New Year

Happy New Year!

Here are a few tips that might help make 2019 a good writing year.

1. Write

Seems obvious, doesn't it? However, by waiting for the right time and perfect conditions I wasted many years of opportunity. Write a little bit every day. This is hard, I know, but it can be done.

2. Don't Edit

Write the piece in its entirety without going back over it and making changes. Finish it. This is even harder than number 1.

3. Write something else

This is the advice I give to anyone who sends me their work. A finished piece is best put away for a while before trying to assess it.

4. Don't Self-Publish the first thing you write

I know that intense feeling of temptation to upload my novel as soon as I've finished it. After all, if people can't buy it how do I become the next J K Rowling?
I was fortunate to avoid this catastrophic error and my writing career was saved. Anyone trying to read the first novels I wrote would have avoided me like the plague for the rest of time. And been quite right in doing so.

5. Just because it's been written doesn't mean anyone should read it

Believe it or not, this is a liberating thing. I avoid 'writing for publication' and write for myself. Always. Or at least I try not to second guess what the public might like because I have absolutely no idea. I do, however, know what I like. Write the book you want to read.

6. If you do publish, do it properly

There will come a time, I hope, when you've produced something you think might be of interest to a wider public. When that time comes, it is important to present it in readable form. In other words, it will need a professional edit. This will cost money. A lot of money in writing terms. Almost certainly more money than you will ever recoup in sales.

7. Writing is not a competitive sport

Any success I've had has been dependant on help from other writers. The writing community is a wonderful resource. Join it in whichever guise suits you. Your local writers' group is a wonderful place to begin.

photo credit: Sworldguy Fireworks Explosion via photopin (license)

Unruly Chracters

As you might already be aware, I try to write a bit every day. I wake up in the morning and find myself enveloped in the story. I look around and see the characters who then begin to do things. Sometimes unexpected things. Unintentioned things. Exciting things. That's what makes writing so interesting for me. It's the not knowing.

When I get almost to the end of a story and realise what's going to happen, it becomes more of a struggle to write. It's as if my mind has finished with the project and is no longer interested.

I have been a little bit poorly of late and unable to write. Now I'm recovered and back at it, I find that my characters haven't had the patience and good grace to hang around and wait for me. Instead, they seem to have carried on regardless and what was a nice linear plot line involving four of them in a voyage of discovery has fallen to bits. I left them all on a perfectly good ship complete with crew, provisions and a clear plan. On my return, I find the ship is gone. I have no idea where it is. One of my characters is sitting on the shore feeling sorry for himself. Two more are wandering around in a jungle when they should be on the ship. These are the least of my problems. My fourth character has disappeared completely.

You might think it would be easy to find her. I'm the writer, after all. The fantasy world I've created is a bit short of detail, though. I only know about the places my characters have actually been. She may have gone somewhere new. Or even hopped out of this particular version of reality into a completely different one. She can do things like that. She's a witch.

OK, I'm currently writing fantasy but my process is the same for my crime thrillers. I'm with the reader all the way. I know what they know. I can speculate, just as they can, and I do this in the same way whether I'm writing or reading someone else's story.

Another thing I should mention is that my characters appear fully formed. What I mean is they have lived their lives outside the confines of my story and their motivation derives from experiences I have no knowledge of. Usually, I get to understand them better as the story unfolds. That's what makes them interesting.

Like my witch. After 250,000 words of the story, I'm at last beginning to understand the reasons behind her behaviour right at the beginning. What she did then is only now beginning to make sense.

Are writers supposed to carefully design characters down the the colour of their eyes and the toys they received for their first Christmas? Should they always know what's going to happen at the end of their story? 

Am I the only one who writes without knowing anything?

photo credit: Jrwn Photography Natcha via photopin (license)

An elephant with two trunks

Let's have a referendum.

I think that all elephants should have two trunks. How about you? Wouldn't that be a really cool thing. Good for the elephant, I bet. And good for the zoo visitor who will be able to see something different. Imagine the benefits of two trunks. Breathing while drinking. The ability to pick up two things at a time. It seems a shame that they have been denied the extra trunk for so long.

I'm convinced that having two trunks would be a major benefit for both elephants and humans. Don't you agree?

So, let's vote on it. We can have a referendum. Sort this out once and for all.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? The idea that just because people vote for something then it has to be like that. You and I know perfectly well that no matter how overwhelming the vote might be, elephants only have one trunk and that's that. The vote changes nothing. All it does is make us look stupid and ill-informed for bothering.

The Brexit referendum is pretty much the same. People (narrowly) voted for two trunks. They were promised two trunks by politicians who didn't have any prospect of delivering.

Now, the reality of EU membership is starting to become clear. It's a club we can't leave. We are in Europe and, no matter how many people vote to be somewhere else, that's where we stay. Our major trading partners are European. Our food supplies come from Europe. Our defence strategy is European. And so on.

The big shout from the Leave campaigners is that the people have spoken The will of the people must be done. We have to leave the EU. Elephants must have two trunks.

The Government has recently realised that elephants only have one trunk and that there's nothing they can do to change it.  Two isn't possible but none certainly is. If they can chop off the trunk of every elephant then at least they will have done something in response to the referendum.The elephants will all die but that's merely the consequence of holding a referendum that demands a change in the number of trunks an elephant should have.

It's the will of the people that elephants must have two trunks. They voted for something that isn't possible. Even another vote that promises three extra trunks per animal wouldn't change the facts.

It's the same with the EU. Voting for things to be different doesn't change the fact that we rely on our EU membership for our livelihoods.

