P.J. Blakey-Novis's Blog, page 5
April 19, 2017
Adventures in Self-Publishing (4)
Hello, and welcome back to my blog about my writing journey so far! It’s been very exciting to see how many have actually been reading this! Thank you so much for taking the time and I hope it’s been either interesting or useful (ideally a bit of both!). Quite a lot has happened since my last post two weeks ago!
Smashwords (finally) approved my book, The Broken Doll, and entered it into their premium catalogue which means that it has been distributed to an additional nine retailers, in addition to Barnes & Noble and Amazon. The major two are Apple and Kobo so it has a good chance of increasing sales. Sales, as I mentioned in my last post, had slumped a little since the launch spike but, with the help of a 50% off sale for a week, they are beginning to rise again. That, and my constant posting on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram anyway. I am spending as much time marketing the book as I am writing the next one but, without a big publishing house backing the project, this seems to be inevitable.
On Amazon I have so far had eight reviews, only a small portion of the sales, but it seems to be difficult to get people to leave one which is a little frustrating as it helps with sales, of course. All I can hope is that it is something which builds up over time. The reviews that I have received are rather good, with one rating The Broken Doll as 3/5 and seven giving it the full 5 stars! www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1544180993/ref=sr...
As I mentioned on my last blog post, if I had managed to stick to my writing plan then I should have completed the first draft of Chapter 9 of my sequel novel. The Easter school holidays set me back quite a bit but, after a frantic weekend of writing (12000 words over two days!) I am currently half way through Chapter 8. Not too far to go now! The plot is throwing new things at me regularly and it’s been quite a journey so far, not fully knowing what is going to happen next.
For those who haven’t read it, I will be attaching the first two chapters of The Broken Doll to this week’s email list so feel free to get in touch and sign up. I only send an email each fortnight with some updates and there are some giveaways in the pipeline as well. If you want to sign up then either send me an email first, to pjblakey-novis@outlook.com, or message me through this site, or any of my social media accounts.
On the subject of giveaways, I am currently offering the chance to win one of three signed copies of the paperback version via GoodReads so do check that out, it runs until midnight on April 30th.
You may recall from my earlier posts that I had set up a page on Patreon, whereby people can subscribe for exclusive material. Subscriptions start at just $1 a month (about 80p) and give you access to short stories which are not available anywhere else! The number of Patrons is still small but has increased since last time so I am hopeful that it will continue to grow. The story available on there at the moment is Dream Catcher, as short horror tale. I have completed another short story, also a horror, entitled The Devil’s Pocket Watch which will be uploaded on May 1st. I’d be hugely appreciative if you felt able to pledge even just a little to the page, and would love to hear any feedback on the stories so far. www.patreon.com/pjbnauthor
On the subject of short stories, my first short horror was accepted as part of an upcoming anthology as the contract arrived a few days ago. It was extremely exciting to see an actual publishing contract and, although it’s not a huge sum of money, it’s great validation that my work is worth paying for. I’m hoping that there will be good exposure from the book and, having spoken to some other writers online, it seems like a good deal. There was an upfront payment, rather than royalties, but it also features a bit about myself inside the book as well as on the publisher’s website.
Regarding my children’s book, the illustrator that I came into contact with through this blog, Cristina, is working on the designs at this very moment and once they are with me we will be taking that to the next step. The intention is to make it available as both an ebook and print book and I’m hoping that I will be able to get it into some local school libraries. Perhaps by the time I post another update on here, I will have it almost ready to go!
I think that is all for this time, feel free to get in touch if you have any comments or questions, it’s good to connect!
Peter
Smashwords (finally) approved my book, The Broken Doll, and entered it into their premium catalogue which means that it has been distributed to an additional nine retailers, in addition to Barnes & Noble and Amazon. The major two are Apple and Kobo so it has a good chance of increasing sales. Sales, as I mentioned in my last post, had slumped a little since the launch spike but, with the help of a 50% off sale for a week, they are beginning to rise again. That, and my constant posting on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram anyway. I am spending as much time marketing the book as I am writing the next one but, without a big publishing house backing the project, this seems to be inevitable.
