Progress Two Ways.

Almost at the end of the month and my word count had reached 67000. By the end of the month I should have managed 70,000. But thereby hangs a dilemma: I’m making such good progress that there’s a danger I might go over my projected target of 100,000. It might seem silly to say that, but my publisher usually wants between 60 – 100 thousand words. That would mean either a rejection or a suggestion that the novel be cut. Like most writers, having penned all those words over a long period and then re-edited, the last thing I want is to have to cut again. Stephen King said that the second draft should be the first draft minus 10%. It might be tongue in cheek advice, but could be necessary nonetheless. I know where I’m heading with this book and have resolved one or two sticky problems that I have to face — well, that my characters have to face — and I can see that I’m in danger of over-running. I could look at it like a football manager who says he’s happy to have too many good players to choose from; he’d rather that than not have enough players. I’m also looking at a way of improving my promotion methods. It’s all a bit crazy at the moment, but I see positive movement in my rankings followed by drops, then a surge again, and I realise that I am not keeping my eye on the ball. I currently have three of my titles outperforming the others (seven with AB.c), but only two of them have been promoted very recently. The third was promoted over four weeks ago, so maybe that’s a knock-on effect. I would like to think that readers like my work and download my other titles. I am also picking up moderate reviews (17 to date) bringing me an average for one title of four stars; this is for a title that hasn’t been promoted for a while. So I am going to devise a plan (like Baldrick in Black Adder, I have a cunning plan) that tells me which titles to promote, where and when. Oh, and how much to spend! One thing I have admitted too is that I don’t have much of a clue when it comes to promoting myself, but there’s nothing like stumbling along to help climb the learning curve. One of my colleagues on Acclaimed Books (Peter Lihou) has marketing in his blood and seems to be doing quite well with his titles. But budgets come into it as well, and I try to stick to a percentage of my royalty income which at the moment is quite small. But I have to remember that this is a hobby and as much as I would like to make a huge success of it, I won’t break the bank trying. Besides, there are more important things in life. Wish me luck!

I've been away!

For some reason, and I don't know why, none of my blog posts have reached this blog. I need to keep an eye on it. Anyway, for those stalwarts among you who look in on my blog from time to time, here is my last post from August 19th................................ I’ve seen various articles recently about the rise and fall of the e-book, and the return to the top of the pyramid of traditionally published books. Each article presents a reasonable and credible discussion on the merits of each process, and for indie authors of a nervous disposition it means the end is nigh! Apart from the famous and the infamous, to be a successful writer you need a massive slice of luck, and there’s nothing truer than that old saying: luck is when opportunity and preparation come together. How often have you heard someone say that it’s taken them twenty or so years to become an overnight success? And one famous golfer said that the more he practices, the luckier he gets. Napoleon once said ‘I don’t want good generals, I want lucky generals’. But if the luck comes your way, you need to sustain it with a quality product, and for a writer that means talent. I can honestly say that I have never been taught to write: all that happened was that I studied English language from junior school up through senior school, which helped me with my spelling, my grammar and also, if ever I needed it, how to summarise. But probably the one thing that has been a constant guide and a hard learning curve has been rejection. That more than anything helps a writer to produce a story that might be acceptable to a publisher, but it doesn’t teach a writer to write. When my first book was published in 1980 (NORTH SLOPE), it sold 2000 copies in its first year. It didn’t go into paperback, and the following year my publisher dropped me. This was another rejection of course. I published that title last year on Amazon and sold something like 6000 copies in less than six months. But I was riding on the Amazon Kindle revolution which has dropped off dramatically now, and so have my sales. The luck was with me then and I hope it continues, but I have to admit that I’m still working on it, still writing and still trying to promote and market my work. So as the e-book market drops away and it is, believe me, I am back in a parallel, literary world to the one I have inhabited for most of the last thirty years, fighting for recognition. But the big guns are fighting back and restoring the publishing pyramid: big boys on top, bottom feeders at bottom. The difference now of course is that success is down to me and will come depending on how hard I work and how lucky I become. Wish me luck!

My latest guest blog at Jill Edmonson's blogspot.

Sasha Jackson Mysteries: What Makes an Author by guest blogger Michael Park...: What makes an author? And why so many?  By Guest Blogger Michael Parker When I look at other writers, they always seem to be succ...

Busy Times

The week zips by when you have a lot to do, but so does the day. This morning I took my wife to the doctor. Then I went up to our local hospital to chase up an appointment I needed but hadn’t received. Spent about an hour and a half in there and achieved little. Dash back home for a dental appointment, then a short break before my weekly snooker match with my mate, Ricardo. Now it’s early evening, I’m fed and watered and getting down to the business of writing my blog, a bit of keyboard practice and then an hour of ITV4’s highlights of the Tour de France. There, I managed all that without mentioning Andy Murray and the British Lions. Definitely a good weekend to be British. Pity Lewis Hamilton couldn’t contribute by winning the German F1 GP.

