(Review) points mean prizes!

Tags

Amazon, Fatal Forgery, Martha Plank, Portraits of Pretence, review, Samuel Plank, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat, Worm in the Blossom

I have written before about what a thrill – what a tonic – it is for authors to get reviews.  It tells you that people are reading your books (phew!) and not just buying them.  (I know that you still get the money, but it’s sad to think of someone buying your book, reading a couple of pages and then abandoning it – much nicer to know that they have finished it.)  And it gives you invaluable insight into what is working and what is not.  “Plank 5” now has much more about Martha in it than I had originally planned, because the overwhelming call from reviews (and other feedback) is “we want more Martha”.  But I don’t think I had quite grasped the mathematical significance of reviews.

I can’t find the original source of this picture, but it is being widely circulated by authors and writing websites:

As you can see, Amazon – and most self-published authors (including this one) rely heavily on Amazon sales – decides which books to promote based on how many reviews they have received (and, I assume, how positive those reviews are).  This seems to me an entirely sensible approach: if lots of people have bought a book and enjoyed it enough to say something about it, chances are that others will enjoy it too.

So where are Sam and I with our Amazon reviews?  On the Amazon UK site, “Fatal Forgery” has 27 reviews, “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat” has 13, “Worm in the Blossom” has 10 and “Portraits of Pretence” has 11.  And on the Amazon.com site, the numbers are 8, 1, 0 and 3 respectively.  (No, I don’t know why the reviews aren’t shared across all Amazon sites – they’re the exact same books, after all.)  In short, I have a way to go before I start troubling those “you might like” lists too often.

What many readers don’t realise is that you don’t have to have bought something from Amazon to be able to review it on Amazon.  Of course you need an Amazon account before you can post reviews, but if you’ve bought one of my books in a bookshop, or direct from me, or have read a library or borrowed copy, you can still review it on Amazon.

So can I put out another plea, please?  If you have read any of my books, could you take a minute to put a short review on Amazon?  Honestly: a star rating and a single sentence will count to the total – this re-post from last year shows how simple it can be.  It really does seem that on Amazon, points mean prizes.

Sam and Dan: compare and contrast

Tags

Debbie Young, Portraits of Pretence, review, Samuel Plank

I am sorry that I have been so silent recently.  A combination of two things has kept me away from Sam.  First there was the coming into force on Monday of this week of new anti-money laundering legislation here in the UK (which has required me to update all of my “serious” day-job books, and do all sorts of other activities to spread the word).  And the second was a dental infection (I’ll spare you the details – and thanks be to everything that I don’t live in the 1820s, with their rather more rudimentary and robust approach to dental treatment) that has sapped me of energy.  But I’m coming back from the brink now, and fully expect some quality Sam time this weekend.

But thankfully my marvellous writer friend Debbie Young has stepped into the breech, and has chosen “Portraits of Pretence” as one of the pair of books in her inaugural “Recommended Weekend Reading” blog post.  In this post, she compares Sam to the policeman hero of another series of crime novels, set slightly earlier and written by the lovely Lucienne Boyce – and they have a lot in common!  For those who don’t know her, Debbie is a talented writer and a voracious reader and reviewer – it’s very well worth following her blog.  And when she praises my lovely Sam, well, what can I do but re-blog?  Many, many thanks to Debbie.

I did consider simply putting the whole blog post in (I’m quite new at this re-blogging lark) but I’d much rather you toddled over to Debbie’s blog and met her for yourself.  So here it is: Debbie Young’s blog post.

Party for poison pens

Tags

bookmark, bookshop, Heffers, Portraits of Pretence, print-on-demand, promotion, self-publishing

Great excitement: I have just been invited to participate in “What’s Your Poison?”, the summer crime party held by local bookshop Heffers.  I missed it last year, as I was away on my writing retreat, but this year the stars are in alignment and on Thursday 6 July 2017 I will be rubbing shoulders with fellow crime addicts and writers.  Do come along if you’re around: they are always lovely events, with some terrific books on show.  And I will be handing out bookmarks!

I have been asked to prepare a three-minute reading from my latest book, which is “Portraits of Pretence”.  I don’t do readings that often; when I am asked to speak (quite rarely these days, as I have not been putting enough effort into chasing speaking opportunities, bad writer that I am) I tend to focus on the process rather than the product.  And people are usually so fascinated by the mechanics of self-publishing and print-on-demand that we run out of time.

But I do know that choosing the right excerpt is quite an art.  You need something that can stand alone (I don’t like doing big explanatory introductions) and yet tempt your listeners to buy the book so that they can read on; that gives a flavour of the main character and perhaps a couple of others; and that hints at the plot without giving anything away.  I’m going to have to give this some thought…

Double diamond!