On Amazon I have so far had eight reviews, only a small portion of the sales, but it seems to be difficult to get people to leave one which is a little frustrating as it helps with sales, of course. All I can hope is that it is something which builds up over time. The reviews that I have received are rather good, with one rating The Broken Doll as 3/5 and seven giving it the full 5 stars! www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1544180993/ref=sr...
As I mentioned on my last blog post, if I had managed to stick to my writing plan then I should have completed the first draft of Chapter 9 of my sequel novel. The Easter school holidays set me back quite a bit but, after a frantic weekend of writing (12000 words over two days!) I am currently half way through Chapter 8. Not too far to go now! The plot is throwing new things at me regularly and it’s been quite a journey so far, not fully knowing what is going to happen next.
For those who haven’t read it, I will be attaching the first two chapters of The Broken Doll to this week’s email list so feel free to get in touch and sign up. I only send an email each fortnight with some updates and there are some giveaways in the pipeline as well. If you want to sign up then either send me an email first, to pjblakey-novis@outlook.com, or message me through this site, or any of my social media accounts.
On the subject of giveaways, I am currently offering the chance to win one of three signed copies of the paperback version via GoodReads so do check that out, it runs until midnight on April 30th.
You may recall from my earlier posts that I had set up a page on Patreon, whereby people can subscribe for exclusive material. Subscriptions start at just $1 a month (about 80p) and give you access to short stories which are not available anywhere else! The number of Patrons is still small but has increased since last time so I am hopeful that it will continue to grow. The story available on there at the moment is Dream Catcher, as short horror tale. I have completed another short story, also a horror, entitled The Devil’s Pocket Watch which will be uploaded on May 1st. I’d be hugely appreciative if you felt able to pledge even just a little to the page, and would love to hear any feedback on the stories so far. www.patreon.com/pjbnauthor
On the subject of short stories, my first short horror was accepted as part of an upcoming anthology as the contract arrived a few days ago. It was extremely exciting to see an actual publishing contract and, although it’s not a huge sum of money, it’s great validation that my work is worth paying for. I’m hoping that there will be good exposure from the book and, having spoken to some other writers online, it seems like a good deal. There was an upfront payment, rather than royalties, but it also features a bit about myself inside the book as well as on the publisher’s website.
Regarding my children’s book, the illustrator that I came into contact with through this blog, Cristina, is working on the designs at this very moment and once they are with me we will be taking that to the next step. The intention is to make it available as both an ebook and print book and I’m hoping that I will be able to get it into some local school libraries. Perhaps by the time I post another update on here, I will have it almost ready to go!
I think that is all for this time, feel free to get in touch if you have any comments or questions, it’s good to connect!
Peter
April 5, 2017
Adventures in Self-Publishing (3)
Hello! Welcome to my third blog post. Hopefully you’ve read and enjoyed my previous two. Over the last couple of weeks I have not been writing as much as usual, the day job beginning to take up more time as we approach the warmer seasons. Hopefully writing will be successful enough to concentrate solely on this one day; that’s the dream anyway.
I have the feeling that I am certainly gaining a better understanding of this self-publishing thing, having only encountered one problem over the past two weeks! It’s certainly an improvement on the harsh learning curve experience in the month prior to that. This problem came, once again, from my submission to Smashwords. You may recall that I had a formatting issue with the original ebook, a slight layout error that customer services were able to clearly explain to me, enabling it to be resolved without any further problems. Or so I thought. Having fixed the original error, I was a little frustrated to find out that there was another problem; this time with the book’s cover. I had, rather stupidly, uploaded two different covers and these were required to match for obvious reasons. Easily fixable and so far, so good. There was also the location of the cover that was causing a problem as it should, quite obviously, be the first thing the reader sees. My cover was appearing after the contents and was a result of my formatting the file improperly with the writing software, Scrivener. A quick glance through the wonderful ‘Scrivener for Dummies’ paperback and all was well, the new file resubmitted and I am now awaiting confirmation that the book can be distributed to the full list of retailers. I should know by the time I next write an update for you guys.
