David W. Robinson's Blog: Always Writing, page 49

And Thence to York

Summer is a distant memory. The cold, windy, rainy nights of autumn see the gang making for York and ghost hunting weekend at the Palmer Hotel.

When a valuable necklace disappears, followed by a murder, it’s time for Joe, Sheila and Brenda to swing into action again and solve the third STAC Mystery A Halloween Homicide.

And tomorrow, November 23rd, sees the release of the fifth STAC Mystery under the Crooked Cat imprint. Joe’s most puzzling case, yet:

Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend

***

A Halloween Homicide is available from download from:

Amazon UK (Kindle)

Amazon Worldwide (Kindle)

Smashwords (all formats)

Crooked Cat Books (MOBI, EPUB, PDF)

And in paperback from:

Amazon UK

Amazon Worldwide

***

Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend is released Friday, November 3rd in all formats. 

Happy Birthday to You

Crooked Cat Books is one year old today.

With the advent of e-publishing, platforms like the Kindle, Nook, iPad, smartphones etc, have opened up the floodgates for every computer owner in the world to become a publisher. It’s no surprise that many of them fall by the wayside after only few months. Some are good, some are not so good and some are excellent.

Crooked Cat falls into the latter category, and yet they broke one of the cardinal rules when they set up.

There’s a theory (touted mainly by those who were involved in mainstream publishing) that small publishers should be niche publishers. They should concentrate on one, narrow field; romance, sci-fi, crime or whatever.

Crooked Cat, however, chose not to specialise. They looked at work in a range of genres and one year on, here they are, holding their own, having published full-length works from twenty something authors (I don’t know the exact number) in a range of genres from my own cosy crimes to hard-boiled thrillers, historicals, romances, contemporary literature and a smattering of YA. If we take into account, the two FEAR charity anthologies, there are 90 or more Crooked Cat authors.

Crooked Cat also deliver on their promises. I have six titles published with them (or I will have on Friday) and I’ve been in full consultation with them at every stage of production. Steph and Laurence Patterson, the husband and wife team behind Crooked Cat, are approachable, happy to listen and negotiate on matters such as pricing, cover design, and as a group, the whole of the Crooked Cat crowd are friendly, funny, vibrant, full of ideas.

So what do the readers get out of it? Quality fiction. Isn’t that what they want? Solid tales of mystery, love, thrills, humour, suspense, to keep them entertained for hours at a time.

And today, Crooked Cat is one year old. In celebration of that, there’s a huge party on Facebook with plenty of giveaways.

Everyone who registers with the Crooked Cat Books site today will receive by email, a £1 Crooked Cat gift card, and TWO lucky people will WIN 10,000 Crooked Cat points to spend on the Crooked Cat website. TEN THOUSAND REWARD POINTS.

So get yourself over to Facebook and the Crooked Cat 1st birthday party and add your name to the growing list of Crooked Cat readers.

From Filey to Chester

With no sign of an end to the summer heatwave, we moved across the country for Brenda’s fifteen minutes of fame in the reality TV show, I-Spy.

Fireworks begin from the moment the Housies come together, spats, fights and arguments aplenty, and for Joe, watching at home, there should only be one winner: Brenda.

But when one of the Housies apparently commits suicide, it’s only Joe, Sheila and Brenda who know different, and they have to work to persuade the police in the second STAC Mystery, The I-Spy Murders.

This Friday, November 23rd, sees the release of the fifth STAC Mystery under the Crooked Cat imprint. Joe’s most puzzling case, yet:

Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend

***

The I-Spy Murders is available from download from:

Amazon UK (Kindle)

Amazon Worldwide (Kindle)

Smashwords (all formats)

Crooked Cat Books (MOBI, EPUB, PDF)

And in paperback from:

Amazon UK

Amazon Worldwide

***

Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend is released Friday, November 23rd in all formats. 

Here’s Where We began

With a bit of fun in Filey.

After a hit and run accident killed one of the STAC members, the accidental death of another becomes a coincidence too far for Joe, Sheila and Brenda.

A summer frolic in a pretty Yorkshire seaside town in search of the elusive Filey Connection, the title that introduced the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries to the world.

