Amazon's Pre-order Option - making the most of it

Is it really 3 months since amazon opened the pre-order option to Indie writers? 3 months since I was excited enough to blog about it? 'One Sixth of a Gill' was duly published on November 1st and in the afterglow of post-publication, did pre-ordering add to the fireworks? Is it a good idea? 

To pre-order or not to pre-order

My tips:-

-2. Get editorial reviews (positive quotes and permission to use them) from readers who like the book and, preferably, have some status either to do with the subject or the book world.

-1. Approach professional bloggers/reviewers who often require months' notice pre-publication. (e.g. Foreword - 2 months in advance to even be considered for a free review) Use your editorial quotes in your formal request for review. You can still get professional reviews at a later stage; the going rate is $80-$400. Yes, this world is so crazy you can pay $400 for a 450 word review - more than most authors ever make for writing a novel. Yes, I think that is outrageous.

1. You need a near-finished version of the final ebook and your polished, perfect jacket. You can change both before D-Day but your cover is your book's image, literally, so changing it is not a good idea. Amazon requires proof of life in the form of an ebook file that is a book-to-be, if not the final edit, or it won't be accepted for pre-order. I don't know whether anyone has had a book rejected but I wouldn't risk it. 

If you do upload a new book jacket you must re-click on pre-order (2nd page) not save as draft or the new jacket won't appear. Whenever you re-click on pre-order the project is locked for 24 hours and 5 days before D-Day the whole project is locked, full stop, in launch position and no change possible.

2. Set your publication date. I liked having a date to focus my marketing and it made the online party planning easier. My goodreads giveaway finished on 1st November; my facebook launch was on 1st November; reviewers of advance copies were asked to post on or after 1st November. Your book needs to be uploaded in its final version a week before publication date or amazon gets cross and withdraws pre-order rights for a year. Apparently, the same applies if you try to play games with the publication date to up your rank by combining pre-orders with launch-day sales; I don't play games so I don't know.

My big problem with the publication date was with the print book. I could not control this exactly in the same way so I published it ahead of e-book D-Day. This highlighted all kinds of interesting consequences (see below)

To decide on a date make sure a) you'll have the book in its final state and b) you'll have completed all the buzz build-up you planned - make a list backwards from D-Day.

3. Your pre-order book gets its amazon page. Great! You can - and should - put editorial reviews and link to your amazon author page. Make it look good because this is a reader's first impression of your book. You can use the page to approach bloggers and reviewers but they are more likely to read (and review) your book if they read reviews on your page. Yes, the dreaded catch 22 - hence the -1. stage in planning - get some review comments first, even before pre-publicity.

please

Look at your page as if you don't know it. Let's assume you have a great jacket and blurb, and that genre is obvious. Many readers like to 'Look inside' - stop there. No 'Look Inside' until publication date. Great blurb - no, wait. It looks awful. It has lost all formatting so there's no spacing, no italics/bold and the main bit of your blurb drops below 'Read more' so if readers can't be bothered to click on it they've missed your irresistible hook.

Go to amazon author central on .com and re-format so your description looks good, so your editorial quotes look good, so your author comment looks and so your dog looks good! You get the idea. Then, with a large pillow to hand, go to amazon.co.uk It all looks completely different. Either cry into or bash your head against the pillow (depending on temperament) then adjust via amazon.com author central - again. The changes there feed into .co.uk but not vice versa. I once spent happy hours creating a new author page on amazon.fr (as I live in France) to discover that I'd created my twin - another me, with the same name. It took me many anguished emails in franglais to murder the evil twin. Be warned!

One really good feature on the book page was the row of books along the bottom with amazon's 'readers who viewed this item also viewed...' Not only did it pretty up the page but it gave me an early indiaction as to where my book fitted into amazon's categories. Speaking of which, I had time to contact amazon and get the book into the right categories before D-Day.

4. What about the print book? I used Create Space this time and wanted to bring out the print book on 1st November. Neat! Er, no. Impossible, more like! Amazon does not allow mere Indies to have a pre-order facility for print books, even via create Space. Bad show, amazon! There is a workaround using Amazon Advantage but my brain had more than enough to worry about so I passed on that. As soon as I read that there had been a hic on timing and delivery, I thought, 'Nope.'

So I brought the book out a bit early but didn't publicise the fact, except to a couple of early reviewers. I asked amazon to link paperback with ebook and hey presto! the pre-order ebook now had reviews showing (otherwise not possible until publication date). Also, the ebook now had a 'Look Inside' facility - showing the print interior until the ebook was live. Useful!

