It's all a bit of a puzzle

February 24^th. 2019

I’m almost ready to publish my pulp fiction thriller which I have titled HUNTED. I changed the title several times in my mind and each time got more and more doubtful about whether I’d ever come up with something suitable. I watched an eight minute video on Reedsy about choosing a title, but I’m afraid the lady was so far removed from my type of fiction, I knew I wasn’t going to get much out of her. So back to the drawing board and up came the title. I have paid for a cheap jacket from Fiverr.com. The sample jackets from the designer called Histart looked pretty good, so I’ve gone for the cheap, £25 option. That will give me the eBook, print and 3D versions. The jacket should be available once I’ve provided a photo and a bio. Hopefully I can accept what Histart has come up with. We’ll see.

I’m not making much headway with my book sales, so I’ve tweaked my AMS ad and my BookBub ad., which is for Past Imperfect, but it doesn’t seem to be working because my sales so far are for my other titles. I’ll wait another week and if the situation doesn’t improve I’ll bin the ad and spend money on my thrillers.

I became involved in a Facebook post about subscriber engagement the other day. I said my subs seemed only to be interested in anything free, because there is no real engagement with them. I was told it was probably because I was trying to sell them something. I pointed out that I hadn’t offered them the opportunity to buy one of my books for over a year, but had been giving them an occasional freebie. It comes down to how we interpret the advice we’re given about connecting with our subscribers. Nick Stephenson believes you shouldn’t be too ‘salesy’. But should offer snippets, talk about your characters, what drives you as a writer etc. I’ve also been advised not to contact subscribers too often because they’ll get fed up. So, what to do? I have six people reading HUNTED at the moment, which was the response I had when I asked for volunteer readers. I will send an email to my 1200 subs when the book is available on Amazon, but I won’t give it away. I’ll probably offer it at £0.99 for a week before banging the price up: see what happens.

On the domestic front, I’m taking Pat to St. George’s hospital in London tomorrow where she’ll be admitted for a procedure to determine the type of cancer she has. Last Monday, we spoke to the Cardiothoracic surgeon who will be doing the op. and he said Pat defies all medical logic; meaning they should have known by now what cancer it is. We can only hope and pray that this time the biopsy will be a success. She’ll be under a general anaesthetic for the op, but should be out by Thursday, maybe Friday.

I lived a couple of miles away from that hospital down the Garratt Lane when I was a kid. I told the surgeon I was in the hospital about 72 years ago. I might take a drive down the lane when I bring Pat home. The estate where I was brought up is the same estate where the current Mayor of London lived. Naturally this was years after my domicile there, and I’ve no doubt the ethnicity now is totally different.

It’s a bit of a puzzle; writing a thriller, deciding on a title and diagnosing Pat’s cancer, but I’m sure we’ll get there in the end. Once I’ve got this week out of the way (I’ll be travelling up to Tooting each day), and have Pat back home and settled, I might be able to pick up my current WiP and make headway with that. Wish me luck!

Joining the Rat Pack

February 16^th. 2019

I finished my blog last week by saying I had nothing in the pipeline apart from a local book talk, but now things have changed a little. My pulp fiction thriller was turned down by Mark Dawson, which is what I expected. He said the story line didn’t fit his character, John Milton. I knew that, so expected him to say no: now I can publish it myself, but the first thing I need to do is an edit. I did a rough one first, but now it needs a closer look. I thought it would be a good idea to get some beta readers, so I emailed my 1200 subscribers. I have received six requests so far. Not exactly a mad rush, but at least a response. I have asked them to let me have their opinions by the end of the month. I will also be toying around with Photoshop, but might use someone from Fiverr to do a jacket for me. We’ll see. If anyone reading this blog fancies reading my pulp fiction thriller as a beta reader, please get in touch through my website contact page. I will only use about ten readers though.

Now, why have I got a photo of a rat up there? That’s me as a ‘lab rat’. Yes, I’m going to explain. As you all probably know, I am a member of Mark Dawson’s group, and I am also a member of his Patreon group. As a gold member (at least $5 a month), I can throw my hat into the ring as a subject of interest in their ‘Book Lab’. Once a month they select a Patreon member and, using one of that member’s books, they do a kind of forensic analysis. Well, I got chosen (Yay!). The book going under the microscope will be The Boy from Berlin (their suggestion). The three scrutineers are all top line professionals in their game, so I expect to be told what I already know, and I’m not looking forward to it. No, that’s not true; I’ll be pleased to have my name and my book brought to the front of the class. There will be a final interview with James Blatch asking me about my reaction to the experts’ opinions. That interview is scheduled for release in April. So, I am now a quivering lab rat, hence the photo.

After sending my book to Mark Dawson, I dragged my WIP out of storage and began to do a complete rethink on the book. I began building a timeline that precedes the story, and then started going through it from page one. This was something I expected to be doing for a few weeks until I could build a plot line that could take me beyond the 60,000 word length. Currently the WIP is about 35,000 words long. I also decided to add another character to help with the plot. It’s an old mate of mine, Mick Brock. Mick used to be a policeman, but I knew him when we worked in the same food factory. I used Mick as a Detective Constable (with his permission of course) in my crime thriller, Where the Wicked Dwell. I promoted him to Detective Sergeant at the end of the book. Now I’m going to elevate him to Detective Inspector. He doesn’t know that yet, but I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.

