Where next?

Tags

beta reader, bookseller, Cambridge, editing, Heir Apparent, plotting, Samuel Plank

We’re on to the next stage: I’ve just sent a draft of “Heir Apparent” to my beta reader Roy.  This means that the whole thing has now been close-read three times: twice by me and once by my husband, whose slow reading skills come into their own as he picks up double words, missed endings, wrong tenses – and Wilson getting two midday meals on the same day in the same chapter.  When he finished he said that it was the best yet (my husband, not Wilson) – but then he says that every time.  Let’s hope he’s right, as this book was the most difficult to write: I think it has the most twizzly plot, and as I took eighteen months over it instead of my usual year, it was harder to keep it all in my head.

As “Heir Apparent” is on its way out of the door, my thoughts are turning to the next writing projects.  I’m doing a work-related, non-fiction thing in December, but when it comes to my next fiction outing, I’m in a dither and would value your comments.  As you may know, the Sam Plank series is going to be seven books long; “Heir Apparent” is number six, and number seven is already plotted in outline – and then the series will come to a natural conclusion with the disappearance of Sam’s job (all explained in “Heir Apparent”).  I have already decided that I am then going to embark on a new series, set in the same era but this time located in Cambridge (my home town) and featuring not a magistrates’ constable but a university constable – and I think he’s going to be called Gregory.  And I have two options, both of which have advantages and disadvantages:

1. Write “Sam 7” and then write “Greg 1”
   1. this is logical
   2. it means that Sam fans won’t have to wait too long for the final instalment
   3. but I’ll have to say goodbye to Sam quite soon, which will probably break my heart
2. Write “Greg 1” and then write “Sam 7”
   1. this may attract publishers who are interested in a Cambridge-set series (a local bookseller has been putting out feelers and says there is interest…), and if the Cambridge series gains a wider audience, it will drive readers back to the Sam series
   2. it delays the dreadful day when I have to bid farewell to Sam and Martha
   3. but Sam fans will have to wait longer – although I promise it will happen (I’m not going to abandon Sam)

What do you think?  From a timing point of view, whether it’s “Sam 7” or “Greg 1” we’re looking at March 2021 – I won’t be able to get either done in under eighteen months.  I’ll tell you what, let’s do an entirely unrepresentative and unscientific poll – those of us living in the UK are very familiar with these…  So please cast your vote and end my dithering!

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All that effort – for nothing!

Tags

Amazon, Draft2Digital, e-book, Kindle, pricing, Samuel Plank, Smashwords

I tell you, wrestling with Amazon is the aspect of the indie writer’s role that no-one warns you about.  As I mentioned a mere nine days ago, I have created an official guide to the Sam Plank books, which includes the first chapter of each book, to whet the appetite, and a glossary of Regency terms, as well as links to encourage people to sign up to my newsletter and indeed to buy the books.  I want to give this guide away – in Kindle form only – but Amazon is not keen on listing books for free.  This is understandable: they make their money by keeping a little cut of the price of each book they sell, and if it sells for nothing, they get nothing.  That’s not to say they don’t run their own promotions, listing Kindle books for free – indeed, you can always download free books from Amazon – but they like to call the shots, having made (I assume) the decision that the giveaway will increase sales in the future.

But thanks to excellent advice from members of the sainted Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), I knew that there was a way to force Amazon’s hand.  And this is what you have to do:

• Create an alternative version of the book for uploading to Smashwords – another e-book distributor
• Create an alternative version of the book for uploading to Draft2Ditigal – another e-book distributor
• Upload the book to these two platforms, giving the price as zero – they both permit this, whereas KDP (the e-book publisher for Amazon) does not
• Wait a couple of days for Smashwords and Draft2Digital to publish the book and distribute it to – importantly – Amazon’s main competitors, Kobo and Barnes & Noble
• Find the book listings on those two competitor websites, showing the price as zero, and save links to those listings
• Find – deep, deep, deep within the Amazon help system – the option that allows you to send a price match request to Amazon, including the links to the listings on Kobo and Barnes & Noble
• Receive a standard reply from Amazon: “Thanks for the pricing information. While we retain discretion over our retail prices, I’ve passed your feedback on for consideration.  We’ll need a little time to look into your issue.  We’ll contact you and provide more information soon.  Thank you for your patience.”
• Check the Amazon listing feverishly every ten minutes or so for four days
• Cheer mightily when – this morning – the freebie appears!

