When you self-publish on Amazon there’s this thing you have to do, which is about choosing an appropriate category for your books. You know, like “Crime” or “Mystery” or, of course, “Romance” with shape-shifting werewolves that look like Brad Pitt… and so on.
In the past I’ve tried to dip my toe in lots of different categories at the same time in the hope of reaching a wider browsing audience – more results in Searches, in other words. Seems that’s a bad idea, because instead of creating more results it kind of dilutes the effectiveness of your Search terms in all those categories, rather than concentrating on just one or two.
So with that in mind, I’ve gone back to the “Mystery” theme for my Lukas Boston books and redesigned the covers… again. I’m also going to make the first book free permanently, but that’ll take a few days. I’ll let you know when it’s done.
In the meantime, what do you think of the new covers?
Hey everyone, here’s another cover we’re working on – posted here so I can link to it in forums. More info soon!
Here’s a montage of all three of my Lukas Boston covers. What do you think?
Sorry for not blogging awhile. I’ve been attending a friend’s wedding on the other side of the country and it’s taken weeks to catch up. So… what better a writing subject after a longish break than discussing toilets? More specifically, what we do in them and when. Which, according to 99.99% of fiction is nothing – and never.
You see, I was reading a Neville DeMille novel. I’ve been a fan of DeMille for years. In this particular book it’s a fairly typical “chase” story with our hero and a somewhat reluctant heroine racing across the country either fleeing from, or madly pursuing, some villainous dude and, of course, they regularly find themselves holed up in hotels taking stock of the situation. It’s during these occasions that our hero manages to slip into a nearby store and buy some clean shorts and a shirt. DeMille’s slight obsession with our hero’s personal hygiene was intriguing.
To be honest, I’m quite happy to assume my heroes somehow deal with the sticky issue of soiled undies and even taking a dump somewhere without drawing my attention to the realities. I mean, during the God-knows-how-long trek by Frodo to Mordor to ditch the One Ring, was it mentioned at any time that he needed to nip behind the nearest Ent for a noisy Number Two’s? Nope, of course not.
Fictional heroes don’t do a lot of things. Like fart, scratch unseemly places, discreetly pick their nose when no one’s looking… which is a good thing, since most of this stuff comes under the “Too much information” category. Of course, there are exceptions to the unwritten, writing rule and some authors use such moments to advantage, but generally even our most flawed characters don’t require toilet breaks.
They don’t need a shower unless someone plans to stab them through the curtain. They eat about two meals per book. Many of them don’t have to call their mother. They rarely go shopping for normal stuff.
Wouldn’t it be a challenge to write a novel and include all the mundane, everyday things for the sake of authenticity? It’d probably get some kind of major, literary prize.
But no one would read it.
I used to have a problem, and it caused me to read some weird stuff in my past which may — or may not — have been of benefit later in my life. For example, when I was about ten years old I read Neville Shute’s “On The Beach”. It was way over my head, that’s all I really remember. About the same time I read a short literary novel which I can’t remember the name, but it was all about correctly setting dining tables, cooking small birds in meat pies and… Hell, I don’t know. I believe it was a classic of some kind.
So was I some kind of child genius?
Not even bloody close. But I read a lot and occasionally picked up books my mother was reading. My problem which plagued me for decades afterwards was that I can’t not finish a book I’ve started to read. It caused another strange habit. I’d start reading another book, if I got bored with the one I was already reading. I used to read maybe four or five “Famous Five” novels at a time searching what I felt were the good bits. I’d still finish them all, though.
By the way, my mother normally read some pretty trashy stuff and I can’t explain what the hell she was doing reading literary books either. She devoured a whole series of books called “Confessions of a …..” Which detailed the sexual adventures of this English guy in a dozen different jobs. The women kind of hooted a lot while our hero stoically satisfied them all. Not so long ago I reminded mum of this and she vehemently denied ever reading “such rubbish”. Odd. It’s not like they were hard core porn (yes, I read them too).
The point is I’ve finally learned to stop reading books I’m not enjoying. I’ve rid myself of the sad compulsion to finish everything I pick up.
