Category Archives: Publishing

The return to the desk

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It feels like I have been away for a very, very long time. Which I have, I suppose, in the grand scheme of things.

As usual, time off to travel has given me a chance to ponder life and the directions it sometimes takes us. It’s also given me a chance to refresh myself when it comes to my writing schedule, which after the previous twelve months, was very much needed.

Today marks the first proper return to the daily routine. It actually feels quite exciting. I’m working on a new project, as well as getting the final stages of my next fiction book under my belt. As I’ve discussed many times, the editing process, that painful road which takes a book from first draft to published, is my least favourite part of the process. So to be able to come to it again with a renewed sense of what I want the book to achieve is actually a wonderful thing.

The flip side of the coin is that I’ve returned to England, which can only be described as in a state of turmoil. There is a clear divide between those of us who like to travel and have new experiences, and those who don’t really see their place in Europe. It is something I am still processing as a human, as a citizen and as a woman. More than ever, it highlights that writing is an escape that I will return to whenever things get tough.

Which is exactly what I shall go and do now.

Genre Switch

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So, I remember saying something last time about showing my softer side in my next novel. That’s almost true. The novel being released later this year is actually going to be… *drumroll* a romance novel.

Don’t worry, it will still be very much in the same vein as the other novels I have written. By that I mean there will be gritty plot lines, tough decisions and kickass heroines at the heart of the story, but with a considerable amount of additional smooching between the leads. And then some.

To break it down, Teddie McKay, my protagonist in The Crochet Killer and A Taste To Die For isn’t a sexless lesbian by any means, but as its a crime novel, the emphasis is on the mystery solving, not the rolling around in the sack.

Elizabeth and Monica, the two main characters of Blood Inheritance have, at this stage, the kind of subtextual connection that I remember so fondly from my Buffy and Xena days. Now, don’t get me wrong, it was as frustrating as hell in the long run. Especially because even though the subtext was fun, you knew nothing would happen. But I’m in control now, so I know the truth *evil laugh*.

In this new novel, it follows all the rules of the romance genre (almost all, it’s more fun when you break a few). Which means that the romance is up a notch, the sex is up a lot and the whole thing is more playful and fun.

I know there are supposed rules about branding and genre, but I don’t really care. I like the book and it is one I think my readers will enjoy, so I am bringing it into the world. If new readers then go back and buy my other books, then I hope that even if it isn’t what they expected, then they enjoy those too. It’s all on Kindle anyway, so sample chapter yourself away!

Questions of certainty

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It’s strange how you can be doing something you love and, for that matter, for it to be going really well, but still experience moments of absolute terror and doubt.

This is completely what happened to me this week. I had a moment when I questioned, for the first time in probably nearly two decades, what I would do if I decided that writing wasn’t my dream job and I should just give it up.

Live some kind of normal life instead.

It was a strange, dark and yet, at the same time, completely illuminating moment. I have been writing for so long that I still do it for pleasure, even when I have no intention of sharing it with an audience. If I don’t write for a few days, I start to get twitchy. I have creative energy and I need to use it. God didn’t give me any other talents, so writing it is.

But that traitorous little voice was there, the one that reminded me how much easier it would be if I just gave it all up now. If I stopped and concentrated on another career instead. How I would get so much of my time back, time that I could then spend with family and friends or on other hobbies. How I wouldn’t have to deal with rejection and failure that is part of every writer life, even once you are published and successful.

It was Steven Pressfield’s Resistance in full force and it nearly took hold of me completely.

I’ve pushed that feeling down and have been coming back to myself and my dreams with a fresh pair of eyes. It is hard, this dream of mine, possibly it is yours too. It doesn’t end and it is always challenging. But despite the free time and the glittering grass on the other side, it really is what I was meant to do.

So, tonight, I’ll sit here and keep on doing it. But if you have those moments of doubt, about anything that part of you truly believes in, know that it is entirely normal. It’s better to work through it than live a life not trying.

 

Setting my goals for the coming year

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Wow – 2015 was a crazy year. I ticked off some pretty big goals and I have taken a little time over the holidays to take stock. It’s a good way to actually recognise the achievements, rather than just ticking off a box and moving onto the next thing.

So what do I plan for 2016? Not as many books, that’s for sure! I self published three novels in 2015, in the interests of getting my books out there to share with you all. I learned some pretty hard lessons along the way too. That’s also good – hard lessons are easier to learn and move you further forwards than a smooth ride.

