All’s fair

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author, Fatal Forgery, G David, marketing, publicity, Samuel Plank, self-publishing, Susan Grossey, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat

I know I’ve been quiet for a few days – put it down to post-publication exhaustion.  But I have been to see “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat” in David’s bookshop in Cambridge – doesn’t he look smart:

I’m always trying to think of new ways to publicise my books, and it seems that just putting myself “out there”, as they say, is starting to pay dividends.  You remember that a little while ago I took part in a local authors’ event in our library?  Well, our local paper wrote about it, and another local author read about it, and she has now contacted me and asked me to join her on a stall promoting local authors at the Mill Road Winter Fair.

This is quite a big event for us in Cambridge, and I am very excited to be taking part.  I don’t expect to sell more than a few books – at the library event I sold six – but talking to people about Sam Plank and alerting them to his existence (well, his fictional existence) can’t hurt.  If nothing else, it will be a good opportunity for me to hone my descriptions of sitting in the cold with frozen fingers and toes, for future Plank tales!  And if you’re in town that day – Saturday 6 December 2014, 1030 to 1630 – why not come down to Donkey Common (no sniggering at the back, please) and seek us out on the “Books, Beautiful Books!” stall.

The Big Week is here!

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Amazon, bookshop, financial crime, G David, Hammicks, Heffers, Kindle, marketing, paperback, print-on-demand, publication date, publicity, Samuel Plank, self-publishing, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat

Apologies for my silence – I was away on holiday in Crete for a week, girding my loins for the Big Week of Publication.  My husband – slow reader and therefore typo-spotter extraordinaire – was also reading my proof copy of “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”, and yesterday I made my final, final corrections (thankfully only a handful of very small ones needed).  (A bit nerve-racking, his reading of the book, as it was the first time he had read it – he prefers not to read works-in-progress.  So I spent three days hovering over him whenever he was reading, asking, “Where are you up to now?”.  Poor man.  At the end, I asked him which bit he liked best, and it wasn’t what I would have guessed at all, so that’s interesting.)

When we arrived home, two massive boxes of copies of “Canary” were waiting with a neighbour, so three review copies have been sent out, as well as “thanks” copies to my beta-reader, and to the lady who gave us permission to use a document from her late husband’s collection as part of our cover design, and to two relatives who are not Amazon-y.

So what does this week hold?  The paperback and Kindle files have been uploaded to Amazon, as it is something of a dark art to calculate when they might appear, so I thought sooner rather than later might be sensible.  Hopefully they will be in situ, resplendent in their golden covers and ready to go on Friday.  I am tripping over stacks of copies of “Canary”, so they need to be distributed: six copies are going to Hammicks in London today, care of husband and a Boris bike.  Heffers have ordered twelve and David’s ten, so I’ll deliver them tomorrow myself – both are local to me here in Cambridge.  Then I’ll be turning to my “people to tell” list, and working my way through that on Friday – it’s journalists who have kindly written about me before, my own websites, the Society of Authors, and then odd little extras like a poster for my local Department of Criminology.  I tell you, being self-published is not for the faint of heart or weak of cycling leg!

Planning for publication

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bookshop, G David, Hammicks, Heffers, marketing, paperback, print-on-demand, publication date, publicity, Samuel Plank, Susan Grossey, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat

I am aware that when I started this blog, my intention was not to waffle about what it means to me to be a writer (in short, I earn some money by putting words onto paper/screen) but rather to explain to others who are considering becoming self-published authors what the process is like.  So for today’s update….

As explained in my last post, I ordered – and have now taken delivery of – my proof paper copy of “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”.  It looks lovely, and so I have ordered my bulk purchase of 75 copies.  It sounds a lot, I know, but I have worked it out quite carefully (and, when ordering from CreateSpace, it is advantageous price-wise per copy to order more rather than fewer).  To begin with, I contacted the three bookshops who are very kindly already stocking “Fatal Forgery”.  I showed them the cover and back cover blurb for “Canary”, gave them the publication date (still aiming for 31 October) and then asked if they wanted a few copies – and they all said yes (twelve, ten and six copies respectively).  I then contacted the lovely people who reviewed “Fatal Forgery” and asked if they would be interested in reviewing “Canary”, and so far two of them have said yes.  Then there are gift copies for some family members, for the man who kindly beta-read both “Fatal Forgery” and “Canary”, for the woman who allowed me to use a family document on the cover of “Canary”, and for my two local libraries.  And then – here’s the optimism kicking in – I’ll need a few on hand to re-stock those bookshops!

