David W. Robinson's Blog: Always Writing, page 53

A Site of Their Own

The Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries have been kicking around in one guise or another for over a year now. The decision to move from a self-published platform to publication by Crooked Cat Books prompted another move. Joe, Sheila, Brenda and the gang now

HAVE THEIR OWN SITE

There’s work yet to be done on it, but the basics are up and running and you can find it here.

Pop over, have a look around and you’ll find the background to all four novels, overviews of the stories, and short extracts from them, as well as links where you can buy the two which are still on sale.

With A Halloween Homicide due for re-release in September and A Murder for Christmas some time around the end of October, it won’t be long before the site is buzzing, and of course, it will be the place to keep up with news and events in the madcap world of the 3rd age rockers from Sanford.

And don’t worry that you might be too young for the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries. They may be written by an old lunatic but they’ll please anyone of any age who enjoys a good whodunit.

So get on over there and take a look around the new home of the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries.

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The Filey Connection and The I-Spy Murders are published by Crooked Cat Books and are available in all e-formats.

Breaking News

Things change in this game from one day to another.

I’m supposed to be diddling with The Handshaker trilogy and the next Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery, and a short for a charity anthology, but then I get an email, and all of a sudlington, I have to build a website.

In the grand scheme of things, I should have done it months ago, and I even mentioned it a few weeks back, but as usual, I did nowt about it. Now I have to get on with it.

Why?

Because one of the early Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries has been picked up by Crooked Cat.

I originally self-published A Halloween Homicide last October, and it’s sold fairly consistently, but from today, it will be removed from my lists, and as of mid-September, it will be added to the growing list of titles on Crooked Cat Books.

Beyond that, we are also looking to transfer the publishing rights to A Murder for Christmas, too. That would bring to four the total of Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries available through Crooked Cat.

It’s time the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries had their own website. Not: the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries, not the Sanford 3rd Age Club. The danger is that someone out there will think that the Sanford 3rd Age Club is real. It should be. I’m a third ager and I’d love to be a member of that kind of set up, but sadly, right now, it’s a figment of my fetid imagination.

So I’m off to build the site, and once it’s up and running, you’ll get more details here. For now, why not take a quick look at the trailer for A Halloween Homicide. Today is the last day you’ll be able to buy it as it is.

The Clue

Those awfully nice people at The Masquerade Crew asked if I’d like to put up posts on novel writing, and sociable chap that I am, I said yes. What you have to accept from the outset is that this is my way. Many, perhaps most authors will disagree.

I don’t believe there is any right or wrong way to write a novel. I’ve done courses where they insist the writer prepare a detailed outline, a chapter by chapter plan before beginning work. I don’t plan, I just write. Having said that, I always have a start, an end, and a rough idea of where the thing is going before I set to work. I also set up a spreadsheet for each project, which contains a detailed list of the characters, their names, ages, birthdays, and their role in the work.

I write in several genres; crime, both cosy and hard boiled, sci-fi, paranormal/horror, even humour, but they all have one thing in common; an element of mystery, a puzzle to solve.

My most popular (believe me that term is relevant) works are my crime novels, both cosy and hard boiled, and for those I have something in addition to a rough idea and a cast of characters. I have the clue.

Whodunits have a whole string of clues strewn about the place, but somewhere along the line is the clue, that single piece of evidence which tips off our sleuth to the perpetrator’s identity. It could come as early as the first few pages, or as late as the page before last, but for obvious reasons, the detective won’t actually put it together it until late in the game. As the creator, I have to know what it is in advance.

It’s usually something apparently trivial: a tissue stuck to the detective’s shoe, a photograph taken in Morecambe in 1955 (for non-British readers, Morecambe is an English seaside resort) a stray black hair on a white shirt. Something which can be hinted at quite naturally in the text, the significance of which will not become apparent until our master sleuth slots it into its correct place.

It’s also buried amongst a welter of flotsam, all of it designed to let the reader know it’s there, but it’s not important. Its significance usually doesn’t register until it’s tied up with other evidence, all of which is there for the reader to work through in an attempt to guess whodunit. And it goes without saying that there must a logical reason for its presence: a reason other than murder, that is. What purpose did that tissue serve? Why was that photograph there? How did the black hair get on the white shirt? There’s a chain of logic behind all this, and it has to be an innocent chain of logic; something that happens quite naturally in the course of the tale and which could happen in real life.