If amazon doesn't review its policy re pre-order for print books from Indies and/or posting of reviews on Indie pre-order books (both option are available to the big publishers, who are happily using amazon's ring-fenced Vine review system to get advance reviews on pre-order pages) then I would seriously look at publishing the print book first to get all the material I want on the ebook page.

5. Party all-day! The facebook launch party on my author page was a great success and there are still stragglers lying around, drunk and happy :) Gatecrash and take a look if you want to see what a real party looks like. I loved the way amazon released the ebook at midnight in each different amazon time zone - it was like New Year's Eve (but then I had overdone the champagne). To see so many people drop by was fun. 

Conclusion

I feel a bit foolish as there are so many clever, bestselling Indie writers out there crunching numbers and giving advice on how to work the system but perhaps my bumbling methods can offer a different viewpoint. The pre-order option organised my lead-up to publication and I think that's important. and I have definitely had a boost to sales of all my books in the last couple of weeks. 

It usually takes me two or three years to write a book. 'One Sixth of a Gill' simmered over many years.That is the kind of writer I am and the kind of book I write, so any marketing techniques will have to fit my workflow, not the other way around. I'm never going to take advice like 'write a book every 90 days' but if you do, there are further tips in two excellent blogs, which will suit you.

If you want an analysis of pre-order's impact on ratings and ranks, Angela Quarles is much better at all of that than I am; here's her clear report on using amazon pre-order for a debut author. Another helpful blog on the subject, especially if you write books a lot more quickly than I do, is Susan Kaye Quinn's. Susan also has a neat way of gaming the system re print books - and in this case, I'm not against gaming!

As for me, I'm off back to the 12th century...

am writing

The genial logical detective returns - interview with Steve Robinson

RELEASED TODAY 'The Lost Empress'

No 1 Bestseller in Historical Thrillers

amazon link

Meet Steve Robinson – bestselling author and a man who has confessed here that he shoots from the hip (see interview below). He has also finally appeared in public wearing the infamous 'writer's hat' mentioned in his first appearance on my blog, and again when I last interviewed him. 

Steve Robinson drew upon his own family history for inspiration when he imagined the life and quest of his genealogist-hero, Jefferson Tayte. The talented London-based crime writer, who was first published at age 16, always wondered about his own maternal grandfather - "He was an American GI billeted in England during the Second World War," Robinson says. "A few years after the war ended he went back to America, leaving a young family behind and, to my knowledge, no further contact was made. I traced him to Los Angeles through his 1943 enlistment record and discovered that he was born in Arkansas . . ." Robinson cites crime writing and genealogy as ardent hobbies--a passion that is readily apparent in his work. He can be contacted via his website or his blog 

Welcome back, Steve. I see you're wearing your writer's hat. It's very you :)

The truth about the hat and more photos on Steve's blog

It's a bit embarrassing really. After Kindle Direct Publishing made a mini-documentary about me, a photo of me in the hat appeared on twitter so the hat is really out of the bag.




Since you last visited, you’ve written another two books in the Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Mystery series and, after being a huge self-publishing success, you’ve signed with amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint, bringing out new editions of your backlist alongside matching audio-books. What made you jump ship from self-publishing? 

The short answer is a four book deal with Amazon Publishing’s mystery thriller imprint, Thomas & Mercer, but I don’t really like to think of it in terms of having jumped ship. I still feel ‘indie’, and that will always be a big part of my journey as an author. Signing with Amazon seemed to offer the best of both worlds. I’m still very much involved in the process, from book cover designs and blurbs, and I even got to pick the narrator for the audiobook editions from several samples that were sent to me. Signing with Amazon Publishing has helped me to focus more on my books, and of course it’s great to have editors waiting to help me shape them up for publication. I also felt that Amazon was better placed to help my books reach a wider audience.

Are the amazon waters as infested with sharks as the headlines suggest? 

Not as far as this author is concerned. From my own experience during the year since I signed with Amazon Publishing, I believe they treat their authors very well. 

Sorry about the shipwreck metaphors but I was influenced by your latest book :) The tragic sinking of the Empress of Ireland in 1914 is key to the story that JT is uncovering. How did you discover this event and what made you decide to write about it?

When I set out to find the story for my fourth Jefferson Tayte mystery, I knew it would be released in 2014, and I wanted to find something that tied in with the centenary of the outbreak of WW1. When I came across the tragic sinking of the Empress of Ireland in May that year, I couldn’t believe I’d never heard of it before, and the need to make more people aware of it became very important to me. So many stories are told of the Titanic and the Lusitania, but here was a disaster that had all but been forgotten, and yet, excluding crew members, more passengers lost their lives when the Empress of Ireland sank than on either the Titanic or the Lusitania. I wanted to weave a story around this event, and because it happened before the war broke out, I decided that the backdrop would be the build up to war, rather than the war itself.