Tags

Discovering Diamonds, Helen Hollick, Portraits of Pretence, review

A couple of weeks ago I shared the lovely news that “Portraits of Pretence” had been chosen for review as a “Discovered Diamond” – an accolade worth a great deal to me, as it is the opinion of fellow writers of historical fiction.  And then today I learn that it is even better than that: “Portraits” is their March Book of the Month.  This is decided by Helen Hollick, who launched the “Discovering Diamonds” website – and she really knows her historical fiction onions, so I am thrilled.  I am now entitled to use an even fancier logo on my website – look over to the left!

And my bookmarks should be arriving tomorrow, according to the parcel people – I’ll let you know.

Progress on all Planks

Tags

ACX, Amazon, audiobook, Fatal Forgery, Guy Hanson, Portraits of Pretence, review, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat, Worm in the Blossom

I once spoke to a professional author – a full-time writer – who said that one of the aspects of his job that he had not anticipated was the overlap of books.  And now I know what he meant.  At the moment I am (a) writing “Plank 5”, (b) trying to promote “Portraits of Pretence”, and (c) checking the audiobook version of “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”.  So here’s where I am with each of these.

“Plank 5” now has a completed first chapter and outlines for another twelve chapters, and I have been doing a great deal of reading around non-conformist religions in 1828 – from the familiar Methodists and Baptists to the more evangelical and (in those days) wacky Ranters.  We’re a bit too early for spiritualism, which is a shame, as I’d love to write a séance scene!  I am also looking at epidemics, but I’m not going to tell you why…

“Portraits of Pretence” is slowly, slowly gathering more reviews, including this lovely one today on Helen Hollick’s “Discovering Diamonds” blog (“Independent reviews of the best in historical fiction”, so I’m very flattered to have made the cut).  This means that I can now proudly display this logo all over the place:

And in a review on Amazon of the same book, a Mr L Moss said that “Worm in the Blossom” had been his favourite book of 2015, so that’s something I remind myself of when I am struggling with Ranters and epidemics.

And my fabulous narrator Guy has just sent me the final chapters of the “Canary” audiobook, so I shall listen to them over the weekend and we might just be able to audio-publish next week.  After a good start, the “Fatal Forgery” audiobook sales have slowed right down, so I am hoping that Guy will still be willing to record the other Plank books (we’re on a 50/50 profit share through ACX).  And if anyone has any ideas for how to promote audiobooks, please share them – I’m struggling a bit with this one.

My far-from-Blue Monday

Tags

Jaffareadstoo, marketing, Portraits of Pretence, promotion, review

What a day!  It has quite restored my faith in humanity and – perhaps more usefully – my faith in plodding on with book marketing (of which more in the next post: I’ve found some new ideas and will let you know how they go).  You remember that a while ago (at the end of November) I moaned about writing in to an airline magazine with an idea and not hearing back?  Well, today I had this lovely email out of the blue (airline magazine reference – geddit?): “Thanks very much for your email – somehow I hadn’t read it or realised what it was!  Please could you supply a hi-res profile pic of yourself that we could use in the magazine?  I think we may be able to use your ‘Inspiration Time’ page in our April issue.”  No promises, obviously, and the poor woman may be quite put off by a hi-res photo of a gurning Grossey and fear that it will cause panic in the aisles, but you never know.  If anyone is travelling anywhere with FlyBe in April, you’ll have to check for me.

And that’s as if the day wasn’t marvellous enough already, with the appearance this morning of the latest (get me: not the first, not the only, but the latest) five-star review of “Portraits of Pretence”.  Jo Barton, who blogs under the name JaffaReadsToo, has been a stalwart supporter of Sam from the outset but she is a professional book reviewer and blogger, so I know she won’t be complimentary just for the sake of it.  The terror of writing a series (much outweighed by the joys, but still, a genuine terror) is that the new one won’t measure up to the old ones.  )If you’ve been following the recent excoriation of the latest “Sherlock” episodes, you will know what I mean.)  But HUGE sigh of relief: Jo reckons that “Portraits” sits as it should alongside the other Planks.

Plumbing the depths

Tags

1827, London, marketing, Pennington Street vaults, Portraits of Pretence, Samuel Plank

I am often grateful that my books are set in London because – if you lift your eyes above the gaudy street-level additions and accretions – many buildings and views remain much as they were in Sam’s day.  But yesterday I went to a place that is literally unchanged since Sam was there in 1827, in “Portraits of Pretence”: the vaults in Pennington Street in Wapping, east London.  Back then these vaults were a bonded warehouse for wine and spirits as part of the London Docks (St Katharine Docks did not open until the following year), and every legally traded (plenty was not…) drop of alcohol in the world went through them.  Vaults were best for this because they were easier to secure than a building above ground, and – in the days before heating and aircon – they were able to maintain an almost constant temperature.

Partly as a marketing ploy and mostly out of curiosity, I contacted the development company that now owns this building and much of the land around it and asked whether I could possibly toddle along and take a peek into the vaults.  And yesterday I did just that.  As soon as we went down the stairs into the vaults, I was amazed: they are completely unchanged.  Of course they have functional strip lighting now – in Sam’s time it would have been swinging lanterns casting eerie shadows – and the floor is clear of the sticky residue that used to drip from the barrels, but the form is still absolutely the same:

And look at this marvellous original brickwork:

I cannot tell you what a shiver went down my spine when I thought, “Sam ran through this very passageway, looking for his friend Ben.”  And then I remembered that I made them up.  But they’re real to me, and yesterday I spent a wonderful hour in their company.

