Sam Russell's Blog, page 10

So does the marketing work?

It’s hard juggling all the balls when you’re a self-published author. Writing… to editing… to cover design. Formatting, proofing, and uploading the finished (you pray) book. That’s a lot of hats…and then there’s the marketing. The bit that many (most?) of us find painful and frustrating.

It often, but not always, costs money. It’s time consuming, trying to keep both your name and your book out there (without pissing people off by banner waving). In a perfect world, you want a gaggle of followers AND your book to be seen by new potential readers… over and over again.

We all know that isn’t easy, and when I’ve spent half a day submitting the book for promotions, twittering, posting, sticking my neck out and generally shouting about how GREAT-WONDERFUL-UNPUTDOWNABLE my book is, I start to feel like a grubby billboard. If the promo cost money, I wonder is it worth the dent in my purse (and the nasty taste in my mouth?)

So is it actually worth it? Well yes, I’m afraid it is. I know that because over the last few months I have been running an accidental experiment. Ok, I’ll be honest, I took my eye off the ball. My target of one promo a month dropped to… none in the last three months. An operation, Christmas and 100k words begging to be edited… The result of my lack of effort? My first and only month with ZERO book sales. Hey, it’s not so bad. I still had pages read on KDP select (Kindle Unlimited to readers, who can download the book for free. The author gets paid by the number of pages read. A great incentive, if you didn’t need one already, to write that story which keeps readers turning.) And then there’s Volume II which, when it hits the shelves, will be the next big push. It just isn’t happening fast enough.

Ten months now since I published the début, and my ‘next book within a year’ is almost on schedule. But it would have been published sooner if it weren’t for the time spent on marketing. It could be out there, sitting smug… in total anonymity because no one would know that I, or the books, existed. As it is, I’ve got readers nagging, and that has to be a good thing.

Those ten months have kept me busy; here’s my tongue-in-cheek summary of how I went about selling my soul book: Promo Chart 2015 …

…and in the meantime do please sign up for my Newsletter, find me on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads! And watch this space for Kindle and Goodreads giveaways coming soon! Or even buy the book….

…sorry, sorry, I’ll stop now. It’s all or nothing with me.

 

When you can’t see the wood for the trees

I am editing. Argh!

I’m deep in the thicket, with 100k words between me and the timber of my finished novel, and every one of them has to be tested to earn its place in the manuscript.

Do my characters have, well, character? Is the plot believable? Am I consistent with point of view? Have my scenes got structure and motivation. Shit…am I actually writing scenes at all?

If you thought that writing a novel was hard, try a substantive edit. I believe I could knock off 20k words in the time it takes to edit a paragraph (10k of those words will be cut later of course). I’m learning on the job, and I figure I always will be. There may be writers out there who find it a piece of cake (cliché) easy, and wield their cutting pen with stern, orderly (adjective+adverb) precision. Who get that perfect story arc and place their reactions/dilemmas with pin-point (you work it out) accuracy within it.

I’m not one of them (she sobbed, wept, cried, sighed SAID!). This is damn hard work, and right now I really can’t see the wood for the trees (yet another cliché slipped in there).

But it’s also exciting. I’m writing, I’m learning, and learning is good isn’t it?

I’m off to find the path through this forest now.

Sparkle and fizz, a cracking start to the year

Champagne, friends and fireworks at the seaside!

That takes some beating. Now the holidays are over and and I hope to channel that sparkle and fizz into the final edit of the new book. A busy January, and a second novel for 2016. I’m excited.

As for the rest of the year, well I’ve already started writing book three and my resolutions are sorted – go crutchless (no, not like that!) and get myself back on a horse :-)

A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL

Merry Christmas

Plain, simple and homely is what I hope for this year. Good food, good friends and an eggnog or two.

Here’s a picture of a pretty pony to lighten your day in the frantic countdown to Christmas. (Cute isn’t he!)

