Points of View

May 28th. 2016 Progress on my current novel is slow at the moment, giving me all sorts of problems, but at least they are self-inflicted. I’m in a kind of quandary about the way in which to develop the story. When I look at my other books, I see action and adventure, thrills and spills and one romance. Now I seem to have drifted into a kind of Dick Francis state of mind, and I’ve no wish to emulate that man — not that I could. I do remember during one interview I did some years ago that I said a writer should be able to write on any subject. Whether it would be any good or not is open to question, but the task should not be beyond a good author. So here I am being hoist with my own petard and struggling to write a convincing mystery. My promotion for The Devil’s Trinity has not achieved any significant sales in the last three weeks of the Twitter campaign. Compared to Roselli’s Gold, it hasn’t performed at all. It will still be listed on the promoter’s website until the end of the contracted period, but I doubt if it will have any impact now; the Twitter campaign is finished. Next month I’ll probably look at other ways of spending my money on advertising: it’s just a question of hitting the right one. I had a submission rejected by BookBub, but have put The Eagle’s Covenant up, see what happens. It’s unlikely to be accepted because the story takes place in Germany, which is not of much interest to the American market. My local book group, CHINDI, are preparing a “Summer Reads” promotion. This will be a week of tweets, FB posts, e-mails and just about anything we can do to make ourselves heard. The idea is to sell our printed books from our bookshop at a discounted price including P&P. The books will be signed and posted by each author. The week for the promotion is June 21st – June 26th. The campaign for this begins next week, and it’s up to us to push it as hard as we can. The irony is though that if we are too successful, each author will be saddled with the prospect of sending a mountain of books out. It would mean a few trips to the local post office. It will be on our website soon. http://www.chindi-authors.co.uk I did something earlier this week that I rarely do and that was to read a couple of one star reviews I received for one of my titles in Canada. I actually smiled while I was reading the criticism. I get the impression that some reviewers set out to be critical, nasty and dedicated to the role of putting writers in their places. At the end of these two reviews I expected to see marks out of ten, just like a poor exam paper. But never mind; I’ve had a host of terrific reviews for the same title. On the domestic front we have made some advances with the puppy. She’s getting cleaner and developing a bit of a character. She has been out to get used to people and traffic noises, and some more, wide open spaces. Still boisterous though, but a good girl. Last night we went to see the musical Hairspray. Pat enjoyed it, but I’m afraid my hearing doesn’t lend itself to the kind of production we watched. It was at our local theatre, which was packed. The cast worked hard, gave an honest performance. But I sat there for a while almost like one of those measly book reviewers I mentioned earlier. Then I snapped out of it; the musical was presented with all that was available, and there were far more people enjoying it than me. Mustn’t grumble. Now it’s back to work for another masterpiece. Wish me luck!

Big Oak Trees From Little Acorns Grow

May 21st. 2016 A mixed but busy week for me; I’m still writing and have reached about 18000 words. I keep getting writer’s block though which doesn’t help. I search around in my head for situations that leave a question mark over the end of a chapter or scene, and then find myself writing in my head and forgetting where I was going with the story. I have a character who is pushing for a bigger part. Sounds daft? Ask most writers if their characters do this for them, and I’m sure they’ll agree. This guy is called Blazer. He’s black, tall, good looking and likes to use ethnic slang when he’s talking to Vereen, the female ‘lead’. She’s black too. But I’ve got to keep Blazer in the background. I can’t say why because it would be a spoiler, but he will come good in the end. Meanwhile I have my other main man, Marcus, up to his neck in bodies and police and needs to find a way out. Unfortunately his other lady friend, Bunty (Vereen is his secretary), has muddied the water by involving someone who is distinctly unfriendly. The other creep in this story is Toby Abelard, a Haitian nightclub owner. Needless to say, he will figure big in the outcome, but I’m still light years away from filling in all the gaps. My book sales have steadied, and my rankings are not plummeting. They are going down, but I get small lifts in the graph. And I was pleasantly surprised to see half a dozen sales with CreateSpace, which means readers are buying my paperbacks. Not many, but it’s a start. I also had a tiny credit from Ingram Spark. And this month my Amazon royalties are coming from six different countries. Meanwhile my book, The Devil’s Trinity, is being heavily promoted by BooksGoSocial. The url they are tweeting (smarturl.it/tdet ) puts the inquiry straight to the Amazon page of that country. It’s a neat idea: saves a lot of clicking. I also had a small promotion yesterday with them for A Dangerous Game. I have no idea yet how effective that was, but no doubt the next day or so will tell me. On the home front it has been more about the puppy. She had her 2nd. Jab on Monday. On Wednesday we took her to puppy training (more for the owners than the dogs), and today she went out for her first walk. Not far, though — across to the shop. But for a little dog, the traffic and the people was all a bit confusing. We had to pick her up for a while. Naturally she’ll get used to all that and it won’t be long before she’s demanding to be taken out. Today is our sister-in-law, Carole’s 60th. birthday bash at a gastro pub. She’s paying! And today I had a pre-assessment at the eye hospital for an op. in two weeks’ time. So all in all, a lot done and more to look forward to. Wish me luck!