So what else have I been up to? I’ve added more words to my latest novel. I’m now up to 19500. I won’t be writing today though, but because I don’t stick to an average amount per day, I’m under no self-imposed pressure. The aim is to reach 100,000 words by the end of the year and hope my publisher likes it enough to make me an offer. Of course, in this day and age of indie publishing, if my MS is turned down I can at least publish it myself.

The eReader News Today (ENT) are posting my novel A COVERT WAR as a ‘Bargain Book of the Day’ today. That will be on for 24 hours. I think this is an excellent way, and not costly, to publicise my work and get my name further out into the public domain. The price has been dropped to $0.99, and that will be held there for perhaps a day longer than the promotion. I won’t know for a little while how well the book sold, but ENT usually contact me within a week asking for their money: a percentage of that day’s sales. Perhaps by next week I will know how well or badly I’ve done.

It’s difficult to know which is the best way to go to promote my books. If I wanted to spend a lot of money I could reach further out into the public domain, but that wouldn’t guarantee my books would sell. Although the process of building your name can be slow, once it has taken off, the overall affect could be dramatic. But in order to do that I would need to have good reviews and make the readers feel confident that in my books they will find the escapist entertainment that satisfies their quiet moments when all they want to do is to curl up with a good book. I hope I can do that. Wish me luck!

Cheques and Specs

Giveaways and New beginnings

Harrier Jump Jet

I did something during the week that I’ve rarely done before, and that was to enter a short story competition. I’m not a great believer in short stories because to me they are more or less like and extended joke with a punch line at the end. There’s very little room for all the artistic merits about building characters, drama, mystery etc., but I succumbed this time with a story of a flight I once took in a Harrier jump jet. I was fortunate enough in 1996 to be in the back seat of a Harrier GR7 with my son, Terry in the front seat. We flew from his base in Lincolnshire to Norfolk where we flew over my house. Then we did an about turn and went across country to Wales to fly through the valleys in a mesmerizing display of speed and consummate skill. (By my son: not me!). It was amazing to see the walls of the valleys flash by as we headed towards a dam on which we would be doing a simulated bombing run (probably the most ‘bombed’ dam in UK). It was incredibly exciting, and on the return trip across England I was allowed to take the controls. I flew the Harrier briefly and performed a barrel roll. The jet reacted like it was on rails. When we returned to the base where my wife was waiting with our three other sons, Terry did a fly-by and then put the Harrier through its amazing ability to hover and rise up and down like a lift. Before the sortie finished, Terry turned the aircraft towards his mum and dropped the nose in a bow. My wife said her heart was in her mouth as she watched the jet almost stand on its nose with her husband and son in the cockpit. It all ended well and afterwards I was presented with a framed, signed picture of the jet in which I flew. It was certainly an unforgettable day. The short story I’ve submitted is almost exactly how the sortie panned out except I have liberated the truth and added some spine tingling dog fighting in there. Whether the story, titled ‘SORTIE’ will win or not isn’t really important, but it has been gathering e-dust in my computer files and needed an airing. Wish me luck!

Webinar and spelling

It’s been quite a week one way or another. I finally managed to get on with some writing, or rather, catching up with what I had managed in the past. I’m putting together a kind of family saga, but with a difference. I’ll be running two stories in parallel; both of which are connected, but not that it’s entirely obvious from the outset. More astute readers may catch on early in the book, but I intend something of that nature to happen to all the readers as I will be dropping clues left right and centre. The story will not be a romance, per se, but will include elements of a thriller and a mystery (hopefully). I don’t know how long it will take me, but my track record says at least a year.

Readers of my blog will know that I try very hard not to read my reviews. I make a conscious effort to avoid them. But unfortunately I came across one yesterday, quite by accident in which the reviewer gave me a two star rating and a dressing down for spelling. The date of the review was June 7. It took me a little while to figure out how on earth I can be accused of poor spelling; something at which I am extremely competent. Then it occurred to me that the reviewer was almost certainly complaining about the English spellings of many of the words used in the book. Just a few lines up from here is the word ‘centre’. This is spelt correctly according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but the American word would be ‘center’. The review told me more about the reviewer than the book. I believe the majority of American readers accept the English spellings in much the same way as the majority of English readers accept the American spellings. Let’s face it: the story matters most, not whether centre should be spelt that way or the American way.

I sat in on a webinar last Saturday. It was a power point presentation given by Jim Kukral of the Author Marketing Club. It was a helpful presentation on how to sell more books on Amazon. I found it interesting and helpful. There were a couple of ideas which I will probably follow up (when I have time). But for now it’s back to my own version of promotion and marketing and how to sell more books on Amazon. Wish I knew!