As always in your books, there’s a lot of research underlying the historical parts of the narrative and another thread in the novel is the WW1 network of spies. How much of your detail about spies is based on fact?

It’s all based on facts from my research – at least, it’s based on reported facts at the time. There’s a lot of speculation about the scale of spying before WW1. Britain was in a state of paranoia about the threat of a German invasion, with satirical cartoons in the press and on posters showing German spies everywhere. A number of spies were arrested and executed at the outbreak of war, although I think there were far fewer than had been anticipated. Those spies mentioned during JT’s research in the book are real, as are the details of their spying activity and their punishment. I try to keep everything as real as possible.

As a fellow-photographer, I was fascinated by the detail of spy photography in 2014 – very clumsy compared to today’s micro-cameras or even mobile phones. How did you research the details, which I assume are accurate? 

I thought I’d run into a problem when I came to the particular plot hurdle in question, for which I needed a camera that existed in 1914, which would be small enough to conceal. I had no idea whether such a camera was in use then, but was very happy to find the Ur-Leica—a 35mm film camera, built in 1913 by Oscar Barnack at the Ernst Leitz Optische Werke in Wetzlar. It was still in prototype form at the time my story is set, but having been designed and built in Germany made it ideal, and it wasn’t difficult to imagine such a prototype camera in the possession of a German spy. Necessity being the mother of invention, it was also not difficult to imagine that such a small camera for the time was  designed for this very purpose.

Once again, you interweave a woman’s viewpoint from the past, with JT’s, and I certainly found Alice’s perspective and dilemma very convincing. Do you have any tips for writing from the viewpoint of someone in another historical period? Any special considerations regarding gender?

Someone wrote to me a short while ago and asked that very question. It was about the character, Mena, in my second book, To the Grave. How do you get inside the head of teenage girl from 1944 enough to understand her mannerisms and expectations? It’s a tough question to answer because I don’t really know. I don’t even have any children of my own to draw inspiration from. I suppose it must partly come down to the research, and I think when you come to fully understand a character, to the point where they seem quite real to you, then you can better understand how they would feel and how they might react to certain situations, irrespective of gender or the times they live in. 

Your plots must be complicated to write, with 3 different storylines interwoven (the present genealogical case for JT, the past as it happened and JT’s own personal family history and relationships). How do you keep track of it all? Any tips?

The software application, Scrivener, has been invaluable in helping me to keep track of the various plotlines in my stories. I highly recommend it. When I’m faced with two interwoven timelines, I typically write the entire past narrative before I write Jefferson Tayte’s character in the present. This helps to keep me in character and I can focus wholly on one part of the story at a time. I then look at how JT is going to unlock the key elements of the past narrative and I structure what’s going on in the present day around those links to the past. The elements of JT’s own, larger story are usually written into the appropriate places as I go. The key there is not to let them get in the way of the main story. The hard part really comes down to making the often complex mechanics of the story appear transparent to the reader so that the entire narrative as a whole makes sense and it easy to follow. I love it when I see reviews that describe my work as an ‘easy read’. The writing is usually far from easy, but if I’ve managed to make a reader feel it was an easy book to read, then I consider that I’ve done my job as a storyteller well.

Is JT going to make progress with tracing his own ancestry in the next book? Can you give us a teaser for the next JT novel?

Yes he is! I’ve plotted the book and I’ve started writing it. I hope to deliver the first draft to my publisher next summer. As for a teaser, all I’ll say at this point is that Jefferson Tayte is in for quite a shock.

JT’s professional expertise reflects your own in tracking family trees. It seems very sophisticated nowadays, so what tips do you have for readers who want to play sleuth to discover their own ancestors? 

JT faces many genealogical brick walls on his various assignments in my books, and each one has to be worked through to reach a solution that often seems impossible to find. Everyone working on their family history comes across these brick walls from time to time, and typically the answers are difficult to reach because we’re looking in all the tried and tested places, following our regular pattern of research, and sometimes you need a fresh approach. There’s usually more than one way to find what you’re looking for, however wild or unlikely it might seem. You don’t always have to climb that wall, sometimes you can find your way around it.

Do you sometimes feel the urge to abandon JT and write something different?

No, we’ve become good friends over the years, and I want to find our how his life turns out myself. I couldn’t abandon him part way through his own story. It’s a partnership, and he’s relying on me to help him find out who he is. When you create a series character, I think you owe it to that character, and of course to your readers, to see the story through.

What are you doing photography-wise at the moment? 