But it makes me feel guilty. Last week it was Neal Stephenson’s “Anathem” and the issue is NS a bloody good writer. Who the fuck am I to put down his book as not worth reading? Apparently his book “Snow Crash” is a classic. Stephenson is, to be fair, full-on sci-fi/fantasy and I should have known with Anathem, when it had a foreword explaining the book that it was going to be tough.
It highlights to me how much more important the early pages of any book you’re reading — and of course writing — can be. They’re make-or-break content and these days few people will persevere with a book that’s not making a immediate impact. Even more important is this applies to the “sample” functions that online bookstores provide. You don’t get a second chance.
I think a lot of people used to read whole books they weren’t particularly enjoying, because a bit like TV today we’re prepared to absorb poor entertainment out of habit. Besides, not every book could be a winner and sometimes enduring a bad book opens your eyes to the better ones… Kind of.
Now it’s cut-throat. We have too many other options and too many other books to be wasting time reading anything we don’t like.
I’m not entirely sure it’s a good thing, but it has to be better than reading about sparrow pies, cutlery and hooting orgasms.
Beware researching all this self-publishing stuff. It’s got a plot that thickens far more than any Agatha Christie novel – and I’ve got a feeling the ending will be just as much a surprise.
You see so many posts on forums, and in Google communities, and it’s a battle to figure which ones are worth giving credit. I don’t mean the blatant spam and scams. I’m talking about the posts that give you a true indication of what’s really happening – or not. I read something today that kind of worries me in a new way (as if I needed any more to worry about when it comes to a writing career).
On a writer’s forum a successful author outlined his sales, his success and how he did it, all for the benefit of other forum members. It was a genuine, selfless act that told us a lot. This guy is selling over 100,000 books a year. He writes fantasy and publishes around 6-7 books a year, and claims to write almost 70 hours a week to achieve this and there’s no reason to disbelieve him. He has effectively pushed through the barrier of becoming a full-time, successful author and reached the tipping point where his output, his books and sales are kind of self-perpetuating. The secret, by the way, is now his backlist – it’s the sheer amount of titles he has on sale.
The problem I’m having is that there’s a lot of evidence – a lot – that his books are fucking rubbish. There’s a disturbing trend in the Amazon reviews. Sure, he has literally hundreds of positive, 5 Star reviews, but the 40-50 1 Star reviews on some of his books have this ring of authenticity that’s hard to ignore. It isn’t childish trolling saying the books are crap, and so on. These have a recurring, informed theme that complains about the total lack of character development, awful dialogue, holes in a non-existent plot, constant and mindless sword fights, raping, pillaging and violence for the sake of violence. Attempts to clone the Game of Thrones franchise are all too obvious and poorly carried out.
So how is he selling so many books?
It looks like the slavish application of a genre formula has become even more successful than it ever was in traditional print publishing. People will apparently buy and read anything as long as it has the prerequisite magic sword, nasty wizard and naked damsel tied to a tree in the forest. A sort of “fantasy, sword fight porn” thing where the quality of the writing hardly matters at all for most fans. Something similar has happened in the romance/erotica genre – but at least they admit it’s a type of soft porn.
So I’m wondering if there truly is a market for good fiction in the self-publishing world? Or to look at the issue a different way, how good is the self-publishing market for quality writing, if you take all the genre-driven, formulaic writing out of the data that says self-publishing is working? At the moment self-publishing is looking like a golden goose just waiting to be plucked, but if you want to write outside of these narrow, formula genres are the opportunities still there?
Well, obviously the opportunities are there, but what about the perceived levels of success? Hmm… not sure. Anyone?
Want to know how to get a publishing contract? One of those six figure, dream of a lifetime deals? It’s easy – well, how to get one is easy. All you have to do is write the best book ever, ever written. The best, right? Publishers the world over will beat a path to your door.
So now you’re thinking, “Hah-ha, very fucking funny, smart arse”. But wait a second – what’s stopping you? All you need is a couple of fingers on the ends of your hands. You don’t have to be uber-fit, like a pro footballer. You don’t need any qualifications or some fancy education. The only equipment you should have is the cheapest, second hand computer, because word processing is no big deal. So all you really need is a good idea – and the determination to turn it into a book. You are utterly, completely responsible for how good that book can be and theoretically there is nothing to stop that book being the best ever.
Okay, it ain’t that simple, but you get the concept?