And this Friday, November 23rd, sees the release of the fifth STAC Mystery under the Crooked Cat imprint. Joe’s most puzzling case, yet:

Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend

***

The Filey Connection is available from download from:

Amazon UK (Kindle)

Amazon Worldwide (Kindle)

Smashwords (all formats)

Crooked Cat Books (MOBI, EPUB, PDF)

And in paperback from:

Amazon UK

Amazon Worldwide

***

Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend is released Friday, November 3rd in all formats. 

Friday Fun

Here’s a silly survey I put up on Facebook over two years ago. I was reminded of it when a smashing young lady named Denice Hadfield, flagged it up from the Crooked Cat Authors and Readers Group.

Steph and Laurence, the duo behind Crooked Cat, must be pleased that others are taking notice but it says something about me that I never noticed the link to this post, and I wrote it!!!

So here we go with a few silly answers to pointless questions.

1. How many lies have you told in the past week?

I never lie. I only give my version of the truth.

2. On a scale of one to ten, how much do you want to murder a stranger right now?

Since you’re a stranger, come here and I’ll show you.

3. If you were/are a vegetarian, would/do you see it as a worse crime to eat twenty prawns as a starter or a hundredth of a cow (approx.) as a main course?

I see the bigger crime as slicing up spuds and frying them. No one with a vegetarian conscience could do that to a humble potato.

4. What’s worse – falling in love with a nun or a prostitute?

First off you’re mistaking me for someone who gives a shit, and secondly, what difference does it make what they do for a living as long as they do the business?

5. What’s the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning/early afternoon, in order?

a. Sex
b. Food
c. A cigarette
d. Caffeine
e. More sleep

A, C, A, C, A …C

6. Of the seven dwarfs, who would you most like to share a flat with?

Their gangmaster, Snow White.

7. What’s the best line you’ve come up with for jeh-wits / mormons when they’ve come calling?

I have an arrangement with God. I don’t pester him with prayers and he doesn’t send his apparatchiks to hassle me when I’m charming the knickers off a nun or a prostitute.

8. How smug are you? No, really.

You’re accusing me of being smug? I’d run you down but I don’t want to get blood all over my Bentley.

9. How many badgers would you murder to be successful in your chosen field?

None. Now if you were to ask me how many brain dead pollsters I’d be prepared to murder … well, let’s just say you probably can’t count that far.

10. When you go to Hell, who are you most looking forward to meeting?

You. Just so I can say, “Told you so, dickhead.”

Is There a Difference Between Vanity and POD?

I don’t give advice. I’m no more and no less qualified than anyone else to dish it out. I can’t tell you the best way to write a novel, I can’t advise you on whether you should self-publish or go with a publisher. Instead, I rattle on about my experiences, and after 27 years, they’re considerable.

I don’t object to advice blogs/comments and so on, but it irks me when I see someone shouting and they obviously don’t know what they’re talking about.

So what brought this particular rant on? It was a comment I read concerning POD publishing, and how everyone should be wary of it. What a lot of crap. The person concerned obviously doesn’t know the difference between POD and vanity publishing.

POD stands for Print On Demand. In other words the publisher does not deal with High Street bookshops, which is just as well because we don’t have that many left. The publisher does not stock huge quantities of books. Instead, a book is printed when reader demands i.e. orders it.

Vanity publishing, on the other hand is where a publisher will be happy to take on your book subject to you forking out a large sum of money in advance. He will do nothing to help sell your book, but he will expect you to take delivery of hundreds of copies, with which you can do what you like. He’s had his three grand, and that’s all he cares about.

The terms are not necessarily mutually exclusive. A good number of vanity publishers utilise POD technology on the offchance that you may need to order more copies… presumably when the bonfire is going out.

However, just because publisher works with POD does not make them a vanity publisher.

Some years ago, I worked with an American imprint, Virtual Tales. An upfront, thoroughly respectable publisher who liked my novel, and took it on. They designed a cover, they appointed an editor, and consulted with me at every stage of the process. And when the book was ready to go, they sent me a complimentary paperback copy.

Virtual Tales did not store books. They utilised POD. And yet, they never charged me a penny.

These days I work exclusively with Crooked Cat Publishing. I have the scripts edited before they’re submitted, but once received, Crooked Cat pore over my work, making whatever additional edits they feel are necessary, they design a cover, and they consult with me on everything from that cover and those edits, right down to pricing. And when we’re ready to go, they send me a complimentary copy of the paperback.