So this year I’m planning to release only one book. It was originally going to be the sequel to Blood Inheritance, but after some careful review and discussions, it became clear that I was going to do that because it is the one I most want to do, not the one that other people want to read. Getting that straight in my head has been tricky, but I’m there now. It’s a bit too early to say what the next book is going to be (as the first draft is only just now being completed), but I think it will have more of an appeal to my core audience.

I’ve also got a wedding to plan, a month honeymoon to indulge in (under strict instructions not to do any business) and some additional travel. My alter ego has a book to do as well, so in the interests of not killing myself, I’m planning things out a bit more this year. I guess that means from a writing perspective, as well as a life perspective, the overarching theme for this year is:

Work smarter, not harder!

I hope that you’re all working towards your dreams this year, and wish you every success.

Kindle Royalties (Part Two) – still the enemy?

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A while ago, when Amazon announced a new way of paying royalties based on read page counts, authors and publishers threw their arms up in despair. The reality was, it was most likely to affect self-published authors and only with the books ‘borrowed’ rather than purchased, which I discussed in my first blog post on the subject.

It’s been happening now for several months and we finally have some data on the subject. For those of you sensible enough to just enjoy reading rather than killing yourself writing, monthly royalties are broken down by territory and then again by purchased and the amount you’ve earned by total pages read.

The other me works with data to fund the writer me, so this little method, no matter how crude, fascinates me. I’m all about data driven decisions and it would be foolish for someone not to analyse the data they have available and use it to inform their strategies. At this time of year, when I’m planning for 2016, it will certainly influence things.

So, what do I know?

  • The United States is my highest paying market
  • The UK is my second highest paying market
  • In the US, I don’t sell many more books, but my ‘borrowed, total read pages’ payments are three times that of sales, bumping it into the lead
  • In the UK, this is just above total sales by little more than a couple of quid each month
  • My other markets are Canada and New Zealand and I’m happy to just have people buying books from there given how damn expensive it was when I’ve lived/travelled there

Borrowing with Kindle Prime has clearly taken off more in the States than the UK and other countries, that’s for sure. The good news for me is that when people borrow my first book The Crochet Killer (shameless plug) they read more than just the first few pages and give up. They tend to read the whole book, which is fantastic news for me. And I completely understand not shelling out the cold hard cash for an author you don’t know if you have an alternative, it’s essentially the same as using a library.

So there you have it. Borrowing a book and reading it can still make an author happy. None of the figures I’ve talked about above have been massive, certainly not enough to be a full time writer and that whole private island thing is still a million miles away. But enough to let me know that people are reading and enjoying my writing, which is what we all do it for in the first place.

 

Life Happens

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There has been a dearth of updates recently because, well, life happens.

I know life happens all the time and is generally a poor excuse for not doing any kind of updates or letting things slide. But I’ve had some big life happens moments, so I’m going to allow myself to use it as an excuse.

The biggest one of these is that I got engaged and set a date for the wedding that is significantly less than a year away. Trust me, that has led to lots of celebrations, alongside a healthy dose of mind-numbing fear (always good). It’s also led to a lot of reassessment of what matters, what doesn’t and what really needs to get done today.

I had already made a rough plan of my writing goals and deadlines for 2016. This little piece of good news has caused me to radically rethink that. I know that if I stuck to my original plans, nothing would be achieved to its best potential, and the night before my wedding I didn’t want to get stuck doing last minute edits or cover art reviews. It also means I have to put traditional publishing above indie, which is a bit of a shame. I’m determined to still publish the follow up to Blood Inheritance in 2016 though, as the bulk of the work has already been done.

So, be kind to yourself. Life is about many things and achievement is only one of them. Sometimes there are (good) bumps in the road and they’re just as important as meeting any deadlines.

Do LGBT readers expect explicit content?

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It is clear to see when you do a simple search of any LGBT eBook category that the first few pages of book titles include a generous serving of the steamier side of life. Seriously, you only need to look at those covers to know what’s going on between them.

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Which then led to an interesting conversation with friends: do LGBT readers expect explicit content? Is that what they’re there for, or is it just a given within the genre and no one is at all surprised when it happens?

I have a few thoughts about this, given that my own books don’t contain explicit content (yet it has been requested, so there is obviously a market). I wonder, sometimes, if  actually the assumption is somewhat based on that old stereotyping – that the gay is all about the sex. Gay men certainly suffer from this perception more than lesbians, hence the oft-held belief that they can’t be in a long term relationship and will hump anything that also has a penis.

Are we still in the stages of infancy with the genre so books with gay characters are all about the gayness rather than plot? If so, this automatically leads into somewhat dodgy ground. It is difficult to demand greater visibility but without giving characters same depth and multi-facetedness. Romance is one thing, but other genres?

