Not long after writing the May 2012 post, I was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Understandably my writing projects came to a halt, and the promised Plague 2 has not appeared. If you want to see what I’ve been doing and how I’ve been handling my illness, please come and find me at www.itsallaboutpoo.blogspot.co.uk. Oh, and bring a sense of humour.
I have recently poked my toe into the printing world. For anyone who is interested, here is a little information about the path I took. I have looked into printing many times over the years, considering Lightning Source as a potential printer. The prices are good, the products are first rate, but it’s so complicated. To begin with you need an ISBN. Call me chicken, but I found the formality of getting a block of ISBNs scary, not to mention the cost was prohibitive. I simply couldn’t afford to spend £100 plus on a block of ten ISBN’s and then turn around and spend £200-300 on a print run. So I sat back while I watched indie author friends take leaps without me. Over the past few years I have printed the odd copy using Lulu. I didn’t put my works on the open market, the books were for personal use only (gifts for my mum and sister primarily!). But I have seen many people using Createspace lately, so I decided that was the way for me as they are an Amazon-owned company. I took what I hoped to be the two best examples of my work and formatted them for Createspace. This was a surprisingly easy process. Time consuming, but simple. I downloaded the example book in the size I wanted and simply copied all the parameters. My covers have been professionally made, so I requested a wrap around from the creator of Plague’s cover – JD Smith ( http://www.jdsmith-design.co.uk) – and uploaded the pdf. Everything went so smoothly I had to wonder what would go wrong. I paid my $25 for expanded distribution. This apparently makes the book available for regular bookshops. In theory, I could get my book on the shelf in Waterstones in Liverpool in six-eight weeks. Exciting stuff. My two books, Plague and My Demon appeared on the shelf in Amazon.com within a few days. I then waited patiently for the books to appear in the UK. I had published them in late April, but by the first week of May I was getting very impatient. I emailed Createspace and asked. To my astonishment, the said they didn’t feed to Amazon.co.uk. I had to spend money on some membership at £26 a year or so to get the book out there. Outraged is not a strong enough word to use for how I felt at that moment. I am English. I want my books available here, as this is where I can primarily sell them! As much as I would love to do book tours in the US, I can’t see me affording that anytime this decade. On top of that discovery, I realised that when ordering author copies at my cheap rate, I could only order from the States. So my cheap book gets whacked with a huge sum for postage. I gritted my teeth and ordered five copies of each only to be told I would have to wait six weeks for them to arrive. More gritting of teeth. At this point I started asking around to see how others had gone into print. My wonderful editor John Hudspith ( http://www.johnhudspith.co.uk ) had gone a different route but had to do a large print run. Was it any better? He had his print book available everywhere. I couldn’t afford to start all over again, so I decided to take a mental step to the side and take a break. This is where things began to get better. Firstly I got an email from Createspace announcing that books could now go directly to Amazon.co.uk as well as other European Amazon shops. Thank bloody God. Should always have gone there. I didn’t waste time grumbling, I logged on and made the changes. Three days later (not the week they threatened) my books were available in the UK. Yay! They aren’t linked to the Kindle editions, and therefore don’t have the existing reviews attached, but I’ve emailed and hopefully this won’t be an issue. Then to my surprise two packages arrived. Createspace said the estimated delivery date was mid-June for my books. They arrived on the 15th and 16th of May, almost a month earlier than expected. I decide to forgive Creatspace just a little. I am now crossing my fingers that they start letting authors order their discounted copies from Europe. Then I will be a very happy customer.
I read an interview in The Guardian today about Amanda Hocking. I came away with one fact burning away behind my eyes – she can write a novel in three week if she sets her mind to it. Three weeks! That’s a mind-bogglingly short space of time. It takes me years of thinking simply to get to the point where I want to write a book. The question that springs from the three weeks fact (!) is author burnout. I think most people would burn out very quickly if they wrote at that rate all the time. What Amanda Hocking doesn’t say in the interview is how long of a rest she takes before starting on the next book. At this point, I can only try and compare myself and my efforts to Ms Hocking’s. Despite the years of planning and mulling, once I set the writing of a novel in action I consider myself a fairly fast writer. The moon needs to be full, and stars aligned just so, the kids well-behaved and my mood needs to right, and then I can write 50-60,000 words in a month. I know this. I have done it several times over the years. But, I can only do this two or three times a year, max. By the end of the article, I felt humbled. I think I write good books. People say (well, most of them, anyway) I write good books. I grumble about luck and being in the right place at the right time, but really the facts are quite plain. Amanda Hocking came along out of nowhere and filled a space where no one was. She did it with many books, and yes, I think that is a big part of her success, but she did it with books readable and enjoyable enough that readers came back again and again. Congratulations to Amanda Hocking. You are an inspiration. Read the entire article in The Guardian.