Making Progress with Tales and tails

May 14th. 2016 I’m still managing to keep my head above water in the book sales stakes, but only just. My averages fell away sharply over the latter part of April, but have picked up now, although my Amazon ranking is dropping slowly. I signed up for a promotion with BooksGoSocial (mentioned last week), and so far they are tweeting every day to eight different places. Part of the contract, I know, and it is something I would expect. The owner of BGS, Laurence O’Bryan, gets involved personally and put a video on the BGS Facebook page for members. I’ll have a better idea of my sales figures by the end of the month. So far I’m reasonably happy with the way things are going. My WIP has increased and I have now penned about 14,000 plus words. I keep changing the storyline in my head, but once I put the change down on paper, I see another way of moving the story forward. I know where I want to go, but my characters keep changing the plot, damn them. Good fun and in some ways, quite exciting. Hopefully this will affect the readers by some kind of literary osmosis. That means they won’t have a clue where I’m going with the story but are quite happy to hang on for the ride. That’s what I’m doing at the moment. Had a good meeting last week with the CHINDI group (www.chindi-authors.co.uk). There are a few events on the horizon to look forward to, which hopefully will lead to more public awareness of the group and the writers individually. I am still waiting for some publicity with the local, Chichester Observer about the book I released in January this year — A Dangerous Game. My contact journalist there has assured me that I will make it into the paper; it’s simply a case of when, not if. I have been approached by Alexandra Amor, a writer in Vancouver to take part in a live interview, on Skype, for a podcast. Naturally I have agreed. It’s now a case of arranging a time and date. Provisionally the interview will be early June. It should go live on her blog shortly after that. What pleases me about this kind of contact, which came through my website, is that someone on the other side of the world is interested enough in me and my writing to want to do this. On the domestic front, we are enjoying our puppy, Tuppence. Took her to a “Puppy Party” last Wednesday. She was a bit boisterous for the two, small Jack Russells in the group, so was put in with the big boys. Unfortunately the two Labrador puppies were too much for her, so she had to go back in with the small dogs again. I thought the vet might have thrown her out! Oh the shame. Next week she has her last jab, then another evening at the party. After that, well, walkies and an introduction to the grown up world. Wish me luck!

