Claude Forthomme's Blog, page 56

The Sicily of Fear of the Past

[image error] Source: florenceprints.com via Claude on Pinterest



Sicily evokes the worst and the best in Man: the brutality of the mafia and the beauty of its art and landscapes. The corruption of its governments through the centuries, the gentleness and dignity of its people. To travel to Sicily is like taking a world tour around the human condition.





In many ways that's what my novel FEAR OF THE PAST is about. It's a coming of age story together with a family saga spanning nine centuries of Sicilian History. It is a travel novel that makes you discover a Sicily you didn't know existed.





When the protagonist, Tony Bellomo, a gifted American video game creator, goes to Sicily looking for his family roots (his deceased father is a Sicilian aristocrat), he first visits the Museo Bellomo in Ortigia (that's the old town of Syracuse founded by the Ancient Greeks). Here it is:





[image error] Source: it.wikipedia.org via Claude on Pinterest







A forbidding medieval fortress, right in the middle of the old town! The museum was the home of the Bellomo family for centuries before it was turned into a city museum around 1914. Alas, the museum held no family mementoes for Tony and, disappointed, he wanders down an old narrow street like this one:











Rounding a corner, he discovers an intriguing building, blue and white (this also exists - but it is in Ragusa, an hour away from Ortigia...Ah, call it creative license, but this is the place that actually inspired me to write FEAR OF THE PAST when I first saw it some 15 years ago):









On the frontispiece, you can read the name of the building:





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"Circolo di Conversazione" - the Conversation Club: in the 19th Century, every important town in Sicily had such a club, patterned after the men's clubs in Britain (the Sicilians have always followed British fashion in so many ways, including in viewing themselves as islanders, and calling the rest of Italy "il continente", the continent). 





Here's the lion head that inspired my book cover:





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And here's the book cover:





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Pretty close, right? I love that hieratic, menacing look, the past can be an unbearable burden...When Tony walks in the Circolo, he finds the ghosts of all his ancestors milling about, waiting for Judgment Day. To while away the time, they re-enact for each other the high points in their lives in a small theatre - and, mind you, the real Circolo has something quite close to a theatre room, here it is:





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You'll find all that red velvet, gilded mirrors and chandeliers in FEAR OF THE PAST. You'll also find real historical characters, like Ferdinand I, King of Two Sicilies (he preferred to live in Naples but ran away to Sicily when the Napoleonic armies, headed by Murat, invaded - he was helped in his escape by Admiral Nelson):





[image error] Source: en.wikipedia.org via Claude on Pinterest



And here's his wife, Queen Maria Carolina (she's the sister of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France) with whom he has a memorable clash in FEAR OF THE PAST. The two just didn't get along, although she gave him 18 children - but she ran the Kingdom in lieu of the King, something he didn't appreciate:





[image error] Source: en.wikipedia.org via Claude on Pinterest



This is an official portrait by their favorite painter Angelica Kauffmann (actually both paintings are by this very talented woman). Unfortunately, neither portrait is realistic: both Ferdinand and Maria Carolina were incredibly ugly. He had a huge nose - he was known as "Re Nasone" (King Big Nose) and she was incredibly Teutonic and harsh. Here is a later portrait of her that was undoubtedly closer to the model:





[image error] Source: google.com via Claude on Pinterest



A tough lady! When she spoke in her raucous voice, it sounded like she had a potato in her mouth - at least, that's what the Neapolitans said of her and the King had a habit of chasing pretty women and leaving his wife to go hunting days on end. Who can blame him?





He fell in love with the beautiful Duchess of Floridia and later married her as soon as Maria Carolina died (creating a scandal at court). Here she is, in 1814, just after marrying the King:





[image error] Source: it.wikipedia.org via Claude on Pinterest



She looks beautiful, doesn't she, considering that she's 43 years old in that picture (the King was 64). The King went crazy for her: he had a fantastic villa built for her, the Villa Floridiana, overlooking Naples and he stocked the park with lions and tigers and imported from Australia the first kangaroos that were ever seen in Europe. Here's the Villa Floridiana:





[image error] Source: it.wikipedia.org via Claude on Pinterest



The Duchess, before marrying the King, had, it seems, many affairs, including a secret English lover - Francis Leckie, an adventurer who settled in Sicily in the 1800s. Okay, I made that one up for the novel. We do know however that they were neighbors. Leckie had set up a modern farm at Tremiglia not far from the Duchess' properties around Floridia, a small rural town founded by a Bonanno (an ancestor of the Duchess - and that's how I got a lot of the historical information, through the Bonanno family archives).There is no proof but they could easily have met...





Things become complicated when Tony discovers he shares with Francis Leckie both his looks and his emotions - no doubt the result of a quirky genetic inheritance. When Tony meets the Duchess in the Circolo, she mistakes him for her secret lover and Tony finds himself unaccountably attracted to her...Can he outgrow this impossible love and escape the deadly grip of the Circolo?





But the Duchess of Floridia is not the only beautiful woman haunting the Circolo. There's also the Countess of Castiglione, known as the Divine Countess, a spy at the service of Cavour who became the mistress of Napoleon III and helped obtain France's support for Cavour's policies to unify Italy:





[image error] Source: url.it via Claude on Pinterest



This is a famous photograph made by Pierson, the Countess' favorite photographer in Paris. He took hundreds of photos of her over a period of 30 years in all manner of dresses and also...undressed. Her naked legs were a matter of scandal...Why is she in the Circolo? Because there was a rumour that she was the granddaughter of the Duchess of Floridia. What is her role in the novel? Spoiler alert, I won't tell you!





You've guessed, the plot involves many more people and periods of History before Tony finally gets hold of himself and starts living his own life. As one reviewer put it: " a rogues' gallery of heroes and sinners"...  In Part Three of the novel, Tony has left the Past behind him and works as an assistant in the IT Department of Catania University. 



Catania University? You probably think of it as an ancient, venerable institution and you'd be right. It was founded in the 15th century and boasts some beautiful buildings in the centre of the old town:





[image error] Source: flickr.com via Claude on Pinterest



But on the outskirts of town, it's very modern. Here is the Department of Physics and Astronomy:





[image error] Source: google.com via Claude on Pinterest



Surprisingly modern for Sicily, isn't it? But Catania is known as the "Silicon Valley" of Italy. It's in just such a building that Tony works on a new social media network. With the help of students, he creates the "Chat Club" that soon becomes wildly successful but, alas, it also attracts the appetites of both the Russian and Sicilian mafia. The woman he loves is kidnapped...How can he save her and his creation, the Chat Club?