Joe Murray, eponymous sleuth of my Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries, is a man with an eye for detail. Therefore, when he spots a gold chain around a woman’s neck, he sees that there is something odd about it, but for the reader, there is nothing sinister about a gold chain adorning an attractive woman’s neck.

Without the clue, I can’t even begin to work. Everything else builds towards the use of the clue to unmask the killer. I can write chapters, scenes, dialogue until doomsday plus one, but I don’t have a whodunit until I have the clue.

Where Have I Been?

I suppose you’re wondering where I’ve been for the last week. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re thinking thank heavens for a bit of peace and quiet.

I’ve been busy writing a novel in a week. And I did it. I produced a first draft of just over 60,000 words in seven days. You can read all the gory details in the daily reports here.

In the meantime, all my titles are still available for your entertainment, and if you’re reall interested in what came out the novel in a week, you need to read The Handshaker (available in paperback as well as e-formats) now. Part two will be out before the end of this year (I hope) and part three, which is the novel in a week should be available sometime next year.

I’m also posting a summary of the last week as a guest post on Nick Daws’ blog.

And now, I’m beginning to work with two daftest private eyes you could ever wish to meet. More about that later, when I’ve written them.

Novel in a Week Promotion

This is a twinned post. It appears both here and on the novel in a week blog.

For the benefit of those who don’t know, from tomorrow, 9th July, I’m going to try write the first draft of a novel in just one week. There’s no rhyme nor reason to the challenge. It’s not a bet, it’s not for charity, and no one prompted me to do it. I thought it all up on my own, the applied my usual foot-in-the-mouth technique which meant I had to go through with it.

With less than twenty four hours to go, and I’ve made a decision.

From tonight until the challenge ends at midnight (BST) next Sunday, all my self-published titles will be reduced to 99 ȼ (about 77p in English money).

This offer applies to my self-published titles only, and there’s a full list below.

The Handshaker
A Murder for Christmas (Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries)
A Halloween Homicide (Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries)
A Spookies Compendium
Space Truckers
Coldmoor (Stasis Centre)
The Dead Web (Stasis Centre)
Flatcap – Grumpy Old Blogger
E-book Formatting & Publishing on the Kindle (E-book formatting & Publishing on Smashwords for those people downloading via Smashwords.

You can find more details of these titles on Amazon UK, Amazon Worldwide and for those of you who prefer formats other than the Kindle, they’re also on Smashwords.

Pitching in with a little help, Crooked Cat Books have just reached the end of the summer sale, but they’ve agreed to keep the price of my Kindle titles at £1.53.

Those titles are:

The Filey Connection  (Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries)
The I-Spy Murders (Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries)
Voices (written as David Shaw)

So there you have it. All my titles on offer at reduced prices for the coming week.

Get ’em while they’re hot and cheap.

Calling All Traditionalists or Technophobes

Are you a traditionalist or technophobe? Do you prefer paper to electronic screens? In that case, how are you reading this blog?

Sorry: couldn’t resist it.

There are those people who prefer to read paperbacks. I make no apologies for being one. Before you write complaining that I’m quite happy to publish ebooks, but I don’t like reading them, the contradiction is not lost on me, but I don’t write and publish for me. I write for my readers, and like it or not, most of them prefer e-books. They’re (theoretically) cheaper and (theoretically) more environmentally friendly, and they have the advantage that you can carry hundreds of them with you on holiday without breaching the airline’s luggage weight limit.

This, however, begs the question, who would want to take hundreds of books on holiday? In a week’s worth of lounging round the hotel pool, I can usually get through a couple of novels, but hundreds…?

I digress.

It doesn’t matter whether you like or lump them, e-books are here to stay. But what about my readers who wouldn’t download an e-book even under the threat of being labelled “luddite”? What about those readers who prefer not to poppy up VAT?

To be fair to them, I have to put out paperbacks, and I’ve made a start.

The Handshaker is available as a paperback.

It’s an altogether different proposition to knocking out e-books. Despite all the hoo-hah and claims to the contrary, e-books are not difficult to format, and word processing packages like Microsoft Word will do it all for you. Paperbacks are a different pan of burning sausages. You’re working with materials that have finite dimensions, where the size of the font can’t be changed at the click of a button. You have to get it right, and The Handshaker took about 10 attempts before I got it right.

I should be able to reduce those misses as I work through my self-pubbed list, but that remains to be seen. I won’t be making a start on the rest of my titles for a week or three, until I have this novel in a week thing out of the way (and that starts tomorrow).