I have been writing, of course, and am four chapters into my follow up novel to The Broken Doll. It’s only first draft but it seems to be going well, with some interesting plot twists beginning to appear, as well as the realisation that I may need to kill off a main character at some point! It really is as if the characters are just doing what they want, my only role is putting it on to paper. Each chapter has been carefully vetted by my ‘editor’ (AKA wife) who is, as Stephen King refers to his wife Tabitha, my Ideal Reader. I write for her, if she is happy with what I have put together then it’s good enough for everyone else.
Whenever I get a little stumped, or just fancy a change, I potter about with short stories intended for my Patreon page. If you are not familiar with it, do go and have a look; it’s a great way for creators to make a little income for their work. I have recently posted my first short story on there, Dream Catcher, which is exclusively available for my Patrons. For as little as $1 a month you can read everything I publish there. I have a second short story, The Devil’s Pocket Watch, ready for publication on Patreon at the end of the month. If you wish to take a look you can find me at www.patreon.com/pjbnauthor
In my last blog post I mentioned a children’s story that I had written for my daughter and it’s very exciting to say that, as a result of my blog, I have made contact with an illustrator for the book. It looks as though that may be actually going into print in the future so keep an eye out for that. The story has also inspired my daughter to ask for a desk, so that she can write stories as well which is rather lovely. She is already working on a sequel to the children’s book I had written for her!
Sales of The Broken Doll have slumped a little since the launch spike, which I had kind of expected but it is still a little disappointing. Because of this, I have decided to offer a flash sale, to run from 5th April to 12th of April, making the ebook half price. Only £1.49!! (What are you waiting for?!) I am also running a giveaway on Goodreads so if you are on there, request the book and three people will be winning a signed copy of the paperback. Who knows, it could be worth a fortune in the future!
From all of the marketing books and blogs that I have been reading, the most important part (along with being found on multiple platforms) is to build a solid mailing list. I set up an account with MailChimp and have been gathering subscribers (slowly). If you would like to be added to this list, for news, updates, giveaways and so on, please get in touch either on whichever site you are reading this, or by emailing directly to pjblakey-novis@outlook.com.
My intention, according to the overly detailed writing plan that I created, is to have reached first draft of chapter 9 of the novel within the next two weeks. It certainly is possible, provided I do not get too distracted by other things such as the day job, the sunshine, food etc.
If you have any comments, questions or queries please do feel free to get in touch.
Until next time
Peter
I have the feeling that I am certainly gaining a better understanding of this self-publishing thing, having only encountered one problem over the past two weeks! It’s certainly an improvement on the harsh learning curve experience in the month prior to that. This problem came, once again, from my submission to Smashwords. You may recall that I had a formatting issue with the original ebook, a slight layout error that customer services were able to clearly explain to me, enabling it to be resolved without any further problems. Or so I thought. Having fixed the original error, I was a little frustrated to find out that there was another problem; this time with the book’s cover. I had, rather stupidly, uploaded two different covers and these were required to match for obvious reasons. Easily fixable and so far, so good. There was also the location of the cover that was causing a problem as it should, quite obviously, be the first thing the reader sees. My cover was appearing after the contents and was a result of my formatting the file improperly with the writing software, Scrivener. A quick glance through the wonderful ‘Scrivener for Dummies’ paperback and all was well, the new file resubmitted and I am now awaiting confirmation that the book can be distributed to the full list of retailers. I should know by the time I next write an update for you guys.
I have been writing, of course, and am four chapters into my follow up novel to The Broken Doll. It’s only first draft but it seems to be going well, with some interesting plot twists beginning to appear, as well as the realisation that I may need to kill off a main character at some point! It really is as if the characters are just doing what they want, my only role is putting it on to paper. Each chapter has been carefully vetted by my ‘editor’ (AKA wife) who is, as Stephen King refers to his wife Tabitha, my Ideal Reader. I write for her, if she is happy with what I have put together then it’s good enough for everyone else.