I recently took a backpack full of photographic equipment to the Dolomites and came back with some mountain photography I’m very pleased with. I’ve posted a blog about it with some of the images I particularly like here

Here are some other images I really like, which I’ve not shared before. 

I shoot with a Canon 5D mk3, and I like to take it into London with my 35mm f1.4L for street photography. I prefer to shoot candid images for street shots as I feel they best capture the realism, which for me is what street photography is all about.

I was walking past this lady, shooting from my hip as I passed so as not to draw attention to myself. Studying the image later on, I became very interested in her story. Her attire and the backpack she’s sitting on don’t appear typical of someone on the street. It makes me wonder about her story. It makes me want to know how this older lady wound up here. Judging from the number of roll-up cigarette ends on the ground in front of her she’s been sitting there a while.

With Coutts bank in the background, I like the juxtaposition it represents. 

I think wet pavements can add interest to a shot, and I like how the image of this man in the doorway turned out. Rainy days are great for shooting London street photography, and are well suited to black and white images.

For obvious reasons, I call this last image ‘The laughing cloud’. I was in Cornwall, having a coffee outside a hotel that overlooks the sea when I took it. It appeared for a moment and was gone again, but I had my camera with me and managed to get the shot.

Thanks, Steve! Your happy cloud looks more like a scared leopard to me but I like the street shots. All the best with the new book. Party time!

You can contact Steve via  his website  on twitter and on Google + 

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My Review of ‘The Lost Empress’

The genial logical detective returns in another page-turner

Fans of this bestselling series, like me, will find much to enjoy and even surprise them in the latest adventure of genealogical detective J.T. As always, it is the unfolding of the story set in the past that I like best. In this case, I discovered the prelude to WW1, with credible spies and a real-life shipwreck. More passengers died when the Empress of Ireland sank than in the Titanic disaster and yet most of us know nothing about it because war news overwhelmed all else. Who was it that pointed out how to bury bad news by timing its release? Caught up in these events is the subject of JT’s investigation, Alice. I found it easy to empathise with Alice and her dilemma as she struggles against threats to her family and pressure to betray her country.

The modern day antics, with murder and chases, are entertaining, well-structured to leave the past narative at cliff-hanger moments, and I believe in J.T. as a character. His sloppy shyness with women is endearing, as is his failure to discover his own family history (so far). It goes with the genre that there are twists and revelations and the reader has to be willing to accept some unlikely behaviour in the interest of plot entertainment. Given the complexity of the three-strand plot (past and present of ‘the case’, plus J.T.’s own life) I think Steve Robinson pulls it off well. 

Until three-quarters of the way through the book, I was completely gripped by Alice’s story; after that, the pace grew faster but the characterisation weaker, in my eyes. Of course, I still wanted to know what happened but I'm always going to prefer it when the writing reaches a higher level. Having said that, the sinking of the Empress is an emotional roller-dipper of a scene and I love the historical detail in the whole book. I trust Steve Robinson's portrayal of clothes, manners and machinery to set the scene. I now know what camera spy might have used in 1914 – fascinating!

Looking for your family history?

You'll also find really helpful advice in this book by author Karen Charlton on how she shook her family tree and a criminal fell out.

amazon link

Goodreads Book Giveaway

One Sixth of a Gill

by Jean Gill

Giveaway ends November 01, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

One Sixth of a Gill goes live!

Publication Date 1st November 2014 

On pre-release order now.

For once, amazon is waving its magic wand to get Jean Gill's new book to the ball, all dressed up and ready to dance. With previous books, I felt like I was relegated to the kitchen half the time, eating the scraps left by the big publishers - and grateful for the crumbs. As a non-US citizen, I could never get to the ball on time and had to press my face against the window,watching, until the tickets - kindle publishing - came to Europe.

The opportunity to pre-release books is so important that amazon has withheld this in what I think of as their Axe-Murder Attempt, also known as the Hachette War. Not only is amazon denying pre-publication to a big publisher but it's giving it for the first time to thousands of small and self-publishers. All right, amazon - you have 90 days to show me what you can do for One Sixth of a Gill with KDP, your exclusive programme.

I will let all my blog-readers know how this new adventure in publishing goes. And - fanfare - here's the belle of the ball. One Sixth of a Gill, my book of shorts. Publication Date 1st November. I'm hoping everyone will get into my shorts for Christmas. Did I really just say that?

Order your copy here and let's see if we can get my 17th book showing up in the charts and staying there. The first reviews and book details are below...

Pre-Release reviews so far

Unputdownable

‘It is like having a conversation with a group of friends over dinner, where the topics wander and morph quite organically as occasions and images are recalled by the guests. The result is an eclectic mix which is quite unputdownable.

