Lazy Literary Agents In Self-Publishing Money Grab via Argo Navis
I was at the London Book Fair last week - and I'll be blogging about that soon - when the news broke that David Mamet is to self-publish his next book.
His reasons? "Publishing is like Hollywood—nobody ever does the marketing they promise."
While I think it's great that someone as high-profile as David Mamet is self-publishing, I was very disappointed to find out the
Who’s The Daddy?
Blow the trumpets, roll the drums… I’m a proud father once again!
My novel The Vault is now available in print. (Hope you didn’t think I was talking about children – that would be far more radical and much more frightening.)
The final proof of the book was approved last week and a box of copies of the real thing are – hopefully – winging their way across the Atlantic and should be touching down here next week.
In the meantime, though, The Vault is already available via Amazon for the very reasonable price of either $14.99 or £8.99.
I’m continuing to sell the book in aid of my favourite charity, the disaster relief charity ShelterBox, and am giving 50% of all profits to the organisation.
The book is a murder mystery with four intertwining stories. The main thread is about a young schoolboy who’s trying to escape a gang of local thugs but there’s also an armed raid on the home of a reclusive billionaire, a sex offender on the run and the police investigation into the discovery of three bodies in a lake.
If anyone’s interested in buying a copy of The Vault – in paperback or Kindle format - you can find it at:
As you can probably imagine, I’m delighted to reach this new milestone. It’s more than six years since The Tale Of Findo Gask was first published so it’s very exciting having one of my novels available in print again.
Those of you with keen eyes who helped with the design process for the cover of The Vault might notice a couple of minor tweaks – the title and my name are a bit bigger (stands out better on thumbnails) and the cover is now a dark purple rather than actual black.
In other news, I’m waiting anxiously for my car to be fixed. The electronic dashboard died recently and at the moment there’s a large hole where my instrument panel should be!
(Makes me long for the days of real instruments with needles that move rather than digital displays… and windows that you could wind up and down!)
Watch Out – Wolves About!
Authors aren’t always that worldly-wise. After all, we’re creative types, known for having our heads in the clouds rather than engaging with the nitty-gritty of everyday life.
It’s not necessarily that there’s anything wrong with ‘real’ life – just that there’s so much more excitement to be had in our private alternative reality – and all those stories clamouring for our attention.
Once we’ve written our books, though, the big question is ‘what now?’ – and that’s when a healthy dose of caution is needed.
In many ways, the advent of e-publishing has given us a huge amount of freedom. But for indie authors who want to actually sell books writing the things is (believe it or not) the easy part. Even once all the editing is done and we’ve got a (hopefully) professional standard product we’ve then got to sell and market the thing.
Like many other indie authors I’m on a big learning curve here. There’s a big, baffling world out there and mastering it takes a lot of skill and knowledge.
It’s also common knowledge that increasing numbers of people are turning to self-publishing. Which means – surprise, surprise – there are also growing numbers of wolves and sharks circling around looking for easy prey (and easy money).
I’ve always been a bit of a skeptic. Don’t know if that’s a result of being a journalist or whether cause and effect are the other way round. I also have a tendency to be careful with my money.
Which is why when promoting my books I’ve stuck – so far – with the free options. But I’ve noticed the growing number of websites, blogs etc offering to promote my books for me. Some only charge a few dollars but I can’t help wondering about how ‘real’ this help is.
Some sites boast about their thousands of subscribers but my inner skeptic says: ‘Sure, but how many of them are indie authors like me who are trying to sell books and how many are genuine readers looking for the next great novel?’
I know most sites are only charging a few dollars for a listing but there are a lot of indie/self-published authors out there and a few dollars from each one of us will soon mount up. Makes me wonder how much money is being made.
I was partly prompted to write this post by reading Cameron D James’ piece about the difficulty of engaging with readers rather than just fellow authors. I also read a recent post by Michelle Proulx about entering her first book contest and wondering how ‘real’ the contest was.
Then yesterday I came across the Writer Beware site run by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. This lists not just fake writing contests but also warns authors about all sorts of other scams out there – ranging from literary agencies run by convicted fraudsters to publishing agreements where you have to sign away exclusive rights to your work. (There’s also a Writer Beware blog if anyone wants to keep track of the latest alerts.)
Anyway, having waffled on and probably come across all doom and gloom, here’s a question for all my fellow authors out there. Can anyone recommend any paid advertising options that work? Or have you taken part in a contest that has led to real results? Or any other thoughts on how to be a successful indie author?
The Radical Button
Big moment. I hit the radical button yesterday and uploaded the final cover design for The Vault.
I hope it meets with approval as all your feedback and votes helped played an important part in the final decision!
