Jen Black's Blog, page 20

New Cover facts

 Been working hard  these last few weeks. 

I've been trying Amazon Ads and so far, I'm making a profit. 

Not a great profit, but  definitely in my favour.  In following the course I learned that my approach to marketing was dismal, and so I've been uprating my book descriptions, dreaming up hooks and renovating all my covers. They may not be perfect now but they are an improvement and may still change in the future 

It takes a lot of time and effort to do all this, because I have to find out where I'm going wrong  before I can try to put it right. I've lost count of how many videos on compositing and graphics in general I've watched - not to mention the talks I've listened to on the best way to use Ads. It has meant that I've been absent from Facebook and Twitter but then - would anyone notice my absence? 

It has also meant I've done no writing of fresh material though I have

 revised Alba is Mine. In doing so I discovered how much my writing

 has improved since 2005, which was a bit of a surprise.

I have put the new cover for Far After Gold up today as a comparison. It isn't that old, as my covers go, but I learned that a linked series of books ought to have the same font and cover treatment. If you check the pages for my books at the top of this blog, you will find that all my "Viking" books are now using the same fonts for the title, sub-title and author. (I've just noticed that the newest cover  I've put up here does not have a capital letter for Viking. I'll have to rectify that very soon.) So: Far After Gold, Viking Summer, Viking Bride and Magician's Bride are now "linked."

I'm happy. Now it is time to get back to planning a new book.

If you've ever wonder about the title I chose its an old saying that "Man will travel far after gold."

Head Hopping

Kahina Necaise has written (for the History Quill) a clear  description of the fault that often annoys readers – and so I have  jotted them down here to remind myself of What-Not-To-Do.

Read the whole thing here: Head-hopping: what it is and why you shouldn't do it - The History Quill

 

1. Head-hopping disorients readers, preventing their immersion in the story

2compromises the emotional coherence of a scene

3. hinders connection with charactersBottom of Form

4. signals an unfocused scene

5. comes across as clumsy

 T

hese notes are for me to remember:

 Less common in today’s fiction, the omniscient POV is still a perfectly workable and engaging way to tell a story…..

The  omniscient POV presents the story from the perspective of a single character: the narrator, who has a distinct voice. Even when it dips into the thoughts of a particular character and colours those thoughts with that character’s voice, it’s clear that this is not the narrator’s voice. We’re still anchored in the narrator’s POV………..

An omniscient POV narrator’s switching from one character to the next is strategic. All the POVs that it presents fit together in a way that supports the scene as a whole.

 

Always a sign of a good read!

 I have another review up on Discovering Diamonds today.

http://discoveringdiamonds.
blogspot.com

Many thanks to the reviewer ~ Anna Belfraga.

Romance1911England

"Having married into an aristocratic family in Yorkshire, American Ellen desperately needs a child. The family expects an heir. After three years with a loving husband it seems the desired child will never arrive, and when a dangerously attractive estate worker makes an outrageous suggestion, Ellen is mortified. She dismisses the idea, but the temptation becomes irresistible and in the steamy sensuality of the long hot summer of 1911 desire consumes them both, with dire consequences for one of them."
It is 1911 and the heatwave that will plague England over the summer months is already becoming a nuisance. Or so Ellen thinks as she wanders off on a solitary walk, preferring to walk through the woods to avoid the heat. And there, just beside the gazebo she bumps into one of the gardeners.  Yes: it must be the heat. How else to explain how the wife of Charles, Lord Dipton and future sixth Marquess of Durrington, allows this unknown gardener to lead her inside the gazebo and there seduce her?
I must admit to having some initial problems with the premise. Ellen and her husband are desperate for a child—Charles’ grandfather is threatening to disinherit him unless there is the pitter-patter of small feet—but Ellen is also very much in love with her husband. She is also a lady, very aware of her station in life and in general not at all reckless. For such a woman to leap into the arms of one of the estate workers…well...? 
While it would—perhaps—have been credible to have Ellen consider just how to sort the child issue and do whatever she had to do (with closed eyes) to present Charles with the much-needed heir, what blossoms between Ellen and Tom is instant, fiery passion. This is not a solution to Ellen’s problem. In fact, it adds another complicating twist.
However, I may have had reservations about this premise, but Jen Black is an admirably competent writer. Not only is she adept at recreating the historical setting, she is also skilled at presenting us with complicated characters. In this case, it is Tom who turns out to be as multi-layered as an onion, much to the surprise of, among others, Ellen’s husband, Charles. 
The heat builds and builds. In casual bits and pieces, Ms Black presents the growing political friction in Europe. In England, there is a new king to crown, a young Prince of Wales to invest while the nation pants under a relentless sun. For Ellen, tension spirals, making it unbearable to see Tom, just as unbearable not to see him. Plus, there is Charles, the man she truly loves and admires.
And then finally, the heatwave breaks. The heavens crack open and in the resulting storm, life will be irrevocably changed for Tom and Ellen. This reader found herself reaching for the tissues repeatedly as the final chapters of Silver Season Affair rolled by. 
Always a sign of a good read!
Reviewed for Discovering Diamonds 
© Anna Belfrage e-version reviewed

Transformations

 These last few months I have renewed most of my e-book covers.

The e-covers are easy and I enjoy doing them. Some turn out better than others, but even so, it is a pleasure, and gives me a task to do while I await inspiration as to the story I am supposedly moving forward.

I am finding the paperback covers much harder to change and given the low number of paperbacks sold, I'm wondering if it is worth the hours it takes. Or the frustration, for that matter. Amazon instructions are never harder to interpret than when loading book covers!

On the other hand, I should be able to manage it, given time and patience. 