Whenever I get a little stumped, or just fancy a change, I potter about with short stories intended for my Patreon page. If you are not familiar with it, do go and have a look; it’s a great way for creators to make a little income for their work. I have recently posted my first short story on there, Dream Catcher, which is exclusively available for my Patrons. For as little as $1 a month you can read everything I publish there. I have a second short story, The Devil’s Pocket Watch, ready for publication on Patreon at the end of the month. If you wish to take a look you can find me at www.patreon.com/pjbnauthor
In my last blog post I mentioned a children’s story that I had written for my daughter and it’s very exciting to say that, as a result of my blog, I have made contact with an illustrator for the book. It looks as though that may be actually going into print in the future so keep an eye out for that. The story has also inspired my daughter to ask for a desk, so that she can write stories as well which is rather lovely. She is already working on a sequel to the children’s book I had written for her!
Sales of The Broken Doll have slumped a little since the launch spike, which I had kind of expected but it is still a little disappointing. Because of this, I have decided to offer a flash sale, to run from 5th April to 12th of April, making the ebook half price. Only £1.49!! (What are you waiting for?!) I am also running a giveaway on Goodreads so if you are on there, request the book and three people will be winning a signed copy of the paperback. Who knows, it could be worth a fortune in the future!
From all of the marketing books and blogs that I have been reading, the most important part (along with being found on multiple platforms) is to build a solid mailing list. I set up an account with MailChimp and have been gathering subscribers (slowly). If you would like to be added to this list, for news, updates, giveaways and so on, please get in touch either on whichever site you are reading this, or by emailing directly to pjblakey-novis@outlook.com.
My intention, according to the overly detailed writing plan that I created, is to have reached first draft of chapter 9 of the novel within the next two weeks. It certainly is possible, provided I do not get too distracted by other things such as the day job, the sunshine, food etc.
If you have any comments, questions or queries please do feel free to get in touch.
Until next time
Peter
March 22, 2017
Adventures in Self-Publishing (2)
Hello! Welcome to my second blog post, hopefully it will be of some use to anyone just starting out on their writing career, as I am. As I mentioned in my previous blog, my debut novel, The Broken Doll, has now been self-published. It was initially made available on Amazon (worldwide) as an ebook and as a paperback (via CreateSpace who print to order thus meaning I could avoid any upfront cost of printing a lot of copies). It was also made available at Barnes & Noble (Nook) and on Smashwords. Smashwords distribute to a large number of retailers including WHSmith, iBooks and so on but I ran into a problem with this (I’ll explain later what happened).
Over the past fortnight I have learnt quite a lot and discovered the importance of being represented on as many platforms as one has time to manage. As previously mentioned, I had created a page on Patreon, which looks as though it will have the potential to generate some income but this is yet to happen. I am being consistent with my promotion of this page on my other media platforms and strongly believe that these things take time to grow. I also have discovered a blogging community called Niume, on which I now have a page (you may be reading this on that very site). There has been a greater readership of my posts on there which is exciting. In addition to these, I am also posting my blog and some upcoming chapter excerpts on my Scriggle page.
When my paperback version of The Broken Doll arrived it was a tremendous feeling; a real sense of pride. I had an issue with the layout, however, as the margins were larger than anyone would expect and this explained why the print copy was 381 pages, compared to the ebook at 230! After a play about with the formatting on CreateSpace and uploading a new file, I managed to trim of forty pages and make it look much more professional. The added bonus to this was a slight reduction on printing costs and therefore a little extra in the royalty payments. The font is still quite large but I like that and have decided to keep it.
In my previous blog I mentioned that I had completed a short (7500 words) horror story which I hoped to have published as part of an upcoming, multi-author anthology. I’m due to hear at any time soon whether or not it has been accepted and have been checking my emails far too often in the hope of some news! EDIT: My short story has been accepted to become part of this anthology and I’m very excited (and a little proud!) to have managed to sell a short story to the first place that I submitted to.
Now, Smashwords. In my last post I explained how easy it seemed to be to convert a manuscript into the epub file required for ebooks. So I managed this without any major issues (or so I thought) and it passed verification for both Amazon and Nook. It also passed verification for Smashwords. So far, so good I thought. For Smashwords to distribute to all the other retailers that they list, however, the file needs to be reassessed to gain entry into their Premium Catalogue. The file failed, with only an error message that I could make no sense of. Essentially it was a part of the files code that was the problem and I had no idea how to rectify it. So I ignored it. Not a very sensible attitude but the book was selling on Amazon and this was taking up too much time trying to Google an answer. After about a week, I came back to it and it looked as though my only option was going to be to pay someone (around $120) to format the file. As a last resort before spending any money, I contacted Smashwords helpline, giving them the error message and shyly explaining my lack of understanding of computer coding. They were fantastic, though (of course it’s in their interest to sell as many copies). The following day I received an email explaining which part of the text the error related to and how to fix it. It turned out to be a part in the story where I had included a bullet-pointed list (as Ella makes notes on how to dispose of her husband’s very recently deceased body). Manually numbering the points meant the file passed the checks and is due to be made available at more than ten other major retailers in the next few days. It will certainly be interesting to see how well the book sells on more platforms.