 

2015, the year I published my début novel, is rounding off nicely. A big thank you to all of you who have followed my efforts and stumbles on these pages. I’m super excited to be doing it all again with the sequel in 2016.

Now I’m off to supervise tree decoration. Ed has returned with a red velvet cake, Yd will be back from work any minute and Dil is currently winging her way from Durham. The gathering commences, bring it on! Time to whip up the snowballs and festive music.

Cheers all, have a good one!

 

 

 

Hippy adventures

My but the body is a resilient tool, and the mind’s capacity for adaptation is a wonder!

Three weeks on from my hip replacement and my skill on crutches has developed apace. I’ve almost got used to having no free hands, shuffling items from pillar to post until they reach their final destiny (I WILL position that cup of coffee next to my easy chair). I can use the crutches like chopsticks to move some things along, but the greatest amusement in my day is had with my long handled gripper. I’ve been honing my gripper skills with determined ambition; knickers from ankles to washing basket with one sweep of the arm. Target practice at the dustbin for extra sport. I can pet the dogs, or even prod them when they’re scratching at my carpet. What fun! A comedy of terrier confusion as they try to work out that one.

Life isn’t without frustrations. Tell me I can’t bend over and I instantly start dropping every thing I touch (not to mention a few that were sitting around minding their own business until that sweep of the gripper got them). I have been known to drop the gripper too, and my crutches. Proper stymied in those moments.

Support stockings have driven me close to madness. The surgeon chopped my leg in half, but it’s those bloody stockings that bug me. Erotic they aren’t. When I have taken the time to imagine a man kneeling at my feet freeing me of hoisery, this wasn’t the scenario I dreamt of. The only release I yearn is escape from their deadly boa constrictor grip.

I long for the loo to be a haven again, where I can sit in comfort. I learnt the hard way that slow progress to the dunny+lack of scissor leg action+more wasted minutes reversing onto the bog and dropping my troos (not too low!) is a receipe for disaster (especially if someone has put the lid down – thirty years of marriage when he didn’t drop the lid and suddenly he’s Mr Diligent.) Oh how we laughed.

Every cloud has a sliver lining. Housework has gone out the window, swiftly followed by the ironing. My mother filled the freezer with delicious home cooking. A joy for the first fortnight, but we’ve now fallen prey to a sordid ready-meal habit. The sister has been on dilligent standby duties, instinctively absorbing all the gritty jobs which I couldn’t ask anyone else to do (I won’t abuse you with detail). I baulked at calling even her when the terrier puked on the carpet. It was a weird sort of torture, observing the glorious mess from my seat, unable to clear it up. Now I never thought I’d miss the skills to do that job, but at least the farmer learnt something: don’t give old dogs eggs for breakfast without anticipating consequences. Even if we are out of Chappie.

As I type said farmer is washing the kitchen floor. Unasked and unprompted. And that my friends is an indication of just how low this house has fallen.

This week’s antics, hip hop and fiction

An out of the ordinary week for me, as I got a new hip last Friday. Now six weeks to while away sitting on my bum, which shouldn’t be a challenge for a writer.

I pre-organised my marketing activites with a book promotion scheduled for the day of the operation. It was satisfying, in a weirdly macabre way, to know that while my physical self was under the knife virtual me was out there flogging books. Over 400 novels downloaded while I languished in groggy discomfort, and tracking the promo gave me amusment in my (few) wakeful moments.

The next challenge (aside from learning how to use crutches) is to get through the edits and re-writes on A Bed of Brambles. Frustratingly I can’t sit at my computer in it’s present set up, so I’ve set the Engineer and the Farmer to the task of resolving that. It’s a job that suits them better than nursing. My creativity still seems to be anaesthatised but I’m not going to panic – yet.

Any new experience, including surgery, delivers grist for the imagination. Hospitals host a world of stories. From the lives of the staff and the patients to the tragedies and miracles which play out inside their walls. Precious glimpses of other lives.