But, the people have spoken and cutting off our only trunk might be the only alternative to leaving things as they are.

photo credit: marfis75 Elefantastisch. via photopin (license)

Growth

Stephen King considers The Shining to be his breakthrough novel. Instead of doing more of the same that had earned him fame and fortune, he consciously decided to make the Shining something more. The way he did it was to concentrate on the character of the father and his upbringing so that the demons that afflicted him later on in the book are as much internal ones as the result of supernatural forces. According to King, being propelled by some external irresistible force provides too much of a comfortable excuse and dilutes the power of the narrative.

I found this insight extremely valuable and it has changed the way in which I view my own writing. My crime fiction books are primarily plot driven. Fast paced, breathless even. I try to pack as much story into each paragraph as I can. There's nothing wrong with that. As Vonnegut advised, I try to spend  my reader's time as wisely as possible.

Lately, though, I've been working with my writing mentor on a project which is more an examination of character and relationships than whirlwind narrative. For me, it has been a completely new way of doing things. I'm a great proponent of the write the whole thing and don't look back until you've finished method. It has served me very well in the past and has the great merit of not having to make any judgements as I go along.

For this novel, and it's grown to novel proportions already, I'm constantly trying things out because I have the great benefit of someone I trust who can give me an opinion. There's been a lot of stuff that I've submitted which hasn't gone down at all well. Fortunately, I've sufficiently matured as a writer to view negative comments as even more valuable than positive ones. Sometimes I find it hard to agree with them but most of the time I'm able to reflect on the truth behind them and take them on board.

This has resulted in lots of rewrites, many versions of the same scene, drastic plot revisions galore. For example, an early version had the protagonist in a hospital bed paralysed apart from a couple of fingers on one hand which he used to type long accounts of early childhood. This might immediately seem cumbersome and overly melodramatic to you but it took me a while to get that myself.

I don't know if this will be my breakthrough novel and, quite honestly, it might not even see the light of publication. What matters is that I feel that I'm growing as a writer all the time and that's important.

photo credit: JoeInSouthernCA Vintage Movie Poster: "The Shining" via photopin (license)

Is Kindle broken?

Amazon KDP has been good to me. Way back in 2013, Due Diligence made it into the top twenty crime thrillers and the overall top one hundred kindle charts. You can imagine how chuffed I was. I sold several thousand books in a very short time and all because Stephen Leather invited his readership to try it.

A few years down the line, services like BooksgoSocial and Bookbub will promote your book for a modest fee. They can be picky, though, as they depend on keeping faith with their readers and not fobbing off some rubbish on them. A lot like Stephen, who took the trouble to read the copy I sent him. Not like Stephen because he helped me for free, as he's helped lots of other writers.

Amazon, in order to promote their Prime membership, decided to offer free loans of books that were enrolled in KDP Select. At first they paid authors on the basis of downloads. Then they decided that this wasn't fair. Short books received the same payment as longer ones. It didn't matter if the books were read or not the author got paid regardless. Then Amazon decided to change the basis of payment. Every page read was recorded and totted up and the fund distributed accordingly. Seemed fair to most people at the time.

I quite liked it at first, I had a 'pages read' graph to go with my copies sold one. Some days, I'd pretend the pages read were the copies sold just to make me feel especially good. Then bad things started to happen. I got wind of authors' amazon accounts being removed because of anomalies in their page counts. One of my books took a leap skywards for no reason, thousands of page reads where there had been a steady few hundred before. I got cold feet and took all my books off Select. Losing your Amazon account is fatal for an author in these digital times and I realised that abuse of the new Amazon payment system was likely to become worse. I was right.

Recently, really awful books by unknown authors have been hitting the top of the Kindle charts. Books with very few and very bad reviews. They got their exposure and thousands of sales by what's known as clickfarming.

Clickfarming involves downloading the book hundreds of times and then employing someone to flick through each copy. Let's say a book is 200 pages. After each 200 page views are recorded, Amazon count it as a sale. Then the book is catapulted up the charts, people see it and they buy it.

Not only that, but the author is paid a share of the KU pot on the basis of every page read.

Some organisations offer this service to authors for a fee. Others take all the money themselves by uploading their own books, often computer generated or pirated.

In order to make it more difficult for Amazon to detect them, some clickfarms add some 'innocent' books to the ones they are pushing.

Amazon delete the accounts of anyone they suspect of clickfarming and this seems to have included authors who were completely unaware of what was going on. I've not heard of any successful appeals.

So, keep your eyes peeled, stay sharp and safeguard your precious account. If you're new to Kindle, think twice before enrolling in Select.

photo credit: ToGa Wanderings Free Internet via photopin (license)

