Tag Archives: marketing

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

 

Goodreads: where the brave fear to tread

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Believe it or not, I’ve never been a member of goodreads. Now I’m signing up at last.

So many of my author friends absolutely loathe the site. I mean they hate it so much, they actually rank it lower than going to Amazon to look at your reviews, which for popular authors is a very special kind of torture. That alone was enough to put me off.

Now I’m increasingly hearing that it is the best way for Indie authors to connect with their readers, as well as finding cool people who are writing the same things you are. My reading list is undergoing something of a review at the moment (too many books in the same genre for far too long) so this seems like a pretty good idea.

I guess I’ll find out in the next few weeks whether or not I’ve been missing out by listening to others. Or it could be a damp squib of a place that is on the decline. I’m going to hold out for the best case scenario: it’s full of awesome people to meet who are passionate about books and can teach me a thing or two.

If you see me on there, feel free to say hi and forgive me if I mess things up (I invariably do) whilst working it out.

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…

 

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.