SALIGIA - Publication in July

SALIGIA is a novella I wrote as an exercise in explanation. Many of the Tauran characters who would appear in the Sudden Dearth series needed fleshing out; descriptions both physical and motivational. Set well before SD it also helps to lay the ground for Urion's arrival, linking both SD and Urion's Belt.

I use seven short stories, woven in a plot-line to introduce and hopefully explain these characters further. Due to their inherent natures, each of the characters cameos in one of the Seven Deadly Sins, hence SALIGIA. One means of ingraining the concept of the SDS in Medieval times was the creation of the mnemonic "SALIGIA" based on the first letters in Latin of the seven deadly sins: superbia, avaritia, luxuria, invidia, gula, ira, acedia.

Two of these stories did appeared in my collection The Gift earlier this year, but here are set in their correct context. A soldier, Leftenant Geriond Devane is used as a common device, and truth be told he does not have a good time of it. I will annouce the actual publication date soon, hoping to have everything ready by the second week of July.

Watch this space...

The Power of being FREE

It is a theme which I keep touching on, but since being touched by the Amazon phenomenon it has really interested me. From a small fanbase to 10,000 "sales" in two months, seems rather surreal, but that is the reality of Kindle. Now these are FREE sales I know, but as an advertising tool invaluable. No matter which guru of publishing you talk to, read, or listen to, word-of-mouth is still a huge marketing channel. Right now, there are 10,000 (or any combination of that number) more people with a copy of one of my novels or short stories.

Well, I hear you say, they might not like your work and will give you a poor review, but Im not so sure. No, let me explain, I'm not egotistical enough to think that everyone likes my stuff, nor thinks it's perfect or couldn't do with being used as kindling. Nope, what I mean is that you have to raise passion of one sort or another in a person for them to give a review, and that's good. The majority will NOT review. How many of us buy a book in the shop, or online and write a review on it for others? A minority of us is the truth. This does not mean that we liked or loathed it any less, but we are more likely to tell somebody else about it in conversation or on a forum, rather than write a review.

When I write a review, I do so in my own way. I don't point out typo's, or whether the author has the correct POV or could improve their writing craft. Rather, I say whether I liked it or not and why. I do give a warning to those who ask me for a review, saying exactly that. I have seen too many reviews given which spark a food-fight, and to be honest, in that case it's better that the author neither asks for a review nor the reader gives it.

Getting back to the theme of this blogpost - I like FREE, in fact all of my short stories are free on one or other of the main distribution channels. I intend, for now, to keep it that way. If you want, tell a friend about them, and keep checking here as there will be new work available real soon.

Watch this space...

Free on Kindle - How do they know?

I have no qualms posting this very pushy button (no pun intended) as AKnC remains FREE on Amazon.com. Latest statistics, after just over an hour, are 3000 downloads more or less. Great exposure for this and other works of mine.

In an effort to see how the information on AKnC was disseminated, i.e. the fact it had been made FREE, I went surfing. It's amazing the number of linked sites which pass on this information. All of them, rightfully so if they haven't read any of the works, add a disclaimer giving no guarantee of quality. Others clearly point out "real" publishers and those independent guys and gals, even capitalizing the word to make sure no-one misses the fact. Not sure what that means - perhaps that we are more important, with a capital I of course.

Tags and genre labels don't seem to translate well with auto-generation and I've seen some great (without a capital G) examples of this. However I can't, or at least shouldn't complain, as AKnC has reached number 39 in the Kindle Free Charts in just over a day. I eagerly await what happens next.

Watch this space....

FREE - Does Amazon Love me?

It's a question I have to ask as Amazon.com has now made A Knight's Charge FREE. This time there was no warning eMail, just the surprise of 400 downloads when I checked this morning!

Now, I'm not sure whether someone let them know of the fact that AKnC was free on other Distribution Channels, or they just decided to kindly give me a boost, but I'm not complaining. Unfortunately it is not FREE on Amazon.co.uk yet, but I will keep checking.

Whatever happens, it helps to give my other work exposure and hopefully it will continue to generate other sales. You will probably notice that I'm not complaining.

Watch this space...

Pricing - Decisions, decisions...

I said pricing, not piercing, although they probably do have something in common. The decision about whether to get body art or even which price point to go for takes time, the quellng of fear and of course the worry about what people think. Now, at eighteen it is so-o-o-o much easier to make that decision - F*$k 'em, I'm a rebel. Now though...well yeah, I'm still a rebel.

Many people ask why, or even look down upon work which is priced at 99p or 99c. It must be crap, right? If it was any good you'd be able to sell it for 6.99 at least. Personally I don't think it follows - the logic that a book priced at 6.99 is SEVEN times better than one that is FREE or costs just 99c doesn't wash. I am sure we can all point to expensive books that we thought were not worth 1c, and equally the other end of the scale applies.

So, I've decided to price my books how I like, and I reserve the right to change my mind whenever I feel like it. Right now all my short stories are free ;P, you just need to know where to look. Remember now "f*$k 'em. I'm a rebel!"

Blogs and Marketing

As I swim through the murky waters of book marketing, I see all sorts of advice, ideas and schemes to sell more books. There are a number of people who claim to sell immense quantities of books and yet without direct knowledge, we can only take their word. Now I am not here talking about the well-publicised small number who clearly do have large sales, share their numbers and are even snapped up belatedly by the majors. Forum threads talk of 5K this month, 120K so far this year...join the club, and especially my fellowship...you've no doubt seen the same threads.

There are author tagging threads, author mutual blog following, twittering and facebook fan pages. Tagging is something claimed to generate sales by increased public awareness. Mutual blogging gets your feed seen and potentially more feet crossing your threshold, as does the joint liking and subscription to FB Fan pages and Groups.

Me, and I readily admit this, I am linked to a lot of FB Groups and pages and the truth is that I only really take notice of the comments and posts of nine or ten. This must mean that I am not fulfilling my marketing potential, as does my brief dabble into the Tagging foray on Amazon. To be truthful the biggest impact on and exposure to me was via the Amazon free offer of A Guiding Light. This has now ended, but if Amazon is listening, The Wildwose is still free on Smashwords and Apple!

So, what have I done? I have gone back to my trusted and favourite forums, decided to start my own review thread and continued to write, posting excerpts from my work. I think that this slow and steady approach will help to build and satisfy those who like my work whilst removing the franctic stress caused by trying too hard. Oh, and don't forget Amazon...Wildwose, free on Smashwords and iBooks.

Watch this space...

A Cold Dish - July Publication

For quite some time A Cold Dish remained steady at Fifteen Chapters. It wasn't that I'd run out of ideas, rather that the rest of the novels had to catch up. Finally with the release of SDIII and with the plot for SDIV revised, its patience was rewarded.

Although set in the Urionverse, its timeline rests between the events in the SD series and before that of Urion's Belt. It is a tale of vengeance, deception, pain and retribution. I enjoyed writing it!

Here is the summary of the novel and I will post some excerpts here over the next couple of weeks.

Watch this space...

A violent storm can pick up an innocent babe, whirl it high and deposit it unharmed many miles away. Annihilation is more likely though



Cruel mistakes are terrible things. James McBride made his first one when he murdered a woman and her two children under the hidden influence of the Church. His greatest error was to leave her husband alive. Caught up in his own plans for power, he unknowingly awoke a violent storm. This storm had a name, Juan Escola, whose response was swift and deadly. When Juan was finished, there would be little left of McBride, the Church or the world.