An Encounter with Jenny Parker

I always get caught out by flight times. 8 am sounds like a reasonable time to fly but it's not. They say I have to be here two hours before, it takes an hour to drive and I need at least half an hour to shower and get ready. Counting back brings getting out of bed time to 4.30. Half past FOUR!
It's hardly worth going to bed.
Add in the stress of travelling, of tossing and turning in bed worrying about the trip, being scared that the alarm won't go off or the motorway will be closed.
They say to get here two hours before flight time and I always obey. There's an automatic response built into my emotional make up that gets very scared at the prospect of being even a few minutes shy of the deadline. As usual, though, I'm through security and waiting in the departure lounge wishing I'd used the 90 minutes I have to wait here for extra sleep. Six am would have been a much more civilised time to roll myself out of bed.
I sit on the hard seat wondering if my dignity would allow me to lie down and have a nap like many others have opted for. It won't. No surprise there.
A lady comes over and sits next to me. This is doubly disconcerting as there are lots of empty places where she could be in splendid isolation, as I hoped to be. She also looks a bit familiar, as if I should know who she is. I think hard but I can't pick her out from the checkout assistants and CBeebies presenters that spring to mind.
'You don't recognise me do you?' She says unhelpfully.
'Erm, it's early, I'm still half asleep.'
'That's no excuse,' she says, 'I'm Jenny Parker and you've written four books about me.'
'You can't be,' I say.
'Because I'm a fictional character?'
'Yes.'
'Because I'm the product of your imagination?'
'That's right.'
'So where does you imagination get its ideas?'
'I really have no idea. Thoughts just pop into my head and I write them down. Sometimes I don't even know what I've written until I read it back.'
Jenny smiles but it's not a warm kind of smile, more of a long-suffering kind. 'What makes you think that you're any more real than I am?'
That's a good question and not one that is easy to answer even for someone fully in possession of their faculties. 'I'm a writer, you're a character. You depend on me for your existence.'
'If I didn't exist then you'd have nothing to write. Then where would you be?'
I begin to think about the consequences of her turning up in the flesh. What if my so-called imagination is just recording something that's actually happening? I'm always telling people that my characters, especially Jenny, never seem to do what I intend. That they seem to have a will of their own. I can't help feeling responsible for the extremely hard time she's been having, though. 'Maybe I should write something good about you. Give you a nice easy life from here on in. Would that help?'
'It's a bit late for that now,' she says.
'What about I change the ending of the latest book?'
'That would only confuse matters. Why not just let things be as they are for a change? Leave me to get on with my life without all the dramatisation.'
She stands up, 'that's my flight,' she says. 'I don't want to miss it.' Then she merges into the crowd and disappears through Gate 27.
'You won't,' I say. I imagine she's going to London to negotiate a rather important deal involving Russian Oligarchs and the Italian Mafia. I do hope she keeps her wits about her.

EU Referendum

On June 23rd we're invited to vote yes or no to the following question:

Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

We had a Scottish Referendum in 2014 to decide whether or not the Scots should remain part of the United Kingdom. They voted to remain. Now, I'm willing to wager that the vast majority of Scots want to remain part of the EU and this fact weighed heavily in their decision to stay in the UK. This highlights one of the problems with referenda as a means of deciding things. When something as big as EU membership changes won't the Scots demand a re-run?

This is what I think:

The people who decide to hold a referendum  think they already know the result. Otherwise they wouldn't be having one. The government wouldn't be holding one if they thought we'd vote to leave.

The purpose of the referendum is to get rid of the issue once and for all rather than have it constantly colouring every governmental decision. All the anti-EU campaigners can then be fobbed off with 'the people have decided' argument.

In other countries when such a referendum hasn't yielded the required result they've kept on having them until they get the result they want. Then stop. That's what we'll do in the unlikely event that we vote to leave. The government will 'renegotiate terms' and try again.

The EU wouldn't survive in its present form without the UK. Many of the more recent members rely heavily on UK trade and free passage of workers. The EU wouldn't be all that attractive for them if we left.

Most people fear change of any kind. Even if they don't particularly like the EU, lots of people will be wary of opting out in case something bad happens.

So, we're staying in.

Even if we vote to leave, we'll be asked to reconsider and vote again until we give the right answer.

Nothing much to get excited about, then. Unless you're Scottish. Pro-independence Scots might consider voting for the UK to leave so that they can have another go at independence. That might send shivers through Whitehall as the Scottish vote is expected to be heavily in favour of remaining.

photo credit: Europäische Flagge via photopin (license)

It's not fayre

I was driving north from Swansea through the beautiful rain soaked and autumn coloured countryside when I felt a blog coming on. The thing that prompted me to divert my attention from the scenery (but not the road ahead) was a sign advertising a Wedding Fayre. I pondered on the word fayre and wondered about its validity. So I looked it up when I arrived home.

Fayre n. a pseudo-archaic spelling of fair and fare.

Get that? Pseudo-archaic! So when you are tempted by a sign outside a pub that announces Traditional Pub Fayre I suggest you do the following. First scoff at their use of a pseudo-archaic word. Then wonder about the quality of the pseudo-food they're serving. Then scoff some place else.

As a writer of fantasy, I can have my characters adopt any form of language I want. I'm sorely tempted to have at least one of them speak in a pseudo archaic manner and perhaps all of them should.

Here's an extract from my latest Tyrant book which I have changed to incorporate this new (or pseudo-new?) style.

‘What’s this?’ Cuthbert asked.

            The wizened soldier had already turned away and was fishing about in a sack. ‘It’s a pyke.’ He replied, plonking a heavy hat made of strips of iron on Cuthbert’s head. ‘And this is your helmyt. Now move along.’

            ‘I don’t want to be a pykeman.’ Cuthbert said.

            ‘It’s all we’ve got left. Be thankful you’ve got a decent weapon, there’s plenty who won’t be so lucky.’

            ‘It’s hardly that.’ Cuthbert said. ‘It’s a branch from a tree that’s been sharpened at one end. That doesn’t make it a pyke. Where’s the pointy bit of metyl? Without that it’s just a piece of wyd.’

            ‘We’re a bit short of metyl at the moment. You’ll just have to make do. Now move along.’

            ‘Here.’ Cuthbert said. ‘Take it back. Give it to someone else who might appreciate it. Like I said, I don’t want to be a pykeman anyway. I’d rather wait and get myself a nice crossbow.’