Fitting it all in

May 8th. 2016 After my successful promotion with BookBub and a comparatively successful promotion with Robin Reads, my average sales have now succumbed to their pre-promotion levels. At this point I had planned to use Facebook to get the balls back up in the air, so to speak. But instead of FB, I have gone with BooksgoSocial. This is a Dublin based group who have an impressive CV, but more importantly they have more of a personal contact with their authors. Plus they offer a 60 day, money back guarantee if sales don’t pick up. I won’t try to explain the details here, but suffice it to say that I had a few helpful exchanges of e-mails with Laurence O’Bryan, the head of the group, who put me on the right track with my advert. They will keep an eye on my sales and will let me know how I’m doing. Obviously it’s in their interests to achieve some kind of success for me. It won’t be big, but hopefully it will be effective. On the WIP, I managed to get up to 11500 words by the end of the week. I had hoped to do more, but my elder brother came for a couple of days, which meant a change of routine. It wasn’t a problem. It might have been had I been writing for a living; he probably wouldn’t have come. I’m making progress with the story, and never fail to be surprised at the number of times I see a change in the plot because of a situation into which I have written a character. Whether this makes for good, reliable plotting or not, I don’t know, but having penned ten, published novels to date, I can’t be doing too badly with that aspect of it. I see different things as I write; different situations. Then I end up in bed thinking about the way in which I can take the new development. I sometimes wake up having forgotten the new direction I thought I could go. I am a member of a few author forums on FB, and often see moans and groans about writing, sales, reviews, Amazon, on-line stores etc., but in the main they are all understandable complaints. But a few days ago, one of the authors posted a snarling complaint against the people she had relied on to help her sales at the launch of her latest book. She had put in a massive amount or work, day and night, even to the extent of claiming her and her husband had given up quality time with the children because of it. She was due to launch three more titles in a couple of months’ time and expected the manuscripts she had with traditional publishers to find a home. I felt sorry for her because she expected everything to fall into place because of the effort she had put in. What she forgets is that no-one has a right to be successful, even if they do work hard. In the writing game, as in many walks of life, hard work doesn’t guarantee success. It reminds me of a Michael Winner quote: “Luck is when opportunity and preparation come together”. So maybe that lady will have the luck eventually because she has put the work in. I hope so for her sake (and her peace of mind!). On the puppy front, our little girl is developing as all puppies do, and making us wonder why we wanted a dog. She’s a lovely, boisterous, amusing and annoying little girl, but we love her. Last Wednesday we took her to ‘Puppy Play’ at the vet’s which she enjoyed enormously. Same again this week. We are looking forward to the day after her second jab when we will be able to take her out for a walk. That means more exercise for me and Mrs. P. Musn’t grumble though because at my age I need all the exercise I can manage. Making gardens puppy proof isn’t the kind of exercise I like; it hurts too much. Wish me luck!

Taxing Times

April 30th. My weeks get filled with a puppy dog and storytelling, and I don’t need to tell you which one is winning. My wife said it’s easier having a baby because when you put them down, they stay there, unlike our Tuppence who decides when she wants peace and quiet. It’s rather like writing in a way: once you put the words down you expect them to stay there, but they have a habit of demanding your attention. And sometimes they bite you, metaphorically speaking, just like the new member of our family. Actually she nibbles with her small, pointed, needle sharp baby teeth. I am now at a crossroads; May is upon us and I expected to have a promotion in place on Facebook, but I haven’t made the effort yet. I suppose I’ve been hanging on to see how my book sales and rankings hold up after the success of BookBub. Although both figures have dropped, I am still in a better place than I was a couple of months ago. I reset my prices to $2.99, but that didn’t seem to affect the sales. My averages are slowly dropping, and that consistency hasn’t altered as a result of the price change. I pressed on with my WIP and have reached 9000 words. The 12000 I dumped are just a memory now, and I believe I have a better idea of where I’m going. I have found myself regarding this current novel as a mystery rather than a thriller, but I plan to have an element of tension in it which will help. I changed the location of the story too. When I began earlier this year, I could see the story switching to Chechnya. There was no strong reason for it — simply a whim, but on reflection I realised I was going nowhere. At the moment the new direction is Norfolk. Yes, a lot different from the Russian Federation State. So in the two weeks since I started, I have penned an average of 4500 words. If I could keep that rate up, I would expect the first draft to be finished by the end of September. Seems a bit ambitious, but I’ll give it a try. One other thing that has occupied my mind this week is my income tax return. Last year I was handed a bill which I didn’t expect and had to talk to the tax office. The mistake was mine and the bill was reduced considerably. So this time I’m being very careful, and I do get a small sense of satisfaction when I declare my royalties. They have increased compared to last year, and hopefully this will be the trend for a long while yet. Maybe one day I’ll earn enough to warrant employing an accountant. So what with the puppy, the writing and the tax man, you could say that this has been a taxing week for me. I’m sure there are a lot of people who would like to be in my position though. Oh, something else for me to look forward to: it’s the beginning of the Speedway World Championship tonight: first meeting in Poland with the world’s top sixteen riders. Terrific entertainment with brave young men battling it out on the shale where drama and injuries come thick and fast. I saw my first speedway match when I was about eight or nine in London. It was the Wimbledon Dons, and despite the many years I missed, I’ve always loved watching it. If I could apply the same discipline and hard work to my writing like those riders, I would have had a best-seller years ago. Next week, if I remain true to myself, I’ll pen another 4500 words, place an advert with Facebook, get my tax return right and have a puppy who knows how to bark when she wants to go outside to the loo! Wish me luck.