Fame without fortune

Tags

Fatal Forgery, Portraits of Pretence, sales, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat, Worm in the Blossom

How frustrating it is when a tried and tested excuse, a much-loved fall-back position, is taken away.  When lamenting the lack of sales of the Sam Plank books, I have often – with the vigorous agreement of all those around me – opined how unfair it is that celebrities, many of whom can barely string together a coherent sentence, have only to muse, “Hmmm, I s’pose I could write a book or sumfink…” for publishers to throw money at them and crank up the presses.  And then – damn and blast them – their books fly off the shelves.  But a friend recently pointed me in the direction of a programme called “Giles Coren: My Failed Novel”.  The title pretty much says it all: in 2005, the arts critic of The Times (so no-one could accuse him of incoherence) published a novel called “Winkler”, and it was a disaster.  It sold 771 copies.

771…  Of course I turned immediately to my own meticulous sales records.  And I can report that, as of today, I have sold this many books:

• “Fatal Forgery”: 630 copies (paperback, e-book and audiobook)
• “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”: 239 copies (paperback and e-book)
• “Worm in the Blossom”: 133 copies (paperback and e-book)
• “Portraits of Pretence”: 61 copies (paperback and e-book)

This makes a grand total of 1,063 books, and knocks that 771 out of the park.

Which is lovely.  Except that I can no longer claim that if only I were famous, I’d be selling trillions of copies.  Back to the writing board.

(It occurs to me that Mr Coren’s confessional telly appearance might just be a marketing master-stroke: will sales of his novel rocket, as people rush to see whether it is really the stinker that everyone says?  And anyway, don’t truly awful things start to develop their own wonderfulness – Donald Trump being a notable exception?)

Flight of fancy

Tags

Fitzwilliam Museum, paperback, Portraits of Pretence, promotion, Samuel Plank

Just a quick update today, so that you know that I’m not resting on my laurels.  (I’m a bit pleased with myself, as I see that in the past few days I have sold seven paperback copies of “Portraits of Pretence”, and that’s quite a heady pace for my books!)

Ever on the lookout for promotional opportunities, I was on a plane the other day and spotted that in their in-flight magazine they had an interview with an author, talking about the city where her book is set (the link is that the airline flies there).  Well, thought I, they also fly to London, where my books are set, and so I mocked up a similar interview with myself and sent it in to the magazine editor.  It might not – realistically, probably won’t – lead anywhere, but they certainly weren’t going to come looking for me, and it was a diverting way to spend the flight.

I have had a cheque from the Fitzwilliam Museum for their three copies of “Portraits”, so I don’t know whether that means they have sold them, or they just pay their bills very promptly (rather unusual in the book world, I have found!).  I will have to skulk in there soon to see if the shelf is bare…

As for “Plank 5”, I am going to start this week with my usual method: adding some relevant pictures to my Sam Pinterest board.  I’m not generally a very visual person, preferring words, but I do find that it puts me in the mood to look for illustrations of things that were happening in the right year – “Plank 5” takes place in 1828.

Mulling on maps

Tags

Great Marlborough Street, map, marketing, Portraits of Pretence, Samuel Plank

Several of you have asked – quite rightly – what has happened to the maps I was so excited about.  As you may remember, I like the idea of you being to follow in Sam’s (well-polished booted) footsteps around London, in an exercise I call “walking the Plank”.  I found a wonderful cartographer right here in Cambridge, and he has been doing sterling work reading the books and plotting the key locations for each on a large map he has drawn – about two square metres in size.  I showed you our progress here.

Since then, the publication of “Portraits of Pretence” rather overtook me, but now I am becoming mappish once again.  I am going to contact my map man anew, and need to give him definitive instructions about the end product that I would like from him.  And I have had an idea, but I would like your thoughts on this.

Sam, being an energetic fellow, covers quite a bit of ground, and London – even in the 1820s – was a big place.  In short, the map needs to be quite big to encompass Sam’s movements.  And for a map to appear in the book, it must fit – legibly – on a paperback double-page spread, which is not very big.  So my idea is to product two versions of each map: a cut-down one of the most important highlights to appear in the book, and then a more detailed one (that you could actually download, print and then use as a tour guide) to be offered as a PDF on this website.  Of course the situation is further complicated by the fact that there is a different map for each book.  In practical terms, we – the map man and I – have created a base map showing repeated Plank locations (Great Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court, Sam and Martha’s house, Newgate, etc.).  On this we then overlay the specific locations for each book.  So we face the prospect of needing fourteen maps in total – seven books, each with an in-book version and a downloadable PDF.  This is obviously quite a job of work, and I need to make sure that it’s the right way to go before breaking the happy news to the map man.  So what do you think?