Tag Archives: books

The Sequel Approaches

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I’m nearly there. Over eighteen months since my first book launched onto and unsuspecting and oblivious world, its sequel is nearly ready. My other two books are completely different stories.This prompts a range of thoughts about sequels also prompted by the discussion on Closing Time by Joseph Heller a sort of sequel to Catch-22.

Closing Time feels very different, more surreal and fantastical than Catch-22 and I have to admit that I did not find it as cynical or amusing. Comparisons can be harsh. What of other sequels some are like planned series of books. In a series there is a massive story to plot and unwind whether it’s Harry Potter (seven books) or Songs of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones (also at 7).

I have been reading the Reacher series which is now I believe up to 16 of which I have read fourteen. They seem less planned than a typical series but were they unplanned sequels. In my own case, I did not intend that there should be a sequel, it wasn’t my intention. Writing it proved challenging for many months as I could not get a plot going that I liked. It will be for the eventual readers to judge whether I have succeeded. Of course I do not have a professional publisher wanting a return on their investment waiting for the next instalment. My investment is one of time and interest, rather than financial gain. If I sell half as many copies I would be happy but that won’t pay for the editing. So, should I save my money and perhaps not save my readers (if I get any) from some of my worst grammatical errors?

Then there are web-site pages, adverts, messages, to plan and complete. KDP forms to fill in, pricing to set. To Kindle Select or nor. Should there be a Smashwords edition and what about the hard copy paperback or hardback where Lulu helped with the first three books. Shall I take the time and effort to publish physically?

Then there are the readers who have asked for a sequel almost since day one. Now, it’s nearly here I am full of nervousness about releasing it. Far more than my previous efforts. I have delayed and prevaricated. I have adjusted and amended, moved sentences, paragraphs and even whole chapters. I have added and deleted whole chunks and changed plot direction several times. I have gone back and checked with the first book. Are there contradictions inconsistencies? Does the timeline work? Some Beta reader comments – sorry about missing your train-station Trevor. That’s good in one part. For Trevor it was engrossing will it be for others. One recent review of my second book described it as boring. That was not a reaction I had received before. I hope this is not boring. Should I add more sex and violence be more/less graphic? Too much sex, not enough violence, bad language, what should the balance be? Have I checked my other facts, the historical backdrop?

After all this I want my readers to enjoy the story, to lose themselves for a few hours in a make believe fictional world but with a clear base of recent history. I want them to care about the characters, care enough to keep reading. Perhaps encourage others to read the story; demand another sequel?

We’ll see. Now is it time to press the publish button? Not quite, one more check on the book but I can click the blog publish.

Sales Ranks and Writing

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Are sales ranks the bane of a self – pub writers life?

My books rank from 20,000 to over 400,000

Of course I was Number one in free thrillers once now I’m 217,150 with that book in overall paid. I suppose that is not bad given the alleged million plus books available. Genre rankings are different again, but without getting into those which are further specified by Amazon location we all have to remember one thing. The ranking are driven by weightings and various algorithms which are known only to Amazon. This is not a problem it is after all their store they can sell and run what they like and rank results how they like. The number would be different for revenue in whichever currency rather than just sales. It will differ in Kindle, hardback, paperback and audio too.

To add to the analysis it of course does not include CreateSpeace, Lulu, Smashwords, iBooks, Nook etc. numbers or any authors selling stuff direct. Getting into the famous Amazon top 100 for anything is a start and we would all like to be there but does it really matter? We want high numbers of sales not just for the revenue (why give them away?) but for reviews and attention. We pay for meaningless advertisements and judge those on views and clicks which may or may not lead to sales. We blog – I’m doing it now, we Facebook, we twitter we hope for reviews from mainstream media. We comment on Goodreads and other web sites overall we try and get noticed.

Is this just some giant self-indulgent ego trip “look at me I’m a writer!” Why are so many people trying a creative element not just writing but music, video, arts including the massive increase in photography. Are we all deluded like the worst performers on a talent show or in a karaoke bar or is there something else going on?

The Internet has given us the opportunity, technology has expanded the tool set. The barriers to entry that traditional publishing upheld have been reduced, but a new hurdle sits in the way, competition. The professional element is hampered just as much as the semi-professional or gifted amateur. Competition for the writer is now not just another professional writer but thousands of amateurs and not so amateurs launching their own output onto the unsuspecting world.

Much of the output in all artistic forms may be considered to be rubbish by so called experts. The professional critics or the amateur ones bemoan the lack of standards whether its artistic brushwork, composition or a self-pub’s grammar. I bemoan the number of dog and cat videos plaguing YouTube. One thing for sure we cannot put the genie back in the bottle. The world has changed we are all going to have to lie with it unless some dystopian catastrophe changes the world. I don’t think any of us really want a world without the Internet digital music, photography or the other benefits no matter how much rubbish is attached.