Curious? I've made it easy for you: 

You can download the book FREE from 14 to 16 March  click here: Fear of the Past, a novel





And please, when you're on the Amazon site, click that "like" button...if that's how you feel, of course! I had lots of "likes" and positive 4* and 5* reviews for Part One of the FEAR OF THE PAST that was published as a separate e-book (it came out in May 2011) but now that it's out as a single volume (since February), I've lost all those "likes" and reviews. I know, to divide the novel into three ebooks was a marketing mistake - I blogged about that recently...





Want more pictures related to the book? Go take a look at my board on Pinterest where I pinned many more pictures than I can show here: click here. I find Pinterest hugely fun, you should join it!





And why don't you plan a vacation to Sicily and prepare for it reading FEAR OF THE PAST? You'll know more about Sicily than your tour guide! Or if you can't go to Sicily, dream about it reading the novel...

When a Hospital Turns into a Fairy-Tale Castle: It Could Only Happen in Italy!

If you drive out of Rome going to the airport, you pass by what looks like a modern hospital: Romans call it the Ospedale della Magliana and it is run by the Knights of the Order of Malta. Built in the 1960s, it's one of the most modern hospitals in Italy, well known for its neurology service taking care of paraplegics and endowed with a fully equipped state-of-the-arts coma recovery room.



What is not so well known is the hidden gem behind that modern, efficient façade: a medieval castle turned by a succession of Popes in the 15th and 16th century into a a magnificient villa they used as a hunting lodge. Here's the main entrance to the hospital:





Yes, crenellated walls! And the surprises don't end here. Look at the entrance gate, leading into the inner courtyard:





I couldn't resist, I ran up to that arch:





I walked through and this is what I discovered:







This is the heart of the ancient Renaissance villa-castello della Magliana, as it is called. Restored by the Order of Malta, this part of the hospital is used to house the administration offices and a school for training nurses and voluntaries. The flag of the Order, a white cross on a red background, floats near one of the entrances:





But the main entrance is this one:





And the staircase leads to the main reception room:





A grand room - the ceiling is at least 10 meters high, and on the right, there is a portrait of Charles V, the Spanish King who donated the island of Malta to the Knights of the Order. The frescoes have been taken off the walls to be restored.



At the end of a series of offices, there's this beautiful loggia (the two people conversing here give you an idea of the size of this loggia - indeed of the whole building):





The view from the loggia, looking out on the courtyard is breathtaking:





And just across from the villa, here is the old barn, gigantic and...looking like a military fortress:





This building is of course a part of the actual hospital (operating rooms etc) and here are the bedrooms for the patients (250 beds):





Yes, very modern, with all the rooms looking onto this garden that was filled with white spring flowers when I took the pictures (I took them on 9 March). In fact, because of the requirements of the Italian Belle Arti - the Ministry that acts as a watchdog on the Italian patrimony -  permission for additional, permanent buildings are difficult to obtain. As a result, the chapel has been housed in a vast tent. You can see it here:





Since it is so vast, it also serves as a meeting room, a screening room for films and even a place to sing and hold Karaoke events! Here is the inside, note the altar in the centre and a video screen on the right:





There are also other temporary buildings, including a Day Hospital:





And yet, because Italy is the way it is - there's always something falling apart and that needs to be rebuilt - there is still one building on the grounds, an old farmhouse (probably built in the 1920s) with a roof that has fallen in and that could surely find some appropriate use:





It's quite a large place, and right in the middle of the hospital grounds. Here you can appreciate how big it is and how far the roof has fallen (right side of the picture):





You can also see some of the lovely trees (in the back) that dot the hospital grounds...Surely the Italian Belle Arti will allow restoration of this house and make the hospital a perfect place?

Italy: Protest Against Monti Government Is a Failure, Here's the Evidence

The way protests looked in Italy at the time of Berlusconi (September 2011) Image via Wikipedia

Everyone expected social tensions to rise in Italy, following  on the austerity measures the Monti government had to adopt to address the catastrophic debt situation.



Yesterday, 9 March, was meant to be a major protest accompanied by a general strike of the "metal-mechanics". The first BIG mass protest since the Italian trade unions had planned on a general strike two months ago. It involved one of the three big unions, CGIL, the leftist union (Italian General Confederation of Labor) plus a smaller union, FIOM, the trade union that recently walked out of the FIAT auto industry contracts offered by CEO Marchionne.



FIOM has always wanted to become the 4th big union in Italy but so far hasn't made it. Now that it's out of FIAT, it finds it has problems financing itself (FIAT has traditionally provided funding to the unions it is involved with). And yesterday, as it turned out, the big leftist party in Italy, the PD (it is in fact supporting the Monti government measures) did not participate. The only politicians who turned up were small fry: Di Pietro, a maverick leading the small, inconsequential IDV party (Italia dei Valori) and Vendola, an ambitious extremist on the Left that most people shun.



FIOM claimed its general strike at FIAT was adhered to by 70% of workers while FIAT itself reported only 5 to 7%. I leave you to imagine who's right.



What about Piazza San Giovanni in Rome, where the major meeting of all the protesters had been organized?



Italian newspapers this morning (as I write this post) show pictures of streams of people filling the streets and walking to Piazza San Giovanni, waving red flags and chanting.



Fine. Streets are narrow, they're filled much more easily than a big open Piazza  like San Giovanni. I was curious because the amount of noise I could hear from my flat sounded subdued. I walked over around 2 pm as the concluding speech was delivered.



Small wonder the noise was contained: very few people had actually turned up.



Here's the photographic evidence - something you will not see in Italian newspapers (they were careful to photograph streets filled with people walking together and agitating red flags). Look at this photograph I took while walking up to San Giovanni:





This is hardly a packed piazza with standing-room-only the way I remembered it when people protested against Berlusconi a couple of years ago. That time I hadn't even been able to cross the avenue and walk up to the Church, it had been a wall of people! And it has nothing to do with the turnout on September 6, 2011 when Berlusconi tried a "manovra finanziaria" to impose austerity measures (see picture at top of post).



Yesterday there was so much space nearer to the podium (right side of pix) and in front of the Church that people walked about and laid on the grass, soaking up the sun:



 

Feels like a Sunday outing... It was nice and warm, a perfect day for a chat with girl friends:





People certainly had fun preparing for it, some even did a purple octopus  holding onto puppets of politicians (Monti is on the right):





There were the usual t-shirt vendors - this one doesn't seem to have done much business:





And a lone, bearded beggar as people were leaving the piazza (but he seemed by-passed by most people in a hurry to grab lunch - it was already 2:30 pm at that point):





 No doubt this kid had a whale of a good time, beating the drum:





But children were in a minority - so were young people. My impression was that most people there middle-aged or old:





The few young all seemed to belong to extremist groupings, like the No TAV people (those who want to stop the construction of a High Speed train linking Northern Italy directly to France):





There's a pile of garbage dumped in the forefront of this picture, see it? Admittedly, this time the mess was relatively contained (as the noise was) but still...Everytime there's a mass protest organized in Piazza San Giovanni I feel sad.