Of course, Amazon can change its mind at any time and revert to the official price that I was forced to enter when publishing the book with KDP – the lowest they offer is 99p.  And it’s showing as free only on Amazon.co.uk at the moment – the other Amazons have yet to catch up.  But it’s progress and in the indie publishing world that’s to be celebrated, when nothing is ever as simple as you think it should be!

So now, folks, please make it worth all the anguish and send this link on to everyone you know so that they can all download the guide – it’s the gateway drug to the Sam series and we need to get pushing!

Guiding light

Tags

Amazon, Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival, HULF, MailChimp, marketing, newsletter, Samuel Plank

As I mentioned, I went to the Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival at the weekend and as well as taking part, I also had time to attend a couple of sessions as an audience member.  And at one of those I picked up an excellent tip, to create a free guide to the Sam Plank series.  The idea is that people who have never heard of me or of the books might – quite rightly – be uneasy about parting with their money but might be willing to download a free taster guide to see if it’s to their taste.

So today’s task has been to create said guide.  What I have included is the cover blurb and first chapter for each book and a shortened glossary at the end, as well as plentiful links to encourage people to sign up to my monthly newsletter and/or actually buy a book or five.

My remaining problem is listing it on Amazon for free; they are understandably not really in the business of offering free books (as they can’t retain a royalty percentage of nothing) but apparently there are dastardly ways and sneaky means of doing it.  But while I research that, there is no reason why I can’t start handing out the guide anyway – so here it is!

The Official Guide to the Sam Plank Mysteries book series

It’s in the form of a PDF (albeit formatted for Kindle-ish dimensions, hence the small pages), and I’d be delighted if you would download it with gusto and forward it in a wanton fashion to friends, family and even slight acquaintances.  And I’ll keep you posted on my Amazon endeavours.

Visiting the source of Sam

Tags

IngramSpark, paperback, POD, print-on-demand, Samuel Plank

Yesterday I had a Grand Day Out at the Ingram premises near Milton Keynes.  Months ago – I forget how – I came across the interesting fact that Ingram (a book distributor and now parent company to IngramSpark, the print-on-demand service that I use for my Sam Plank books) runs open days.  You go along to their offices/factory and they give you a talk about their services, a tour of the printing bit and a sandwich lunch.  I really, really wanted to see the printing bit and my husband, being a production engineer, is always up for touring a factory, so off we went.  And I can highly recommend it as a day out.

The Ingram people we met were, without exception, extremely helpful.  The open day I chose was geared specifically to IngramSpark clients – they also do days for people who use their more commercial printing services – and we were a mixed bunch, from one chap who said at the outset, Manuel-like, “I know nothing”, to those of us who had been through the POD mill and were vaguely familiar with most of the steps.  That said, I did learn quite a few new things – for instance, I had always steered clear of IS’s Global Connect option but have now signed up, ready for the orders to come flooding in from India and China.  And the printing process is a marvel to behold, from the giant rolls of paper (they have stocked up, given Brexit…) to the wonderful Infinitrim machine that grabs a stack of books in its mechanical arm and then – whoosh! – trims them all with a guillotine blade.  (If I were the manufacturer I would have called it the Triminator and persuaded Arnie to advertise it.)  And exactly as promised, the books are indeed printing on demand: you see them coming out of the Infinitrim and each book is different – it’s not a “print run” in the traditional sense but the fulfilment of thousands of orders for individual books.  There is even a Tardis-like structure waiting to come into service to speed up sorting and packing the books after printing.  (No photos: we had to sign non-disclosure agreements and pinky-swear to secrecy.)  And the sandwiches are delicious.

Joking aside, I found the day useful for two main reasons.  Firstly, we were shown all the paper types and cover finishes and trim sizes, so now I know what’s on offer.  And secondly, we met the staff who will be the ones answering any IS queries – and they were so generous with their time that I feel confident that any POD problems I might have will be dealt with promptly and kindly.  In these days of webchats with robots and emails to help departments that go unanswered for days, that’s something to be celebrated.

