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Dirty Little War Playlist

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I think a lot of writers have a selection of songs they put together when they are beginning to write a novel. I know for me it is one of the key things at the beginning. When I’m actually writing, I don’t really listen to the songs at all. But a playlist gives me instant access to the themes and mood of the story, so when I’m out an about, I can put it on and instantly become immersed on the characters again.Dirty Little War

My latest novel, Dirty Little War, is a standalone lesbian romance, set on the gritty streets of East End London. It dips into organised crime and forbidden love. We all know that forbidden women are exciting and make us lose all rational thoughts about consequences, even when they are dangerous.

So, without further ado, the playlist for Dirty Little War:

  1. I’m On Fire, Bruce Springsteen
  2. Blank Space, Taylor Swift
  3. It Might As Well Be You, Del Amitri
  4. Take Me To Church, Hozier
  5. Tell Me, Billie Myers
  6. Sunset (Jamie xx Edit), The xx
  7. Casual Sex, My Darkest Days
  8. Spring Released, Grant Lee Philiips
  9. Coming Up From Behind, Marcy Playground
  10. Poison, Alice Cooper
  11. Steer, Missy Higgins
  12. I Drove All Night, Roy Orbison
  13. Point Blank, Bruce Springsteen

I know, it is a somewhat eclectic list in terms of musical genre and artist. But the songs work for the story I wanted to write and when I look back over the finished result, I can see the songs helped me stay true to the characters and what they were going through. Given that my characters were essentially prisoners of their families and the lives they were born into, I’m On Fire started me off in the right place for writing about the insanity of passion.

Each song had a special place too in that they directly tie up to certain key scenes. I always find this most useful when writing dark scenes about real life and the despair of escaping that comes with it. So for me it comes full circle, ending with Springsteen too…

You grew up where young girls they grow up fast
You took what you were handed and left behind what was asked
But what they asked baby wasn’t right
You didn’t have to live that life
And I was gonna be your Romeo, you were gonna be my Juliet
These days you don’t wait on Romeos, you wait on that welfare check
And on all the pretty things that you can’t ever have
And on all the promises
That always end up point blank, Shot between the eyes

 

It’s here! My new romance novel has been published today

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I’m thrilled to introduce my latest book to the world!

DLW thumbnail

In the dark heart of the city, a dirty little war is about to begin

Evie Baedeker knows her place in the world. Born into a life of organised crime in the gritty East End of London, she has endured nothing but hardship and disappointment. Then one night, in a sleazy bar, fate sends a dangerous opportunity her way.

Carmen Trogan, daughter and heir apparent to a rival business, has no idea who Evie is when their eyes meet across the dance floor. But Evie knows all about her. The chance to bring the rich and beautiful woman to her knees – both figuratively and literally – is too good to pass up.

Sparks fly from their first kiss, but Evie is playing a dangerous game. There are consequences that come with spending the night with a woman like Carmen.

Will she be able to walk away from the best night of her life, or will she risk it all to see Carmen one more time?

A standalone lesbian romance novel, this has all the bittersweet joy that comes with forbidden love. You can pick up a copy over at Amazon now!

Quiet does not equal ‘not busy’

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Yes, things have once again been quiet on the social media front. To my horror, I didn’t do a single blogpost in July. But quiet certainly doesn’t mean that things have been slow and relaxed around here. Exactly the opposite in fact.

There has been a lot of travel for the non-fiction projects in my life (these, whilst being considerably less enjoyable, do pay the majority of the bills), which means less time for fun things like blogposts and twitter. Isn’t this often the way? Sometimes I think there are a lot of people telling everyone about their life, rather than being in it and being present. However, social time has been something of a luxury, in real life and virtual.

Plus, it’s always harder to work in the summer when it is delightfully warm. Every task then feels like suffering when you cans see the sun outside and the beach is calling. I’m just being honest here.

However, projects have indeed been progressing nicely in the spaces between. I am happy to be writing the fourth book in The Lazarus Hunter series, which is great fun. I love my little foray into the world of urban fantasy and my favourite vampires. I’m also waist deep in the final edits for my new romance novel, which has slipped slightly off track but is still on its way out into the world during the next four weeks. Pesky days, only having twenty-four hours in them.

I hope everyone else is having as productive a time as me! Either way, enjoy the weekend. Friday night and the wine bottle is OPEN.

Structural edits and real life

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Once again I have been a very bad author when it comes to communicating with people. I’m not going to lie; one of my favourite things about writing is that it is a solitary pursuit. I still have to work with a lot of idiots in my day to day non-fiction life, so writing is a little bit of special me time.

Anyway, sharing is caring, so here we go. What have I been up to? I’ve sent the first draft of my next novel to my special bunch of alpha readers and have been patiently listening to their feedback. Luckily, it’s been consistent across the board, which is so much nicer than having to choose between conflicting opinions.

I’ve also begun the structural edits for it and so far it’s not looking too shabby. Of course, there is still always the chance that something will need to change and I’ll have to go back and reorder whole chunks of it (or worse, every writer’s nightmare, delete whole sections and rewrite), but at the moment it still looks promising. Line edits, I know already, will be a different matter. Autocorrect seems to have had a field day with this one.