It is hard to believe that the two boys in the picture are now in their fifties and one is actually having his sixtieth birthday this year! This is one of the many slides dh and I retireved using a film scanner.

It's madness,

 It's stupid really. I now have two first chapters.

From not writing for weeks, I now have two ideas on the go - and that's all they are - ideas in my head.

I wonder if I could  bring them together somehow? It seems silly to write two stories at the same time, especially if one is  set 200 years before the other, with different characters and locations. Not to mention the missing plot, which I talked about in the last post. I don't know what is going to happen in either story.

This has never happened to me before. I don't think the two stories are combinable. 

It's madness, really, to keep going with them both. It's a bit like something I read about  that prolific American writer of contemporary romance - she said she wrote one story in the morning and edited a second one in the afternoon, and that way she kept herself fresh for both.

I think I shall see how I go. It is possible that both will go to completion, but it is also very likely that one - or both - will run out of steam very soon. As long as only one disappears that would solve my problem! 

Does the novel have a PLOT?

Over the last few weeks I've swopped writing for reading.

While I have read McDermid's Tony Hill and Carole Jordan series beginning to end I have not been writing at all. I've done a lot of work on statistics and sort of have a handle on how I'm doing but no writing at all. 

Until this week, that is. Then I began with a heroine called Rose who journeys to a tiny village in Northumberland (- write about what you know!) to stay with rellies. I intend that she should (somehow) time shift, or time travel, but with chapter one done I suddenly remembered a piece I read sometimes last year - namely:

Does the novel have a plot? Without a plot, received wisdom claims it is difficult to keep a reader interested. A plot must involve a protagonist with a worthy story goal. 

Well, the honest answer is no, there is, as yet, no plot. Nor is there a goal, worthy or not and I haven't reached an inciting incident yet. You know - that thing that turns the protagonist’s life upside down in a negative way.

All this suggests that I am on a hiding to nothing as my Dad used to say. I knew what he meant, but I never looked at the peculiar way he expressed the thought. Just as it occurred to me yesterday that from age 7 to 23 I lived in Sydenham Road and never twigged that all the streets around me - Hampton, Osborne, Kensington, Marlborough, and others - were all famous buildings or locations. 

I shall keep writing - descriptive bits and locations, but I must lay down a plot line  in the next week or two or I fear I shall lose interest and go back to reading. 

I wonder when the next Hill-Jordan book is due?
.

Statistics

 Time to do some stats.

I am no mathematician, but statistics fascinate me.

With almost more stats than I can cope with now that I've found Book Report, I am having a ball.

Perhaps it is time to take a peek at my career as a published author. I tinkered with writing for years, but grew disenchanted with early indie book publishers who kept running into financial difficulties and collapsing. Amazon came along at just the right time. With one book published via KDP in March 2012 and one in December that year, I recorded  20 sales and earned £25.68 in royalties.

73.5% of those came from the US and 26.5% from the UK.

From then on I was hooked, and I am happy to say that sales have improved since then!

Out with the Old

My old photo slides are now in the wastepaper bin. They've been waiting in the attic for a good many years.

Now they have been digitally copied, run through Photoshop and the pictures are now safely on my computer. If anyone wants the now redundant film scanner, do let me know. It has now done its job for me. 

The clarity of the digital pic is not as good as the original but since there is no way I will ever get all the old gear from the attic and set up a projector and screen in the living room, this is as good as it gets. 

I have also been busy on another new cover. Taking to heart the advice offered by Bryan Cohen's webcasts, I "saw" that some of my covers were not "genre relevant". So I am on a mission to rectify that. 

He means that a romance ought to be recognised as a romance within the first seconds of seeing the cover. That's genre recognition in action. Subconsciously we recognise a thriller from the cover style, and some  - like the Jack Reacher covers - have become almost a brand. Another thing I learned from Cathy Helms and Tamian Wood is that choice (and use) of font is as important as the picture. And finally ~ I managed to use a layer mask successfully! 

Tiny, tiny instructions

 Will be playing with my new software for a day or two until I get the hang of it. 

Like all "gadgets" from China (or Taiwan or anywhere in the Far East,) the technical aspect is good but the instructions that come with it are the opposite.

I struggled with the the tiny, tiny print and the film scanner yesterday but could only get a negative image on the scanner rather than the computer which kind of defeated the object of the exercise. 

Applied to dh, who has no fear of  attacking things intuitively, (and has better vision than me!) whereas I hesitate in case I do more damage than good. Evidently I had managed to screw up the menu, but he soon had it sorted again. So today I am all set to go, except that I have an appointment with the dentist at 9.45.

On the right is the final attempt at a cover for my latest story set in 1911. I took the advice from Cathy and Tamian and finally got all the bits as they were intended to be. I definitely need more practice with layer masks!

Uncertainties

Finally, revision of the Matho trilogy is complete.

I sent it off for re-publishing this morning, and can 

now relax and enjoy the garden, the sunshine and dog walks!

Currently uncertain as to beginning any new writing project. It takes so long to complete, and though there are lots of ideas spinning around in the subconscious nothing  is solidifying into an idea that I am prepared to spend a whole heap of time on. Perhaps I just need a rest, time off to relax. I can always concentrate on marketing and improving covers. 

Recently I put my cover for Silver Season up to Discovering Diamonds Cover critique duo (Cathy Helms and Tamian Wood) and received some really useful comments that have spurred me on to  do something about it. For the moment I'm so relieved at having got the revision off to Kindle that I'm going to relax and enjoy an ice-cream in the sunshine - oh, and watch Rafa go for his 14th Roland Garros championship.