Being easily distracted, I have been playing around with my writing schedule, trying to create a realistic plan for how much to write each week, alongside social media updates, blogs, short stories – all on top of family life, getting some exercise and still keeping my day job alive. Organisation is certainly the key, personally I would achieve very little if I didn’t have a weekly target to reach. I have now created a weekly target for the next entire year(!) which would enable me to publish my follow-up to The Broken Doll early August, and a third novel at the beginning of the new year (ideally earlier to catch the Christmas sales spike). It also allows me time to complete a short story every other week with the plan to release anthologies in different genres.
Over the next few weeks I have two competitions lined up which require short story submissions; one is a fluffy, romantic piece for a magazine and one is a short horror / fantasy tale so they are quite different. I think that I will find the latter easier but the word count limit is only 500 words so I will have to edit harshly I’m sure. It’s hard removing parts of a story that you’re proud of writing but sometimes it has to be done, for the sake of the story overall. Kill your darlings.
On another note, perhaps one that you can help with, I am currently looking for someone to illustrate a children’s book, preferably who will accept a 50-50 share of the royalties. I wrote a rhyming story for my daughter last year about a time machine that she makes and, along with her monkey Bobo, heads off a thousand years into the future to see how different the world has become. My daughter loves it and it would be great to offer this to a wider audience, potentially creating a series from it, but you can’t have a young children’s book without illustrations. Alternatively, I could try and teach myself to draw but I don’t have the time or the talent for any of that!
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions then please feel free to get in touch with me and if I can help in any way I will. If you would like access to my short stories (due to become available in the very near future) you can subscribe to my Patreon page for as little as $1 a month. I’m loitering about on Twitter and Facebook too please do come by and say hello.
Until next time.
Peter
Over the past fortnight I have learnt quite a lot and discovered the importance of being represented on as many platforms as one has time to manage. As previously mentioned, I had created a page on Patreon, which looks as though it will have the potential to generate some income but this is yet to happen. I am being consistent with my promotion of this page on my other media platforms and strongly believe that these things take time to grow. I also have discovered a blogging community called Niume, on which I now have a page (you may be reading this on that very site). There has been a greater readership of my posts on there which is exciting. In addition to these, I am also posting my blog and some upcoming chapter excerpts on my Scriggle page.
When my paperback version of The Broken Doll arrived it was a tremendous feeling; a real sense of pride. I had an issue with the layout, however, as the margins were larger than anyone would expect and this explained why the print copy was 381 pages, compared to the ebook at 230! After a play about with the formatting on CreateSpace and uploading a new file, I managed to trim of forty pages and make it look much more professional. The added bonus to this was a slight reduction on printing costs and therefore a little extra in the royalty payments. The font is still quite large but I like that and have decided to keep it.
In my previous blog I mentioned that I had completed a short (7500 words) horror story which I hoped to have published as part of an upcoming, multi-author anthology. I’m due to hear at any time soon whether or not it has been accepted and have been checking my emails far too often in the hope of some news! EDIT: My short story has been accepted to become part of this anthology and I’m very excited (and a little proud!) to have managed to sell a short story to the first place that I submitted to.