Once upon a time stable lads bemoaned the introduction of the horseless carriage. To quote a poet (who really can’t sing) the times they are a’ changin‘. We’ll all have to live with it no matter our sales rank.

My Daughter’s Acknowledgement

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My daughter’s acknowledgement was written in 2014

I’m in trouble. It’s not an unusual state of affairs when it comes to family matters. This one concerns acknowledgements in my second book – To The Survivors.

It seems I gave an acknowledgement in the closing pages to my family except my daughter. At the time she had not read the book, but she has now. Good news is that she liked it, bad news, she noticed her omission. Sorry!

You of course helped and supported me and now you have a dedicated blog to acknowledge the fact. She is of course busy with her studies so she has not had time to read the books in the publishing time frame. Quite right study first, Dad’s requests later.

More generally, how many readers actually read the preface/front matter or the closing pages after the end of the story. Kindle defaults settings seem to start at the first formal chapter unless the publisher is careful to change the settings to start at the start. The start of a normal book is of course the Cover. Many writers like me add in quotes, extracts or other starting material. For my first book I added a cast list but I now realise many readers will not have seen it. No wonder they found it complex. Until I changed the settings to start at the start. Of course many writers have shown family trees or lists. For one of my new books I even have a web site to give the back story and hopefully generate some initial interest.

For acknowledgements it’s harder. I normally skip the long lists found in many books of all those that have helped with producing the book. I keep it down to under a page. Then there are the links to other books, and frequently a sample chapter. I have not produced a sample chapter, but I have added a brief description of other books by me.

Some writers have added reviews from newspapers or web sites to their introductions alongside links to web sites, Facebook, Twitter etc. all hoping that one sale will lead to another.

So acknowledgements are important alongside all the other bits either side of the story. I must remember to read them myself and not forget anyone. Thank you for your help, Tasha. Now, can you read the others!

The Editing Experience and An Apology

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So my first excursion into the world of professional editing is complete. Charlie Bray at The IndieTribe has completed re-edits of my first two books An Agent’s Demise and To The Survivors. Now they are both updated on Kindle, Smashwords and on Lulu for the hard copies.

Firstly an apology:

Sorry fellow authors and Readers.

I wish I could have afforded to do the edits before I launched the books to avoid the review criticism. How many sales lost? Then, there is my criticism adding to the overall criticism of self pub books. I cannot reverse the past, just fix the future.

What have I learned from the experience? Lots of things:

  1. Fresh eyes spot all sorts of issues that readers and I had not seen. Luckily, not plot inconsistencies although I had one character re-appearing when a sentence before they had left the scene. I had not noticed and I hope no readers had. Now fixed.
  2. It is so easy to get caught up in the story and miss the odd tense issue
  3. My biggest problem though was punctuation in my grammar. Run on sentences, no commas. Some is clearly style and how I was listening to the words in my head, but now redone; hopefully to the satisfaction of my future readers.
  4. There is still a lot of conflicting advice especially on dialogue style and contradictions with old advice and education I received.
  5. Also I still have a frustration with using conjunctions to start sentences especially and and but. Less of an issue with some but I know it may be technically correct I just think it looks wrong.
  6. The software (Scrivener and Word in my case) is just not accurate enough and almost entirely useless in dialogue. This is where punctuation has to be used to cause pauses and hesitations for how the character is speaking regardless of correct grammar rules. People do not speak in correct grammar. Making written speech comply just looks clunky. Few people converse in a grammatically correct manner.
  7. Don’t get me into a discussion on English dialects, reginal variations of US, Aus,Can etc. spelling. In the end I don’t care what the Chicago Manual of Style says, which is frequently quoted on discussion forums. It’s English! Now I have my nationalistic rant out of the way let’s move on.

So to the other side of the coin Finance

The outstanding issue, is their a return on the editing investment. I won’t know that for ages. The costs are not easy to cover when only selling a few books per week. Covering £1,000 of editing investment needs nearly £1500 of sales on Kindle at 70% and at an average £3.00 per kindle book needs 500 sales just to break even.

Now I’ll have to advertise again to try and generate interest, more cost to be covered.

Will I do the editing route again – yes because I want my books to be free of that criticism, but it’s still a lot of money to find, to blow on an egotistical journey.

Controversy for Controversy’s Sake

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I recently commented on the GoodReads forum http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1471999 discussing the subject “Would You Write About Controversy” or controversy for controversy’s sake

I said I might blog so here it is starting with my own comment, I haven’t reproduced others’ comments as I haven’t asked the writer’s permission.