More than anything I liked the way it was put together in a way which allowed for grazing or an all-out feast. I expect folk will keep returning to the table for a while after the final course.’

B.A. Morton, author of prize-winning crime novel ‘Mrs Jones’

A rare treat.

'I dipped into your One Sixth of a Gill at the breakfast table, during siesta and sometimes before night-time sleep, which is how I think many readers will ‘use’ your book. And I do think it is a book to be ‘used’ – for its thought-provoking content, for some of its images that require scrutiny and interpretation. Some days I opted for a more superficial reading because daily life had its own measure of minor stresses and I needed no extra. On those days I loved the photographs, the dog tales, the knowing sub-text about marriage and parenthood.'

J.G. Harlond, author of ‘The Empress Emerald’

A superb collection – so much variation in style and all equally brilliant. Thank you.

'What leapt out at me was the strong sense of colour in all your writing, especially the poems and stories. I wonder if that is because you are a photographer; you are very aware of it, pick up the nuances and you use this to brilliant effect in shading the writing with feeling. Your collection reminded me of a box of scarves we had in ballet class when I was young, all different shades and hues. I loved hunting through them and I guess that's what I'm trying to say about your collection. There is something for whatever mood you find yourself in.'

Karen Maitland, author of ‘The Vanishing Witch’

Meet B.A.Morton, Yeovil prize winner, a British crime and romance writer

Big thanks to B.A.Morton for taking the time to appear as a guest on my Blog to tell us about her prize-winning novel 'Mrs Jones' and about her writing in general.

A new writer with no literary training or background, just a passion for reading and scribbling, B.A. can't ride a bike or drive a car, and computers are a mystery to her, but she can tell a story. She says 'Imagination is a marvellous thing ... sharing it with others is even better'.

'Mrs Jones' by B.A.Morton (Night Publishing) available  amazon.com   amazon.uk

A British girl with a secret. A New York cop with a past. And a mob that wants revenge In the slickest, sneakiest twistiest-turniest hard-boiled crime noir novel to come out in a long time, ruggedly pragmatic but honest cop Detective Tommy Connell picks up an English girl, Mrs Jones, who claims to be the witness to a murder, and promptly falls in love with her. Well, Mrs Jones, whoever she is, must be very attractive because an awful lot of people seem to want to get their hands on her if they can prise her from Connell's determined grasp, including some prominent representatives of organised crime and the Feds. Detective Connell definitely has his work cut out here if he wants to end up with the body of Mrs Jones, dead or alive, that's for sure. All-in-all it's probably safe to say he hasn't a clue what is going on. It is probably equally safe to guess that Mrs Jones does. Not that 'safe' is quite the right word to use here or, there again, maybe it is. 

amazon uk

Interview with B.A.Morton

 Good morning, B.A.

In French, B.A. is what we call a German Shepherd dog, a Berger Allemand, so the name suits a crime writer. Why did you decide on the gender-neutral author's name?

 Initially I felt it would avoid any gender stereotyping…women can’t write crime can they? I quickly realized that there is no protecting your real identity, if you’re to successfully promote your work.

You're described as a 'crime and romance' writer. Tell us about the romance.

Romance is part of life, in varying degrees. Sometimes it will take centre stage, most often it  simmers quietly. I find it difficult to create a character without showing how they might respond to a variety of challenges, love being just one of them. I like the “will they won’t they” scenario as a side dish rather than the main course.

There's a lot of talk about 'genre writing'. What does this mean to you? Do you think you've found your genres?

I’m not convinced that you can write in one genre only. Life encompasses many things. Most writing reflects this. I write what I like to read, which is primarily character-driven crime thrillers and historical fiction/fantasy with a dash of romance and humour thrown in for good measure. I think genre labeling is useful for marketing and helpful for readers to find what they enjoy amidst an overwhelming mass of available books.

So now we know you're a woman, what other secrets are you willing to share about your life?

 I’m a Geordie girl. In my time I’ve been a civil servant, nursery nurse and even did a stint at a greyhound track. I like creative hobbies, the outdoors and medieval history. I can be bribed with chocolate J 4yrs ago my hubby and I sold up and escaped the rat race to live in the beautiful Northumberland National Park. Our home, which is built on the foundations of a medieval chapel, features in my historical fantasy book 'Wildewood'. I’ve been a scribbler most of my life, but only began writing seriously after our move to the country.

'Mrs Jones' was published on Createspace and Kindle at the same time by your publisher, Night. How has this worked for you? What if anything will you do differently with your next book?