            ‘Don’t want to bear a pyke on behalf of the Kyng? I reckon them’s treasonable words. Now be gone with you, form a nice straight line over there and try not to poke any of your mates with that pyke.’       

 ‘Another thing, this helmyt doesn’t fyt.’ By way of demonstration he turned his head sharply to the left. The helmet remained still, its noseguard now protecting Cuthbert’s ear.

OK, maybe not. Just putting in a y here and there is a bit lame I suppose. And the whole process might become a bit wearing when every other word has a wiggly red line from Word underneath it. Ah well, all's fayre in love and war.

Fayre enough?

Meanwhile, a very happy Christmas to everyone. 

Literary Agent

Who needs a literary agent in the modern era of book publishing?

Well, I do for a start and I'll tell you my reasons.

I have a limited amount of energy. You might also describe it as time but I prefer the use of the word energy because energy determines what I can do with my time. As you may be aware, I'm a partner in a publishing business as well as being an author. My crime thrillers have sold well, particularly as ebooks, and I've picked up the skills and experience that a publisher needs. So I know how to get cover designs, format manuscripts, employ editors and produce good quality books that people are happy with. I also know the best ways to get our books noticed, including Facebook and Twitter, and who can help me grow our market.

I would, however, rather be writing. That's what makes me happy. I do get some fun and satisfaction from all the peripheral tasks involved in producing a book but once the novelty wears off it does seem a bit too much like work.

My ambition was always to write a full length novel. I've now finished nine of them since 2007 and three have been published. That was my second ambition, to be published. Then I wished that people would buy my books and they did. I really wanted some indication that they had read and enjoyed them and lo and behold they wrote very positive reviews. Whew! My wish list appears to have been fulfilled.

But not quite, we humans are beggars when it comes to wanting even more. Now I feel that I want to expand my readership, especially now that I'm writing fantasy as well as crime thrillers. In order to do that I need an agent. Someone who will champion my work. Someone who has the boundless energy and know-how required to deal with mainstream publishers. Someone who has a vested interested in my success because they are investing their time in the project. Agents are purely commission based, they have to back the right horses and then ride them to the finishing line before they get paid. That's the energy I need. Yes they take a proportion of my earnings but they're welcome to it, they'll have earned it.

I'm convinced I've found the right one but there's every chance that she won't have me. All I can do is ask her nicely, which I've done.

Wish me luck.

photo credit: Ann Arbor Cook Book, 1899 -- frontispiece advertisements. via photopin (license)

Jeremy Corbyn

The election of Jeremy Corbyn as the Labour leader has been a disaster for me. Where do I start in order to explain?

Ah, yes. Movember 2015. The month I decided to grow a moustache for charity, an act that proved strangely prophetic but more of that another time. Once Movember was past I decided to retain my facial hair on the grounds that my primary relationship had improved because my wife dissolved into laughter every time she looked at me.

Movember turned into Decembeard. I went the whole hog and stopped shaving altogether. My face became spiky and uncomfortable to the extent that my new grandson would squeal if I held him close. Still I persevered as it was for a cause that turned out not to be as good as I had imagined, but that will need a whole blog to explain so we'll not go there right now.

In January, I watched a film called Finding Forrester. I recommend this if you've not seen it. You can get it free if you've a Netflix subscription. Sean Connery played a distinguished writer in the film. Part of his being distinguished was the beard he wore. I modelled mine on his and every time I looked in the mirror I murmured James Bond quotes in a peculiar accent that I fondly imagined might belong to Connery. My wellbeing and self-esteem were greatly improved at a time when I needed a boost. Walking around looking like Sean Connery's portrayal of an author felt pretty good. It ticked plenty of the boxes that I might have been inclined to tick had I been in the habit of filling in surveys. I never do surveys, even the ones that offer fabulous prizes just for spending ten minutes of my time. The nearest thing I do to surveys is occasionally respond to consultations which are relevant to my work. These are Government exercises and don't even have the merit of offering a free iPad if you're drawn out of the hat. It's important to respond to these because it's good practice in being ignored. By the time a consultation has been sent out, someone has already decided what the change in legislation is going to be, regardless what response they get. I once asked a Treasury official why they decided to change when ninety percent of the consultation responses urged them to leave things as they were. 'We obviously consulted the wrong people,' was the reply.

Where was I? Oh yes, Jeremy Corbyn.

I'd never heard of Jeremy Corbyn before the Labour Party leadership election. More importantly, neither had I seen a picture of him. Now it's too late, he's been elected and disaster is staring at me from every mirror. He's got my beard. Or, worse, I seem to have a beard exactly like his. People at work have started to call it a 'Corbyn,' I know they never called my beard a 'Connery' but silence is indeed golden when it comes to facial hair.

Jeremy is here to stay. Even if he resigns on principle tomorrow, the damage has been done and can't be undone. None of us can unlook at something so that it's erased from our memory. Pity. If Men in Black hadn't got there first that might have been the basis for a good story.

photo credit: Jeremy Corbyn spoke out against TTIP via photopin (license)

How to Write with Style

http://www.amazon.com/And-So-It-Goes-Vonnegut/dp/125001218X

Kurt Vonnegut is very special to me. I commend to you everything he has written. His life is also worth reading about and Shields' biography provides a very rich and detailed account.
If you've read anything by Vonnegut you'll know how special he is and if you haven't then, golly gosh, you've got a treat coming if you do. Start with Cat's Cradle. And do it right away, don't bother with the rest of this blog post. You can always return to it while you're waiting for the ebook to download.