Even the frustration of awkward mobility is a useful insight. Thought provoking, empathy enducing. It reminds me how lucky I am that my troubles are temporary.

Free Love – A Bed of Barley Straw Kindle promotion

My ebook is free on Kindle from the 20th until the 24th of November.

A winter warmer to spice up your cocoa.

GET YOUR FREE COPY HERE

A pat on the back for me

I’m patting myself on the back this week, and CreateSpace is my new best friend. When I first first blogged about CreateSpace (Setting my manuscript free) just ten short months ago, visiting their website felt like arriving on an alien planet. The language was new and foreign, the terminology beyond confusing. Mercy, have I learnt a lot since then.  You know how London cabbies get an over-developed hippocampus from learning ‘The Knowledge’, well I think I’m developing one of my own. It might throb and give me a headache when I use it, but the great thing is that even a fusty, middle aged brain can rise to a new problem when you push it. So now I love CreateSpace. We’re communicating, and everyone knows the importance of that. It’s all a lot easier when you’ve learnt the language.

A Bed of Barley Straw, Edition 2 is about to hit the shelves (don’t get that confused with the sequel which won’t be released until early next year) This is an updated version of the original book, with a gorgeous new cover, courtesy of Jane (my other new best friend) at JD Smith Design. 

Edition two has been reformatted into a slightly smaller book by me, myself and I (hence the perpetually throbbing hippocampus). Published via CreateSpace with their easy to follow (this time around) step-by-step guide to publishing your novel, and their brilliant interior reviewer which shows you what the inside of your book will look like. I have fallen out with Microsoft Word a few times during the process. It’s a devil for deciding it knows better than I do and rearranging the entire manuscript because I added a full stop. But we got there, apart from this…

…can you spot the amazing vanishing page number? Try as I might I can’t seem to resolve it (hippocampus pulsing). Next book – Scrivener here I come (when the brain has recovered, I don’t want that hippocampus exploding).

And talking of messy, the sequel – A Bed of Brambles – is still with my editor, and boy has she got her work cut out. I tell a great story, but I’m raw and lack finesse so a bloody good edit is essential. I love my editor, despite and because of her honesty. Her words may smart, but she is the one who will turn my masterpiece into a work of art. Here’s a visual to demonstrate. This is where I work, where my creative juices run free (a chaotic scene which I wouldn’t usually chose to share with you)

and here’s what I’d like you to see…

The edited version, you get me?

The devil makes work for idle typists

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here before, but at the same time as I publish my sequel I’ll be re-publishing Barley Straw as a second edition.

There were a couple of things which led me to make that decision. The actual manuscript hasn’t been massively altered, some minor text changes and additional material that I either didn’t have or didn’t think to put in the first time around (author bio, chapter one of the sequel and a plug for the new book). Edition two will get a brand new cover which will sit nicely with the sequel (If you follow me on facebook or twitter you might have already seen my cover for the sequel A Bed of Brambles). The new cover for A Bed of Barley Straw in on my book page here…but it isn’t actually on the book yet and won’t be until I release edition two, so it shouldn’t be there. I was playing on WordPress and suddenly lo – there it was. Tech tinkering is a dangerous pastime for me. I ought to remove that cover (I don’t want to be accused of mis-selling, am I breaking any laws?) but in the meantime I’ve done even more tinkering, to build a book page with both of my books on it (ooh that sounds good) which is currently lounging in cyberspace on WordPress auto-save. I fear if I update anything I may launch the sequel by accident (and you may also notice that the heading on the page now reads my books, with one poor friendless novel featured below it.)

Doing the second edition is a logistical nightmare. Four manuscripts to format and upload (2 x paperback, 2 x Kindle) along with their respective front matter/back matter and the right covers. I see the potential for cock-ups, and I promise I will embrace that potential. I’m fearful of losing sales and reviews on Barley during the change over, and right now I’ve got no idea when I should take edition one out of publication (I’ll ask my mates at ALLi, they’ll know the answer).