The reason I’m blogging about this is that on another forum the debate is raging as to whether self-published writers need their work professionally edited. A lot of them say, “I don’t need an editor. My books are selling well, so I obviously don’t need one.” What a load of horse shit. Apparently, if you sell books, it means your writing is perfect? Sentence structure is precise? Plotting and continuity is flawless?
People say you can get “too close” to your own work, but I look at it slightly differently. The thing is, you start to memorise your own work rather than read it, when you’re editing. Instead of reading the words one by one, as you would the first time you read something, your eyeballs start tracking over the text picking out familiar phrases and your memory fills in the rest – often incorrectly, for that matter. It’s why you can overlook an error time and again, and you can’t believe you didn’t see it. It’s also why putting a manuscript away for a while gives you a fresh look — in fact, it’s your memory getting flushed out, not your eyes.
Just like writers, there are good editors and bad ones. If you find a good one, what you’re getting is an objective view of your manuscript in regards to structure, plot, characterisation… all those “global” kinds of things that might have you swapping chapters, changing character names and such. A good editor will also apply a deep knowledge of grammar and sentence structure that can add a certain polish to your writing.
So the truth is everyone can benefit from a good editor.
But is it worth it? That’s a different question. If you’re writing short novels (or even long ones) for your own fun, and you’re putting them out there on Amazon at 99 cents for the world to hopefully discover – but you’re not stressing about becoming a best seller, then it’s not going to be economical spending anything up to $1000 for a professional editor. You can do your best, get people to proofread your manuscripts, maybe find some “test” readers before you actually publish… a lot things without paying for professional help.
A lot of authors get away with not using an editor. People buy their books. They might even have a fantastic grasp of the written, English language.
But never underestimate the value of a skilled editor. You’ll be surprised, if not downright upset, at how much you get wrong in your “perfect” manuscript.
I watched a couple of films over the weekend – “The Great Gatsby” and “Gravity”. You can probably tell there was a “yours and mine” selection here between my wife Lisa and I. Still, I was kind of interested in The Great Gatsby… for about 30 minutes or so. It’s a typical Baz Luhrmann film filled with hundreds of people in crazy costumes (he’s got to keep his wife busy somehow, I suppose) and plenty of those huge, excessive party scenes. Okay, if you like that kind of thing, no problems – it’s just not my kind of movie. I’m certainly not saying it’s a bad film.
I ended up on the front porch having a beer and watching the night sky – which led to me wondering just how close Luhrmann’s film (and the other TGG movies before it) comes to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s original concept for his book? As always, the iPad was within reach (sad, yes – I know) and I was surprised to discover that according to Wikipedia TGG was considered a failure. It only sold 20,000 in 1925, which considering the celebrity status of FSF was a poor showing indeed. Fitzgerald reckoned no one “got” what he was trying to do. It wasn’t until the 1940’s (Fitzgerald died in 1940 still convinced the book had failed) when TGG was freely distributed among soldiers serving overseas during WW2 that the book did one of those weird, literary things and became much-discussed, popular and eventually became ranked as one of the great American novels.
It always intrigues me how close, or not, readers come to understanding a writer’s original intent (assuming they’re no longer alive to explain it themselves). I’ve had people tell me deep, complex analyses of my novels and I’ve never had the heart to explain nothing they imagine was ever in my head. I was just trying to write a good story! So the question is, which version of The Great Gatsby became the best selling novel? Was it Fitzgerald’s imagery that we finally “got”, or some completely distorted understanding of the book that we’ve created over the decades of picking every sentence apart? In other words, if F. Scott Fitzgerald were to see Luhrmann’s film today, afterwards would he say, “Yep, that’s what I was trying to say”?
Oh – and Gravity? Well, if you’re like me and into all that space stuff with floating astronauts and the rest – you’ll love it. The effects are very good. The story is pretty much non-existent, it’s little more than a vehicle to justify the visual trickery, and has huge holes anyway (e.g. how Sandra Bullock is a kind of “guest” scientific astronaut, not one of the space shuttle crew, but at some point she’s capable of reading Russian instruction manuals on how to drive these things…), but it truly doesn’t matter with the spectacle of the vision itself. And it’s not too long. So… highly recommended.