'Mrs Jones' is published through Tim Roux at Night Publishing, an Indie Publishing Company which produce e-books, and use Createspace and more recently Lightening Source for paperback production. This has worked well for me as a new author. Night provides a strong support group via fellow Night authors along with promotion and advice. Night edit, publish and provide e-book promotion. The only downside so far, is the delay in getting paperbacks onto Amazon UK. Independent publishers don't have the overheads of larger publishers so they are definitely more willing to take a risk on writing that's not genre-specific. Night now has almost 120 books to its name, but is still a small press compared with the big publishers.

Is 'Mrs Jones' part of Kindle's exclusive publishing? What are your views on KDP?

Yes Mrs Jones is currently enrolled in KDP. The book achieved 15,000 downloads during the five day free promotion and went on to reach number 87 in the paid kindle chart. KDP provides the boost to take your book where it will be seen. The higher the rank achieved, the more chance of browser sales. 'Mrs Jones' will also receive payment from Amazon for any loans made to their premium customers during the promotional period. There is of course a 90 day tie-in which prevents the book from being loaded onto other e-book sites. I would say my experience to date of KDP has been a positive one.

Are you worried about other booksellers not stocking amazon titles?

To be honest, bookshops in general are wary of POD and anything that's not backed by a big publisher. Amazon is the biggest market place so I'm not worried at the moment. Ask me again in six months when my paperbacks have had a chance to sell...or not. In the first two days of the promo, 'Mrs Jones' was borrowed 70 times. I won't know until the end of the 90 days what the total
amount of borrowing was or indeed how much that is worth in real terms. Looking at the numbers that have taken up the KDP offer, I suspect the $500,000 cake has been reduced to mere crumbs. 

The value of KDP as I see it, is getting your book high enough in the ranking, even if for a matter of days, to publicise and promote it. The more folk who download, whether for free or paid, the more folk are introduced to my writing. Which is particularly useful with the next book being mentioned in the back:) 'Mrs Jones' will be withdrawn at the end of the 90 day period to allow it to be sold through all the other outlets via smashwords.

You mix British and American characters and cultures in 'Mrs Jones'. How did you manage to find the voices for people from such different backgrounds? Were there any difficulties?

Good question. It has proved extremely difficult, not only with Brit/American language, but remember…I’m a Geordie…I don’t even speak EnglishJ It has been an education, which I may master, then again I may die trying, but I’ll certainly give it my best shot. To be honest the hardest part is culling the Geordie-isms which come so naturally, they remain unseen to me. A good reason for that extra pair of eyes.

At one time 'Mrs Jones' was posted on Harper Collins authonomy site. What were your experiences with authonomy? Would you recommend other authors to use the authonomy site?

Authonomy introduced me to the world of writing. Prior to me joining, no one had read my work. 'Mrs Jones' benefited immensely from constructive critique and I made some good friends. But as a means to publication by Harper Collins, it remains a pipe dream and in my opinion a waste of valuable time which could be better spent writing and honing the craft. It can be harsh, but the real world is harsher, so in that respect it is a good place to learn and develop resilience.

What are your writing habits?

I work part-time so I tend to write in the evening, often into the early hours. I don’t write a set amount, I write when the muse takes me and stop when I run out of steam. I have at least four manuscripts on the go at any one time. When I reach an impasse with one I’ll refresh myself with another. I enjoy research and gather extensive details and chronologies to ensure any facts used are accurate.

What are your top tips for other writers?

 Don’t try to write what you think publishers want. By the time you’ve finished it, publishers will be on to the next best selling craze. Write about things you know, or would enjoy reading about. Get it down in whatever garbled state it comes out of your head, warts and all. It’s your story, your voice. Then go through it so many times, that you know each line, each expression, every mood or preference of your characters. You’ll get to the point where you change things because you know in your heart that your character wouldn’t do or say that. I’ve changed whole plot lines to accommodate a developing character. When you think it’s complete let someone else read it. They will undoubtedly see things you’ve missed.

What have been your best moments as a writer? Why do you do it?

Having success in the 2011 Yeovil Literary Prize was a huge confidence boost. For the first time my work had been judged by professionals in the industry, who'd read 15,000 words of the novel to which they awarded 2nd prize. Being published, of course, was a wonderful moment. But possibly the best moment of all, was holding a copy of 'Mrs Jones', my first book, in my hands…wow! I write because I have stories leeching out of my pores. I like to share them and hope others might enjoy reading them as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them.

You've promised a sequel to 'Mrs Jones'. Can you give us a hint of what will be in 'Molly Brown'.

'Molly Brown' takes the characters from 'Mrs Jones' forward by about 18 months. Connell’s on the trail of crooked cops and a serial killer. A vulnerable child with an obsession for the Wizard of Oz throws in a curve ball and Connell risks his life and his relationship with Lizzie as he seeks to save the child and the day. There are delicate plot threads which link this to the first story, and indeed to the third book, but all can be read as stand-alones.