Boxing clever

Tags

ALLi, Alliance of Independent Authors, box set, glossary, indie publishing, Kindle, pricing, Samuel Plank, self-publishing

As many of you will know, the “indie” (independent) publishing world is very co-operative, very inclusive and very helpful.  I belong to a marvellous organisation called ALLi (sounds like “ally” and it’s the Alliance of Independent Authors) and their members’ forum on Facebook is the place to go with all manner of writerly and self-publisher-ly queries.  The joy is being able to follow in successful footsteps of those who have gone before, and it is in that spirit that I have created my first box set of Sam books.

Before you get too excited, I should clarify that it is an e-box set of e-books – nothing physical here.  The idea is that readers of series really like series, and box sets appeal to them.  If you set the price right it can represent a saving on buying individual titles – and readers do love a bargain.  And if your series is longer than the box set, you are encouraging people to persevere further into the series.

As for how much work is involved, it’s not too onerous.  Obviously you have to create a single file out of the separate book files – for me, this was a fairly simple cut and paste exercise, with a bit of jigging to create one glossary out of two.  You then have to put an overall title at the beginning; in my case, I went for the rather predictable “The Sam Plank Mysteries Box Set One: Books 1-3”, with the three separate titles listed below.  (I said “Box Set One” in case I decide to do another one with later titles.)  And then I put bookmarks and hyperlinks into this title so that people can jump straight to the book they want – although I imagine that most people will read straight through, and the Kindle keeps your place.

Then there’s the cover.  I did contact my cover designer to ask about cost but decided that I could do something myself that is just good enough.  After all, the individual covers are eye-catching and beautiful, so I simply created a single image out of the three covers.  I have no talent at all for design, so I went to the ALLi forum and put up two different options for the cover – and people very kindly suggested various improvements (including having the faces looking at each other instead of turned away, although I do worry that the yellow fellow is now staring rather too appreciatively at the red girl).  And here it is:

With combined interior file ready and cover assembled, all I had to do was upload them to KDP – and decide on the price.  The total price of buying the first three Sam books in Kindle version is £9.97 so I priced the box set at £5.99 – in effect, people get the third book free.  I uploaded it yesterday, and so far I have sold one.  As ever, I’ll keep you posted.

Sam’s on the shortlist!

Tags

author, BookBrunch, Faith Hope and Trickery, historical fiction, London Book Fair, Samuel Plank, The Selfies

What a day!  I have received notification that “Faith, Hope and Trickery” has been shortlisted for the inaugural Selfies Award, which I entered back in December.  It’s one of eight books in the running and the winner will be announced at the London Book Fair on 12 March 2019.  I had already booked my ticket for that day, as I’ve never been to the LBF before (I want to walk around with “Author” on my ID badge), and I wanted to support the Selfies even if I was not personally involved.  But now I will be – great excitement!

Today’s press release  from the awards organiser – BookBrunch – is most flattering.  It says that we shortlist nominees were selected from “exceptional works of self-published fiction” and “can confidently stand against the very best fiction being published in the UK today”.

Looking at the shortlist, we’re all women.  Two books are pure crime and two are historical (mine included).  Bizarrely, one is about money laundering and one is about cycling (written by a woman who lives in Cambridge) – and neither of those is mine!  That prize ceremony is going to be an interesting gathering…

I have a dream

Tags

audiobook, BBC, Claudie Blakley, Fatal Forgery, library, Martha Plank, PLR, review, sales, Samuel Plank, The Selfies

At the weekend, for reasons too complicated to explain, I spent a couple of hours thinking about my dreams – not the sort where your teeth are falling out while you’re being chased by your O-level maths teacher for your overdue homework, but the sort where you imagine and plan for the future (as in “hopes and dreams”).  The brief was to dream big – to write down anything, regardless of likelihood or practicality.  Of course several of my dreams related to the Sam books and I thought I would share those with you:

• To publish two more Sam Plank books, taking the series to seven
• To hear one of the Sam books read aloud on Radio 4 as their “Book of the Week”
• To win “The Selfies” in April 2019
• To see “Fatal Forgery” on sale in Tesco and Waitrose [one for the numbers, the other for the snobbery…]
• To open a national newspaper and see one of the Sam books unexpectedly and favourably reviewed
• To have the Sam series recommended by Mariella Frostrup
• To see the Sam series turned into a Sunday evening costume drama on the BBC, with Claudie Blakley playing Martha – Sam is still to be cast.