The Puppy is Winning at the Moment.

April 23rd. 2016 It’s been a hard week. Puppies don’t realise what a strain they put on their owners. I’ve been exercising muscles that have been dormant for ages. How do you make a garden puppy proof? A lot of hard work. How can you get work done when you are keeping an eye on the little one because your wife is having a well-deserved break from it all? Me and Tuppence fell asleep while I was on duty. Fortunately she woke me up before my wife came home. But I have managed to get some writing done. As readers of my blog know, I scrapped my last WIP of 12000 words and started again. So far I have managed to pen 3000 words, and have started my novel from a completely different perspective. I have an idea which way I want to go with this, and even how I might change the style a little. I suppose it’s all part of being a stand-alone author, having an “eclectic” mix of styles. Is that possible, I wonder? Usually you can rely on a series author to write the thriller or whatever genre in which they write, to be unchanging, but in my case I believe that different characters in different time settings mean there will be subtle changes. All I can hope is that I come up with the goods. My current work in progress is a resurrection of Marcus Blake from A Covert War. I haven’t changed him; I will be using him in a slightly different way, but hopefully he will be the same man I invented and have the same fighting skills and bags of luck (editorial licence comes into play here). I will also be using Sir Giles Cavendish, but in a lesser role than the one he occupied in A Covert War. Another female character I am introducing is a single mother called Vereen. She is a widow, young and of mixed race. She is also very attractive (what else?). I have looked up some gangsta slang too. Mustn’t get carried away with that though. I had a small promotion yesterday for North Slope. The book shot up to just over 6000 in the rankings out of 3 million books on Amazon. I wish it would stay there, but can’t expect that. I sold 67 copies yesterday, which is nice. I also e-mailed my subscribers to tell them of my change of plan with regard to my latest WIP and to ask them to mention me to their friends on social media. It would be a neat way of spreading my name around the social networks. I also raised my two, low priced books back to their original price of $2.99. Tomorrow I expect to put North Slope back there too. After that I’ll keep an eye on sales and think about some promotion on either Facebook or Google. Maybe I’ll get more work done on my book. Or in the garden. Wish me luck!

Puppies and Projects

April 16th. 2016 Two things happened this weekend which will help to re-order my life. Did I say ‘help’? We picked up our eight week old puppy, Tuppence, today and we are now experiencing a minor, soon to be major, disruption. At the moment she is fast asleep in a cardboard box. No, we didn’t force her to go in the box; she chose to do this herself despite the lovely soft bed we bought, the blankets in her cage where we thought she would feel safe, and the lap my wife offered her several times. Oh, and earlier she chose to sleep wrapped around the leg of the table. I had to rearrange things so I could have my lunch. Her toys are now scattered all over the floor, and she probably has no intention of clearing up after her. What was the other thing? I decided to bin the 12000 words of my latest book and start again. Day one, page one. I’ve never done that before and believe me, it’s hard. Why chuck out all that work? In my heart I knew I was going down the wrong path, but I had to do it. I now have to look at the end of the year before I can say the book will be finished. Perhaps I should set a November target so I can have it ready for the Christmas rush. Earlier this week I completed a revision of two book jackets. One was for A Covert War, and the other for my religious book, A Word in Your Ear. I received a copy of the first book today, and am satisfied with the result. The other one should be available in a couple of days. Something else changed too. Yesterday I discovered that Amazon had altered the zero price on The Eagle’s Covenant to $0.99. No reason given except that the book isn’t free anywhere else. I contacted them but they claim to reserve the discretionary right to do this. As someone on one of my author forums said earlier this week, “$0.99 is the new zero.” I must admit, it does seem pointless offering a book for free these days. Even at the new low price, there’s very little profit to be made. My sales rankings are tumbling a lot quicker now, which I expected, so next week I’ll be raising my prices on my two lowest priced books, and dropping North Slope to $0.99 for a promotion on the 22nd. After that I’ll get back to Facebook advertising again. May even have a shot at BookBub. So what’s on the horizon for me now? A lot of ‘walkies’ I expect, and more head scratching as I work on my latest thriller. Wish me luck!