My sixth novel, Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend, the latest in the popular STAC Mystery series, is due out next week (November 23rd) and they’ve never charged me one penny. And yet they utilise POD.

With an ever-increasing amount of business done over the internet, POD is the way forward. It avoids filling a huge warehouse with thousands and thousands of copies of the books. It improves cash flow inasmuch as there is no vast outlay. Each book is paid for as it is printed, and that printing, binding process can take a matter of just a few hours.

The commentator in question stressed that Amazon pay the best royalties. That’s not strictly true. Smashwords pay better royalties. Amazon offer the best sales channels. However, leaving that aside, if you want to self-publish in paperback using Amazon, you’ll do so through a subsidiary named Createspace. Brilliant setup, the quality is absolute top drawer. I cannot fault CS.

But it’s POD.

So there you have it. If you want to criticise the growing band of small, independent publishers, do so, but do your homework first, and if you’re not prepared to do that, at least learn the difference between vanity and POD.

***

Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend the fifth STAC Mysteries is published on November 23rd by Crooked Cat Books.

A Cup, A Saucer & A Spoon

The missus and I are not exactly the world’s most cosmopolitan travellers, but we have been about a bit. We’ve seen a fair bit of Europe, some of the USA, and there’s almost nowhere in the UK we haven’t been.

When we holiday abroad, we like basking in the sun, usually outside a café where we enjoy a cup of coffee. The coffee is usually served by cheerful young men and women, it comes complete with a sachet of sugar, spoon and a serviette. When were through, we usually leave a few cents on the table for them to pocket when they’re clearing up.

When we holiday in the UK, we find matters, by and large, exactly the same.

This morning, we went to a supermarket where we enjoyed a cup of tea and two rounds of toast. Things are different here. I’m not going to name the supermarket, because essentially they’re all as bad as one another.

Nothing wrong with the toast, nothing wrong with the tea/coffee, but plenty wrong with everything else.

First, I am expected to fill the cup or teapot with boiling water from a dispenser.

Next, I cannot find a teaspoon. Instead, I’m offered a wooden stick (below)

And when we’re finished, they expect us to clear the table.

WHAT!!!!!!!

The argument for this is it helps them keep prices down.

My arse.

I’m sure the cost of minimum wage for one person detailed to clean up could be more than recouped by putting one penny on the cost of every item on the menu. Even I wouldn’t complain at an extra 10p on the tariff.

Give me one sound reason why I should be compelled to fill my own teapot or cup with boiling water. Is it contrary to Health & Safety for your people to do it?

And I’d be no more tempted to nick the spoons from these places than I am the knives and forks. And don’t tell me it saves washing up. If you get your share of bolshie bastards like me, they’ll do what I do. I refuse to stir my tea with a lollipop stick, so I take a tablespoon and stir it with that. You still have to wash up.

Finally, I am the customer, not an employee. I am not there to clear your tables, even if I have been using them. I paid for the privilege. If I spend an hour in the reading room at the library, they don’t ask me to whip round with a can of Mr Sheen to polish the tables. When I bought my car, I don’t remember the salesman asking me to dump all the scraps of paper on which he’d made his rough calculation. Clear your own frigging tables.

The lamest excuse I’ve heard for these it speeds up service. Does it?

Does it hell as like. The length of time I’m waiting in some of these queues, I could get through a three-course meal at a proper café.

Now just in case you’ve missed the point of all this, let me show you what a cup, saucer, and SPOON looks like.

And now you know, why don’t you start supplying, serving and then clearing them away instead of expecting your customers to do it?

I can foresee the day when Joe Murray has a really good rant over this.

Cover Reveal

Writing a novel, any novel, is a slog. Watching it develop is great fun because you’re giving full rein to your imagination as you type.

Once it’s done, you start the real work of tidying it up, polishing, revising, editing, seeking out the inevitable typos. And that’s a job you can’t leave to the spellchecker? What’s the difference between kill and kiln? One letter, but the spellchecker doesn’t know you didn’t intend to write “I had to kiln him.”

This part of the job can be frustrating, too. Remember that patch of purple prose you wrote in the denouement? The bit were you used 568 words to say, “You’re guilty.” It has to be hacked out, leaving you hacked off.