Now, Smashwords. In my last post I explained how easy it seemed to be to convert a manuscript into the epub file required for ebooks. So I managed this without any major issues (or so I thought) and it passed verification for both Amazon and Nook. It also passed verification for Smashwords. So far, so good I thought. For Smashwords to distribute to all the other retailers that they list, however, the file needs to be reassessed to gain entry into their Premium Catalogue. The file failed, with only an error message that I could make no sense of. Essentially it was a part of the files code that was the problem and I had no idea how to rectify it. So I ignored it. Not a very sensible attitude but the book was selling on Amazon and this was taking up too much time trying to Google an answer. After about a week, I came back to it and it looked as though my only option was going to be to pay someone (around $120) to format the file. As a last resort before spending any money, I contacted Smashwords helpline, giving them the error message and shyly explaining my lack of understanding of computer coding. They were fantastic, though (of course it’s in their interest to sell as many copies). The following day I received an email explaining which part of the text the error related to and how to fix it. It turned out to be a part in the story where I had included a bullet-pointed list (as Ella makes notes on how to dispose of her husband’s very recently deceased body). Manually numbering the points meant the file passed the checks and is due to be made available at more than ten other major retailers in the next few days. It will certainly be interesting to see how well the book sells on more platforms.
Being easily distracted, I have been playing around with my writing schedule, trying to create a realistic plan for how much to write each week, alongside social media updates, blogs, short stories – all on top of family life, getting some exercise and still keeping my day job alive. Organisation is certainly the key, personally I would achieve very little if I didn’t have a weekly target to reach. I have now created a weekly target for the next entire year(!) which would enable me to publish my follow-up to The Broken Doll early August, and a third novel at the beginning of the new year (ideally earlier to catch the Christmas sales spike). It also allows me time to complete a short story every other week with the plan to release anthologies in different genres.
Over the next few weeks I have two competitions lined up which require short story submissions; one is a fluffy, romantic piece for a magazine and one is a short horror / fantasy tale so they are quite different. I think that I will find the latter easier but the word count limit is only 500 words so I will have to edit harshly I’m sure. It’s hard removing parts of a story that you’re proud of writing but sometimes it has to be done, for the sake of the story overall. Kill your darlings.
On another note, perhaps one that you can help with, I am currently looking for someone to illustrate a children’s book, preferably who will accept a 50-50 share of the royalties. I wrote a rhyming story for my daughter last year about a time machine that she makes and, along with her monkey Bobo, heads off a thousand years into the future to see how different the world has become. My daughter loves it and it would be great to offer this to a wider audience, potentially creating a series from it, but you can’t have a young children’s book without illustrations. Alternatively, I could try and teach myself to draw but I don’t have the time or the talent for any of that!
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions then please feel free to get in touch with me and if I can help in any way I will. If you would like access to my short stories (due to become available in the very near future) you can subscribe to my Patreon page for as little as $1 a month. I’m loitering about on Twitter and Facebook too please do come by and say hello.
Until next time.
Peter
March 15, 2017
Adventures in Self-Publishing
Hello! Welcome to my first ever blog post. It’s taken me a while to think of what to write about, to decide what might actually be of interest to you guys out there. Write what you know I’ve always been told and so here it is. I’ve decided to go down the route of a journal of sorts, mostly relating to my writing, and I hope that you will find it to be worth your time reading it, and maybe even useful?!
A quick bit of background; I have been writing short stories and general rambling poetry for a long time now, but they have always only been for my own benefit. I found writing to be a good way of getting (often unpleasant) emotions out in a creative way. Personal trauma certainly enhances one’s creativity. Writing an actual, full-length novel had been a hope for a while but it was such a daunting task that it was not until March 2016 that I actually started, very roughly, knocking together a few chapters. I would write constantly for a few weeks and then become distracted by my day job (I run a catering business at the moment) and not write for a month or more at a time. There were times (many, actually) when I didn’t expect that The Broken Doll would be complete.
In November of that year I had some minor surgery on my foot which meant that I was forced to take a couple of weeks break from work and was virtually bed bound. This was what I had needed all along (aside from the Frankensteinesque foot) as it gave me the perfect opportunity to write, the only other temptation being Netflix which I did well to leave alone. By then end of January 2017 I had a complete first draft, and after two full edits and some serious alteration to the final couple of chapters, I had a book. A complete, fully edited, actually rather good, story.
It was at this point that I realised that I had no idea what to do with it. The chance of me being able to send it off to a literary agent and suddenly be propelled to fame and fortune seemed incredibly unlikely so I started to research self-publication.
