Between Books

May 26^th. 2019

It’s been quite a week for me because of having Pat in hospital. Worse for Pat because of the major op they performed on her lung. Her recovery isn’t going too well and I don’t expect her to come home until tomorrow. I haven’t touched my writing this week but have managed a fair bit of reading because of spending five hours each day sitting by Pat’s bedside. When she’s sleeping I can read. My ‘free’ time is four hours in the car going up to London and back each day, so no writing; only lots of thinking. Anyway, I finished reading one book and started another, and the contrast between the two simply highlights the gulf between gifted writers and those who are not so gifted but still sell.

The book I finished was An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris. It’s about Alfred Dreyfus who was imprisoned on Devil’s Island by the French after an illegal trial and trumped up charges. The writing is superb and so well researched it was almost exhausting just reading the credits and how many documents and accounts Harris read in order to come up with a stunning classic. Brilliant writer who leaves many of us hopefuls standing.

The next book I started is a complete contrast. It’s called Code Black by Alex Shaw. I met Alex at the UK Southern Book Show last year. He wasn’t exhibiting but was in UK (I think he was at Worthing) and we got chatting, naturally. He is under contract with Harper Collins digital publishers. Alex writes the usual all action stuff: ex SAS soldier, Russians gangs etc., etc. It’s a kind of pulp fiction fare for a train or plane journey; easily read and filled with the usual jargon you would expect from this kind of book. But Alex has a good and creditable CV, so probably has a big fan base, and you can’t knock it. He lives in the Ukraine too, where he probably picks up a lot of intel on old Soviet matters. But two completely contrasting books and authors.

Where would I put myself in this company I wonder? Well, somewhere between the middle I guess. To give you some idea, this is an extract from an email I received from an unknown source via my blog post on Blogger.

I found you through the SPF Booklab podcast and thought you were wonderfully gracious about the dissection of your prologue and blurb. I don't take criticism well and would have fallen apart. I will be reading your book The Boy from Berlin - the new prologue is fantastic and raises lots of story questions. I was sad to hear about your wife's cancer and operation - will be praying for her recovery. The worries and stresses of the world certainly keep me from writing and any other creative pursuit. I know I should trust more but I'm not perfect yet. Go easy on yourself in this difficult time. May God bless you both. You're a great writer and I'm pleased to have found you. Prayers and best wishes from Victoria in Australia. 

Naturally I want to thank the ‘Unknown’ person for that, but it came via a ‘no reply’ address. So if you’re reading this Mr. or Mrs. Unknown, thank you for your lovely words.

That’s my lot for this post. Hopefully I’ll have Pat back home tomorrow. We have an appointment with the surgeon at our local hospital in June. With luck he will have the results of the biopsies, which have gone to three London hospitals (again!) and be able to tell us what the next, positive step will be. Wish us luck!

Rocky road

May 18^th. 2019

I thought I might make some progress this week on my WIP and reach a point where I could begin editing and reshaping, but it wasn’t to be. We were called in to the hospital on Monday for a chat with the surgeon from St. George’s hospital in London to explain to Pat how he intends to operate on her tumour next week. So that put a spoke in the wheel in more ways than one. I did manage to get to my book briefly but only managed 500 words. It’s disappointing from a target perspective, but means nothing compared to what Pat is going through. Had family here yesterday (Saturday): three sons, two grandchildren (both adults), and one daughter-in-law. Cheered Pat up enormously.

I tried my luck with some ads on AMS and BB. I knew when I created the campaigns that my mind wasn’t focussed enough and as a result I only sold three copies of my book, The Boy from Berlin. I might have another go next week but I’ll be travelling up to London each day to see Pat, so it’s unlikely I’ll worry too much about the ads. Incidentally, when I created the BB campaign and went searching for a target author, I came across my name (my photo) and have been credited with over 14,000 readers. I think that must be a result of my previous featured deals with BB. On my dashboard I am only credited with 192 followers.

I have mentioned in my earlier blog posts that I believe the Indie world has metamorphosed into a replica of traditional publishing, and the more I see interviews or FB posts with other ‘successful’ authors, the more I’m convinced that the bottom feeders are being squeezed out. Just this week there has been a change in the way Mail Chimp will be pricing it’s service by including all those who have unsubscribed from your list of subscribers, and will be charging accordingly. This is to prevent authors keeping their subscriber lists below 2000, which is free, which can be done by automation, a service Mail Chimp provided as part of their free package. I have seen FB posts of disgruntled writers now planning to switch. The biggest of those is David Gaughran who had been a champion of Mail Chimp for eight years.

And it’s the same with us being priced out of the market by AMS and BB. I saw a featured deal on BB last week for Zane Grey, author of many Westerns. I remember my brother-in-law used to devour his books when I was a teenager. As far as I know, Zane Grey has been dead for donkey’s years, so I suppose the owners of his estate feel it worthwhile spending upwards of $600 on a featured deal. And these daily emails from BB often include NYT and Sunday Times best-selling authors.

Getting back to the hospital visits; I’ll be taking Pat in on Monday, operation Tuesday and then probably six or seven days before she’ll be allowed home. I’ll be going up to London each day of course, so no time for writing. It’s a major op on her lung, so recovery time will be quite long. All this to try and identify a cancer that has remained hidden for seven months now. Once they have nailed it, Pat will probably be on chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

Last Monday I posted my romance, Past Imperfect, off to the book reviewer I mentioned in my blog post last week. She has not promised to read it, but will try. Hopefully she’ll love it and kick start my career in another direction. Who knows? Wish me luck.