The interesting thing about self-publishing is that, in order to be able to buy these copies, I have to actually publish the book – but I don’t want to publish it properly (i.e. list it on Amazon) just yet.  So I have “stealth-published” it, so that it is listed only on the CreateSpace website, which hardly anyone visits as a bookshop – and at the end of the month, once I have distributed all the copies as listed above, and lined up my other promotional activities, I will publish it fully, with all guns blazing.

Incidentally, quite by coincidence, I was invited back onto our local radio station this week.  I wrote about this last time I went – and that was an invitation I sought because I was trying to promote “Fatal Forgery”.  This time they invited me, and I went along without really thinking about the timing, and on reflection I think it was an error.  The presenter very kindly mentioned my name and that of my book almost constantly – but kept having to point out that “Canary” is not yet available.  It would have been better to be able to say go and buy it now!  So, as with most things, it really is all about the timing.

All over bar the selling

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bookshop, financial crime, G David, Hammicks, Heffers, marketing, print-on-demand, Samuel Plank, Susan Grossey, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat

Put out the flags!  I have just ordered my paper proof copy of “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”, and paid extra for it to be sent by rocket-powered carrier pigeon from the US so that it should arrive by the end of the week.  In my mind, that’s it: I will read the proof copy, of course, but my main intention is to check the quality of the printing and paper – the proof-reading has been done already.  That said, over a quarter-century of writing documents, I have learned to accept the Golden Rule of Proofing: no matter how many times you, your friends and even paid professionals proof-read a document, something will always get through.  It’s a bit like weddings: something will always go wrong, and the sooner the bride-to-be accepts this, the happier and more relaxed she will be in the run-up to the big day.  (For me, the caterers forgot to bring coffee cups, so people drank their coffee out of champagne glasses.  And you know what?  No-one gave a hoot.)

Once the proof copy has shown itself to be of excellent quality, I will order my author copies – for me, for family members who do not live in Cambridge and are not online (so can’t buy their own copies), for reviewers who have kindly agreed to have a look, and for the three bookshops who very generously have agreed to stock “Canary” alongside “Fatal Forgery”.  So – barring misfortune such as a fire in the printing works – I’m online to meet that publication date of 31 October.

I’m feeling a bit bereft, as “Canary” has been alongside me for so long now.  But luckily I was listening to the radio the other day, and a magazine item caught my ear.  So now I am fairly sure I know what is going to be the central crime of “Plank 3″…

Remember, it’s supposed to be fun!

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bookshop, Fatal Forgery, financial crime, fraud, G David, Goodreads, Hammicks, Heffers, marketing, print-on-demand, publication date, publicity, Samuel Plank, self-publishing, Susan Grossey

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted that I have altered the publication date of “Plank 2” from 20 October to 31 October.  (Apologies if you had already planned your diary around it…!)  I’m not used to adjusting deadlines, but then nor do I like missing them, so when I was in a lather with my diary yesterday, my ultra-logical husband suggested that I simply change the date to one that suits me better.

The problem was this.  I think I can get the text finalised by mid-October at the latest.  The cover designer is working to that date too.  And I know from “Fatal Forgery” that it takes only about three or four days from publication (i.e. uploading of files) for CreateSpace to have the book listed on Amazon.  But I am going away on holiday in mid-October and – although I had originally thought that it would be good to publish the book and then have the holiday immediately afterwards – I suddenly thought that it would be a shame to miss the fun part of publishing, which (for me at least) is telling everyone that the book is out, and then manically checking the CreateSpace sales page every three minutes until I see the first copy sold.  And I’m not sure husband’s patience would extend to manic checking while on holiday,  Plus I’ll want to take early copies round to the three bookshops that are stocking “Fatal Forgery”, and see if I can get another appearance on the local radio station (do you “appear” on the radio, or just “sound”?), and organise a giveaway on Goodreads, and send emails to kind people who have done reviews in the past, and all the other fun promotional stuff.