Here’s Claudie in “Lark Rise to Candleford” – and maybe moody Brendan Coyle would work as Sam…

What surprised me when I went back over my Sam dreams was that none of them mentions money.  Sure, winning an award or getting a review heard/read by thousands would increase sales, but what seems to matter to me is a wide readership rather than earning a fortune.  I do appreciate that I am in the lucky position of having a day job quite apart from my Sam writing, which means that I do not have to rely – thank goodness! – on Sam income, but still, it’s shown me that I am motivated by getting people to read Sam rather than by getting them to buy books.  I’ve blogged before about my unhappy experience with libraries and the PLR system, but despite this I would be just as happy to see more people borrowing the Sam books as I would to see sales increasing.  (I just love checking our local library catalogue and seeing all the Sam books out on loan.)  So that’s the dreaming done – now on with the reality of writing.

Hart’s and minds

Tags

author talks, CreateSpace, Hart's Books, KDP, money, publicity, sales, Samuel Plank, self-publishing

Is there anything an author enjoys more than talking about her books?  It’s certainly easier than getting on with writing the next one.  And yesterday evening was a great treat as I spoke to a small (I think we had eleven in total) but terrifically interested and engaged audience at Hart’s Books in Saffron Walden.  Hart’s – as a printer, stationer and bookseller – has been associated with Saffron Walden since 1836, and the current bookshop is part of the Daunt family but retains a very independent feel.  I’d had my eye on them for a while but I rarely look my best in Saffron Walden: it’s the usual destination for our Sunday tandem rides (there’s a local café that does a wonderful fried breakfast which is my reward for cycling twenty-five miles) and I’m always a sweaty, fly-dotted creature when I arrive.  Not the best image to persuade a bookshop that you are a serious writer of worthy tomes.  But one Sunday I just took a chance, and the manager Max was sufficiently impressed by my enthusiasm – or so desperate to get my pungent carcass out of his shop – that he agreed to stock Sam.  And when I suggested an author event, he kindly agreed.  And that was last night.

At such talks I am never sure which aspect is going to chime with the audience: the books themselves, or the history behind them (of policing and justice, or of London), or the writing process, or the self-publishing procedure.  And so I start with a general introduction – how I came to write the first book, why I wrote four more – and then (if the audience seems keen) open it up to questions.  Well, last night “keen” was an understatement.  I’d barely spoken two sentences before the questions started, and it didn’t let up for over an hour – fantastic!

I promised myself that I would always be completely honest in my answers, particularly when it comes to money issues – people need to know that it’s not the route to quick riches.  And in the spirit of full disclosure, I can report that last night’s event garnered me about £7.65 – that’s about 45p per book, and we sold seventeen.  (It’s not that the bookshop takes an enormous cut – their deal is to keep a perfectly reasonable 35% or 40% of the cover price.  It’s just that we self-published authors have to supply the books ourselves, so by the time I have ordered them from CreateSpace, sorry KDP – recent take-over – and paid for them to be sent from the US to me in the UK, and then given the bookseller his discount, I’m left with about 45p per book.)  As I say, not the route to riches – but just the most enormous fun and I wouldn’t stop doing it for the world.

Surveying the reader-scape

Tags

ALLi, Alliance of Independent Authors, historical fiction, indie publishing, marketing, MK Tod, reader survey, research, Samuel Plank

One of the great pleasures of being an indie author (indie being independent – so self-published, published through a small publishing house, etc.) is the community you join of other indie authors.  I have recently signed up with ALLi – the Alliance of Independent Authors – and am very much enjoying reading their guidance, advice, discussions and debates.  I am also hoping that my own profile will appear on their website one day, so I will keep you posted.