Very sad.



It seems like such a shame to reduce to shambles with garbage (and worse - there are never enough public toilets) a lovely piazza, surely one of the high points in the city for tourists. Perhaps more importantly, San Giovanni is the Church of the Bishop of Rome, and the Bishop is none other than the Pope - hardly an appropriate place for mass protests (considering a hospital is near-by and the noise can be deafening).



There are many other places in Rome that would be more appropriate (ranging from the Circo Massimo to places outside the Raccordo Annulare, including the one Pope John Paul II used). Yet politicians on the Italian Left have traditionally considered Piazza San Giovanni as theirs to do with what they please...and if the traffic in town grinds to a halt because of a mass protest in San Giovanni, politicians certainly don't care. They've got their "auto blu" (blue official cars) and bodyguards and go anywhere they please. It's us, poor citizens, that have to pay: we get the noise and the dirt; we have to pay the extra police to maintain order and street cleaners to clean up the mess.



That's democracy for you!

7 Tips to Make Your Free Book Downloads a Marketing Success

[image error] Image via Wikipedia

Writers are convinced making their book free for a short while will propel their books to the best seller lists and it's all to the readers' advantage. Free books! Why would writers want to give away their books? To expand their audience...





I just ran such a free promotion (form 7 to 9 March for my new collection of short stories DEATH ON FACEBOOK) and I wanted to share with you what I learned about free promotions so far and how to run them. I used the KDP Select feature that allows you 5 days of free promotion every three months, but I'm certain that what I'm saying here applies to whatever system you use to give-away your books. 





First, as the promotion is on-going, keep an eye on it. Amazon tells you how many free downloads are made by the hour (that's on your "reports" board) and calculates your ranking overall in the free books available in the Kindle Store, and if you've classified your book in a genre, it also gives you the ranking every hour. 





If you've picked a genre where there's little competition, for example "techno thrillers", you can easily shoot up in the top 100 and become a "best seller" overnight. Ok, it doesn't mean much because it's the "paid in Kindle Store" list that really counts, but it certainly is a boost to the ego! My DEATH ON FACEBOOK shot up to  #19 in the literary fiction category. It didn't stay long there, and went back up to 25 or so, but at least I broke into a top 100, even a top 20! And I felt really good: this was the "literary" list which has the reputation of being a tough one to climb (lots of titles in it because, in a sense, unlike a sub-genre, it rakes in a lot of titles). Actually, if you want to hit #1 all you need do is get your book classified in an obscure genre... 





No need to get too excited: that's a fleeting moment of fame if there ever was one! Amazon's computer refreshes the data constantly so it's like riding a toboggan.





Whether DEATH ON FACEBOOK will get anywhere in the "paid" rankings has yet to be seen - first the promotion must end. I'll keep you posted, but here I wanted to explore what makes for a successful promotion.





Let me start by saying that I wasn't sold on the idea of a free promotion. I couldn't see the point. People download free books, yes, but do they read them? There is that terrible equation lurking in the back of my mind: free means without value.





Is making your book free equal to making it worthless?





David Gaughan recently reported on the astonishing success of one of his writer friends with a book that has most certainly a great title: "That Bear Ate My Pants". Several of my writer friends told me of their success, claiming that hundreds of free downloads were followed by a bump in sales the next days. Still dubious?  Here's another remarkable success story reported by Rob Blackwell: How KDP Select Made Me a Best Selling Author.





Okay, so what do all these success stories have in common?





1. A great title - the book cover doesn't matter as much. People have no time to check it out - remember downloading a free product on Internet takes a few seconds, it's done on an impulse. Rob's title was good: A Soul to Steal . I'm not asking you waht you think of mine!





2. An effective pitch line - when promoting your book, you need to catch the readers' attention fast, with four or five words. I played with the words in my book title: "who's dead on Facebook, find out!"That was good and short, easy to use in tweets.





3. Get reviews if you can: this is tough because you're promoting the book precisely because it's new, you haven't had time to gather reviews or "likes" on the Amazon site. I was lucky that my book immediately attracted the attention of two very talented fellow writers, Oscar Sparrow and Emma Calin (whom I've met on Internet), and they immediately posted fantastic reviews that made me blush. But reviews do help, and so do the number of "likes": that's something people see when they download the book.





4. Hard marketing work -  first you ought to plan on it in advance. Get your freebie announced all over the place in appropriate online sites like Pixel of Ink (email form on site), Ereader News Today (use the admin addie on their Contact page), Kindle on the Cheap (email form onsite), WLC's Friday announcement of freebies, Free Kindle Books and Tips or post on the Authors on the Cheap on Facebook on the days it's free. I must confess I did none these except for Pixel of Ink and that didn't work: my giveaway period came and went and they never announced it. My form had been duly compiled in advance but maybe it fell through in the clouds of Internet...





So that's one area where I didn't play my game right. I ended up left with just my own devices: my contact list (which I forgot to use!) and my friends and followers on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and Google+. 





So yes, you'll find you are tweeting like mad (scheduling tweets so that they are not bundled together and spam people) and posting everywhere. Your only hope is that your followers and friends will retweet. Use whatever reading club you belong to, whatever social media you've joined! And of course, use your blog to announce the freebie. 





Be prepared for a lot of glitches! So play on many different boards.  I had just joined PINTEREST, a new site that's catching on fast. And small wonder, it's great fun: it's not based on words and messages but on images - as everyone knows, pictures are a favorite on Internet. You get to pin pictures you come across the Internet organize them by boards and share with your friends. If you're intrigued, here are the boards I just started: http://pinterest.com/claudenougat/ . 





I don't know whether it works for a free promotion but it might if you organized a board around it. Take a look at my boards,  you'll see there's one titled "books worth reading". It would be fairly simple to start a board built around a single book title. Haven't had time yet, but I will certainly do so: I can just see a DEATH ON FACEBOOK board filled with  lots of weird, terrifying pictures! And include in there a poster announcing your giveaway (you can do one quickly with felt tipped pens and take a picture of it). Try to make it eye-catching or humourous!





And, by the way, make your promo messages as personal as you can, nobody likes to be spammed!