After so much time playing about with a manuscript in Word, it was an absolute delight to come across Scrivener. For those of you who don’t know, it is a software package deisgned for writers and has loads of great features. I ordered it from http://www.literatureandlatte.com if you’re interested and you can get a 30 day free trial.
When you have a completed manuscript in Scrivener it enables you to format it in ways which are suitable for ebooks, for Kindle (who use a different format to everyone else, of course), to create PDF’s and Word documents. It really was quite simple (although I did buy Scrivener for Dummies in case I got stuck). This enabled me to open accounts with Smashwords (who distribute to a number of retailers), Barnes & Noble and Amazon. Currently there is a formatting problem with my ebook which means that iBooks and Play Books won’t accept the file and I can’t figure out where the problem lies. However, it is working perfectly fine on Kindle and all other sites so still remains a mystery that I’ll get around to at some point.
I wanted to see a paperback copy, having always preferred these over ebooks, and so discovered CreateSpace, which is an offshoot of Amazon. They allow you to upload a file, use their book cover deign software and create a paperback, all for free! The whole process is quite straightforward, thankfully, as I’m not very good with computers outside of just being able to write. The thing that I find most amazing about CreateSpace is that it allows you to list a paperback on Amazon and when one (hopefully!) sells, they print a copy and ship it to the customer, often next day! Of course cost of printing and delivery has to be taken into account and the royalties I get from my paperback are only 15%, BUT, that’s more than a lot of publishers pay.
So here I was, at the end of February 2017, a published author. On the day I published the ebook to Amazon, I was searching online for advice as to how many books I could expect to sell. If I had done this before finishing the novel, I probably wouldn’t have bothered publishing it. 7-10 copies per year is what more than half of the ebooks on Amazon sell! This put me in a bit of a panic, my dreams of making a living from writing suddenly seeming ridiculous. But people started buying it, from the very first day. In the first week I had sold twenty copies, not a huge amount but certainly a start. From running my own business for a while, I knew it was now a case of getting the name about and so I set up a new profile of Twitter, created a Facebook page, built this WordPress site. I have set up a mailing list so that I can update readers with what I’m working on next and I have also set up a page on Patreon, which is an artists website. The idea of Patreon is fantastic – Patrons subscribe to my page for as little as $1 (about 80p I think) per month and get exclusive deals and short stories. It’s a way that the fans can give a little back if you like my work, keeping me stocked with teabags and feeling appreciated!
One last thing I wanted to mention is Amazon reviews. Once the book was available and I saw that the first few copies had been sold I got nervous. To the point of feeling sick. I was terrified of people hating the book. I was fairly confident about the storyline, certain that it was quite good. What worried me, I suppose, was the use of bad language in the book (essential I feel in order to portray realism) and the rather detailed ‘scenes of an adult nature’. Currently The Broken Doll has seven reviews on Amazon. Six of these are 5-star, one is 3-star. This was what I had needed to see and it really is motivating when people ask you to ‘hurry up and write the next one!’
My plans for the rest of this month include a short story for my Patreon site (I have written a short horror but this has been submitted for an anthology and I will know shortly if it has been accepted, wish me luck!), rough draft of the first four or five chapters of a follow-up to The Broken Doll, as well as working through the wondeful Joanna Penn’s book on How to Market a Book. In next month’s blog I will update you on my progress with these things and any successes / failures I have had regarding marketing.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you’d like to connect with me (or share my book!) on other platforms then I’d hugely appreciate it. You can also email me any time with questions, comments, or just to plug your own book or product at pjblakey-novis@outlook.com
The Broken Doll
A quick bit of background; I have been writing short stories and general rambling poetry for a long time now, but they have always only been for my own benefit. I found writing to be a good way of getting (often unpleasant) emotions out in a creative way. Personal trauma certainly enhances one’s creativity. Writing an actual, full-length novel had been a hope for a while but it was such a daunting task that it was not until March 2016 that I actually started, very roughly, knocking together a few chapters. I would write constantly for a few weeks and then become distracted by my day job (I run a catering business at the moment) and not write for a month or more at a time. There were times (many, actually) when I didn’t expect that The Broken Doll would be complete.
