Sam Russell's Blog, page 7
February 3, 2017
Donning my marketing hat (are you using Bublish yet?)
I hooked up with Bublish this week. I’m not sure why it took me so long, given that it’s free (for readers and for ‘Emerging Authors’), but maybe the sheer choice of digital book-sharing platforms addled me sufficiently that I ended up doing nothing, with any of them.
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As an independent author, and *²rooky *¹authorpreneur, it’s down to me to tell readers about my novels. So, with the new book about to come out, I donned my marketing hat and doubled my efforts.
I know more about marketing from the customer point of view than I do from that of the marketeer. I know what annoys me (pop-ups, sign-ups, repetitive, shouty-ads, and don’t get me started on cold calls) so I was looking for more thoughtful ways of marketing my books.
Bublish achieves that:
Readers sign up because they want to hear about books
Author posts (or ‘bubbles’) have added value and insight (ie, they don’t just shout READ THIS)
If you’re not using Bublish already (as a reader or a writer) I would thoroughly recommend it. You get to choose which genres you’d like to hear about, and authors share extracts from their work, with accompanying thoughts and comments. It’s really easy to use and set up, plus (did I mention already?), it’s free!
¹*Authorpreneur (Urban dictionary definition)
An author who creates a written product, participates in creating their own brand, and actively promotes that brand through a variety of outlets.
²*I’ve done teaching, farming, horses and accounts, but I never had to market myself until I wrote a book, so whilst I may not qualify as a fully-fledged authorpreneur, I do qualify as a rookie.
January 27, 2017
A Bed of Brambles teaser…
In case I haven’t teased you for long enough, here’s a sneaky extract from the new novel (no spoilers, I promise).
The rural lanes were familiar now, white painted signposts to places she knew, remembered landmarks. They crested the hill, the scenic approach, and their journey took them onto the Cotswolds Romantic Road, the route that didn’t pass the industrial estate or the council houses to the east of the village. Driving it after an absence, Hettie could see what the tourists saw, the contrast of chocolate-box houses and lush, picturesque landscape. She was lucky to call this place home.
Ahead to her right the village still slept in a leafy green hollow of clotted cream cottages and pantile roofs, with punchy chimney pots rising above their ridges. And off to the left, Draymere Estate, its dry-stone wall curving alongside the road, softened by the years and the tall grasses clustered at its base. The Hall wasn’t visible yet, as it would be if they drove on through the village. Alexander swung the car off the road at a break in the wall, the back entrance to the estate.
They passed her old cottage and the stable block. Hettie looked at the clock on the dashboard. It would be another hour before early stables and horses wanting their breakfasts. The thought made her smile, a reminder of snuggling down in her bed in that cottage, with time in hand before she had to get up.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘I’m thinking it’s good to be back.’
You might get another one next week, but then I’ll be stymied for passages that don’t reveal too much of the plot (or need an adult rating) [image error]
January 20, 2017
I’m faffing with formatting this week…
I know I shouldn’t do it, not until the ultimate proofread is in the bag. The reason I know that is because I did the same thing with the last book: Formatted everything neatly, and then did it all again after I’d made changes to the manuscript.
The trouble is, every format (epub, mobi, pdf) has a different trick up its sleeve. And Word is the devil incarnate when it comes to mischief making. My opening lines have popped up in bold, in italics and several font sizes larger than the rest of the text. Blowed if I can work out why. I solved it by deleting the page and adding it back in again. (A new take on turning it off and turning it on again.)
My PDF is immaculate. Immaculate, but reversed.
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What the hell is that about? Everything in the right place, but on the wrong page. So my extra-wide margins for binding have become extra-wide thumb rests, and the page numbers should be on the outside edge of the page. Back to the drawing board (heavy sigh).
My PC won’t save the downloads, according to my Kindle reader I’ve already got a copy. (‘Search Documents’ doesn’t agree.) And I’ve shot myself in the foot by writing two books with very similar names. After hours of this brain exercise, I’m not even sure I’ve uploaded the manuscripts which tally with their covers. I mean, A Bed of… Barley? Or Brambles? Who’s daft idea was that?