5. A sufficient time for promotion: 2 days is a minimum, 3 days is better. Five days? I don't know. I've tried 3 days this time and it seems to work - but my blog, where everyone expects me to post twice a week had begun to suffer (today is Friday). So you need to push your free promotion without forgetting your blog!





6. Schedule the promotion away from busy times: Pixel of Ink, warns that on the first of the month there's a glut. Maybe so. In any case, it seems to make sense to offer the book free during the week: just like people reads blogs more during the week than on week-ends, the promotion will reach more people during the week.





7. Remember to promote after the free period is over: this is a point Rob makes in his blog post, and perhaps the best source to consult on how to do this is Jeff Bennington's guide.





So, yes, a free promotion is not exactly a time for the author to sit back and do nothing! Indeed, as reported by J.D.Currie on his blog  - he's one of the many writers who have participated in KDP Select's free promotions - results can vary enormously between authors: some are extatic, others are disgruntled. Who knows why...Currie reports that the positives outweigh the negatives. 





One important difference in results seems to hinge on whether you have more than one book for sale. Best of all if your books are in a series: then giving one away, boosts the others. Makes sense. Obviously, that's exactly what I'm hoping for: if you liked DEATH ON FACEBOOK, you're going to be curious and want to check out FEAR OF THE PAST!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed...





Long-term effects of free promotion? The results aren't in, nobody really knows (or don't want to tell). Logically, free promos provide a bump in sales - whether the bump is transformed in a steady rise is a question of luck. And yes, the quality of the work matters. After all, we are talking about literature, aren't we?









Related articlesSimple Steps to a Successful KDP Select Free Promotion (cwcberkeleymarketing.wordpress.com)
February Sales Report: Amazon Up, Everywhere Else Down (davidgaughran.wordpress.com)
The Joys of KDP Select: Patrice Fitzgerald's Story (davidgaughran.wordpress.com)
The Modern Author - A New Breed of Writer for the Digital Age of Publishing (warriorwriters.wordpress.com)
Does Promotion Work for Small Press Authors? (bookbrowsing.wordpress.com)

How a Free Promo Can Turn Your Book into a Best Seller: 7 Tips to Make It a Success

[image error] Image via Wikipedia

Writers are convinced making their book free for a short while will propel their books to the best seller lists and it's all to the readers' advantage. Free books! Why would writers want to give away their books? To expand their audience...in this connection:





REMINDER: TODAY - 9 MARCH - IS THE LAST DAY OF MY FREE PROMOTION. CLICK HERE TO GET IT:  Death on Facebook, Short Stories for the Digital Age





So far, at the time of writing, I have great news: DEATH ON FACEBOOK, really did shoot up in Amazon best-selling ranks: #19 in the literary fiction category!  I broke into a top 100, even a top 20! 





Okay, let's put a blanket on all that excitement. Right. This kind of ranking changes every hour. It's a fleeting moment of fame if there ever was one! Amazon's computer refreshes it constantly so it's like riding a toboggan.





Yes, I know, it's not very meaningful, but it's given me hope, no question about it. First time I'm anywhere near the top of any best-selling list! And on the "literary" list to boot, which has the reputation of being a tough one to climb (lots of titles in it because, in a sense, unlike a sub-genre, it covers a lot of ground). Actually, if you want to hit #1 all you need do is get your book classified in an obscure genre. I remember that when the third installment of my FEAR OF THE PAST came out last December, after it had sold just a couple of copies, it had shot up to #34 in the Techno- Thriller Genre! So yes, there's not much relationship between number sold (or downloaded free). Actually, Amazon keeps rankings for "paid" and "free" in Kindle Store and obviously the ranking that really counts is the "paid" one.





Whether DEATH ON FACEBOOK will get anywhere in the "paid" rankings has yet to be seen - first the promotion must end. I'll keep you posted, but here I wanted to explore what makes for a successful promotion.





Let me start by saying that I wasn't sold on the idea of a free promotion. I couldn't see the point. People download free books, yes, but do they read them? There is that terrible equation lurking in the back of my mind: free means without value.





Is making your book free equal to making it worthless?





David Gaughan recently reported on the astonishing success of one of his writer friends with a book that has most certainly a great title: "That Bear Ate My Pants". Several of my writer friends told me of their success, claiming that hundreds of free downloads were followed by a bump in sales the next days. Still dubious?  Here's another remarkable success story reported by Rob Blackwell: How KDP Select Made Me a Best Selling Author.





Okay, so what do all these success stories have in common?





1. A great title - the book cover doesn't matter as much. People have no time to check it out - remember downloading a free product on Internet takes a few seconds, it's done on an impulse. Rob's title was good: A Soul to Steal . I'm not asking you waht you think of mine!





2. An effective pitch line - when promoting your book, you need to catch the readers' attention fast, with four or five words. I played with the words in my book title: "who's dead on Facebook, find out!"That was good and short, easy to use in tweets.





3. Get reviews if you can: this is tough because you're promoting the book precisely because it's new, you haven't had time to gather reviews or "likes" on the Amazon site. I was lucky that my book immediately attracted the attention of two very talented fellow writers, Oscar Sparrow and Emma Calin (whom I've met on Internet), and they immediately posted fantastic reviews that made me blush. But reviews do help, and so do the number of "likes": that's something people see when they download the book.





4. Hard marketing work - yes, you must tweet and hope your followers and friends will retweet. You have to use your contact lists everywhere: Facebook, Google+, Goodreads. Those are the main ones, but of course use whatever reading club you belong to, whatever social media you've joined. Prepare your marketing in advance, announcing the promo on sites such as Pixel of Ink, Ereader News Today, Kindle on the Cheap, Free Kindle Books and Tips or Authors on the Cheap on Facebook. I must confess I missed most of these but I did list my book on Pixel of Ink. They have an "author's corner" to do this but it didn't work. I had duly filled their form well in advance, but they missed me - don't know why, a glitch, probably.





Be prepared for a lot of glitches! So play on many different boards.  I've just joined PINTEREST, a new site that's catching on fast. And small wonder, it's great fun: it's not based on words and messages but on images - as everyone knows, pictures are a favorite on Internet. You get to pin pictures you come across the Internet organize them by boards and share with your friends. If you're intrigued, here are the boards I just started: http://pinterest.com/claudenougat/ . Take a look and join me there! You'll see there's a board titled "books worth reading" and of course you can start a board built around your own book titles. Haven't had time yet, but I will certainly do so: I can just see a DEATH ON FACEBOOK board filled with  lots of weird, terrifying pictures!





And, by the way, make your promo messages as personal as you can, nobody likes to be spammed!