For now, if you’re a paperback lover, you can order The Handshaker from Amazon UK or Amazon Worldwide and enjoy.

Summer’s Cancelled – Read About Summer

It’s not been officially confirmed, but everyone knows it. Torrential rain, floods, high winds: British summer is cancelled yet again. But there are those places where you can read all about summer. It’s tucked away in the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While Joe, Sheila and Brenda are busy investigating suspicious deaths in Filey and the I-Spy house, the sun beams away in the background, flooding this green and pleasant land just like it used to do when we were kids. The only clouds on the horizon in the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries are the frequent murders, but what the hell, you can’t have everything, can you?

And here’s some more good news. For this weekend, Crooked Cat Books are having a summer sale. The weather the weather’s going, you’d have thought they’d have hedged their bets and opted for a non-seasonal sale, but it’s only terminology. The fact remains that:–

ALL CROOKED CAT BOOKS ARE DOWN IN PRICE FROM NOW UNTIL MIDNIGHT(ish) ON SUNDAY.

This means you can enjoy great titles like The Filey Connection, The I-Spy Murders, David Shaw’s Voices, Frances di Plino’s Bad Moon Rising, all for about thirty bob each. (Note: many of you young uns won’t understand thirty bob. It’s olde worlde language from the days before decimalisation and it means £1.50.)

So get yourself over to the Crooked Cat site and take your pick of their great titles, and save yourself some money while you’re at it.

You know it makes sense.

The Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries

 

Last Thursday saw the release of The I-Spy Murders, the second Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery to come out under the Crooked Cat label.

It brings the total number of books in the series to four.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some confusion arises over this point. The first two, A Halloween Homicide and A Murder for Christmas are self published. The latter pair, The Filey Connection and The I-Spy Murders are the result of my association with Crooked Cat Books.

Working through a publisher has many advantages and only a couple of disadvantages. To begin with, the book (whether ebook or paperback) is properly formatted. That’s not to say my self published titles are not properly formatted. They are, but there’s greater potential for errors when you’re going it alone.

Inconsistencies in storylines are more likely to be picked up when you’re working with a publisher, and again, that is not to say my SP titles are inconsistent. Maureen Vincent-Northam, who edits all my work, does a brilliant job.

A publisher also provides a larger shop window than I can manage alone.

The main advantage when working with a great team like the people at Crooked Cat, is the upload. When self-publishing, I have to upload one versions for the Kindle and another for Smashwords, because their formatting requirements are different. It could take anything up to a full morning to get everything just so. Crooked Cat deal with all that for me.

There’s one other plus. I get to know and work with a bunch of fine authors. We can bounce ideas back and forth, help each other, socialise and generally have a bit of a laugh.

There are just two disadvantages that I can see. First, I take a smaller cut. That (theoretically) should be offset by more sales. Second, I yield some control, and for a control freak like me, that’s hard going. But as a lesson in stress reduction (see post, I don’t have time for a heart attack) it’s probably worth it. It allows me more time to do what I do best: write.

For now, I still have those two early titles under my wing, but I’m already talking to Crooked Cat about the possibility of them taking over publication. It would simplify things for me, and it increases their list by two more covers.

Does this mean there will be more Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries? Damn right it does. I’m already working on the next two, and there are more in the planning stage, and although they’re on hold while I get through this barmpot idea of writing a novel in a week, I’m also planning a website dedicated to the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries.

Watch this space.

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The Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries are available for the Kindle through Amazon UK and Amazon Worldwide, and in all e-formats from Smashwords. For individual titles click on the cover image.

Why Write A Novel In A Week?

Here’s a mirror post from my other blog.

With The I-Spy Murders launched, my efforts are now geared to write a novel in a week.

I’ve been a writer for over 30 years. I’ve classed myself as a novelist for the last 10 years or more. I’ve been self-publishing through Amazon and Smashwords for the last year, and at the beginning of this year, I signed my traditional British whodunit series, the Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries to Crooked Cat Books.

Why, then, do I want to write a novel in a week?

It’s all about raising visibility. Many people assume, novelist = bone idle git making a fortune by dreaming up stories. If we’re talking about me, bone idle git probably fits, and I spend my life helping people suspend disbelief while they read my fairy tales. But making a fortune? I wouldn’t mind making a living.

My books don’t sell by the megaload, and it’s not because they’re crap. Most readers agree, they are good. If you don’t believe me, check out the reviews for The Handshaker. Readers rave about it.