This week I’ve been reading Self-Printed: The Sane Person’s Guide to Self-Publishing by Catherine Ryan Howard. Great book. Everything you need to know about self-publishing in an entertaining package which flows as sweetly as a novel. My copy is riddled with turned down corners to redirect me to the legion of useful tips (sorry Catherine Ryan Howard, but I was reading it in bed and I’d run out of tissue bookmarks). A lot of delicious lures back into techno-tinkering, don’t read it if you’re fighting a habit. Lord knows what you’ll see on my website next week. You may have noticed that, on Catherine’s advice, my blog has a new, more enticing name – welcome to Rustic Romance. Does it tempt you in?

I won’t tell you how many colour theme changes I’ve made this week. I’ve updated my header image too (my idea, not Catherine’s). Carried away by autumnal romance…pic taken out of the window of the tractor this morning while I was grass cutting (it’s a long climb down for a shorty, that’s my excuse. You can pick the blackberries from the cab too!)

My editor needs to send that manuscript back, and fast, to bury me so deep in edits that I haven’t got time to be led astray with this tinkering lark.

The devil makes work for idle typists hands

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here before, but at the same time as I publish my sequel I’ll be re-publishing Barley Straw as a second edition.

There were a couple of things which led me to make that decision. The actual manuscript hasn’t been massively altered, some minor text changes and additional material that I either didn’t have or didn’t think to put in the first time around (author bio, chapter one of the sequel and a plug for the new book). Edition two will get a brand new cover which will sit nicely with the sequel (If you follow me on facebook or twitter you might have already seen my cover for the sequel A Bed of Brambles). The new cover for A Bed of Barley Straw in on my book page here…but it isn’t actually on the book yet and won’t be until I release edition two, so it shouldn’t be there. I was playing on WordPress and suddenly lo – there it was. Tech tinkering is a dangerous pastime for me. I ought to remove that cover (I don’t want to be accused of mis-selling, am I breaking any laws?) but in the meantime I’ve done even more tinkering, to build a book page with both of my books on it (ooh that sounds good) which is currently lounging in cyberspace on WordPress auto-save. I fear if I update anything I may launch the sequel by accident (and you may also notice that the heading on the page now reads my books, with one poor friendless novel featured below it.)

Doing the second edition is a logistical nightmare. Four manuscripts to format and upload (2 x paperback, 2 x Kindle) along with their respective front matter/back matter and the right covers. I see the potential for cock-ups, and I promise I will embrace that potential. I’m fearful of losing sales and reviews on Barley during the change over, and right now I’ve got no idea when I should take edition one out of publication (I’ll ask my mates at ALLi, they’ll know the answer).

This week I’ve been reading Self-Printed: The Sane Person’s Guide to Self-Publishing by Catherine Ryan Howard. Great book. Everything you need to know about self-publishing in an entertaining package which flows as sweetly as a novel. My copy is riddled with turned down corners to redirect me to the legion of useful tips (sorry Catherine Ryan Howard, but I was reading it in bed and I’d run out of tissue bookmarks). A lot of delicious lures back into techno-tinkering, don’t read it if you’re fighting a habit. Lord knows what you’ll see on my website next week. You may have noticed that, on Catherine’s advice, my blog has a new, more enticing name – welcome to Rustic Romance. Does it tempt you in?

I won’t tell you how many colour theme changes I’ve made this week. I’ve updated my header image too (my idea, not Catherine’s). Carried away by autumnal romance…pic taken out of the window of the tractor this morning while I was grass cutting (it’s a long climb down for a shorty, that’s my excuse. You can pick the blackberries from the cab too!)

My editor needs to send that manuscript back, and fast, to bury me so deep in edits that I haven’t got time to be led astray with this tinkering lark.