Tag Archives: C K Martin

Big changes ahead

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As I’ve indicated a couple of times this year, I’ve been in a crazy place when it comes to work and life. The good news is, a few key projects that have been consuming so many of those projects have finally begun to wrap up.

What does this mean? It means that after a year of not publishing any fiction, I will be in a position to begin putting my time and effort into this again to a much greater degree. I still intend to work on other projects, but my C. K. Martin fiction is some of my favourite. I love to spend the hours creating these women and their lives, so the prospect of being able to indulge myself is really very exciting.

It has been a year since my last book, which in independent author terms is sometimes seen as the equivalent of being dead. My current goal is to get back to the publishing rate of three books per year, which I was on course to do until the last twelve months hit. I spent a significant amount of time over the past weekend working out how I get to schedule my time in a way that works for me and helps me to achieve a higher quality output. September to December will be the real test of this. If it doesn’t work, then I may have to go back, tweak the approach and continue to push forwards.

Dirty Little War

The most exciting thing now is the thought of finally being able to share characters and stories with you that have been more neglected over this past year than I would like. So there are exciting times ahead. Next week, I’ll be publishing my first lesbian romantic standalone novel and I’m a mixed bag of nervous and excited about the response. Regardless, I’ll be opening a bottle of wine when it appears on the kindle store, as a way of marking a new chapter in my life if nothing else.

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.

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!

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…

Drafts, alpha readers and no chocolate

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It’s been a busy week here at the writing den, but mainly all positive.

I managed to iron out some tricky scenes in the book I’m publishing later this year and have been able to send it out to my alpha readers. This is the part that starts the journey of fear and self-doubt. Whilst it is still in my hands, then only I can have an opinion on it. As soon as it gets sent out to other people, I know the road to publication has begun.

That road can be fun and rewarding, but it’s guaranteed to be nerve-wracking along the way.

I’ve had my first review back already and the good news is that there is nothing structurally or fundamentally wrong. A little extra character development here and there, a bit of tweaking, but not a throw it in the bin and start again problem. Which means, if others come in saying similar, then I can set it aside for a few weeks before going back to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes. I already know I need a different title, so I’ll let that mull over for a little longer. I’d like a different cover art style for this one too as it’s a slightly steamier book and I’d quite like to reflect that.

On a non-writing note, I’ve given up chocolate for Lent. I’m not a religious person, but given that I have a wedding in three months time, it seems like as good a time as any when my Christian friends are also giving things up and are therefore less likely to lead me into temptation. So between now and Easter, all kinds of deprived madness is possible.

Getting the sex right

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Author confession: I am completely incapable of writing sex scenes during the day.

Sadly, during the day is when I usually write. Which means I’ve developed the terrible habit of just leaving the sex scenes for later and carrying on with the plot. As a result, I now have a completed manuscript; completed, that is, apart from huge chunks of missing sex scenes.

So I have an evening ahead when I have to write nothing but sex scenes. I know for many authors, this is very much not a problem. For me, I’m really not looking forward to it. Even writing this post is an avoidance tactic for getting on with it. Why? Because writing a sex scene badly can turn a good book into a laughing stock.

I know I have read countless books that have been excellent: good characterisation, an engaging plot, tension in all the right places. Then along comes a cringe-worthy sex scene, filled with all the wrong words and impossible positions and the urge to keep reading is over with faster than the improbably quick first roaring/raging/tumultuous orgasm of character A.

So I want to get the sex scenes right. I don’t want to win any bad sex awards. One of the biggest joys of being a writer is the privilege of bringing worlds alive for others. That includes all parts of the book, even the ones that are hardest to do. Getting a sex scene right means I can leave the reader wanting more.

Getting a sex scene wrong is more likely to put people off their dinner.

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.

 

Slips back into the world innocuously…

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Well, it’s been a crazy, relaxing month since I last posted. Forgive me platform-building gods, for once again I have sinned.

November really was a month of contradictions for me. I had just over two weeks where I did nothing other than read amazing books and lie by a pool in wonderful tropical heat. No business books, no personal development, just fiction of all genres. I told myself I didn’t have to do any writing at all, there was no pressure unless something started buzzing into my brain and needed to be let out.

Luckily, I came up with a tonne of creative ideas, which was just a bonus. Most of them writing related, but some not.

The other two weeks of the month were solid writing. I mean, SOLID. In a few days I completed NaNoWriMo at the beginning to get traction on a project I needed to get done. So I was pretty wiped out after that, because 10,000 words per day when you have forty hour day job commitment going is tough. The there was a (lovely) surprise request for a full edited manuscript. A structural and line edit on a 120,000 novel is a tough thing to pull off in ten days but I think I just about squeezed it across the line.

So crazy and relaxing just about sums it up.

So now I have until the New Year off from writing, to concentrate on letting my brain recover and planning for the coming year. I have a couple of business and personal goals I’d like to achieve, so I need to give them the attention they deserve.

Also, I need to begin Christmas shopping. I’ve still got ages though, right? RIGHT?

Restless Wanderer

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It doesn’t matter how good life is, or what else is going on, there are still moments when I get a hankering to just hit the open road. I’ve decided that Instagram is a deadly force when it comes to generating these feelings. All those beautiful sunsets and places to see that I’ve yet to visit. I’m fairly well travelled, but there will always be a part of me that wants to see what the world has to offer.

To close out the year, I’m just going to have to settle for a little bit more Europe. Hardly a burden, I know, and a luxury that I am most definitely grateful for. With NaNoWrimo kicking off this weekend, I’m using it as a serious motivator to get a deadline met. A healthy dose of competition never hurt anyone. But as soon as it’s done, I’m packing a suitcase and going undercover for a couple of weeks. I’m going to escape the grey for the beach.

I need a mini writing sabbatical (given the last one was spent doing last minute editing that was requested and therefore not really what I wanted) to get my brain in gear. To also let it be completely out of gear so I can do some creative free-wheeling for a while.

But first, time to psych myself up for a little bit of crazy writing time. Coffee, chocolate and late nights, here we come!

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.