5. A sufficient time for promotion: 2 days is a minimum, 3 days is better. Five days? I don't know. I've tried 3 days this time and it seems to work - but my blog, where everyone expects me to post twice a week had begun to suffer (today is Friday). So you need to push your free promotion without forgetting your blog!





6. Schedule the promotion away from busy times: Pixel of Ink, an online site that gathers all news about promotions, warns of the first of the month, saying there's a glut around that time. In any case, it seems to make sense to offer the book free during the week: just like people reads blogs more during the week than on week-ends, the promotion will reach more people during the week.





7. Remember to promote after the free period is over: this is a point Rob makes in his blog post, and perhaps the best source to consult on how to do this is Jeff Bennington's guide.





So, yes, a free promotion is not exactly a time for the author to sit back and do nothing! Indeed, as reported by J.D.Currie on his blog  - he's one of the many writers who have participated in KDP Select's free promotions - results can vary enormously between authors: some are extatic, others are disgruntled. Who knows why...Currie reports that the positives outweigh the negatives. One important difference in results seems to hinge on whether you have more than one book for sale. Best of all if your books are in a series: then giving one away, boosts the others. Makes sense. Obviously, that's exactly what I'm hoping for: if you liked DEATH ON FACEBOOK, you're going to be curious and want to check out FEAR OF THE PAST!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed...





Long-term effects of free promotion? The results aren't in, nobody really knows (or don't want to tell). Logically, free promos provide a bump in sales - whether the bump is transformed in a steady rise is a question of luck. And yes, quality of the work. After all, we are talking about literature, aren't we?









Related articlesSimple Steps to a Successful KDP Select Free Promotion (cwcberkeleymarketing.wordpress.com)
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Somebody's Dead on Facebook, Find Out!

Cover design by Claude Nougat


My new collection of short stories is out: Death on Facebook. Find out who's dead on Facebook! And find out what makes for good story telling in our Digital Age...



I've made it easy for you to check it out: Death on Facebook, Short Stories for the Digital Age will be FREE from 7 to 9 March, starting Pacific Time (so keep that in mind if you live in Europe!). That's 3 days, from Wednesday to Friday.



Click the link to download the book: Death on Facebook, Short Stories for the Digital Age



This short story collection is my writer's MANIFESTO!



Or put another way: my stories follow specific rules that I believe make for a good short story adapted to our digital age.



A manifesto? I know that's a big word, but it expresses what (in my view) short stories should do for you, the reader, in our day and age. More on that in the page I've just dedicated to Death on Facebook under the Blog's title, look it up or click here if you're interested.



Here I'd like to tell you about the quandary a writer is in whenever s/he tries to sell short stories. We're told there's no market for them. You can go to the magazines, but half of them are shutting down and most don't pay or pay abysmally (like $10!). Publishers won't touch short stories with a ten foot pole unless you're already a New York Times best-selling author and/or you've been published by the New Yorker...



What to do?



Fortunately e-readers, and especially Amazon with its Kindle Single program, have changed that. You don't need a 500 page novel to get published and reach out to your readers. A short story collection, too small to make a printed book can be sold digitally (mine is some 22,000 words - about 45 printed pages).



Moreover I'm convinced there's a place for short stories in everyone's lives, especially in our globalized, digital world. We multi-task like mad and often don't have time for a long, relaxed read. We're waiting at the doctor's or bored commuting on our daily train and a short story, read in ten minutes, can be a welcome relief from the tediousness of the moment. Flip open your Kindle and relax. A short story has the power to take your mind off, make you dream, make you smile...



If that's the case and I'm right about when one tends to read a short story, then certain rules should be observed to ensure the reader has a good experience:

1. A fast, snappy opening, a maximum of ten words to grab your reader's attention.

2. A well-paced plot and no back story - or a bare minimum, enough so that the reader has a clear image of who the protagonists are and what they're doing. The suspense has to be maintained at a high level.

3. A surprise ending, good and short, no elaboration. It has to leave you, the reader, thinking about the story (and of course, wanting to read more).



That's why I've sub-titled my book "short stories for the Digital Age". They're not unfocused, atmospheric pieces like poems. Some short stories are like that, mine are not. And that's deliberate: I wanted to write them following the above-mentioned rules. Don't misunderstand me, I love atmospheric short stories but the moments to enjoy that kind of literature are getting fewer and fewer in our frenzied lives. When you stand in line at the post office, you're not in the mood for poetry...



So the way to go is short and punchy. These are hard rules to live up to. If you're a writer, you might want to check and see if I've done them justice.



If you're a reader, forget the rules and read the stories and let me know if you enjoyed them! I don't ask for reviews (I'd love them of course!) but I know your time is limited: if you can, just click the "like" and "tags" buttons on the Amazon site, I'll know that I've met your expectations. Nothing would make me happier. Or drop me a line. I'd love to connect with you!



To download the book: Death on Facebook, Short Stories for the Digital Age

Free from Wednesday 7 March to Friday 9 March included.

For more information about the author, visit Claude Nougat's Author Pages on:

Facebook

Amazon

Goodreads 



For more information about Death on Facebook, click here.

Related articles$10.00 For A Flash Fiction Short Story (pittsburghflashfictiongazette.com)

Writers' Chat with Magda Olchawska on Filmmaking and Writing

Differences, Similarities and Where Filmmaking is HeadedLiterature has been radically changed by filmmaking.  Before the advent of films, novels were full of detailed descriptions and back stories. The great writers of the 19th century, from Dickens to Tolstoy are prime examples of this. No more. Successful novels nowadays are all based on the "show, don't tell" rule that implies a minimum of description and a maximum of dialogue and action. 

Today, I'm having an unusual writers' chat about filmmaking with Magda Olchawska who's that rare bird: both a writer and a filmmaker.  Here she is, smiling in her garden:



Magda has directed The Man with the Spying Glass and 9mm, both award-winning short films and some of her film work can be viewed on her website:  www.magdaolchawska.com. Plus she is the author of Mikolay & Julia Adventures series for children, available on Amazon  with more books scheduled to come out in March. Magda's next film is about human trafficking and how this illegal "business" profits not only criminals but also people in the public eye (this is a work of fiction: there are no similarities to any real life characters). The film will commence shooting in May 2012 and will be available at the beginning of 2013.

So here's our chat, published simultaneously on our respective blogs:

Claude: To write a novel takes very little investment beyond buying a computer and linking up on Internet. My biggest effort so far has been to set up a blog, trying to write two posts per week - a daunting challenge as it takes time away from creative writing. Though blogging is arguably a good exercise for a writer, keeping her nimble with the writing pen. As a film maker, life is different. You are immediately confronted with the challenge of raising the necessary funds before you can even think about starting to shoot the first scene. What has been your experience in this regard?