Luckily, it’s only a trial run. I’m honing my skills so that the real thing will be perfect.
But my brain cells are knackered now, so I’m off for a frosty walk and some blue sky thinking.
January 16, 2017
If you’re riding out today…
Take a hack over to Haynet – a great social blogging network for the equine and country life.
All the best blogs from the stables and fields (and I’m on there too!)
The bonus is that you won’t even need your raincoat.
January 13, 2017
The USAAF in an English Hamlet
I’m Anglo-American themed this week. We live and farm on one of the many old airfields in the East of England which hosted the United States Army Air Force during World War II.
The runways are farm tracks now, and the Nissen huts store agricultural clutter, but that history has the power to snare.
As a child, I knew the ‘drome’ well. I didn’t live on it then, but I rode my pony over the concrete paths, cycled across it to reach the nearby village and played with mates in the control tower. There was a chalk board with writing still on it, we all thought the place was haunted. [image error]
Later on, I crossed the drome on my way to work, sometimes behind the snow plough as the farmer forged an escape through car-high drifts which often covered the road on that wide, treeless plateau (back in the olden days, when we had proper snow). But it wasn’t until I married and moved to the drome that the story of the people who had lived and worked there became real.
The plough turns up flints, hardcore for runways, and the land offers up all manner of military shrapnel. We dredged the pond and found a pair of discarded army boots, there’s a rusting belly tank a mile along the footpath and one of our fields is called ‘bomb site’.
Some years ago we excavated a single propeller from its resting place deep in the earth. It came from an A-20 Havoc, which crashed returning from a combat mission, on the 30th July 1944. The crew are buried in the American Cemetery. Three of the many young American men who didn’t make it home.
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I can barely imagine what ‘our’ airfield was like at that time, for the locals who lived there, or for the brave men (and boys) of the USAAF who were fighting so many miles from home. Our village has sewn a banner to remember them, it hangs in the church, and we’ve collected some of the villagers’ memories in a booklet. Here’s an excerpt:
Reg remembers that you could hear planes warming up for morning raids before you got out of bed in the morning, and he used to go up to the aerodrome with his friends before school to watch them all take-off. The aircrew were briefed in a hut which still stands on the lane, and is now in use as a workshop. Guards stood in place outside the doors when a briefing was taking place. The planes’ engines were warmed as they stood on the dispersal points around the airfield, before being topped up with fuel. Then they went to the ends of all three runways and took off in different directions, crisscrossing as they climbed. The whole lot would be up within minutes. They would circle once, get in formation and be gone. And when he came home from school Reg got back on his bike to go and see what damage had been done and how many of the planes had not come home, leaving empty parking bays.
The local history reminded us of happier stories too. Christmas parties for village children, dances and friendships which endured through the years and across the Atlantic long after the war had ended. The exchange of eggs and milk for nylons and gum. Flowers picked from Cottage gardens and offered to English sweethearts by American Servicemen. Marriages and heartbreak. Families welcoming servicemen into their homes; baseball and big band music.
The village knew something was changing when white stripes were painted on the planes, but when the USAAF Eighth Force left they were gone overnight. There was no chance to say goodbye, and the airfield stood derelict.
‘All that life and excitement, and then they were gone.’
The Tudor farmhouse stood throughout the war, and saw good use as a secret meeting place for American airmen and their sweethearts, as an adventure playground for local children and as target practice for dummy bombings.
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Margaret remembers the old house as a magical place, with rambling roses and beautiful, big windows; but Reg remembers it as a ‘knocking shop’ for the Americans!
Anglo-American rustic romance.
January 8, 2017
A Tale of Two Dogs, episode 3 (my dog’s got no nose)
How does he smell?
Awful!
Christmas casts my mind back to Hamgate (subtitled: The Year the Terriers got at the Ham).
Our lean-to doubles as a larder when the fridge is overloaded. The ham was jus’ chillin’ out there when my parents rose early and, being the thoughtful parents they are, let the dogs out for me…
Those dogs stripped that ham bone clean. It looked like a bleached carcass, after the hyenas, buzzards and ants have had their turn on it. Two terrier tummies were swinging like water-filled balloons. You could see they were going to blow. And blow they did.