What’s next?

I’ve already begun the third Connell book and 'Wildewood', which is due to be published this year, is the first of a trilogy, so, plenty to keep me busy. In addition I have two darker crime thrillers which I’m currently working on. One of which is set in the north-east of England, my own stomping ground.

Congratulations again on the Yeovil Prize - a really great achievement. The judges' comments can be read  here

I believe people can meet you in the flesh at the Yeovil Festival?

Yes, I’ll be at the Yeovil book festival in Brympton, on 20^th April 2012, reading from my books and chatting about the highs and lows of the new author.

Thanks, B.A.! Hope you get plenty of readers coming to meet you at Yeovil.

My review of 'Mrs Jones' will be on the blog shortly.

  

love-hate amazon

I'm emerging briefly from the 12th century to contemplate the real world. I'm pleased with myself as I've written the first two chapters of the follow-up to 'Song at Dawn' and I want to keep writing. When I work, I write roughly 1,000 words a morning. When I don't work, I can hear the characters speaking and working out what they're going to do. I can see a hundred characters waiting in the wings and I'm not sure yet which of them are coming on stage. Research carries on but now it's focused on exactly what I need to know. So far this has included making opium tea and forging Damascus steel.

Back in the real world, there are mergers and takeovers for stock photography companies, so I took refuge in publishing news - yes, I'm joking. Anyone who doesn't like change would do well to stay in the 12th century and well away from publishing news. However, it is always a good time to take stock (pun intended) so I've managed to come to some conclusions about what might be the most important relationship in my creative life - me and amazon.

If you read or write books, you have a relationship with amazon. Like me, you're probably thinking about how  far you want to go with amazon and what the consequences will be. As with any relationship, short term pleasure might mean long term suffering, for you and for other people.

The two big questions for me as a writer


 - should I try to get amazon as a conventional publisher? Confession time. I did submit 'Song at Dawn' to their imprint and have heard nothing back whatsoever. It was already self-published (with lulu not amazon's self-publishing service) so I have only lost the time it took to write a submission but either their email submission route didn't work or they're just one more publisher too rude to reply/too bogged down to reply yet. I don't know anyone published this way but I shall be keeping an eye on the amazon imprints to see how they do.


- should I go exclusive with amazon's KDP select on an e-book to profit from their 500,000 dollar 'new author' promotion program? How far into bed with amazon am I willing to go?

These are my thoughts at present.

As a reader


LOVE
I've been buying books from amazon for many years. They offer an incredibly wide selection of books, cheap prices, cheap postage (even from the USA or UK to France, where I live), fast delivery - wonderful! With kindle books I have the ebook option and can even have a selection of newly published kindle books free - wonderful!

HATE
Obviously, I've killed the bookshops where I used to browse shelves, read reviews by shop assistants, have a coffee, enjoy bookshop atmosphere and sometimes go to signings or readings by other writers. As a little girl I spent all my pocket-money on books and when I was lonely (because I wasn't allowed a dog) I'd hang out in a bookshop or library and read.

LOVE
Nostalgia doesn't create the future and nowadays even lonely little girls living in the wilds can chat on amazon forums or join online booklovers' sites like goodreads , read, review and talk books all day (while skipping school because they get bored there) Someone's publishing prediction for 2012 was that amazon will buy goodreads.

HATE
I live in France. When I decided to buy an ereader, I could ONLY buy a kindle from amazon.com, not uk, and pay import tax for the privilege. Now I can buy a kindle from amazon.fr and pay far more for kindle books than from .com or .uk, where I am not even allowed to see the price. The relationship between the different countries' amazon sites is complicated and however much I am told 'it is to do with national laws' I remain sceptical. I can buy a print book from amazon.com or amazon.co.uk but not an ebook. I can buy ebooks from US based smashwords but not from amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.

I am not happy with my access to ebooks, nor with the prices I'm charged. This is not just an amazon hate, as I cannot even buy ebooks from Waterstone's or Blackwell's UK. Amazon does however charge me more because I live in France and limits my choices as a customer, wherever I live, by selling only a link to an ebook, not the book itself, and by restricting the format of books to kindle only. I believe this to be illegal but no-one yet has taken on amazon and those who wish to do so can find ways around this. Whether it is illegal to hack into an ebook which you have paid for and are keeping for your own use, is another question I have yet to see taken to the courts. The last straw for me was when I found I had to pay 2euros on amazon.fr for a kindle book on special free offer on .com


AS A WRITER


PRINT books
LOVE
If I self-publish with ISBNs, my books can sell via amazon's wonderful online bookshop, be reviewed, be packaged and posted, all without me lifting a finger. Amazon distribution is first class and international. The site is user friendly and is visited by millions of readers. Amazon is efficient!