Magda: You are absolutely right. Filmmaking is a very expensive, time consuming and energy consuming activity. Pretty often filmmakers don't see their finished film for two years, if not more. It's a long process to ready a script, then shoot it and edit the whole thing. As a writer you are pretty much on your own. When you are making a movie, you have to deal with a bunch of different people. Harrowing work but the thrill of seeing your movie up on a big screen is indescribable.

Claude: How do you get the funding you need?

Magda: At the moment there are  two ways of getting funding for a movie. Investment (popular in US) or some sort of Film Institute funded production (popular in Europe). Many established filmmakers have access to either investors or money from several film institutes across Europe.

Claude: But what about young film makers starting out like you?

Magda: Oh, most of us spend our own money! Or we have to run campaigns on crowds funding websites such as Indie GoGo or Kickstarter. A lot of fantastic movies have been made through crowdfunding. Movies that otherwise wouldn't have a slightest chance of being produced neither in Europe or US. I'm going to run a campaign for my new movie on Indie GoGo as well.



Claude: Why Indie GoGo rather than Kickstarter? Why not both?

Magda: It's simple as a European I can't run a campaign on Kickstarter. Kickstarter is only for US citizens. Indie Go Go is more flexible.

Claude: What other advice do you have for young filmmakers?

Magda: At the moment, in my opinion, with such an easy access to any kind of equipment, if someone wants to be a filmmaker they should just make movies and practice.

Claude: Maybe work for an established film director? How do you feel about that? Have you ever worked for someone like that – someone important in the filmmaking industry?

Magda: I never worked for anyone important in the industry. If you get the opportunity to do it you should. However I wouldn't  waist time chasing those opportunities.

Claude: Don't you have to build up contacts in the industry – go to film festivals? I know that as writers we all try – within the limits of our budgets – to attend writers' conferences …

Magda: Yes, I go to a lot of film festivals. I do enjoy film festivals 'cos they're real celebrations of film and filmmakers, especially festivals in USA. I think European festivals could learn a thing or two from their friends across the pond.

Claude: Like what? What is it that Europeans could do better at their film festivals?

Magda: Make a "big fuss" about filmmakers attending the festival (please do appreciate us and our films: without our hard work you wouldn't have a festival) , treat us better and don't ask us to pay for festival passes. The most filmmakers friendly festival I've been to is the Newport Beach Film Festival. It also would be nice if European festivals concentrated a bit more on European films and not limit themselves to those made by established filmmakers.

Claude: Wow, life for a young filmmaker sounds harder than for an aspiring writer! What about inviting writers to film festivals and maybe film makers to writers' conferences? Do you think that would work? Would it provide some needed cross fertilization between the two industries?

Magda: This is a brilliant idea. I think it could make writers & filmmakers life much easier.

Claude: Yes, I've always felt bridges should be built between literature and filmmaking – institutional bridges that would help draw attention to new books that are highly "filmable" and that would give those writers with the necessary visual imagination a chance to work on film scripts. But tell me, Magda, I'm curious: since you're both a writer and a filmmaker, how does your writing impact your film making? I know that when I write, I literally "see" the story unfold in front of my mind's eye and try to write - at least the first draft - as fast as I can to keep up with the action. Do you feel the same way about writing or do you view it is a totally different activity from film making? Do you write you own scripts or do you use others and get a team together to write the film? In your experience, what works best?

Magda: I write my own scripts. I have to say that writing has chosen me. While writing, and it doesn't matter if it's a story, a book or a script, I see everything in my mind. Just like you do. However when it comes to filmmaking seeing and writing and executing afterwards on the set is a totally different story. Each scene is going to be shown from various angles and you don't write this in a script. But I have to think about this before I make a movie. Movies are made by  large teams of people and each person brings something different to the whole experience.

Claude: So what is your job as a film director?

Magda: My job is to give everyone instruction and tell them, which way we are all going so we take the written words and turn them into a picture. When I'm on a set I'm a 100 % filmmaker but off the set I'm more of a writer than a filmmaker.

Claude: Film making involves a lot of people beyond the script writers. That's very different from a writer's life. For us writers, life is lived largely in isolation, in our ivory towers dreaming up novels. I know because that's what I do and that's what I like best about writing: the time I have alone in front of my computer, time to let my imagination go. That of course doesn't make it any easier for me to change gears and start promoting my books: a writer is uniquely unprepared to do marketing. But a film maker like you, Magda, has to interact with all sorts of people on a daily basis or the film doesn't get done and doesn't get distributed! Does this constant interaction with people help you bring your film to a happy conclusion or is it a cause of delays? How do you survive the film maker's life as a writer?

Magda: I do spend a lot of time in isolation, just writing and coming up with the stories. However once the pre-production period begins (this is the time when all the important stuff is being done such as getting actors and crew and secure all the equipment so we can go into the production) I have no time for writing and spend most of my time on the phone or sorting out stuff I didn't think of while I was writing.

Claude: With the digital revolution, the writer's life has been radically changed. All of us, indie writers but traditionally published writers too, are pushed into the driver's seat when it comes to marketing. Willy-nilly, book promotion eats up our writing time.  Any similar change in filmmaking?

Magda: The times have changed for indie filmmakers as well and just like writers we need to promote and distribute our own movies.  The promotion of a movie begins when the pre-production begins. The big studios start promoting some of their movies way before they even know who is going to make it or star in it. Just to make the general public aware of the upcoming movie.

Claude: That's amazing, that means starting the promotion at least two years ahead! As a writer you start promoting only once the book is published…But do indie filmmakers like you do the same?

Magda: We do. With my last short film I spent a year promoting and screening it at various film festivals. With feature films filmmakers often spend 2-3 years promoting the movie. You spend a year making the movie, then another two years promoting it. To have any kind of balance and sanity (three or more years on a project can drive anyone insane) filmmakers do other stuff too. I started writing.