In November of that year I had some minor surgery on my foot which meant that I was forced to take a couple of weeks break from work and was virtually bed bound. This was what I had needed all along (aside from the Frankensteinesque foot) as it gave me the perfect opportunity to write, the only other temptation being Netflix which I did well to leave alone. By then end of January 2017 I had a complete first draft, and after two full edits and some serious alteration to the final couple of chapters, I had a book. A complete, fully edited, actually rather good, story.
It was at this point that I realised that I had no idea what to do with it. The chance of me being able to send it off to a literary agent and suddenly be propelled to fame and fortune seemed incredibly unlikely so I started to research self-publication.
After so much time playing about with a manuscript in Word, it was an absolute delight to come across Scrivener. For those of you who don’t know, it is a software package deisgned for writers and has loads of great features. I ordered it from http://www.literatureandlatte.com if you’re interested and you can get a 30 day free trial.
When you have a completed manuscript in Scrivener it enables you to format it in ways which are suitable for ebooks, for Kindle (who use a different format to everyone else, of course), to create PDF’s and Word documents. It really was quite simple (although I did buy Scrivener for Dummies in case I got stuck). This enabled me to open accounts with Smashwords (who distribute to a number of retailers), Barnes & Noble and Amazon. Currently there is a formatting problem with my ebook which means that iBooks and Play Books won’t accept the file and I can’t figure out where the problem lies. However, it is working perfectly fine on Kindle and all other sites so still remains a mystery that I’ll get around to at some point.
I wanted to see a paperback copy, having always preferred these over ebooks, and so discovered CreateSpace, which is an offshoot of Amazon. They allow you to upload a file, use their book cover deign software and create a paperback, all for free! The whole process is quite straightforward, thankfully, as I’m not very good with computers outside of just being able to write. The thing that I find most amazing about CreateSpace is that it allows you to list a paperback on Amazon and when one (hopefully!) sells, they print a copy and ship it to the customer, often next day! Of course cost of printing and delivery has to be taken into account and the royalties I get from my paperback are only 15%, BUT, that’s more than a lot of publishers pay.
So here I was, at the end of February 2017, a published author. On the day I published the ebook to Amazon, I was searching online for advice as to how many books I could expect to sell. If I had done this before finishing the novel, I probably wouldn’t have bothered publishing it. 7-10 copies per year is what more than half of the ebooks on Amazon sell! This put me in a bit of a panic, my dreams of making a living from writing suddenly seeming ridiculous. But people started buying it, from the very first day. In the first week I had sold twenty copies, not a huge amount but certainly a start. From running my own business for a while, I knew it was now a case of getting the name about and so I set up a new profile of Twitter, created a Facebook page, built this WordPress site. I have set up a mailing list so that I can update readers with what I’m working on next and I have also set up a page on Patreon, which is an artists website. The idea of Patreon is fantastic – Patrons subscribe to my page for as little as $1 (about 80p I think) per month and get exclusive deals and short stories. It’s a way that the fans can give a little back if you like my work, keeping me stocked with teabags and feeling appreciated!
One last thing I wanted to mention is Amazon reviews. Once the book was available and I saw that the first few copies had been sold I got nervous. To the point of feeling sick. I was terrified of people hating the book. I was fairly confident about the storyline, certain that it was quite good. What worried me, I suppose, was the use of bad language in the book (essential I feel in order to portray realism) and the rather detailed ‘scenes of an adult nature’. Currently The Broken Doll has seven reviews on Amazon. Six of these are 5-star, one is 3-star. This was what I had needed to see and it really is motivating when people ask you to ‘hurry up and write the next one!’
My plans for the rest of this month include a short story for my Patreon site (I have written a short horror but this has been submitted for an anthology and I will know shortly if it has been accepted, wish me luck!), rough draft of the first four or five chapters of a follow-up to The Broken Doll, as well as working through the wondeful Joanna Penn’s book on How to Market a Book. In next month’s blog I will update you on my progress with these things and any successes / failures I have had regarding marketing.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you’d like to connect with me (or share my book!) on other platforms then I’d hugely appreciate it. You can also email me any time with questions, comments, or just to plug your own book or product at pjblakey-novis@outlook.com
The Broken Doll