On the domestic front, poor Pat is still waiting to hear what cancer she has. She had an MRI scan and an Ultra-sound scan last Tuesday, but the sound scan was discounted because there was nothing on the scan they could use. We’ll know more about the MRI scan next Monday or Tuesday, but it’s a cinch that Pat will need more tests. Poor girl is trying to keep her head up, but it’s difficult for her. I’m at sixes and sevens over this, but Pat wants me to stick with the writing: something to give me focus is what she says. Keep your fingers crossed and wish us both luck!

What a load of balls

February 10^th 2019

Just when you think you are making progress, life throws another brick at you, or a ‘curved ball’ as the Americans would say. Last Thursday, Pat was taken into hospital with a heart problem. After lengthy diagnoses including an angiogram, it turned out it wasn’t a heart attack, thank God, but a weakening of the heart caused by stress. Three months of waiting for a diagnosis on her cancer without a result has taken its toll on her. And we found out that the results of the bone marrow biopsy two weeks ago revealed nothing. We have an appointment with the Lung specialist tomorrow to decide where we go from here. Pat’s now on pills for a while.

All this minimises my own thoughts about books, writing and sales etc., although Pat has encouraged me to stick with it. As a result of that, I finally managed to finish my pulp fiction thriller — 55,000 words in six weeks. That, for me, was like a sprint. Where I usually take about a year to write a book, this short run has been a major learning curve for me: one that makes me realise that you can only really write junk in that short space of time. Research goes out the window, which means there is very little flesh on the bones of the story, and it’s easy to lose sight of the plot line; consequently you end up with a poor apology for a thriller. So when Mark Dawson says ‘Thanks, but no thanks’, I’ll be faced with the prospect of using the tag line that says something like — “Don’t let the facts get in the way of the thrills in this all action, gritty thriller!”. Boom, boom. You never know; I might sell thousands!

Now I have the writing out of the way for a while, I will have to dream up some advertising for my romance, Past Imperfect. I’ll miss Valentine’s day of course, unless I’m quick, which means burning the midnight oil sometime this afternoon if I’m to catch the romantics out there. I will also revive my AMS ads which have managed to drag out some sales for Roselli’s Gold. Not that many, I must admit, but enough to see the graph showing some colour.

Because of all the stuff that’s been going on over the last three months, I have neglected my current WIP, including my own promise to send out a clip of Natasha’s story each month to my subscribers. But judging by the open rates and the unsubs, I wonder if any of them out there have actually missed my monthly offering. No doubt I’ll send an email to them apologising for being so remiss, but then it means I have to get back on the writing treadmill and find some way of finishing the book.

Looking ahead, I have nothing in the pipeline apart from the book talk at the local Ladies’ Friendship Club on March 6th. My diary is clear as they say, which means I should be able to get on and write. Or maybe I should read a book. Wish me luck!

Making good use of my shovel

February 2^nd 2019

I can at last say I now have my romance, Past Imperfect, published as an eBook with me credited as the publisher. It took some time to get the holder of the eBook rights to return them to me, and after three years they sold precisely none. I already had the paperback available on Amazon, and sold a few, not many though; but now I have a chance to make the eBook more noticeable with some advertising. This is something I intend doing through BookBub ads, hoping to reach readers on Kobo, Apple, B&N etc. My current ads on AMS are producing sales of Roselli’s Gold, but still with a very poor ROI. I will let them run for another week, and if I see the sales have dropped off significantly, I’ll bin them and maybe push the Romance. I have high hopes for Past Imperfect, but it will only happen if I can target the right readers. I don’t think my current fans will appreciate the change of direction though. By the way, the link is https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07N8FCYPQhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07N8FCYPQ

I am almost at the end of my pulp fiction thriller. My target was 60,000 words, but it looks like I’ll have reached about 52,000 by the end, probably tomorrow. Once I’ve gone through it, I expect to push that up to my target. Next step will be to send it off to Mark Dawson. I don’t expect he’ll want to use it because I’ve drifted away from the plot lines he requires. However, there’s a piece of me that will be happy when/if he says no; after all, it’s a lot of work to simply hand it over (well, sell it), when I could add it to my growing list of titles. Some of you might wonder why I will still be offering it to him. Well, it was an agreement that we did it this way, and I intend honouring that.

There was a discussion on Mark Dawson’s group about one of his admin team leaving and starting her own FB ads. course. The questions raised were about who’s course is better, and what can one offer opposed to the other. This applies to all the numerous ‘courses’ out there. Mark said that the only people making money during a gold rush are those people selling the shovels. And he’s right of course; the on-line courses offering to turn us all into best-sellers are the one growth industry making money in today’s current publishing world. I see myself as a prospector having bought my shovel off Mark Dawson.

Looking ahead to the direction I’m going once I have finished the pulp fiction thriller, I expect, in a way, to return to my WIP, but I have to be prepared to set that aside as me and Pat get closer to when her treatment starts. She had a bone marrow biopsy last Monday, and the results are not expected for up to a fortnight. Hopefully they’ll be available next week and a decision can be made about her treatment. Having been through chemo myself, I know my free time could be seriously curtailed, and the thought of writing will not be the closest thing on my mind.

Next book event on the agenda for me is a talk at a local ‘Friendship Club’ in March. It’s all women. I have bought myself a personal microphone with a clip-on amplifier, just to make sure I’m heard. I might make their hearing aids screech, but hopefully they’ll just love my smooth talking and buy all my books. Wish me luck!