One very well-respected indie author whose work I follow closely is MK Tod.  Her introduction to historical fiction – like mine – was a teenage obsession with Jean Plaidy and Georgette Heyer, and she now writes books with a WWI setting.  However, she has also made a study of people’s reading habits – albeit mainly people with a love of historical fiction, as they are the ones who find her blog and therefore her “reader surveys”.  She has just published the results of her fourth such survey, containing the thoughts of 2,418 respondents from around the world, and it is well worth reading.

From my perspective – as a keen writer and rather unsuccessful seller of historical fiction – there were a couple of questions whose responses I was most eagerly awaiting.  The first was “In historical fiction, which time periods do you enjoy?”.  And I am relieved to see that mine (nineteenth century) is the second most popular (after twentieth century).  Nineteenth century settings are particularly popular with women, and with those aged over thirty – which perhaps explains the requests I have received for “more Martha” in the Sam books!  And the second was “Reflecting on your fiction reading, how relatively important are the following factors?” – including plot, characters, authenticity and so on.  As Ms Tod herself deduces from the responses, “feeling immersed in the novel’s world” is the most critical factor for readers, followed by “authenticity” and “superb writing” – and as readers age, “superb writing” becomes increasingly important.  This is a great relief to me, as I spend so much time – granted, I love doing it, but still, it takes effort – on making my setting, language and characters as authentic as possible, and encouraging readers to follow Sam into the heart of London in the 1820s.

As someone hoping one day to make a living from writing, I was also interested to read about people’s book-buying habits and preferences.  And this survey – which, again, has an historical fiction bent – tells me this about my target audience:

• They get their books mainly through Internet purchase or borrowed from a library
• 75% of them “frequently or exclusively” use print books
• Their most trusted source of recommendations is friends, followed by well-known book review sites or blogs
• They enjoy reading articles about an author’s work, and following authors on Facebook and Twitter
• They don’t use social media as much as I had thought, and the feature they most value on social media (when they do engage) is book reviews.

Traditionally published authors have entire marketing departments at their disposal, to track and react to this sort of information.  For those of us working alone – the indies – MK Tod has provided an invaluable service, and my own thanks go out to her.  This will certainly inform my future marketing plans.

Press here for publicity

Tags

author talks, Facebook, Hart's Books, marketing, press release, Saffron Walden, Samuel Plank, Twitter

As regular readers will know, one of the hardest aspects of being a self-employed author is the marketing.  It’s not the time it takes so much as summoning the ongoing enthusiasm and imagination – particularly in such a crowded marketplace, when every author and his dog (probably literally) has a Facebook page, a Twitter feed and an Amazon profile, all screaming “Buy my books!” (or, in the case of the dog, “Take me out for a walk!”).  Marvellous though it is that anyone can publish their books these days, it does mean that you have to work so much harder to be spotted in the throng.  But it sometimes seems that the old ways are the best.

I mentioned a little while ago (or did I?) that next month I am doing a talk at the latest bookshop to stock the Sam Plank series – Hart’s Books in Saffron Walden (just the other side of the Cambridgeshire border, in northern Essex).  The shop has its own website with an events page, and I have also listed the event on Sam’s Facebook page.  But what else to do?  The manager of the shop suggested asking the local newspaper, the Saffron Walden Reporter, to publicise the talk, as – if you can believe such a thing still exists – this local weekly paper is delivered free to every address in the town.  Thankfully I have some experience of writing press releases, which I know reporters like as it saves time and fills space, and so I looked up the paper online, checked which reporter’s name was on the book-ish stories, and counted how many words were in the average piece before crafting my press release and emailing it to her.  I also suggested that it would be jolly helpful to have the story appear a fortnight before the event to give people time to get to the bookshop to buy tickets, and then of course we would need to print more tickets and hire a marquee and a warm-up act and lay on extra buses…  I may be straying here into the realms of fantasy.

But, dear reader, it all worked – and here is my press release (with a few improvements, I must admit) in today’s Saffron Walden Reporter.  The bookshop is on standby for the hordes of ticket-seekers, although my own husband has now dropped out as something better has come up.  (To be fair, he’s had a bellyful of Sam over the years.  It can’t be easy sharing your wife with a dead policeman.)