Russell Forden's Blog, page 2
January 4, 2018
Goodreads Giveaway
I recently entered two signed copies of my novel, Eye of the Timegate, into the Goodreads giveaway, I chose not to limit the amount of countries that can enter, simply because I didn't want to discriminate. I gave the giveaway about a month to run, and by the end of it I had over 1,600 readers entered into it, and the exposure translated into over 500 readers putting the novel on their 'to read' lists. Not a bad result.
When the winners were announced (one was in the US, the other in Turkey) I duly prepared my two signed copies and went to the post office to send them off. Problem was, the postage alone amounted to over $90! For two books! Ouch!
So, what have I learned from all this? Maybe I should have just set the eligible country to just Australia, and discrimination be damned. The trade-off of course means that would have attracted much less entries and given the book less exposure. I guess you've got to weigh it all up and decide what works best for you. For me, ninety bucks is still a lot of money for just two books - and of course I haven't even factored in the price they cost me for Create Space to print and send them out to me in the first place, which was about $12 each. Damn that Australia Post! So, anyway, consider this a word to the wise.
I'm presently struggling to get the money together to send the books. Of course I still have to send them - they both have autographs addressed to the two winners, so they'd be no good to anyone else. And reneging on the deal would, understandably, get me in all kinds of trouble with Goodreads (and the winners!), who would no doubt kick me off the site.
The epilogue to this saga is the recent announcement by Goodreads that they will no longer be making the giveaway deal free for authors. So it would seem I got my giveaway in just in time. There's definitely no way I would have bothered with it if I'd had to pay for it in the first place - and doubly so now that I know how much it really costs.
I wonder how many takers Goodreads will get when the new rules kick in…
When the winners were announced (one was in the US, the other in Turkey) I duly prepared my two signed copies and went to the post office to send them off. Problem was, the postage alone amounted to over $90! For two books! Ouch!
So, what have I learned from all this? Maybe I should have just set the eligible country to just Australia, and discrimination be damned. The trade-off of course means that would have attracted much less entries and given the book less exposure. I guess you've got to weigh it all up and decide what works best for you. For me, ninety bucks is still a lot of money for just two books - and of course I haven't even factored in the price they cost me for Create Space to print and send them out to me in the first place, which was about $12 each. Damn that Australia Post! So, anyway, consider this a word to the wise.
I'm presently struggling to get the money together to send the books. Of course I still have to send them - they both have autographs addressed to the two winners, so they'd be no good to anyone else. And reneging on the deal would, understandably, get me in all kinds of trouble with Goodreads (and the winners!), who would no doubt kick me off the site.
The epilogue to this saga is the recent announcement by Goodreads that they will no longer be making the giveaway deal free for authors. So it would seem I got my giveaway in just in time. There's definitely no way I would have bothered with it if I'd had to pay for it in the first place - and doubly so now that I know how much it really costs.
I wonder how many takers Goodreads will get when the new rules kick in…
December 23, 2017
No Logo, by Naomi Klein
No Logo by Naomi KleinMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The information in this book is a bit old now (published about 2000) but it's still relevant. I especially liked Klein's writing about culture jammers and the fact that she's a bit critical of some of what they do. The sections about Nike and MacDonalds and sweat shops and so forth definitely had me wondering how much has changed today compared to back then. Amazing research and good writing, but I admit I did find myself skimming large chunks at times, mainly because I'm familiar with much of this material - and maybe Klein does at times over-write.
View all my reviews
August 13, 2017
Head Hopping
A recent question from a visitor put me in mind of the thing we writers call 'head hopping'. For those who don't know, that's when you write using a third person omnipotent point of view and jump inside the thoughts of one character to another. Hopping from one character's head to another, as it were. I think it's a strength of that point of view approach, since it allows you to get inside the thoughts of lots of characters, and I felt it was appropriate for my recent novel, Eye of the Timegate, because it's very much an ensemble piece, with more than one main character.
The writing books say you shouldn't jump from one character to another within the same chapter, but I do that quite often, usually between two main characters. I don't have a problem with this - as a writer, nor as a reader.
That being said, how do others feel about this? Is this a sign of amateurish writing? Would you be annoyed if you encountered chapters of a novel that featured this kind of head hopping? Would you even notice?
Being aware of all this, and in the spirit of compromise, I've decided to limit my head hopping to only the major characters in my novel (there are six major characters, with what I would call two main characters among them), and to avoid going inside the heads of minor characters. I hope that's good enough for most readers. What do you think?
The writing books say you shouldn't jump from one character to another within the same chapter, but I do that quite often, usually between two main characters. I don't have a problem with this - as a writer, nor as a reader.
That being said, how do others feel about this? Is this a sign of amateurish writing? Would you be annoyed if you encountered chapters of a novel that featured this kind of head hopping? Would you even notice?
Being aware of all this, and in the spirit of compromise, I've decided to limit my head hopping to only the major characters in my novel (there are six major characters, with what I would call two main characters among them), and to avoid going inside the heads of minor characters. I hope that's good enough for most readers. What do you think?
