Mike Lewis's Blog, page 2
July 21, 2011
Paperback on its way
Although kindle books sell well and the penetration of ebooks into the book market (especially in the USA) is growing in leaps and bounds; people still like real books. This seems to be particularly true of the Young Adult / Older Children's market where my YA novel Changers' Summer is pitched.
While teenagers are starting to get e-readers (and I think this will snowball this Christmas as prices drop), they are not now in a majority.
With this in mind, I have taken the step of publishing Changers' Summer through Createspace, the Amazon POD service. The paperback will be a 6 x 9 trade paperback of 178 pages for $9.99 and will be available to order through Amazon's Extended Distribution Service; this theoretically means it will be available in any bookshop, but I know that bookshops don't generally order POD books.
I should get the proof for the paperback next week and, all being well, the paperback should be available a couple of weeks later.
This is the cover for the book version:
July 6, 2011
Finishing Things
I have spent the last week reviewing all my current outstanding writing projects and working out what to concentrate on next. There are a lot of them.
For some reason, over the last couple of years I have been struggling to finish stories to my satisfaction and stop the rewriting process. I have seven short stories which have been completed, critiqued by one of my two writing groups and then have simply sat there waiting for the rewrite.
I much prefer writing new material to rewriting, which is part of the problem. A new story promises so much, seems so perfect while it is in your head and you are planning it; it is only when written down that you realise the problems and the gaps and the revision starts.
I also have a completed 80k YA Steampunk fantasy novel "Sheldak" that needs to be reworked into a publishable form and the start of three more novels that vary from 5k to 30k in length. Add to that the outlines for 2 more novel series and there are a lot of ideas floating around.
My plan is to work on rewriting a short story a week and only when that is done can I work on something completely new. As well as that I am aiming to write one chapter a week of the second Changers' Summer book "The Rat King", which has now been outlined (past the already existing 15k start), with the aim of having the first draft done by the end of September.
Wish me luck!
June 21, 2011
The Lure of Promotion
It has been an interesting couple of weeks since I started this experiment in self-publishing in ebook format.
I now have 6 short stories, an anthology and Changers' Summer, my YA SF novel, available as well as a free short story to tempt people into buying the collection.
I have joined a couple of forums, bought a couple of adverts and have the promise of some reviews for Changers' Summer which should start to come in over the next month.
Now I feel is the time to start writing again rather than carrying on promoting. It seems to me, looking at the Kindle Boards forum, that some new writers get swept up in the excitement of their first book and the promotion of it. They spend all their time tweeting and facebooking, mentioning their book on forums; dreaming up new ways that they can cross-promote their book with other authors and lose sight of one thing: a book is not a career.
If you are going to be a writer then you need to write; away from the distractions of the internet, of social media. In the old days a writer only knew how well they were doing from the quarterly royalty reports. Then, we got Amazon sales rankings that people could obsess over. Now, you can check your kindle sales on the Amazon KDP site as they happen….
I have around 7 short stories which have been through critique groups but which have never quite gelled enough to be sent out. My target for the next couple of months is to work through these and get them submitted and out into the world. I am also 8 chapters into a new SF novel, plus I am working through the outline for the second Changers book.
So plenty to do and the act of getting the stories out on the Kindle, of getting some sales and some good reviews has motivated me to start writing again.
June 10, 2011
The Smell of Magic and Other Stories
My short story collection is now live and available on Amazon.
The Smell of Magic and Other Stories
A collection of eight Science Fiction and Fantasy short stories, plus two 500 words pieces of Flash Fiction. This collection features stories previously published in Realms of Fantasy, Mammoth books, On Spec, etc.
The story range from the fantasy romance of "The Smell of Magic", through the SF Romance "Ashes" to straight SF and contemporary fantasy.
The collection is 30,000 words in total.
Buy it here:
June 9, 2011
Completing the Cycle on Amazon.com
Completing the Cycle is now free on Amazon.com. I have a short story collection coming out soon so I am hoping that some of the people who download this one for free will be tempted to try the anthology.
Free Short Story on Amazon
My short story "Completing the Cycle" is now free on Amazon.co.uk and should shortly be free on Amazon.com.
It can also be downloaded for free from Smashwords
June 3, 2011
New blog now live
If you can see this then you will have noticed that I now have a blog here rather than the static pages that I used to have.
This is partly because the old site was rather tired and needed refreshing and partly because I have realised I am going to be more active in my writing; both in doing it and in promoting it.
Especially now that I have taken the first tentative steps into self-publishing in ebook formats via Amazon's KDP platform and smashwords.com.
This blog will document my journey back into writing and into the wonderful world of self-promotion…
Wish me luck!