“One of my favourite discussion subjects along with censorship.  Freedom of speech in the UK is not as formally protected as it is in the USA, but it is protected.  There are always controversial subjects although the USA arguments of religion and politics are not as ribald, neither is abortion.

One of the most interesting controversies, over the years, has been Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.  Irrespective of political viewpoint it is a work of fiction, but look what it led to and that was mostly in a pre-Internet Social Media age.  Did this book sell more copies because its opponents were so vociferous in denouncing it and the author?  Has Salmon Rushdie sold more of his other books as a result or has he changed writing subjects to avoid further death threats?

In my own work, controversial decisions and some politics are backdrops to my stories.  In my first attempt, it was the creation of the dossiers to support the war in Iraq.  With Syria going on, the recent UK decision to not support military action can be traced to the Iraq dossier debacle.  In my second, I deal with several controversial subjects like rape and summary execution, hidden in a story about survivors.  My third has insider trading to generate huge wealth and the misbehaviour of big business.  Who knows what I might write next as news stories often provide a creative spark.

At the front of all of my books is a disclaimer.  This is a work of Fiction, in other words I made it up, it’s just a story, I don’t necessarily share my characters opinions, although I like to have a basis of fact behind all my stories.”

That said, is controversy useful?  In an age of trolls, flame wars, email barrages, and 24/7 media sound and video bites, should a writer of a blog, article or book deliberately try to be controversial.  Another quote attributed to Brendan Behan

“There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.”

In the UK we have had threats of rape caused by promotion of the image on a bank note followed by more threats to female writers and journalists who had the temerity to comment on the threats.  Opinion piece writers in newspapers and other media are supposed to be controversial, that’s why they are employed.  A newspaper editorial and front page headline are designed to support the political leanings of the newspaper and act as an advertisement for sales.

Let’s be controversial then – Martin Luther King, Jr said

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

A nice uncontroversial quote, so lets dissect it.

The ultimate – really this is the ultimate meaning the peak, the top? Are we sure it’s really the ultimate.

Measure – by what metric is this a measurement and to what standard and against what comparator?

Of a Man – Many commentators would regard this as sexist, but of course at the time of the quote man in this sense meant humankind or to use the terminology mankind still shouldn’t the same measure be used for women?

I’ll stop there I have no wish to denigrate Mr King who was a fantastic orator on the speeches I have seen, I don’t know if he was a good man or not I didn’t know him personally or professionally.

So, if I write about abortion in a novel, will I face controversy and criticism regardless of the viewpoint the character, or characters, propose. Under-age sex or any sex often causes controversy. I’m not sure why, it has always happened and despite sex education, moralistic pronouncements, campaigns and so on it always will. Should I avoid that subject to avoid controversy? Because a character has under-age (a subjective legalistic viewpoint with different morals, laws and conventions around the world) sex in a story should that automatically rate a book as adult only content? If I write about it does that make me a paedophile (another nice controversy there)? If I look at a naked woman in a Rueben’s picture in an art gallery that is cultural, if I look at a naked woman on a porn site it’s bad or degenerates women.

For women, is a Michael Angelo sculpture porn? It’s a naked man! My word we cannot show that on prime time TV and if the man had an erection it would be porn and not suitable for any regular TV viewers. In case nobody noticed the human race has survived and expanded thanks to sex including erect penises. If you don’t want them described in a book or film don’t read or watch, but why would you avoid human nature. I don’t particularly like watching people chew gum, maybe we could censor that, but of course I might just be trying to be controversial so you will read my blog, if I tag it correctly for Internet searches.

If I argue for against creationism, Islam, Christianity, Scientology, Buddhism, etc., etc., will I attract more interest, more blog followers, more complaints? Will that sell more of my books?  Who knows? There are millions of blogs, tweets, and emails. Thousands of newspaper articles around the world and nearly seven billion people on the planet each with their own opinions and beliefs.  Just because a politician, media outlet, or journalist says something in Iran, the UK or the USA does not make it so or true.  In general I think there is too much opinion dressed up as facts.  If you hear the words common sense, the people believe, it is God’s wish, step back, ask if that is really true is it a fact or an opinion?

If you don’t discuss controversial subjects then you are simply avoiding facts which is often the advice given for polite conversation – no religion, sex, or politics.  Whichever side of an opinion you may take, remember it’s an opinion not a fact.  I like to argue, I like controversy, I think I’m right and so do you.

Now back to writing my next story about a homosexual atheist who rapes a disabled veteran on his nation’s flag whilst looking at kiddie porn having forced his 14 year old sister to have an abortion only because the father was a black Islamic preacher– or maybe not.  Still it’s an idea…  now for the tags, light blue touch paper stand back and….