Amazon is offering more and more feedback to authors, with demographic stats on sales, author pages, questionnaires and comparisons. I've had a couple of problems to deal with and amazon staff have replied promptly with practical solutions.

HATE

Some of my books were not self-published. I negotiated a wonderful 40% off cover price to buy my own books direct from the publisher and guess what? I could get them cheaper from amazon. It is not only the bookshops that lose out from amazon prices.

the bully

Amazon has such a huge profit margin that it can sell products below cost price. No-one can compete with this. It kills the competition so in the future there will be competition. Without competition, there are no checks and balances. Amazon is deliberately turning publishing into a totalitarian state.

As a self-publisher, I cannot offer buyers enough discount for me to make money by them buying direct from me. I have to tell them, they will get the books cheaper from amazon. Guess who amazon puts the squeeze on, demanding bigger discounts for them to purchase books, as they cut prices more and more? The publisher. And who does the publisher squeeze? The author. That's me, both publisher and author, screwed twice over.

EBOOKs


LOVE
I hated the fact that .com had kindles three years ago and welcomed self-publishing from US based writers only. I spent two years desperate to get in at the beginning but without an American bank account and address, no dice. I still resent missing those two years, when I had books ready to roll.

However, the love returned with kindle uk and amazon has enable me to self-publish 12 kindle titles, sell them via amazon's amazing online bookshop, in all the different amazon countries, with instant feedback on sales, and the option to control pricing.


HATE
You need a degree in discounts, pricing and royalties to understand and compare anything on one amazon site, never mind in three currencies on six international sites. My books are available in more currencies on more sites but my brain overloads after six permutations - and that's just on amazon. I suppose you thought you'd set a price in sterling and amazon would happily convert that into dollars/euros or whatever? Bitter laughter. No indeed! Hence my real grievance about amazon not allowing me to even see the price of my ebooks on amazon sites where, as a French resident, I'm not allowed to buy the books.

Add to that the fact that my royalties are halved for purchases outside the UK and the USA and I am not happy about these complicated international amazon relationships. I do understand that different countries have different laws, different taxes on books, and different 'norm' pricing for books. Print books cost far more  in France than in the UK or USA, protecting publisher and author, so one price doesn't suit all. I don't see why amazon.fr should take a different cut on my royalties to amazon.com though.

That puts my decision into context. Now back to the question

- should I go exclusive with amazon on an e-book to profit from their 500,000 dollar 'new author' promotion program?


I now know a couple of writers who've done this and I intend to track their progress and interview them on my blog as they progress. I rate them both highly as writers and at the moment they've launched their books with free giveaways, taken up by hundreds of readers - nice start.

They're both pricing their books at 99cents - the conventional low price 'starting point' for unknown writers.

I've decided NO, not for me.
It would be a lot of hassle to remove any of my ebooks from their other distributors -  smashwords, lulu and goodreads, where they're building up steam nicely.

If the offer's still there when I finish the follow-up to 'Song at Dawn', I could publish that exclusively to kindle. Why wouldn't I?

For the same reason I don't price my ebooks at 99cents. I agonised over pricing, caught between 'conventionally published authors demand and get high prices for ebooks' and 'unknown authors get thousands of readers via cheap ebooks'. My current theory is that there is a huge readership for books which are free or 99cents but that those readers will have no loyalty to an author. They will always be looking for - and able to find - books that are free or 99cents - and their priority will be the price. As a writer, I am looking for readers who value what I write and who will come back to read more of my books because they think they're good, not because they're free. I am prepared to sell books more slowly at what I've decided is a fair price - definitely less than print books but above the '99cents mass of new and unknown writers'. I will get more money per book and I am hoping to reach 'my' readers. Time will tell.

I am also unhappy at the idea of signing that amazon contract, not just because I've had bad experiences with a recent publishing contract, but also because there are clauses along the lines that you don't talk about your contract. What was I saying earlier about totalitarian?

Maybe freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose, maybe freedom ain't worth nothing, but it is definitely free. I want to keep my sense of these two words, 'value' and 'free' separate from amazon.

In future blogs I will be following the progress of writers who've made different choices for their books so that I can relate our experiences in conventional publishing, self-publishing, print books, ebooks, kindle exclusive.

Now I need to go back to the 12th century, where the Crusader armies taunted the Saracens before attacking by miming the act of writing. It showed what a wimp you were to be literate. Plus ca change. Long live us wimps.