So I have (belatedly) remembered the two key features of self-publishing – that is is under my control, and that it’s supposed to be fun.  And I have solved my diary dilemma by simply changing my own, self-imposed publication date to one that suits me better: 31 October 2014.  Which still leaves plenty of time for the bookshops to order the dozens, nay, hundreds of copies that they will be selling in the Christmas rush…  (The third key feature of self-publishing may be over-optimistic self-delusion, but I’ll write about that another day.)

I have a little list

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bookshop, Fatal Forgery, G David, Hammicks, Heffers, marketing, publicity, Samuel Plank

As regular readers will know, I have been fortunate enough to persuade three actual, physical, real, high street bookshops to stock “Fatal Forgery” in paperback – Heffers and G David in Cambridge, and Hammick’s Legal Bookshop in London.  Apart from giving me a thrill every time I pop in and see my books on the shelves (and no, of course I don’t do this, oh, two or three times a week – how desperate do you think I am?  Yes, you’re right – exactly that desperate), I take great pride in the fact that all three shops agreed to stock the book only after the manager of the relevant department had read “FF” and deemed it worthy of being stocked.

When I popped into Heffers a few weeks ago, I noticed that the (very extensive) crime fiction section had a handout for shoppers: a three-page typed list headed “Heffers: Crime Fiction Choice”.  It is divided into sections, headed “Traditional fare”, “Cambridge crime”, “Police procedurals” and so on.  I scanned it eagerly, but no “FF”.  Now, this list is put together by Richard Reynolds, head of crime fiction and probably the most respected crime fiction buyer in the country.  He is a judge on the awards panel of the Crime Writers’ Association, and generally a Big Name in crime fiction.  And, incidentally, a very quiet and modest man – although heaven only knows what’s going on in his mind, with the stuff he’s read over the years.  So I emailed him, and asked what I could do to submit “FF” for inclusion on the “choice list”, and how I could ensure that the sequel (yes, yes, I’m writing as fast as I can) could also be considered.  And the kind man emailed back almost immediately, saying that “FF” had been missed off in error.  A few days ago I called in to the shop, oh so casually strolled up to the crime fiction department, and picked up the latest version of the list.  And there it is!  “Fatal Forgery” is in the section headed “First offenders”!  I was going to take handfuls of the list, but then realised that any I take are ones that are not picked up by potential buyers, so I took just the one for my scrapbook.  I may have to call in at the weekend to see if any copies have sold as a result of the much-coveted and highly valued Reynolds recommendation…

Juicing the reviews

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Amazon, Fatal Forgery, G David, Goodreads, Hammicks, Heffers, marketing, publicity, review, Samuel Plank

Remember how I told you that I was going all out to try and get some reviews for “Fatal Forgery”?  Well, after a lot of silence and then a slow start, I am finally starting to see some returns on my effort.  The latest is a review by Debbie Young, a well-respected writer herself and a much-followed book blogger and reviewer.  And it is such a lovely five-star review – plenty of detail, with specific comments, and encouragement for “Plank 2”!  You can see it here on Amazon (if it’s not obvious, re-sort the reviews to put the newest first).  And Debbie – being, as I say, an author herself and therefore well aware of the importance of reviews – has kindly put her review on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Goodreads, to get as much coverage as possible.

So now here’s a question for you: how can I carry on Debbie’s good work and wring as much juice as possible from that review?  I have thanked her on Twitter (that’s something else she did, to reach her 6,300+ followers) and retweeted her Tweet to my (small in number but enormous in quality) 95 followers.  I am writing this post.  And of course I shall quote liberally from Debbie’s review (with her permission) on “Plank 2”.  I’m reluctant to put another review link on Facebook – my family and friends are probably all Planked out by now.  Should I forward it to the three booksellers who are stocking the physical book – given that the review appears on Amazon…?  Or maybe I could send them the Goodreads version instead.  Any other ideas?

To check or not to check?

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Amazon, bookshop, Fatal Forgery, financial crime, fraud, G David, marketing, paperback, print-on-demand, publicity, self-publishing, Susan Grossey

I have been away for work this week, and every evening, when I returned to my hotel room, I had a little routine: glass of Coke with lots of ice and a bag of crisps (hey, everyone needs to be fit, and for writers, that means having a plump bottom for sitting on all day), and then checking “Fatal Forgery” sales figures on Createspace (for the paperback) and Kindle.  And it was really depressing: no sales at all over the whole week (although I did spot that the copy in my local library has been borrowed – hurrah!).