For the rest of you, I'll mention some of the things Kurt had to say about the art of writing.
First up, he offered eight rules which are:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

From the preface to Vonnegut's short story collection Bagombo Snuff Box.

My particular favourite is number 6. If you've read my Jenny Parker series, you'll know that I have very much taken that one to heart.

I also suggest that you read a short article he wrote on 'How to write with style,' the full text of which can be found through the link below.

How to write with style by Kurt Vonnegut

In summary, he suggests the following:

1. Find a subject you care about
2. Do not ramble, though
3. Keep it simple
4. Have the guts to cut
5. Sound like yourself
6. Say what you mean to say
7. Pity the readers
8. For really detailed advice read The Elements of Style by Strunk and White

What I really love about Vonnegut is his ability to express the most complex sociological observations in a simple and engaging manner. When he urges us to keep it simple he shows us how it can work so beautifully.
I used to think that to be considered well written, a novel had to be constructed from long sentences using obscure words. Vonnegut, more than anyone else, showed me that using short, common and easily understood words is much more powerful and engaging for the reader. It also means that I can more easily sound like myself.
No matter how much I might try, I'll never be able to write like Vonnegut. That used to make me sad but now I'm happy to write like me.
Thanks, Kurt.
I'll finish with a quote from A Man without a Country
"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"

Incontrovertible Truth

Some years ago, I was working as a consultant for an Irish organisation called Coillte who managed the forests in Southern Ireland.
There can't be many better places to work than Ireland when you're being paid by the hour and not by results. But more of that sort of thing another time.
A very old, very senior, member of the organisation was retiring and I was not so much invited to his leaving do as found myself in the right pub at the right time. A long evening of celebration ensued which culminated in the great man being given a rousing send-off into retirement. A member of the audience asked this venerable chap for the one thing he had learnt that he could pass on to those taking up his mantle.
He paused, thought for a moment, then said: 'The one thing I've learnt over the last sixty years is that when it comes to pub toilets incoming traffic has priority.'
Wise words and an example of an incontrovertible truth.

I've thought about what my contribution might be in similar circumstances. I offer it to you now so that you don't have to wait for the retirement party, or even bother to attend.

Here it is:

In order to be a writer all you have to do is to write

There you are, a bit obvious isn't it? Yet it's something that I've only recently understood. There are a lot of accompaniments to the writing process that I've tended to get snagged on in the past. One of these is the nagging thought that what I write has to be good. For most of my life this single misconception has effectively prevented me from doing what I love most.

So, write.
Don't judge what you've written. That's not a writer's job, we pass that task on to our readers. Even if a reader should find what I've written isn't to their taste then, hey nonny no, that's completely up to them. I have to resist the temptation to explain to them why they are wrong and point out all the aspects of my work that they should be enjoying. That's futile. It's like extolling the virtues of apple juice to a beer drinker and expecting them to change their preferences. Or arguing that tea is somehow intrinsically better than coffee.

Quite honestly, if someone does me the courtesy of reading something I've written then I'm not only happy I feel privileged. Whatever they might think of it.

Writing is not a competitive sport.

My advice is to write down your story from start to finish. Try to make sure that it is as easily understood as you can manage. Know that finishing the whole thing is vitally important before any form of revision should be attempted, including spelling mistakes.

When you've finished, put your story in a drawer, virtual or real, then write another story. Leave it there as long as you can manage. Some of my stories have been in there for fifty years and I'm still not inclined to drag them out. One year is a good target if you can manage it. After that length of time the story will either have breathed its last or be raring to go.

It matters not a jot how long, or short, the story is. Some stories can be told in a few words, others require more. Don't get hung up on word count. This is a mistake that I'm still making but a little less often these days.

I could go on, as many of you know, but I'll leave today's message as uncomplicated as I can manage.

And remember the pub toilets protocol at all times, you'll be glad of it one day.

photo credit: Spice Island Inn Toilets via photopin (license)

How many books will I sell?

People ask me this question quite often. How many books can I expect to sell when I self-publish?
My answer is:
Not many.
Or, maybe some.
Quite a lot, if you're lucky.
Actually, I have no idea.

Some books sell and some don't. You will only find out if you try. Few authors actually make money from the sales of their books. Bear that in mind at all times.
What I'm saying, or rather beating you over the head with, is my advice not to base your publishing decisions on some sort of business model. You know the sort of thing. If I sell 200 books per month at £2.99 and get 70% from Amazon that will give me £5000 a year. So I need to write 10 books then I need never worry about money ever again. Yay!
I've tried this and, believe me, it doesn't work.

Books don't sell themselves. Promotion costs time and money and doesn't guarantee sales. Think of your own buying habits. Do you buy a book written by someone you've never heard of just because it pops up in your Twitter feed? No, neither does anyone else.

Publishing is a lottery, that's a fact. Unless you're an established author or a celebrity, there's no guarantee of sales. That's why conventional publishers are so picky these days. If they can't deliver a good return on their investment they're soon going to be out of a job.

If you self-publish there are lots of things you can do to promote your book but there's no guarantee of success. And it has very little to do with the merits of your offering. It has more to do with the quality of your cover and the first few words.

My advice is to accept that whatever you spend on publishing your book, and spend you will have to, bear in mind these priorities. Cover. Opening paragraph. Blurb (book description).