Then it goes off to the editor and when it comes back, it needs even more work. You have to go through this entire manuscript, word by word, yet again, and you wish you’d never started that damn thing.

Finally, it’s done and you wipe the sweat from your brow and get it off to the publisher.

Suddenly things begin to get a little lighter. The potential excitement of a release builds steadily, and then, one day, you get the cover image and suddenly the whole book takes on a reality it never previously possessed.

Well that happened when I got the cover image from the fifth STAC Mystery, Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend. And here it is.

And here’s the full, wraparound cover for the paperback.

I liked this cover from the moment it arrived. Minimalist, it spells out exactly what the reader is gonna get without giving anything else away. What else but a murder mystery would be in the pages of a book covered with a magnifying glass and fingerprint?

The icy background signals the bitter cold of an English New Year, and a headache for Joe and his pals where reality and drama become confused, and somewhere along the line, Joe finds there is more to life than steak and kidney pies at the Lazy Luncheonette.

Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend, the fifth STAC Mystery from Crooked Cat Books is released on November 23rd.

Get Your Facts Right

As a writer, I like to get my facts straight. I don’t always manage it, but at least I try. So it annoys the hell out of me when I see others quoting events and juggling facts to make them fit their absurd theories.

The latest (and it’s been doing the rounds for a few months now) is this rare alignment of planets over the Pyramids on December 3rd.

On the same site as I found this, it recommended we all watch a rare meteor shower on October 20th/21st. This meteor shower is known as the Orionids, and it’s so rare it only happens every year. As rare goes, it’s not quite in the same league as rocking horse shit.

Are these the same people who were amazed at the startling coincidence of a New Moon and an eclipse happening at the same time? I can’t remember, but I do remember what I said when I read it. THEY ONLY HAPPEN AT NEW MOON, YOU IDIOTS. A total eclipse of the Sun can’t happen at any other time.

Back to this rare planetary conjunction. They’re not actually as rare as these people would have you imagine. They happen all the time. How rare they are appearing over the Pyramids, I can’t say, but I do know this, because I checked up. At the latitude of the Pyramids, anyone looking at the alignment will see it nearly vertical, so unless someone has uprooted the pyramids and stacked them up on their sides, they’re highly unlikely to line up over them.

Course, I could be wrong. Despite the fact that most astronomers (as opposed to fantasists) say that I’m right, I could be putting my foot in my mouth again.

After all we had a curious alignment of heavenly bodies earlier this year, didn’t we?  Back in march April-ish there was a triumvirate in the skies. Venus hovered over Higginshaw gasworks, Jupiter sat bang over the top of the Arco Car Wash and at that same moment, the Moon shone above bus stop on Manchester Street.

The world, however, did not come to an end. It didn’t even change. But the drain on the washing machine got clogged up.

May I should have paid more attention to the signs.

The Crooked Cat Firecracker of a Kindle Sale

All Kindle prices are reduced to 77p (99ȼ) for the next 24 hours.

 

So what’s it all in aid of?

November 5th in the UK is Guy Fawkes Night. For our overseas visitors who may not know, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament in 1605 and failed, and we all know why. With typical Yorkshire thrift, he didn’t buy matches, and tapping the Sergeant-at-arms on the shoulder, saying “got a light, chum?” was not the best way of trying to get the job done quietly.

These days we celebrate Guy Fawkes with bonfires and fireworks. Either that or its wishful thinking – wishing he’d succeeded that is.

Crooked Cat is celebrating by reducing Kindle prices to just 77p for the day. According to my calculations, they have 28 titles, and at 77p each, you can buy the lot for £21.56. What? £21.56? All that top quality reading and you can have the lot for less than the price of two airline meals. And they’re a lot tastier than airline meals. They’ll last longer, do you a damn sight more good and you won’t throw any of them away.

Naturally the STAC Mysteries are in on this deal, but there are other, fine works, by brilliant writers; hard-boiled thrillers, chicklit, mysteries, humour, romance, fantasy, young adult. It’s all out there, all ready for downloading to you Kindle, 77p each.

The sale lasts for just 24 hours. Give or take. Amazon can be a bit slow to change things, but basically you have to move today.

So tootle on over to Amazon and load up your Kindle while everything is hot and down in price.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November and the Crooked Cat Firecracker of a Kindle Sale.