Feeling grumpy

May 11^th. 2019

After the initial flush of Book Lab 5, I’m back to normal. Had a couple of comments from members of the SPF Facebook group saying how they enjoyed the video. One guy said I had balls of steel to go through the process, which I can assure you is not true, but it does make you feel rather exposed. I’ve rewritten the prologue and uploaded the new file and blurb. It remains to be seen if that will have any effect. I have two BB ads running with two different authors as targets — Robert Harris and Jeffery Archer. Needless to say there are no results. Tomorrow I will change those two; see what happens. I also started a short campaign on AMS but, surprise, surprise, the campaign doesn’t appear on my AMS account dashboard even though I had an acknowledgement from Amazon confirming the ad. I contacted them and was told to sign out of my account and sign in again, then my ad would be seen. But that didn’t work so it’s back to Amazon. I wouldn’t mind if this was my first attempt, but I’ve been using AMS ads for some time.

I got stuck into my WIP this week and made reasonable progress. Trouble is, I keep coming up with small changes that mean I have to go back in the story and drop something in. It’s fine doing that so long as you remember to reveal all this at the end. I got interrupted at one stage, and when I got back to the computer, I had the beginning of a paragraph in front of me and couldn’t remember what I was about to write.

Some of you who read my blog will know that I published a romance, Past Imperfect. I haven’t sold any but it’s not for the want of trying. I decided to ask the question on Facebook about selling a romance as a thriller writer. I got the usual advice; all of which I’d tried, so in the end I contacted some book reviewers who blog regularly. I sent off five emails and received two replies. One said she had something like 900 books on her BTR list (!!), so couldn’t accept mine. Another blogger had a very definite review policy for which I didn’t qualify. She sent a very nice email suggesting I send the book though (no ebooks) and she would try to fit me in. Hopefully she’ll open the book when it arrives, just as a quick check, and won’t be able to put it down. That would be good, eh? I’ve got about another 25 bloggers to contact, which I’ll do as and when.

My week has also revolved around appointments for me and my two girls: Pat and Tuppence. The dog needed an annual check on Monday; I needed a hearing check on Thursday and Pat had to see the doc on Friday. The major event though was a call from the specialist at the hospital to say Pat’s PET scan showed little had changed since the last one except that her tumour had grown. It seems now that the next step is to have the thing removed. They still don’t know what cancer she has and believe this might help. It looks like another trip to St. Georges in London. Pat’s very unhappy about that, but it’s something we have to deal with. We should know when by Monday or Tuesday.

I have to admit that as I struggle to come to terms with Pat’s condition and trying to find the time to write (I’m basically Pat’s carer), and also seeing the feeble results in my book world, I think of giving it up (my writing). No doubt people will say I have to keep going, but alongside Pat’s struggle, I can see less and less value in it; the determination is difficult to find. Hopefully we’ll turn the corner. Wish me luck!

Time now to fill the gaps

May 4^th. 2019

At last the Book Lab 5 video has been released by SPF. The subject matter is my book, The Boy from Berlin. It’s two hours long and I appear on the last twenty minutes. The three professionals do a pretty good job of analysing my blurb, the jacket and my intro, and leave me with the task of implementing their suggestions and getting more sales. You can find it on You Tube, and if you don’t want to see what the professionals have to say, you can see my reaction to it all at about 1:40 into the two hour tape. The link is https://youtu.be/KskP9KyQaoA. This really is a major event in my indie career because I was chosen for the Book Lab by Mark Dawson, one of Amazon’s top writers, and someone who is well known in the industry and connects with influential people in the indie book world. It’s up to me now to make something of the recommendations and promote the book. In the next few days I will re-write the prologue and use the blurb provided by Bryan Cohen before uploading the revised version. I can’t change the book jacket until July time because Stuart Bache can’t fit me in before then. It will be after that when I might see some positive results from these changes.

I did manage to get some work done on my WIP, despite a couple of major interruptions during the week. I am getting close to seeing the final run in and, hopefully, will be ready to do a complete edit by the end of the month. But even though I’ve been digging away at the WIP, I have also been ruminating on my next pulp fiction thriller. I have been laying the ground for a plot line which sees my main character deep inside Russia, a thousand miles from Moscow and entirely on his own — no support from UK. Pat asked me what I meant by “Pulp fiction”. I had to say it was a phrase coined years ago which alluded to books that were turned out largely by ghost writers writing for a major publishing house. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, but for me, pulp fiction means ignoring the facts and piling up the thrills, just to excite the reader. When I published HUNTED (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07P9MQYCK), I had no illusions about the quality of the book, but I had two brilliant comments about it and one five star review (from a stranger): something I didn’t expect.

Another improvement in my book world is a steadily increasing list of subscribers. This is almost certainly down to the fact that readers are downloading my magnet book The Devil’s Trinity. I’m not a fan of free books, but needs must when the devil drives (no, that’s not a pun). This means I will have to ‘engage’ with these new people and try to interest them in something once a month in a newsletter; something I do not normally do. It’s tricky to know what to put in it when there’s nothing to offer, other than the contents of my regular blog. But subscribers usually want more books I presume, rather than a chatty diatribe from the author.

The interruptions that came during the week were both medical. Pat was called in for a PET scan — twenty four hours’ notice, which was good. So on Wednesday we were tied up at the hospital for some time. The following day, Thursday, I had three teeth out. This was a referral by my dentist to specialist. I have to say that there is no finesse in extracting teeth; no cosy, state of the art pulling: it’s brute force and a lot of work getting them out. And the teeth never come out in one piece either. Thank goodness for anaesthetics, but I still felt like I been smacked in the jaw with a shovel. I will need dentures, but have to wait three months for those. So, not only have I been subjected to forensic analysis as a Lab Rat, I have also been subjected to another expert and forced to eat my food like a rabbit! Some good will come of all this, I’m sure. Wish me luck!