realised Conor was not going to hurt her. Having come up with these three complications, I have given myself something of a conundrum: which way do I go? Should be fun. I’ll let you know if I do go along with this. The promotion puzzle is a little different because it brings up the old nutmeg about giving books away. The early promotion this month that I mentioned in last week’s blog, resulted in 67 subscribers among 551 downloads. It makes me realise that us indie authors are just like the local libraries: we let people read our books for nothing. If I thought the people who downloaded my book were likely to buy my other titles, I would be happy; but there’s no guarantee, so I have to go along with it, which is why I have been thinking about the best way to go for promotion. I’m still waiting for a reply from BookBub, and there has been no word from Andrea Lundgren about reviewing Hell’s Gate. But I did cast some doubt on that last week. I read Joanna Penn’s excellent ebook on marketing. Naturally I have done it all, but nowhere near as successfully as Joanna. And I watched a webinar featuring Bryan Cohen talking about improving your Amazon sales page. I checked one of my sales pages: it looked fine to me, but from Mr. Cohen’s perspective, I guess he would say “it sucks!”. I’ve heard nothing from Mark Stop about the box set submission, although I guess it’s a little early for a reply because he has to read the book before he makes a decision. Oh, I am reading something: This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti. It’s about the end times based on the Book of Revelations. Scary stuff, and well written. It’s a big book — No.1 in the series, so may take me some time to wade through it. Know what it’s like to be a proud parent? Well, in this case, a proud dog owner. We took our Cockapoo, Tuppence, along to the local fund raising event for the Parish Church. They had a dog show, which they do every year. Our Tuppence came second in the adult dog category. We were as pleased as Punch. Only second though? No matter; we didn’t expect to win anything. Mind you, I don’t know what I’m going to do with the prizes we won, give them to the dog I suppose. No-one ever remembers who came second, but I would love to be second in the Amazon best sellers list. One day maybe. Wish me luck.

Unremarkably remakable

July 9th. 2017 Little change of plan last week: not unsurprising in a writer’s life I suppose. I gave up on the idea of resurrecting the old manuscript I’d written over forty years ago. It didn’t take long before the truth sunk in and I had to concede defeat. But I have revisited the Conor Lenihan revival — working title is The Prokura — and have added a few more ideas to the story. I’ve also had a slight change of tactic in that I am writing an essential episode in the story that needs to be inserted some way ahead from where I am at the moment. Once I have completed that as a single Word doc., I will probably file it with Scrivener until my story line catches up with it. One stumbling block I had to overcome was to get my main character, Conor Lenihan, into Joanna’s house without anyone knowing. Anyone who has read The Eagle’s Covenant will know that the house is well protected by security alarms and monitors: it would be impossible for Conor to gain entry unobserved. I could have fallen back on a weak practice that I find appalling when used in some thrillers I’ve read, namely making the hero so clever that locked and alarmed doors are no obstacle: “Gaining entry into the house was no problem for a man of Conor’s ability, and he was soon inside.” I came up with the answer when I was out walking the dog with Pat. I challenged her (Pat, not the dog!), to come up with a solution, but she failed miserably. And then the answer dropped into my head. No, I’m not going to say how Conor does it, but it’s legit! I have had a book promotion running all week with L.H.Thomson. So far I have given away 67 free copies of Where the Wicked Dwell. The promotion ends today, so I’ll probably move past 70 copies. If half of those who downloaded the book enjoy my work enough, I can look forward to a small bump in sales. On the subject of sales, I believe this time of the year is a period of doldrums. If no-one else is experiencing this, then I must be a lone sailor on a flat calm, windless ocean. It has probably got something to do with people spending more time out of doors on activities that do not include reading. The lighter nights may mean that people spend a little more time out socialising and the like, which leaves little time for books, particularly mine. But I’m not giving up. I’ve submitted a book to BookBub which will almost certainly be rejected; it has 5 reviews (5 stars!) which doesn’t bode well really, but this is where positive thinking comes into play: if I’m prepared to fork out a large sum on a one day advert, then perhaps the minor websites might not look so expensive. I’ve already started looking as a consequence of reading Joanna Penn’s marketing strategies. I don’t have her kind of money, nor the big staff she has working for her, but I can try. Another stab in the dark was to submit my novel Hell’s Gate to the book reviewer, Andrea Lundgren. I haven’t heard anything yet, and don’t expect to because of the number of submissions she receives. Curiously she only wanted the title of the book, its genre and my email address, so it doesn’t look as though she’ll be too serious about this. I submitted another title, North Slope to a writer named Mark Stop. This is to be included in a boxset he is compiling. The idea is to promote the set for six months and share the royalties. If it works! On the domestic front, I had the good news that my six-monthly cancer check-up has resulted in the all clear. The specialist said, after examining my bits and bobs and diagnosing the blood tests results, that he found me “unremarkable, which is a compliment”. Good news then, and hopefully I’ll be staying clear of all the gremlins, both in body and soul. Wish me luck!

Fun and Games

July 2nd. 2017 Promotions can be a pain in the ‘A’, but we have to do it. I’ve had to give a lot of thought about this subject, particularly when it comes to the amount of work involved giving away free books. There has been a discussion recently on the merits of giving away our precious books for nothing, which I have to concede is a fair comment. I hate doing it but feel there is no other way, short of expensive advertising, to get my work out there in the eye of the readers. And I’ve been doing that for about six years now. There’s no way of working out just how valuable the ‘free’ way is, but I do know that paying out good money has not always resulted in exceptional sales — BookBub notwithstanding. So I’ve started paying out again as well as going along the freebie route. Currently you can download a host of free books, including one of mine at http://deathbytyping.com/thrillers-killers-and-chillers-24-free-books-from-instafreebie/. I began knocking my ancient manuscript into shape a couple of weeks ago. It was painful reading through the novel I penned about fifty years ago and trying to bring it up to date. It was much easier when we didn’t have mobile phones, computers, Wi-Fi and a whole panoply of gizmos that the thriller writer could use to whisk the hero through one death defying encounter and another. I could always write historical novels, I suppose, but that would be a cop-out. So where am I with my book? It’s called The Perforated Edge, and will probably keep that title all the way through. I did think of Sentient, but to tell you why would be giving the game away. If I can make sensible progress, I could have it finished by the end of the year. I did think of maybe using it as a short novel, a novella, but I’ve never really been keen on them. Our Chindi group’s involvement with the Chichester Festival finished last Saturday with a wine and words quiz. I joined in, but my knowledge of wine is about a micron above zero, so I was of very little help to my team. The Shakespeare quiz revealed the fact that the Bard never really figured in my life, apart from a few beers at the Black Swan opposite the Shakespeare theatre in Stratford upon Avon. And oh what a poor showing for the ‘Authors’ quiz. But it all came good in the end; my team, three of us, came second. It was a good evening’s entertainment; we raised almost £90 for the Dyslexia in Action charity, and I managed to have one of my books picked out for a prize (any three books showing on the display stand). What lies ahead? Well. Some training with the Nick Stephenson’s videos; reading up on the secrets of marketing by Joanna Penn, and a toe in the water Facebook ad, see what I can come up with. Wish me luck!