From the selection that I asked you all to vote on, the red cover with the image of the locking mechanism and the black cover with the picture of the boy in the woods came out equal first with 39%. However, another 21% of you voted for the third version. Since this also used the photo of the woods I decided that was the winning image.
Helped by comments made on the blog and via Facebook, I pulled everything together for the version above, which I uploaded last night to CreateSpace.
And – as if that’s not enough excitement – this morning I ordered two proof copies of the book. Unfortunately, since I’m on the wrong side of the pond, I won’t get to see them until the end of next week.
It’ll be a special moment having a hard copy in my hands. Then – assuming everything’s okay – the next part of the fun starts. Trying to sell the things!
In the meantime, I don’t think I’m going to do any gardening today. The snow’s back and I’m staying inside. Oh well, I’ll have to write instead.
Pick & Mix
I need help! Not just the psychiatric kind but opinions on a book cover. Below are three possible images for the cover of the print edition of The Vault.
If you saw any of these in a book shop (or store!), which – if any – would you pick up?
Huge amounts of gratitude will be sent your way for any votes cast. If you don’t like any of them please tell me why. Pick and mix options are also possible.
Virtual flowers/bottles of favourite tipple will be mentally beamed to you via the ether in response to any helpful feedback. Poll and comment box below:
Back To Work
So, the excitement of my latest KDP promotion is over. No massive results to report – but I did hit NUMBER ONE in Germany!
Thanks to Susanne from the xtme.de website, I had over 100 downloads of Findo Gask from Amazon’s German site on Monday. This got me to #170 in the overall free books listing and #1 in the Action & Adventure category on Amazon.de! Does this mean I can claim to have an international bestseller best freebie now?
Anyway, back to work now. Got to finalise the cover design for The Vault then I can get the presses rolling on the print version.
Today’s images have no particular relevance other than I love Banksy’s art – and was delighted to read that the piece ‘stolen’ from a wall in London (above) has now been withdrawn from sale.
Stop Spoiling Self-Publishing!
I almost started this post with an expletive but changed my mind because I want to keep my PG rating. However, I’m starting to get really fu.. annoyed.
Over the past few months I’ve found myself giving up on many novels downloaded onto my Kindle. And that’s not like me. In the past it was extremely rare that I didn’t get to the end of a book.
And it’s not just me. A friend got her first Kindle for Christmas and recently posted on Facebook asking where she can find good free books because ‘there’s a lot of dross out there’.
Sadly, the problem is getting worse. Too many wannabe indie authors are self-publishing without properly checking their books are fit for release – and the danger is that they’re driving potential indie readers back to the ‘safety’ of corporate publishing.
That’s not to say all mainstream novels are perfect. I recently read Ken Follett’s Winter Of The World and spotted a couple of bad edits.
However. There are limits and mine are being stretched to breaking point. As an indie author myself I want to support fellow writers and I regularly download books that are on promotion. But – although I have found a few gems – I seem to increasingly be rolling my eyes and pressing ‘delete’ before I’ve read more than a few chapters.
I don’t think books have to be error free. I can cope with a few tpyos or strange stylistic quirks. But when the typos are coming every page and are coupled with bad grammar and continuity errors I draw the line.
Last night I gave up on a crime novel when one of the main characters switched from third person to first person and back. (This was the straw that broke my patience not a lone mistake).
Sometime the errors are easy to understand. But sometimes they’re mistakes that a basic spellcheck would find. I recently waded through a thriller where the first third was well edited but it then progressively deteriorated. One sentence started with the word ‘ut’ instead of ‘But’!
I’m sorry but that’s unforgiveable. (I’m still toying with whether to ‘name and shame’.) It was almost as if the author started off with good intentions but got so excited about publishing that they gave up on the proofreading part way.
What I also find disturbing about this and other examples is that the books in question often have quite a few four and five star Amazon reviews. Maybe other people can ignore the mistakes but my fear is that friends are writing glowing reviews without having really read the book in question.
Which again, defeats the purpose of reviews, brings the honesty of the whole system into question and ultimately is only going to drive more readers away.
(I have the same problem with all these indie authors who ask each other to ‘like’ books on Amazon in return for a reciprocal ‘like’. If you haven’t actually read and ‘liked’ the book in question, how honest is this?)
So please, fellow authors, don’t rush to publish a book that’s not ready. Your audience isn’t going to vanish if you wait a few months. Take the time to proofread, edit and re-edit. You’ll probably get more readers – and money from real sales – if you do it properly.
NB. For anyone tempted to do a quality check on my work then my novel The Tale Of Findo Gask is free until (and including) Monday 25th February. Click on the links below:
Experimental Giveaway
My favourite novel The Tale Of Findo Gask is on promotion via Amazon for the next five days – and I’m waiting to see if the book’s new blurb will have any impact.