Promotion can get your book noticed but once you've attracted someone to your website or Amazon listing what they see is going to have to impress them mightily for them to part with their hard earned cash. What's not going to get their custom is seeing something that in any way looks inferior to the professionally produced books they are used to buying. Your book has to look at least as good as they do and maybe even better if you're going to get a sale.

And this means you are going to have to spend some money.

Which brings me back to the question. Even if you spend money on editing, cover design, production and distribution there's no guarantee you'll ever get any of it back.

What you will have is a product that stands a chance, that's all.

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Publishing Pitfalls

J K Rowling is worth £1 billion.

A friend of mine has written a book about her experiences in Japan. It's a warm, caring account of an emotional journey. It's taken a long time and a lot of effort to write, and it shows. It's a quality book.
She sent the manuscript out to various publishers and agents but became used to receiving gentle and polite rejection letters. It seemed her work was destined to remain unpublished.
One day, a letter came. It began with the words 'We have read your submitted manuscript and liked it very much. We would be happy to publish it.'
She was understandably over the moon. She rang her friends, told them of this wonderful news. Felt a great relief and unbounded joy that her words would at last be read.
Because that's what we writers need; to be heard.
It's all very well sitting there, labouring over a hot keyboard, agonising over every word. There needs to be an end product, otherwise the frustration builds.
Not so very long ago, we had a publishing industry that wasn't afraid. It meant that lots of different types of books were given a chance. Publishers weren't looking over their shoulders to see the grim reaper poised to strike. They controlled book production and distribution and could afford to take an overview, allow one book to subsidise the next in the interests of diversity. Sometimes they were surprised, now and again this surprise was very pleasant indeed.
Amazon has ripped the guts out of publishers, squeezing their margins to the extent that they are closing down imprints, consolidating businesses and generally taking less risks. This is bad news for authors, particularly mid-list authors, who rely on the publishing houses for their livelihood.
Amazon has also opened the door to self-publishing, a much derided route previously referred to as vanity publishing. It achieved this by demolishing the hurdles to book distribution previously controlled by the big publishers.

The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy has sold 100 million copies.

To continue the story, my over the moon friend was brought down to earth when she finally read the whole letter. The gushing praise for her work eventually subsided and the real truth was revealed. 'Send us £9000 and we'll get on with the publishing process.' They said. She nearly did. The only thing that stopped her was the inconvenience of not having nine thousand spare pounds at the time. The letter was very optimistic regarding the prospects of sales far exceeding that measly investment and she was inclined to agree. Her disappointment was complete until she found out that she could get published for much less than this so-called publisher was demanding. That there were people out there willing to help at a cost that she could afford.

We all need help. Sometimes it's not the first sort of help that's offered. Make sure its the kind of help that suits your situation.

There's help to be had at www.opencirclebooks.com, but there's lots of other places you can find it as well. Don't be seduced by potential sales figures, bear in mind that few self published books sell more than fifty copies.

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The first paragraph

When I write, I often find that I take a little while to warm up. The first few sentences, or even chapters, are not always where I need my reader to begin. It's as if I need to start a bit earlier, get my thoughts in order, before the story can begin at its proper place. This is one reason why a good editor is vital.
Opening paragraphs are very important. They can make a big difference to a book's success.
There's a school of thought that you should drop the reader straight in to the action, have our hero in a life threatening situation at the outset. Cut to the chase, in other words. This can be a problem, though. Unless the reader has some emotional connection with the protagonist it's hard for them to care. Then there's the difficulty of starting with a climax. Where do you go from there?
So, establish character first, then.
It depends on how you do it. There's nothing more off putting than the 'getting out of bed in the morning' opening. Some years ago, I heard a literary agent bemoaning the fact that more than half of the submissions he received began with someone waking up. When I looked at the first sentence of the novel I was thinking of submitting to him, I read 'As the insistent drilling of the alarm clock roused him half sensible...' I hoped he might make an exception in my case but, to be on the safe side, demoted this scene to the second chapter and promoted the giant lizard priest in the damp crypt to prime position. In case you're intrigued and eager to read more, I'm sorry to disappoint you. This particular novel did not get published. I could send you a copy if you insist but I'm certain you have better things to do with your time.
So, get your character out of bed before the reader gets to meet them. Sounds eminently sensible to me.
The opening should encourage the reader to read on.

My new Jenny Parker novel, Limited Liability begins with:

‘Jill Williams?’

My nod of agreement is fractionally late. I’ve been Jenny Parker for most of my adult life and no matter how much I’ve practised for this moment hearing my new name still takes me by surprise. 

Let me know how this works for you.

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Bad Tidings?