Perusing Twitter one day (I must have been very bored) I noticed a tweet by Pam Howes mentioning the editing services of a John Hudspith. Now, I was already familiar with John, having passed by him in various writing forums, but had never really thought of him in his editing capacity. The reason I noticed anything at all on Twitter is because I needed an editor. The first thing I did was check out his page. I read through the testimonials, and thought, what the hell, I’ll wing him an email. John got back to me very quickly and asked for the first three chapters, a rough synopsis and any other info, notes and inspirations. In return, he would edit the first chapter so I could see the quality of his edits and suggestions. Nothing to lose, I thought, and sent over everything he asked for. This was the beginning of a two month long collaboration. I wanted him as my editor about five seconds after I finished reading his initial edits. My work was short – a novella – so I knew it would be a quick project. But John gave so much more than I expected. Not only did I get errors pointed out and fluff removed, I got suggestions where I needed to flesh the plot out and places where I needed to cut entire paragraphs. I was nervous at first, especially when large amounts of text were going under the delete button, but then I rationalised. They are just words. I have a saved copy. If I read it back afterwards and the section seems to be missing something then put the words back. It was at that point I really began to trust John, because every single time he suggested I make a big change (and it’s always a suggestion) he was right. Without a doubt, I could re-read that day and see how much cleaner the chapter was. In terms of attitude, I suppose you get out of these things what you put in. I came to John with an open and accepting mind, and what I got back was a super-nice editor who was a dream to work with. I thoroughly recommend John Hudspith – if you want a short story, novella or novel edited, he is your man. I will be returning to him with my next work and the one after that. (John, this is your first official warning.) Plague is now available at Amazon for free until the end of today, the 4th of January (price normally 99c/77p). Plague – US Plague – UK
Looking through all my old stories, and trying to work out how to organise everything, I came across a curious snippet. I thought I would post it here.
The Greegrol
In the back of your garden there is an apple tree so weighed down with ripening fruit that the branches nearly touch the ground. It’s hard to cut the grass without bumping the tree, so you leave that patch of grass to grow long. Daisies poke their noses out from under the dandelions and lush tendrils of grass show off their emerald green by
swaying in the wind, a sweet smelling finger enticing you to come closer.
If you lie down, close to the ground so that the grass tickles your face and the damp from the earth cools your skin and look beneath the gnarled branches of the apple tree you might catch a glimpse of the Greegrol.
Keep your eye fixed upon it, don’t blink even once, as the Greegrol can be a terrifying creature made of nightmares, reaching for you as your attention wavers. Take in its feline appearance, but don’t let that fool you. Look harder through the flowers and red apples and see the creature perking up as you stretch your hand forward and
beckon.
The Greegrol has coal black fur, matted and dull over painful lumps and growths. Yellow eyes glow back at you from within the shadows, their colour sickly and anaemic. You become more watchful as the creature stretches and grows before your eyes. Too big, the cat pads silently through the grass, your hand still outstretched.
Don’t worry too much as the Greegrol meanders past.Now the size of a Labrador, it stinks of rot and decay. You can see now how thin its fur is as it hangs from the bony body like a badly fitted coat. The Greegrol has no interest in you, but keep note of where it wonders as it clings to the edge of the shadows. Watch your infants, don’t leave
them alone in the breeze that carries the first scent of winter, for the Greegrol is hungry and will soon need to eat.
My mother lent me this book telling me how it was an odd book, and asking what I thought of it. I finished this a couple of weeks ago and the story has stayed with me. I wouldn’t consider this a favourite book, in fact I’m so unsure as to maybe describe my feelings towards the novel as lukewarm. But the fact remains, I keep thinking of it.
Blueeyedboy is about a highly dysfunctional family described through the webjournal of BB. He is not a reliable narrator, and he plays about, first pretending to be one brother, and then falling back into his own skin. I found I really liked the short posts, and curious about the deleted Jenny Tricks posts, I flipped through to see if any weren’t deleted – don’t do this! If you do, you’ll end up wishing you didn’t, just like me.
It did take me a long time to get into the novel. It’s a fairly long book, and I kept picking it up, not getting sucked in, and putting it down for days on end. I’ll read a book in a few days (at the expense of everything else) if it drags me in. I think I was reading Blueeyedboy for over a month. I was also annoyed by the fact that Albertine (another character whose journal entries are in the novel) had a voice far too similar to BB, even down to the fascination with colour.