Findo was first published – in print – after winning a national UK competition for new authors back in 2005. But the company behind the award went bust not long after and my treasured publishing contract turned into just another piece of scrap paper.
Then ebooks came along and Findo was re-published in December 2011. But – even though it’s been out for longest – it’s the worst-selling of all my novels, both in terms of actual sales and free downloads.
I probably should have stopped to think about this a long time ago but was more fixated – like I suspect most authors are – on the next great ‘Work In Progress’ rather than worrying about petty issues like marketing and publicity.
A few weeks ago I wrote a rant about indie authors who don’t even properly edit their book blurbs. Then I had to come clean and admit in a subsequent post that – although grammatically correct – my blurb for Findo just didn’t ‘sell’ the book.
So now I’m hoping that my more dynamic new blurb will tempt more readers to try Findo. I think it’s a wonderful story – full of excitement and adventure, with a strong dash of romance, all underscored with some biting analysis of modern society and the world in which we live.
I must admit I am a bit biased. But I do wish more people would take the opportunity to see whether I’m also right!
If you want to download a copy, it’s free from today until Monday 25th February. Click on the links below:
The Problem With Ebooks
A major problem with ebooks occurred to me the other day – not being able to see what other people are reading.
That’s because, as an author, I’ve always dreamt of walking into a cafe, getting on a train, going to an airport etc and seeing a stranger engrossed in reading one of my novels.
But ebooks are so anonymous compared with old fashioned paper and hardbacks. Unless you lean right over the person’s shoulder you’ve no idea if they’re reading War And Peace or 50 Shades Of Whatever. (They could even be reading this blog or doing their shopping.)
Anyway – partly in a bid to one day realise my dream – I’m in the process of putting together the first print edition of The Vault. Today was a bit of a red letter day – I sent off an application to buy 10 ISBN numbers. (For some reason you can only buy a minimum of 10 in the UK.)
When I first published this book (on Kindle) I decided that 50% of any royalties would go to the charity ShelterBox. The ebook version has now been on sale for about a year and sold enough copies that I was able to hand over a donation of £85 the other week. Not a huge sum but it’s a start!
Anyway, I’m hoping that once I’ve got a print version available I might be able to sell a few more copies. Sadly the royalties on print versions are much lower but at least I might spot someone reading the book!
But before I hit ‘print’ I’ve got a few more things to finalise apart from the ISBN numbers. One important thing is the cover. The image above is the cover for the Kindle version but I’m thinking of a new design for the print edition.
Below are three versions of one possible cover. I’d love to get any feedback. How does the new cover compare with the old one? Do you like either of them? Which version of the new one is best?
Please be honest! Any comments welcome.
NB. The image on the ebook cover shows part of the locking mechanism of a vault (so an obvious link), whereas the forest scene is because much of the story is set in an ancient English woodland that’s crucial to the four strands of the story.
Option 1 with natural colours and a colour publisher’s logo.
Option 2 with pale colours and a black-and-white logo.
Option 3 with a red tint and B&W logo.
Sex It Up
A week or so ago I wrote a rant about lazy indie authors who can’t be bothered to proofread their book blurbs properly.
Then, earlier today, I was thinking about whether to set up a new promo for my one award-winning novel, The Tale Of Findo Gask.
And the thing is, Findo is in many ways my favourite out of the books I’ve got published. (I know having favourite children is wrong but I just can’t help it.)
It’s probably got a lot to do with the fact that this was the book that back in 2005 won a national UK contest for new authors and got me – albeit briefly – a real, genuine publishing contract. I got to hold the first print edition of my book as well as see it on the shelves in the local Waterstones book shop and on Amazon.
This, for those of you who don’t remember that far back, was in the era BK (Before Kindle). I’d never even heard of ebooks at this stage and to be able to hold a printed copy of my novel was an emotional moment.
Anyway – to cut a long story short – I’ve always felt very proud of Findo and consequently rather disappointed that it’s also the worst seller out of the four novels I’ve currently got available on Kindle.
So before setting up my promo I had a look at the book’s blurb. Which is when I felt a serious pang of embarrassment. I didn’t see any typos or bad grammar – thankfully there was nothing that bad! But I read it and couldn’t help feeling that the blurb just didn’t live up to the book. I mean, I’m proud of this story – it’s exciting, thought-provoking and emotional but I don’t think anyone would have got that from the blurb.
Anyway – after smacking myself around the ego for my own laziness – I’ve now had another go. I don’t know if I’ve got it right yet but hopefully the new Amazon blurb might convince a few more readers that this is a book worth their time!
Find my books on Amazon
Work In Progress
Posts I Like