Everything changes. Sometimes the rate of change is imperceptible and the only way we realise the change is when we pause and take stock.
Such is the ebook revolution.
In the summer of 2010 Amazon opened its UK Kindle store. That Christmas, the Kindle eReader was the most popular present. This meant that there was a sudden onrush of customers looking for content for their new electronic gizmo.
Free books were the way to get noticed. People were hungry for them and when they snapped up a free book it became visible to other readers because it rose in the rankings. The free rankings fed into the paid rankings and this meant that free promotions worked. Once the free period was over, sales still kept on going.
Four years later, free promotion is no longer anything like as effective as it used to be. Amazon have changed their way of calculating the best seller charts so that free sales no longer spill over into the paid charts. But there is also another factor. People don't want free books.
A free book used to seem a wondrous opportunity. Now the novelty has worn off. And I can understand why.
Twitter and Facebook are filled with GET MY BOOK FOR FREEEEEEE!!!!!!! offers. They have become so frequent and annoying as to be invisible. In my experience free books are rarely worth the price. They are shoddy, ill-written drivel for the most part. There are a million new ones every year and almost all of them are absolute rubbish. The first paragraph or two will usually be enough to make you feel like throwing your Kindle through the window and emailing the author to ask for compensation for your wasted time.
There's another reason that book promotions that once worked are now ineffective. Amazon has changed the way their customers access books and offers both a lending library and unlimited downloads to their Prime customers. Once a free book was a rare jewel indeed, now it comes as part of your free delivery package.
Another thing:
From 1st January 2015, ebooks will be 20% more expensive because of VAT being applied in the country of sale rather than the country of convenience for Amazon. In my view, this may change the dynamic between print and ebooks. An ebook that cost £5 in 2014 will be £6 in 2015, getting closer to the price of a 'proper book' that you can lend to your friends and family when you've finished it. I've a feeling that print books are a benefit to authors because they are more visible and can allow more opportunities to gain a readership.
Yet another thing:
Mainstream publishers now have arrangements with Amazon that increase the visibility of their books at the expense of self-published ones. Amazon have used self-published books to strengthen their negotiating position and are now in a position where they don't need any more. The time is rapidly approaching where there will be a charge to upload and an annual charge to keep an ebook on the virtual shelves.
So the times they are a changin' and selling books is becoming more and more difficult. And even when you do sell some, chances are you'll be getting less money. Some major self-published authors have reported that their incomes have halved during 2014.
If you're a writer, don't get despondent.
You're still much better off in terms of publishing options than in the dark pre-Kindle days.
If you polish that jewel you've created it may sparkle enough to be purchased and enjoyed. Just don't expect it to be automatic.
Happy New Year

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Submissions, competitions and prizes

Writing is not a competitive sport. There doesn't have to be a loser. Writing is a subjective medium, what touches one person may leave someone else cold.
So why are there so many writing competitions?
Before I start, I should tell you about my own competition experience. A couple of years ago I entered the Chorley and District Writer's Circle annual short story competition and won second prize. Despite all my misgivings about competitions, I have to admit that this helped me as a writer one hell of a lot. To be independently judged as having merit is an important milestone in my writing career. And the £50 was nice as well.
So, I received a boost from the first competition I ever entered. Lucky me. Because that really sums it up.
Last year, I wasn't allowed to enter the CAWDC competition as I serve on the committee and have a hand in forming the short list of entrants. This process opened my eyes to the different opinions that a piece can engender. This year I rated one story very highly but it received the comment 'pretentious twaddle' from another judge. There were several stories we agreed about but just as many that provoked argument. Imagine your story in that kind of melting pot. Out of a hundred entries, one winner has to be chosen and it's a matter of personal preference at the end of the day. The winner isn't always the best story and the losers don't necessarily have any less merit.
So, my advice is to enter but also be wary.
There are competitions out there that demand large entry fees and promise publishing contracts to the winner. These competitions are often trawling exercises by publishers who are using your entry fee instead of a reading fee.
Some competitions are designed purely to extract money from writers. So be careful what you enter.
There's only one winner, so what if your many entries don't make the grade? Equally, what if your many submissions to publishers or agents get rejected?
Well, first of all don't give up. Almost nobody gets published in the conventional way any longer. Even established literary agents are turning to self-publishing in order to find a market for their authors in the absence of interest from major publishers.
Remember that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that it's possible that the right person hasn't come along to fully appreciate your work.
But also consider that you may not be at the publishing stage of your writing career. That you might have to write some more stuff before finding your true voice.
This is where an independent opinion is all important. Had I been aware, I might have saved myself a lot of bother and heartache by getting a critique of my early work. Basic flaws that keep getting repeated aren't going to improve what you write.
Consider those entry fees and weigh them up against a professional critique such as www.fictionfeedback.co.uk
Meanwhile make sure you enter your local Writers Circle competition!

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Social Media

As an author, I need to have a profile. The purpose of this profile is so that potential customers can find me and buy my books.
This profile has had to be constructed out of a substance called social media.
Various forms of social media are available but the most common types are twitters, facebooks and blogs.
If I Google my writing name 'd j harrison', I immediately find myself as the second item down and with a nice picture in the sidebar for extra effect. Well done Google. Or should I say 'well done me'?
You can see the result above.
Now, if I Google my name as 'David Harrison' I get the following:

i.e. not me at all.
I suppose I've created a brand 'd j harrison' which is very different to my usual name (but not very different). OK. Well done me.

Now I have to work out how I've done it so that you can do it too. That's if you want to.
I don't advise trying to make a brand called d j harrison, though. Better to think of your own. However, I would suggest that you do the same as I did and think of an author name which is similar but not exactly what you normally call yourself. This way there's a chance of separating the business, author, side from the personal side. I want people to find me as an author but not necessarily in any other capacity.
If you're committed to your own name, don't worry though. It's not that important to try to be invisible, none of us really are. Anyone who wants to can find us, it's just a matter of ease.
My experience is that Blogger has been the best way of getting up the Google rankings. I've used it for some years now and tend to blog weekly. My visits exceed 30,000 and I get about 1,000 a month. Not a lot, really, but enough to make my mark.
I also blog on Wordpress. I'm told this is the best platform for writers and so I just paste my Blogger post into Wordpress every time I post. Strangely, I have lots of followers on Wordpress and very few visits, which is the opposite to my Blogger site. I consider them complementary. An advantage of having the Wordpress blog is that my publisher website is written in Wordpress and it makes it simpler to import blog posts to the site.
So where do the facebooks and twitters feature in all this? To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced of the efficacy of either of them. Years ago, when I first started on Twitter, it seemed exciting and fun. I quickly raised my follower count to 1700 and there it languishes to this day. If I post a link to my blog on Twitter, I get several visits, so I do this from time to time to keep traffic moving. Selling books on Twitter is difficult if not impossible. If I see a book advertised on my Twitter feed I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole even if it is FREE!!!!!! I usually unfollow the miscreant as well. So I shouldn't expect any different treatment from others, should I?
As for Facebook, there are a lot of author Facebook groups that can be very useful. However, they do tend to be dominated by authors pushing their own books down the throats of other writers. Again, this can be tedious and is not likely to be effective. If you use these sites try the approach of 'what can I do to help?' rather then BUY MY FRIGGIN BOOOOOOOOOK!!!!! Just a suggestion.
I'd love to hear from readers about how they find books and whether they are as dismissive of social media as I am.