Apparently, your sense of smell shuts down when you’re asleep, but I know it was the aroma that woke me. Suffice to say the clean-up demanded waders and a tea towel wrapped around my face, gallons of soapy water and frequent dashes outside to gulp fresh air.
At least the mess was sorted in time for our traditional Christmas jolly to the theatre. We went with the in-laws (best clothes and best behaviour, you know how it is). Eleven of us in a mini-bus and that god-awful smell still lingering.
Oh, the mortification. My smartly turned-out little family were all wearing coats infused with Eau de dog-diarrhea.
So my dog really does smell awful, and he’s really got no nose. But that’s a whole other story, which I might share in episode four.
December 2, 2016
A Tale of Two Dogs, episode 2 (Partners in Crime)
As an only child, Russ was an itinerant, a bolter. We have far too many feral temptations on the farm: The hedgehog in the paddock, the muntjac in the woods, deer that will run for miles when there’s a dog (and me) chasing them. And the postman’s red van, although our postman isn’t feral. He carries dog biscuits.
He’s thinking of going here – note the firm grip.
We hoped that having a friend would encourage him to stay home. Oh, the sweet naivety of that idea. We were about to encounter the full force of Border terrier itinerancy.
What had been solo, forty-minute forays became twenty-four hours of canine sortie when they were hunting as a pack. And Meg was fast. No point in me running now (phew), all I could see was two brindle specks on the far, distant horizon.
They never learnt recall. The best you might get was a contemptuous stare, and that was only if you were lucky enough to be within staring distance.
You try getting both of them in shot
I’ve spent many hours on torchlight hunts, untangled leads wrapped around branches, apologised to too many neighbours (and to the security men at the nearby science park, who caught them on CCTV. They were chasing the swans).
I’ve retrieved those dogs from three different counties, but they usually turned up on the doormat after I’d spent the night sleepless with worry. Knackered, bloodied and bruised (that was them, I was just knackered), wearing mud-heavy clogs, their coats matted with our very own super-bonding clay, and frequently infested.
Have you met seed ticks? The veterinary nurse at our practice hadn’t, she thought I was being hysterical. ‘Bring them in, we can sort that out.’ And she came at them armed with tweezers.
Now seed ticks are not just your common or garden tick (I’ve tweezered off plenty of those little buggers. I recall that my best [or should that be worst] count was thirty-six ticks. Removed from a single dog, In one session).
She can’t say I didn’t warn her, that nurse. Her face was a treat, and I can’t deny the thrill of satisfaction that gave me. We were, at last, united in hysteria. Hundreds, nay thousands, of miniscule black ticks. Like poppy seeds, but evil.
The nurse put her tweezers away and sent me home with some Napalm.
Oh dear
Tune in next time for episode three (My Dog’s Got no Nose).
November 24, 2016
Looking for holiday romance…
I was in Lanzarote last week. That near-barren island of glinting black sand, volcanoes and fields of charred lava. Sheer rock faces that plummet into the deep blue Atlantic and waves that explode on the shore with flumes of white spray.
There is nothing gentle about the landscape in Lanzarote, it is awe inspiring. Powerful and dramatic. It turned my head to the idea of romance.
I’m waxing lyrical, and I’m talking fiction, of course. I can’t help myself. As a writer every new place, vista and experience holds (as yet) untold potential.
A hero forged from molten rock, a narrative spun over sharp peaks and yawning craters. A heroine trapped by the ocean.
A passionate love story rising out of the sun-baked land.
Ah, for the inspiration of a setting so poetic that the plot (almost) writes itself.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Goodreads Book Giveaway
A Bed of Barley Straw
by Sam Russell
Giveaway ends December 01, 2016.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
November 11, 2016
Kindle Free Book Promotion
A little gift from me to you – steamy romance to warm a chilly weekend. A Bed of Barley Straw will be free to download on Kindle from today until November 15th.
Click here to download your copy
Happy reading xx