Claude: Magda, I'd like to explore with you for a moment the content of films. Movies are often based on best-selling novels - for example, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, a film that was made several decades after the novel had come out and become a cult book or Stieg Larsson's immensely successful Millenium trilogy. The latter inspired film makers twice: in Sweden an early version was made, followed now by a big Hollywood remake. Indeed, remakes abound in movie-making. Yet, at the same time, movies can be very innovative and sometimes make you feel they are ahead of literature. For example, there have been of late a series of films featuring older people, retirees that face challenges in their second life - a subject often played out in a humorous way. Films featuring old actors are making it to top rankings in the box office: for example, Judi Dench and Maggie Smith (both 76), Helen Mirren (65), Meryl Streep (62) Sylvester Stallone (64), Liam Neeson (58) and I'm sure you can think of many others. Plots are focused on the mature (for example the current hugely successful Margaret Thatcher's biopic) or the retired and aging, like the 2010 hit "RED" which stands for "retired and extremely dangerous". That's something new, an area so far largely unexplored by novelists. We have a huge wave of Young Adult Literature, we are still waiting for a Baby Boomer Literature! Actually that's what my next novel, A Hook in the Sky, is going to be: a BB novel!

Magda: A BB novel? Never heard of that!

Claude:  Yes, a Baby Boomer novel! My protagonist is just retired and looking for what to do with his second life while his marriage collapses. I think a lot can happen in the last stage of life – which lasts now longer than ever before and with more people than ever entering that stage. It could be the next wave in novel writing! What in your view, Magda, is the next big wave of movies? Where is the next big audience likely to come from? I'm thinking of how Hollywood is trying to get baby boomers back in the movie theatre, producing films to their taste. "True Grit", the "King's Speech", "The Fighter", "Black Swan", "The Social Network" have all been surprise hits at the box office and reaped Oscars. As the New York Times put it (see article in NYT, Feb 25, 2011), they've become hits "based on wit and storytelling, not special effects". So much for 3D! What is certain however is that pointless gore and violence and wild, unrealistic flings of fancy are gone. What is your opinion, Magda, where is film-making headed? What sort of film would you like to make, assuming you had endless pots of money at your disposal?







Magda: In my opinion there is room and audience for both "True Grit", which I loved and also "Fast & Furious", which I didn't see. "The King's Speech", "The Fighter", "Black Swan" are considered independent movies because they weren't made by any of the big studios. The big studios still think that the cinema audience is 16-25 years old. So I expect many more indie movies on bigger budget than a shoe string are going to be made.





Claude: But what about you? What kind of movie do you want to make and why?





Magda: I want to make challenging movies that will make a difference in human life. Adapting a well-known novel is an easy option for Hollywood as they already have an audience for certain films such as "The Hunger Games" or "Harry Potter". Hollywood is more than certain to see the books' fans in the theaters, eager to spend their money on tickets and popcorn. Even if it is just to confront their expectations. But in general a film is art as much as a book is.





Claude: Sure, movies are the 7th Art. But how do you decide what is art?





Magda: Depends on tastes of course. Some people prefer "Twilight" and others choose  Dostoyevsky.

As an audience member I do hope to see more challenging movies with actors not only in their teens but also mature actors, especially women. For I reckon this is another problem Hollywood doesn't know how to deal with. Europe is a bit better when it comes to ageing actresses and writing scripts for them. But still it's far from I would expect.





Claude: Let me move to another question. There's a movement in Poland as well as in many countries in the East European region, to explore the recent past and try to come to terms with the Communist inheritance, essentially to learn how to avoid making the same mistakes and falling back into non-democratic authoritarian system. Books and films are beginning to come out about this. What is your take on this? Would you consider exploring this theme either as a writer or as a film maker or both?





Magda: Well, more as a writer than a filmmaker. I was born in 1979, I was a kid but I still vividly remember the tanks on the streets and constant shortage of food. Yes, it's true that a lot has been said, written and turned into a movie. I don't think we should ever forget this part of our dark history.  However, I think that a lot of people my age have different worries and I'm not trying to be disrespectful to anyone and to the victims of the communism in any country.





Claude: Successful films have been made mostly in Germany so far (about the East German experience) but also in Poland. According to an article I read in the New York Times, there's an on-going revival of interest in the past under the impulse of the newly established Institute of National Remembrance. They have a pretty big budget – some $65 million says the NYT – and the Institute has recently financed a "remembrance" film.





Magda: Yes, I hear what you're saying. But the Institute of National Remembrance, which in Poland has been and still is used as a political tool, isn't very much respected, at least not in the part of Poland I was born and brought up. I was born in Wroclaw. This part of Europe was German for 500 years and Wroclaw was one of the very last cities defended furiously during the World War II by the Germans. The city was destroyed by both the Germans and the Soviets who were planning to flatten the whole city but eventually "only" did 70% in. During communism, Wroclaw citizens were often severely punished for having been "German" in the past, as if it were their fault.  People in Wroclaw are a mixture of German, Polish, Chech and also Ukrainian culture. They are very independent in their thinking. When I hear the Institute is spending $65 million,  I get seriously pissed off  because Poland can't afford that at the moment.





Claude: It's a lot of money for cultural activities that could be better defined…





Magda:  I would rather see the money going towards educating young people, running proper cultural centers and keeping the children hospitals open, not closing them down. It is pretty difficult to get to the hospital if you don't know the right people. The average salary in Poland is 800 EURO (this are just statistics, if people have 400 EURO it's considered a lot) and everything in Poland is about three times as expensive as in Germany or the UK. My mom, after 30 years of work, is entitled to a 100 EURO pension! So the country called Poland in the middle of Europe isn't as wonderful as our politicians would like Europe or the USA to believe.





Claude: This is terrible!





Magda: Young, educated people are still leaving the country for they don't see a bright future for themselves or their children.





Claude: Same dreadful situation in Greece: the young are leaving to seek out jobs abroad…





Magda: So to answer your question. Communism was horrible and it destroyed people and the country as a whole. I guess Poland will have to struggle with the communist inheritance for generations. But instead of talking about the past over and over again I would rather talk about the future and think how we can make Poland and Europe a better place. We can't be constantly defined by our past.





Claude: I agree, let's think about the future. Let's make Europe a better place for everyone, Poland included. And Greece included too. Instead of remembering the past, let's remember the future…Yes, I know, I see the look in your eyes: that's the title of Part 3 of my novel Fear of the Past. Indeed, that's what I intended it to mean: whatever we do today determines the kind of future we'll get. By the way, I'm curious, what is the title of your next film? Dealing as it does with human trafficking, how will you express that in the title?





Magda: The title of my film is "Anna and the Case of Modern Day Slavery"





Claude: Thanks for the chat, Magda, it's been an eye-opener for me. Pity this is only a virtual chat and that you're in Wroclaw and I'm in Rome or we'd go out and have a pasta and a bottle of wine and drink to the future of Europe!





Magda: I'm with you on that. Let's move on and build a better future for a strong united Europe. We shouldn't think about our differences but what unites us. United we are strong! And I'd also like to thank you so much Claude for this lovely chat. I've learnt a lot and you always keep me informed with the current affairs. I would love pasta and a bottle of good wine or maybe lovely coffee somewhere in wonderful Vienna!