My problem is that not enough readers rave about it. It currently sits on about 1600 Kindles (because it was free for a time earlier in the year) and yet only five people  have read and reviewed it. Even if all 1600 had done so, that’s no guarantee of higher sales.

Visibility, you see. I’m swimming in an ocean of wannabes and only so many are spotted. I’m not alone. Reading the material from some of those wannabes, they’re hard pressed to write a shopping list, but amongst the dross, there are many fine authors at work. Without thinking, I can reel off half a dozen names: Danny Gillan, Lesley Cookman, John Hudspith, Pam Howes, Rebecca Emin, Richard Hardie, Glynis Smy. None of these authors is associated with Crooked Cat Books. If I wanted to add my fellow Crooked Cat authors, I end up with a list of near on two dozen names in less than a minute.

We all have one thing in common. We’re trying to raise our profile trying to get noticed. There are as more ways of doing it than you can shake a stick at, and there are hundred of websites giving (sometimes selling) advice on how it’s done. I’ve not found any method to be particularly successful, so I’ve resorted to an old trick: write more books.

Oh. Right. It’s that simple is it?

No, it’s not simple. Writing a novel is long, arduous and complex process, but it’s what I do. Ideas are plentiful, themes, easy to come by, and I write in specific, popular genres, mainly crime, both cosy and hard-boiled. The longest part of the process is writing that first draft.

Common sense dictates that even if I achieve it, I could not keep up that level of production without turning this week’s phart attack into a proper heart attack. But what it will do is give me an insight into alternative methods that will further allow me to produce more books and (hopefully) help raise that magical visibility.

Post-Launch Depression

The I-Spy Murders is now out, sailing the coastal waters of the newly released, looking to set out on a round the world tour, which will hopefully take it further than Grimsby and Milford Haven.

There’s an emptiness which follows the publication of a novel. It’s something you’ve slaved over day (and night sometimes) for months, perhaps years. You’ve written, rewritten, edited, polished, abandoned whole sections and written fresh ones.

The I-Spy Murders was no different. It was originally set in the Skegness area of Lincolnshire, but because I didn’t want to turn the Sanford 3rd Age Club titles into “seaside mysteries” I was about half way through when I decided to switch the location to Chester. Whole rewrites were needed. I also found, as I’m so fond of pointing out, that 75% of the way through, the person I thought whodunit, didn’t. It was someone else and for entirely different reasons.

Then, one day, it’s done and it goes off to the editor. When it comes back, more rewrites and corrections are needed. Eventually, you have it something like, and it goes off to the publisher and a little while later, it comes back with yet more corrections and alterations. A bit of negotiating later, it is finished. Some time after that, it is launched on an unsuspecting public, but you haven’t done with it during that interim. There are covers to agree on, trailers to prepare, pre-publicity to get onto.

Finally you get to yesterday, and the big launch. It’s a party. And yesterday was a huge party. The book got off to a good start. It was in the genre chart by late afternoon/early evening. That’s what I call a good launch. And now…

Post-launch depression. The party’s over, the book is out there and it has to fend for itself. It’s like your child has grown up and gone off to university, saying, “don’t worry pop, I’ll do just fine.” All you can do is clean the room of empty beer bottles and stale leftovers, and think about what the future will be like for this “child”. A winner, a loser, an also-ran?

So what do you do? You pick yourself up and start on the next one, which is what I’m about to do.

First, however, there are the traditional acknowledgements.

First, I’d like to thank Maureen Vincent-Northam, my editor and story consultant. This lady gets all the early flak, from the doubts to the tantrums, and she does it without complaining… well, she does complain but I take no notice. Without her efforts, however, the scripts would be in a bigger mess than the banks.

Next there’s Steph and Laurence Patterson of Crooked Cat Books. Two thorough professionals who can see the benefit of faith in “unknown” authors. Whether you’re an author or a reader, check out their lists. There are some fantastic titles from brilliant new writers.

I’d also like to thank those people who joined in the merriment on Facebook yesterday. You’re great fun to be around even if only in the virtual sense.

Finally, of course, there are the readers. I don’t know who you are, how many of you there are, but I hope you have as much fun reading as I did writing.

Finally, finally, finally, in order to celebrate the release of the second Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery from Crooked Cat Books, the first title, The Filey Connection, is reduced in price for the whole of this weekend. Get it while it’s hot and cheap.

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The I-Spy Murders is available for the Kindle from Amazon UK and Amazon Worldwide and in all e-formats from Smashwords.