Let’s face it, sex sells. It doesn’t matter what kind of sex you’re into, it’s still enough of a taboo to  generate intrigue, and the anonymity of eBooks makes for fertile ground. After a perceived drought for LGBT readers it’s no great surprise that explicit content is in high demand.

So, is the LGBT eBook market just moving with the dynamics of supply and demand? Do the readers merely accept the content or are they actively seeking it out? If anyone has the answers then I would genuinely love to know. I’ve tried to make diverse characters who are more than just their sexuality, or their race, or their social background. But I suspect that I’d probably shift more sales if there was a bit more laborious breathing and references to bodily fluids in that first 10% taste you get for free.

Bonus points and apologies if you’ve spotted all the sex puns scattered throughout.

Learning to juggle

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I’m not talking literal juggling, obviously. My hand / eye coordination isn’t good enough for that any more. Fun fact: I actually used to juggle for stress relief at university. I was way ahead of all the personal development gurus on that one.balls

So, there are a couple of exciting things going on at the moment and like many things in life, it is the ones you are not expecting that have the biggest impact. It’s like when you’ve learned to juggle three balls and then someone throws in a fourth just before you feel fully comfortable with what you’re doing. You either have to up your game really quickly or you end up dropping them all.

Writing is like that most of the time for me. I have multiple projects going on in multiple fields. Jumping from one to the other is a brain challenge, as well as being physically exhausting. I know I’m lucky – I’m still in the fledgling stages where I can still make mistakes because I refuse to give up the financial security of a full time paid position. But that does mean when I did some basic calculations earlier in the week, when you include all the time spent on writing (both actual creative stuff and then all the less exciting stuff that goes with it) I average a 70 hour week.

I’m nothing special. It’s not even something just authors go through – all entrepreneurs do at some stage, no matter how much the follow your dream message gets glamorised. Learning to juggle your life is one skill you need to master along the way.

As a result, my planned time for structural edits of the next book following Blood Inheritance have had to go on the back burner. Luckily for me, I’d built in some extra fallback time, so it doesn’t impact yet on my planned 2016 release schedule. Luckily, of all the indie publishing hats I wear, project management comes to me the easiest. After the actual damn writing, of course, but the more you want to write, the less writing you actually do. Oh universe, you’re so funny like that, aren’t you?

 

Promo Time! The Crochet Killer

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To celebrate A Taste To Die For being released and still feeling flush with the joys of vacation, The Crochet Killer is now on offer.

I’m running an Amazon kindle promotion so you can get the first book in the Teddie McKay series at a nicely reduced price. If you’ve noticed A Taste To Die For but haven’t wanted to jump in at the second book, now is the perfect chance to try before you buy!

Crochet Killer CoverStill not convinced? Remember you can download a free sample, but be sure to buy before the price goes back up (I hate forgetting and then ending up with a significantly higher credit card bill than I thought, but even at full price, this is only a couple of dollars for now. Regular pricing resumes in October!)

 

A break is as good as a rest!

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As I begin to wrap up my vacation time, I’ll be sad to leave the holiday feeling behind. Yet I know that it has been as essential as it has been fun.

My notebook has new ideas in it, as well as some amendments to existing projects. Sometimes, physical distance can allow you to see things with new eyes. For example, the Lazarus Hunter series has been fairly well plotted to the end for quite some time now. The first three books are completed and book four is down on the list as one of my next writing projects (I’d love to do it sooner, but I have other commitments which are stopping me). Yet a missing piece of conflict that I needed has been elusive up until now.

With nothing to think about, this piece finally snuck up on me and smacked me between the eyes.

So I will be returning from my break with a renewed sense of enthusiasm. I love writing, but my life is like balancing three full time jobs sometimes. My creativity can stutter if I don’t take a break every now and again. When I do, it is worth every penny, both in literal money and also time.

I’ve not got any C K Martin books planned for the release for the rest of this year. I’ve not tracked the sales of A Taste To Die For while I’ve been on vacation, because I’ve not wanted the time to be about number watching, no matter how addictive it can be.

So I can go into the last third of the year feeling more relaxed about what I still need to do. I know one thing that people have wanted in the Teddie McKay books is a little bit more lovin’ for Teddie. As neither books in the series are romances, it didn’t feel right at any point to put a good sex scene in, not without it feeling entirely gratuitous. So I’m playing around with an idea for a short story to let the woman get a bit of action. It would need to be fun for everyone (including me) to make it work.

So, despite saying there’d be no more publications this year, part of me is already thinking never say never…