If you leave a comment on this topic, I promise to send you something.
Really. I will. Try me.

NaNoWriMo

I've been a bit sniffy about NaNoWriMo in the past. The name is bad. It easily beats Movember in the annoying and contrived stakes and is enough to put anyone off.
The idea that someone has to write 50,000 words of a novel in November seemed to me to be encouraging all the worst writing practices.
When it comes to writing practices, that's something I've been very precious about. Mine involved only writing in a special notebook with a specific fountain pen which was dedicated to my main character. Once the words were handwritten, I would read them into a recorder, create a voice file and send this off for transcription. I was fond of telling anyone who stood still long enough within earshot that this procedure was essential. I had to do it this way, it was the only way in which the creative process could take place.
I wrote five novels in this manner. I also attended several Freefall Writing retreats where I would have to work twice as hard as everyone else because I had to transcribe my own handwritten work so that I could print it out and hand it in.
But I believed this was the only way I could write. I was also quite proud of my method and wondered how anyone could produce work of any merit without following my lead.
Then my transcription service lady retired. I was left with nobody I trusted to get my words into readable form. I tried Dragon. All I can say about this amazing program that allows you to type with your voice is that it works. Up to a point. And that point is when it deciphers my voice into something plausible but not quite right. Near enough to look OK to the first glance but actually meaningless drivel. Or at least drivel with less meaning than it was meant to have. It may have been me, but the time it took for corrections of a Dragon derived script was longer than typing it two fingered myself in the first place. I invested a huge amount of time customising it to my voice and the vocabulary I use. I may try it again one day. On the other hand, I may not because I no longer need it.
My writing teacher, Barbara Turner-Vessalago www.freefallwriting.com has always been dismissive of my insistence on handwriting everything. She has always viewed it as an affectation. She even devoted a paragraph in her book which, without naming names, invited me to take a good look at myself and my writing practice.
My sixth novel, and the third to be published, was written on a computer. It's called Limited Liability and I know it's the best thing I've ever written. And it was done without all the emotional props I'd gathered around me.
When November came around this year, I'd ditched enough of my pretentiousness to enter. (I also grew a moustache for Movember but that's for another blog post, or maybe not)
It has been brilliant. The encouragement from fellow WriMos (arrgh!) has been inspiring and there have also been local events so that we can meet up and write together. I couldn't be more impressed with the Lancashire and Cumbria Region or with the NaNoWriMo website.
I've done fifty thousand words of the next Jenny Parker novel, Critical Analysis, and I'm very happy with the whole experience. I don't see why I should stop just because November comes to an end. I'd like to write fifty thousand words every month!
NaNoWriMo is important. It makes would-be writers become real writers. The only way to learn to write is to write, in my experience. The more I write, the better I get.
Thanks, NaNoWriMo.
Those of you who have been asking for a fourth Jenny Parker book can be grateful as well.

What should I write?

This business of selling books has many people scratching their heads. It's all very well being a writer, but we all have to make a living, don't we? If what we write isn't of interest to anyone else, what's the point?
Take Harry Potter for instance. J K Rowling really hit the jackpot with that series. It's earned about £1 billion or so they say. I'm told she started writing them about ten years before the first one was published. I can't see where the clever view of the future market came in here. She just wrote the things she wanted to write. It was the public that decided to like them.
The Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon did give rise to some steamy derivatives which sold in vast numbers. But the market for romantic fiction is well established. Mills and Boon, for example, have kept it provided for years. Fifty Shades was, like Harry Potter, a bit special but not out of the ordinary in terms of market sector. Similarly, Dan Brown's books sell in their millions but are part of a mainstream genre with a huge established readership. There's nothing unique about any of these books other than the amount they sell.
So how does that help a poor writer who is trying to find a market? Is there a niche somewhere that hasn't been filled?
I don't think so.
Being derivative, in other words taking someone else's theme and trying to do a variation of your own, isn't going to work. I once wrote a humorous science fiction novel. The response I received was along the lines that they had Terry Pratchett for this kind of thing, he does it a lot better and, what's more important, he has a loyal readership. I would have to be either better or different and I was neither.
What I mean is that you shouldn't set out to be a second rate Rowling, a E L James lookalike or a Dan Brown clone. People already have the real thing to read, they don't need you to give them something similar and slightly inferior.
There's another reason for not writing something just because you think it might sell. By the time you've written it another trend will have taken over. You'll be old hat.
So, write what comes up for you, what has energy for you, what feels right for you. By all means imagine you are writing for someone else but make this a specific person rather than a statistical demographic.
What people like to buy are good books. Books that are written with heart, carefully edited, professionally produced and gently offered for their appreciation.



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