When I mentioned this to my husband when I got home yesterday, he said that I was checking too often – that I might be just a tad obsessed (he’s only just noticed…).  And he recommended checking only once a month.  Once a month!  That would be the coldest of cold turkey.  But he’s right, and I agreed.  I’ll start that tomorrow.  Today I did a final, valedictory check – and overnight last night I sold two paperbacks and a Kindle version!  And today I am going into town for some shopping, and am now in a dither about whether to sneak into the bookshops to count remaining copies…  So what about the rest of you out there – how often do you check?  And is it healthy?

Thank heaven for local bookshops

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author, bookshop, Fatal Forgery, financial crime, G David, paperback, self-publishing, Susan Grossey

You may remember that a while ago I was all in a flutter because one of our lovely local, independent bookshops in Cambridge – G David, on St Edward’s Passage in the middle of town – had agreed to stock “Fatal Forgery”.  Well, feeling a bit like an encyclopaedia salesman, I called in there yesterday, book in hand, half-expecting them to have changed their minds.  But Brian – for it was he – was charm itself.  He looked at the book, read a few pages, inspected the cover – and said that he would stock three, no, six, no, ten, no, thirteen!  Unlucky for some, but not for me!  And he wanted them all signed, “for when you’re famous”.  I went in again today, to hand over the further copies, and there was “Fatal Forgery”, at eye-level on the main desk, near the till, with a big label on it saying “Local Author – New Crime Novel”.  I can’t tell you how thrilled I am.

And if that weren’t enough, I also chanced my arm in Heffers, which is our Cambridge university bookshop.  I spoke to the lovely lady in charge of fiction (I believe that’s her official job title), and she was so welcoming.  She said that I should be very proud of the look and feel of the book, and that she would take six on sale-or-return.  Six!  She’s going to put half in fiction and half in crime, and see where people find it most often.  Top tips for others hoping to get self-published books into local bookshops: make sure your book has an ISBN (bookshop systems live and die by the ISBN), and get a professional cover design (I used this company, who were truly excellent) and use a proper template for the interior, so that it doesn’t look like something cobbled together on Word (I used this company – again, excellent).  I’m sure that the fact that “Fatal Forgery” looks like something that a traditional publishing house might have produced has worked greatly in its favour.

I’ll keep you posted – I might just collapse with excitement if someone buys a copy from either shop.

Hurrah for everything local

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bookshop, Fatal Forgery, fraud, G David, print-on-demand, publication date, self-publishing, Susan Grossey

Self-publishing – although terrific fun – was not my first choice.  I wanted a “proper” publisher to snap up my book, mainly because that means that it’s worth publishing.  But after several publishers had said the same thing – in essence, “good story, well told, not commercial” – I had two options: stuff it in a drawer and forget about it, or self-publish.  And now that I’m on the path to self-publication, I see that the thing I miss most is not the stamp of approval of the publisher – after all, the book will sink or swim on its own merits – but their marketing clout.  Marketing a book – particularly one on a niche subject by an unknown author – is at least a full-time job, and I already have one of those.

So instead I have a list, and occasionally my husband will say across the breakfast table, “What about police chat forums?” or some such cryptic comment, and on the list it goes.  (If you have any such suggestions yourself, please do comment.  I’d be very grateful.)  As Cambridge is a small and bookish community, I thought the “local author” aspect was worth exploring – and things have worked out better than I could have hoped.

I write a weekly column for the local newspaper – called “Susan in the City”, it’s about life in Cambridge from my perspective – and so I asked whether they would be interested in a piece about their columnist’s forthcoming literary launch.  And they would.  Fired with optimism, I then went into our really independent local bookshop, David’s, and asked if they would be willing to consider selling my book.  The manager and I commiserated for a while on the shocking state of modern publishing and book-selling; he explained that the sale-or-return terms would be awful; and then he gestured to his window – the window! – and said that he would take three signed copies.  If I can take a photo of my book in a bookshop window, I’ll be able to die happy.