I suspect F. Scott Fitzgerald wouldn’t have “got” Gravity at all. He wouldn’t have understood the concept of no story at all, but only a thin idea to base a film script that depends on visual effects alone. That’s crazy writer’s talk.
I had another interesting thought though. How would Fitzgerald have written TGG, if he’d stayed alive long enough to witness the Great Depression?
Hmm… that’s what happens with beer, front porches and starry nights.
I haven’t checked for sure, but I think I have sitting on my PVR the last ever episode of Agatha Christie’s “Hercule Poirot” and – spoiler alert – (as if that’s somehow going to abruptly stop you reading this) in it Christie gently kills off our portly, penguin-like hero. Now the TV station will probably go back to bloody Miss Marple episodes – I’d happily kill that irritating woman with one of her own knitting needles (solve that murder, you annoying old tart).
I’m going to miss Poirot. David Suchet’s portrayal of the character was masterful and included subtle, clever hints that his detective genius and incomparable skills of observation were maybe even born from an OCD or Bi-Polar condition (such as a moment he needed to ensure both his boiled eggs were exactly the same size, before he could start breakfast). For us mere mortals watching on, like all the rest of the show’s cast – and, of course, the reader’s of Christie’s novels – there was never a chance we might beat Poirot to the punch. Meaning, figure out who is the killer before he does.
Mind you, I’m not sure we’re meant to. Did Agatha Christie write her novels in such a way that the reader had any hope of identifying the culprit? I’ll admit, it’s a long time since I’ve read any of her work, preferring the TV versions. P.D. James did… sort of. Far be it for me to criticise a doyen of the crime writing business, but I found her books hard work, however I reckon she chucked in a few genuine clues among all those smelly herrings. PDJ is still with us, by the way, aged 93. Maybe she can knock off Miss Marple for me? It’s not like she’ll get sent to jail at her age. Hell, couldn’t she call it research?
Whodunnit? These days, it’s just not on the menu. Crime fiction is all about torture, guilt, self-mutilation, humiliation, near-death experiences, blood, gore and psychopathic problems – and that’s the police who are chasing the criminals. The innocent victims in these stories are pretty much having a Disney holiday compared to the hell our hero detectives are living as they pursue the bad guys.
The modern crime novel tells of the agonising journey our hero undertakes on his/her way to solving the murder and rarely do we actually care who it is, when we get there. It’s almost incidental. Yes, the result is important – does the damsel in distress strapped to the timber mill band-saw escape in the nick of time? But is it any big deal who is revealed at the controls? Not really. Hopefully they’re wearing proper, protective equipment for operating power tools, that’s all. We don’t want to encourage any irresponsible work-place practises.
I’ve written two crime novels and they’ve done well, particularly in Germany (where my enormous publisher has gone bankrupt… aaaaaargh! But it’ll sort itself out). If there is one recurring criticism of my books it’s that the villain was too easy to pick for hard-core crime fans. Why? Because I felt obligated to give them half a chance by dropping apparently not-so-subtle hints in the story. Nowadays, I wouldn’t bother – no one expects it or probably even wants it. It’s more important that my hero is a hypochondriac cripple with a drinking problem. And a dwarf.
By the way, I’m not complaining. When it’s done well, like any good writing, it’s great. I’ve recently discovered Stewart MacBride and read everything he’s ever done as fast as I could get my hands on it. Check out his DS Logan McCrae series of novels but, if you can, try to read them in order. It’s not a continuing storyline – it’s brilliant, darkly funny character development. Don’t worry crime fans, plenty of people get hung, stabbed and shot, too. Nobody just quietly dies.
Like Hercule Poirot did, bless his stumpy little legs and waxed moustache. Maybe I can start watching repeats? Then I can figure out the killer before him – maybe. He solved more than a few crimes in his time and remembering them all…
Mark at Momentum sent this screen grab of my books’ Halloween promotion being featured on iBooks. Brilliant! Fantastic to be on the iBooks headline flappy-turn-over thing on the main page. It’s going to be really interesting to see what sort of results this kind of promotion achieves. Not sure just how long the special 99 cent pricing will stay available (normally they’re $4.99) so if you’re interested, get in now. It’s not just iBooks by the way. Amazon and other online book stores are running the promotion, too.
Huge thanks to the crew at Momentum for putting this together.