It’s a bit of a departure from other things you may have read from me, but more about that next time. It’s not fantasy like Blood Inheritance, or crime like The Crochet Killer and A Taste To Die For. Let’s just say, I’ve tried to get in touch with my softer side…

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.

 

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.

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!)

 

Cover Reveal! A Taste To Die For

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This is a moment I’ve been looking forward to sharing for absolutely ages. It’s time to reveal the cover of my next novel, A Taste To Die For, the second book in the Teddie McKay series. Without further ado, here it is!

A Taste To Die ForThere is so much I love about this cover. It is a bit brighter than the one for The Crochet Killer, which is just fine. This book itself is lighter in many ways, so that reflects it well. Yet, right there at the bottom, there is that hint of darkness.

I’ve made it no secret that the cover is my least favourite part of the indie publishing side of things. I prefer when someone else comes up with the visual concept. Despite my love of words, I struggle to get the artistic description across when I want a cover made for me. This one has turned out almost exactly as I had envisaged it, with minimal effort. Which is just the way I like things. It allows me to focus on the writing side of life, which is much more preferable.

So why A Taste To Die For? Let’s just say, this book has a food theme. The die for bit should be fairly self explanatory, with it being a crime book and all.

Now it’s just three more days until publication! Then I’ll be sitting back with a large glass of merlot and celebrating another book leaving home. It’s the end of the summer, after all.

 

Finishing touches of A Taste To Die For

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There is something quite exciting about knowing something is finished. Today, all the final touches of the next Teddie McKay Novel are in place, ready for August 27th release. I’m so excited!

I’m not sure (because the past month has been a bit of a blur between this and several other projects) whether I have mentioned the title yet. If not, I can reveal that it will be called A Taste To Die For. That is not, in case you were wondering, some bad lesbian joke based around Teddie’s sexuality.

Until the book actually goes on sale in 7 days, I know I will be a bit of a wreck. It is an excited kind of wreck, but still a bit wobbly regardless. There is something quite terrifying about sending a novel out there for people to read. Even though everything so far has been positive, that doesn’t mean I will ever get complacent about people’s reviews and opinions. All I can do is put the best book I can out there, and hope that people enjoy it.

Despite the fear, it is a hugely rewarding experience too. My life revolves around writing and that goes beyond C K Martin and her books. Yet the Teddie McKay series and the Lazarus Hunter series are some of my favourite things. Why?

Because I can write them as I want.

I don’t have a publishing house or editor telling me how to make them more saleable on a mass market scale. I don’t have to make the characters thinner, fatter, straighter, gayer, more of this gender, less of that, or anything else. The characters are the people I am interested in and the stories are the ones I want to tell.

For example, since Twilight, vampires have been a hard sell in traditional publishing. Yet Indie publishing shows that there is still a significant market for them. The only thing the Lazarus Hunter series has in common with the significantly more popular one is the vampire theme. Therefore, I don’t feel like I should hide it away just because someone else did something similar once. That’s insane.

With Teddie, I wanted the book equivalent of cheesey cop shows. I love to watch them on TV but there are so few gay characters and not in a leading role. Most of the lesbians I know are cops. Just saying. So I wanted her to be identifiable. But the main point is that she’s a detective. A flawed but capable detective. She doesn’t solve the crime with her gay magic powers. She solves it the same way as anyone else would. Which should be the point, really, shouldn’t it?

Anyway, that turned into a post slightly different from the one I had intended. Which was *squee*. It’s done. Now, we wait.

If you haven’t yet read the first book in the series and the sequel sounds interesting to you, then you can buy The Crochet Killer on Amazon.

(Cover reveal on Monday!!)

Kindle Promo: Blood Inheritance

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Just a reminder folks that we’re moving into the last chance to grab Blood Inheritance while it is on promo.

For those of you who haven’t yet seen anything about this novel, it is the first in my supernatural urban fantasy series focusing on Elizabeth, the daughter of an authority of vampires and Monica, the unwilling head of a vampire family. The two women, who should by all accounts be sworn enemies, discover that actually they can trust each other more than some of the people who should be on their side.

Of course, there are fights, blood and sex, because you would expect nothing more from an urban fantasy novel. However, I’ve tried to stay away from implausible high heels and tight leather fighting outfits. I wanted likeable, relatable female protagonists, who don’t go to pieces over their love lives or lack thereof. Mostly, I wanted a book where women don’t automatically have to be bitches/unsupportive/crazy/fighting over the same man/woman etc etc just because there are two of them. Enough with that already.

The second book in the series is currently in the editing phase and is planned for publication in early 2016. The series is already going to be a long one and in terms of many of the plot points, we’re in for a slow burn. There is an undeniable chemistry between our two lead ladies, but where this will go and when remains to be seen (I know, of course, but you don’t get to). Even though I am currently heavily into the release of the second Teddie McKay book, life at author HQ is never just about a single project. I love these ladies and it is always fun writing about them.

So go grab it from Amazon while it’s on offer and let me know what you think. Amazon seems to have a tendency to lose customer ratings if it thinks you know me, so feel free to wear a fake moustache, look anonymous and leave a 5* review…