The ending seemed right, really driving home just how destructive the family unit was (don’t want to give too much away). I haven’t read any other books by Joanne Harris, and even though I wasn’t sure about Blueeyedboy, I would certainly give this a go. In fact my mother’s now read another of Ms Harris’s novels (Runemarks, I think), she’s not sure about this one either and will shortly be passing it on to me for my opinion.
Morgan's Choice by Greta Van der Rol (Goodreads links) My rating: 5 stars This is space opera at its best. Set in a galaxy far, far away, Morgan (a Supertech which in itself is an excellent concept) is lost and unable to find a way home with only a single surviving shipmate to keep her company. Rescued from a one of the dominant species in the area and a questionable future at their hands, Morgan finds herself imprisoned on a ship with another species and under the watchful eye of Admiral Ravindra – a stuck up humanoid alien born into the ruling class. There are fight scenes, conspiracies, ancient alien history to delve into and a romance that takes two characters by surprise. There is an entirely new culture to find out about, with customs and ideals that Morgan finds difficult to adjust to. The author created such an in-depth world, I was sad to end the book. I thoroughly enjoyed Morgan’s Choice and will be looking out for her future novels.
Do they miss me still? Are the newspapers bored of my story– or did I never make the front page – just an adult walking away from a troubled life. No large baby blues staring into a camera, the picture taking up most of the front page of a newspaper. No stories guessing at theft by a stranger, a paedophile, of course.
I was an adult who disappeared. Why would anyone care? My mother probably lights a candle every month, marking the date I left and wishing me well wherever I am. Hoping my life is better now. She has no idea. I am in hell.
For a bet I once learned the Eskimo words for snow. I had to stand up by the bar in a packed pub – The Angel, my local – and battle my complete inability to speak in public. I stood there, my face heating up to nuclear proportions, stuttering my first words out. My speech echoed in an odd manner around my head, my words seemed to come too rapid for anyone to understand, but I finished to rapturous applause and a great big smoochy kiss from Luke. To this day, I’ve not forgotten those words. There are fifteen proper ones, with hundreds of pronunciations. Today I am natquik - drifting snow. My soul is drifting along. I have one precious week until he shows up again. One week of
freedom on my prison island.
Some stats for anyone who’s interested. My novel, The Ultimate Choice, went free on Amazon.com on the 23rd of August. It remained free for 17 days and over 22,000 people downloaded a copy. Of those, 18 left a review, most being four and five stars, although I had a couple of what I would call very nice
three star reviews.
But here’s the surprise, after the novel went back to 99cents, it didn’t stop selling. To my eternal surprise, people kept clicking, and I went straight into the top 30 sci-fi bestselling lists. I’ve settled around the 1000 mark in the paid Kindle store, and firmly in the top 40 sci-fi charts.
I’m not holding my breath, my luck could end tomorrow, but I hope it will keep going. I estimate if the sales stay as they are, I would earn $11,000 in a year. Believe me, my fingers are crossed!
A number have things have been going on. First: My Demon is now published by PfoxChase Publishing. I’m thrilled to be among a group of very talented writers. You can find the book listed here. Second: Dan Holloway featured me on his blog: How long is a piece of rope? I found his questions very introspective, and wonderfully different to any other interview I’ve done. Third: Coombe’s Wood featured on Daily Cheap Reads and had a lovely jump in sales. Thank you Daily Cheap Reads folk! I was on both the UK and US sites. The Ultimate Choice will be soon. Fourth: I’m writing, but not Stolen. I’m writing something that seemed to come from nowhere, sort of hitting me sideways. It’s an incredibly sad story, and I can only hope if it every sees the light of day, others find it as moving as I do. Fifth: What Alice Sees went onto the Best Sellers list on You Write On at the end of May. As a Best Seller, the opening of the novel will be automatically entered into the YWO Book of the Year Competition. So far it’s been a busy month, plus some lovely reviews are coming in on My Demon. Check out the US and UK editions to see what readers are saying. And here is a little teaser from the new book: Nathan crouched down on chubby legs and stared at the dead cat. "Kitty?” he asked, and pushed at the bush so he could shuffle closer to the corpse. Flies buzzed around the body. The little boy ignored them and sat on the ground. “Kitty, are you poorly?” Nathan patted the top of the head and stared intently at the cat’s eyes. They had a milky sheen. Dark green mucus leaked from its nose and mixed with the blood coming from its mouth. “Kitty?” The cat didn’t purr or meow like his nanny’s cat. It just lay there gathering flies. Bored of staring, the little boy abandoned the corpse and skipped back up the garden, chasing a butterfly that fluttered nearby.
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