Claude: Vienna? Why not, great! That's the beauty of Europe, isn't it, all that good food and cheer!

My thanks go to Magda for participating in this chat and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! By now, I'm sure you're curious to see her film work. 

Here's a link to one of her short films, the one called "9 mm": click here

There's a trailer but to see the film, you have to sign up for her newsletter (the film is very short: about 8 minutes). Do it and don't worry, she won't spam you with her newsletter, because it's really worth seeing the film as a whole. Very atmospheric, a beautiful love story (in Polish with sub-titles) not to be missed!

Below, a picture of Magda at the beach (looks cold!): once you've seen her film, you'll understand why she likes this kind of landscape...

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Self-Publishing in the Digital Age: How the Wrong Marketing can Kill Your Book

Dickens: the Myth. He achieved Eternal Fame with his Pickwick Papers published one chapter at a time in a monthly magazine (Image via Wikipedia) Don't we all wish we could duplicate that!



Newbies beware!  The wrong marketing strategy can kill your book. Self-publishing is not all roses and the learning curve is very, very steep.  We've all heard that the DIY road to publishing is just a matter of hard work: write a great book, produce it professionally and sell it like a marketing guru! Then run laughing to the bank and watch your account swell and swell, right? All you need to be is a Digital Age Dickens!





Wrong! It's not that easy. Of course not all of us are Dickens. But just look at a situation where in principle you, the author, have everything under control:

1. You've written a great book. It's in top shape, editing-wise and content-wise, real bestseller stuff: check. 

2. You've converted the files to digital professionally and got a great book cover (you've heard that's important even in the digital world): check.

3. You've got a blog going and a reasonable presence on Internet, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and even in reading communities like Goodreads: check.

4. Publish, market and win fame!





Not so fast. Consider my experience.  I think (but perhaps I delude myself) that I'm an entrepreneurial, risk-taking individual. So after a couple of years of queries leading me nowhere - querying is hell and it sure looks like a lottery! You get a distinct impression that agents don't go past the first five words - I decided to take the big jump into digital self-publishing. I went to BookBaby for file conversion and putting the titles on my book (just the title because I'm a painter and did the illustration), figuring they were the professionals and I wasn't. That was my first mistake. It meant I put someone between me and Amazon (to the extent that I can't get my sales number directly!) so I lost right there a big piece of control.





More traps opened up under my feet as I tried to market my book. I figured I should (1) write a trilogy because that's what was selling (vide Amanda Hocking's Trylle Trilogy) and (2) classify my book in a "hot" genre, and of course like everyone and his uncle I picked YA. 





Nine months later (meaning now) I realized the mistakes I'd made. My book, sure, is a coming of age story but it doesn't fit the YA audience strictly defined (meaning 14-18 years old). People likely to enjoy my book are adults, mature types, not young adults unless you define them as being between the age of 18 and 25. Then I compounded the mistakes by coming out with the three books at three months' intervals! I should have waited to finish all three and then uploaded them on that virtual shelf within maximum a month's time between each - just like Dickens came out with his Pickwick Papers a chapter at a time, yes, but on a monthly basis (since he published them in a monthly magazine).





So now I have to take big decisions: should my book Fear of the Past be considered a trilogy or a novel? Is it YA or literary? 





OK, after a lot of anxious self-searching and questioning, here's the verdict: it's a novel and not a trilogy. Because if you stop at the first book you only get one third of the story arc: the protagonist comes of age only in the third book. Ergo, call Fear of the Past a novel. That to me was a compelling reason to retitle the book and adjust the cover accordingly:













And yes, it's more literary than YA...I'm humbled by this because classifying my own work as literary sounds like I'm immodestly shooting for the stars. But believe me, I don't delude myself into thinking I'm another Dickens. Of course, I'm not. But the book doesn't fit any genre (it's historical, paranormal, romance, techno-thriller, coming-of-age...). Not only that, but it is experimental in at least two ways: in part 1 (or book 1) Forget the Past, it includes playwriting techniques along with standard novel writing (playlets are inserted right in the text); in part 2 (or book 2) Reclaim the Present, it moves between two points of views both written in the first person because when the protagonist is trapped in the mind of his great-great-grandfather, the world around them is seen from two different first person points of views, quite a feat to pull off without confusing the reader!  





Lesson in all this? The learning curve is so steep that one can make very serious book packaging/marketing mistakes and that's where the experience of a good agent could be really helpful...I know that I now regret I never had the ear of a friendly, experienced agent. She could have helped me and prevented me from mis-marketing my book and wasting time. Because even those who dare to self-publish need advice!





Alan Rinzler in his excellent blog, the Book Deal, recently investigated the question with 4 major literary agents: Candice Fuhrman, Andrea Brown, Andrea Hurst and Bonnie Solow. This is a post you want to read. It gives the point of view of agents on the question and the conclusion is inescapable: literary agents still act as "gatekeepers" for authors seeking traditional deals. They have a role as long as publishers are paying advances and publishing books, but also - and this is the novelty - as advisers to self-published authors: they can help with the editing and even the publishing process. This latter activity has raised some eyebrows: many have argued that was going against their basic agent role as go-between the author and publisher. 





But who ever said that a literary agent had to be just a go-between? I believe agents in this new digital age would have a very real role as publishing consultant/adviser. What is your take on this? I'd love to hear your views and if you've made marketing mistakes like I have, please share and let us know what you've learned!





Related articlesWhy writers need agents: 4 pros weigh in (alanrinzler.com)
Live webchat: Amanda Hocking (guardian.co.uk)

A New Marketing Tool: Self Competition or a Singular Price War to Promote my Book

Cover based on my painting of a hieratic Sicilian lion
Price wars around books exploded with the rise in digital publishing. It all began with the Amazon Kindle, when Amazon offered new titles from best-selling authors at around $10, trying to break the prices set by traditional publishers. That move was quickly countered by Steve Jobs when he launched the iPad. With the so-called "agency model", he let publishers set their own retail price and e-book prices moved back up to around $17.

A golden opportunity for self-published authors! Let me tell you, my fellow authors didn't waste any time.

Starting in 2010,  Amanda Hocking, John Locke and J.A.Konrath were raking in $$$ with prices in the $2.99 to 99 cents range. John Locke even managed to sell one million books on Amazon in 5 months.  

Since books sold so well at 99 cents, why not go one step further and make them free? Most authors who tried it wax enthusiastic, convinced that the thousands of free book downloads help to spread the word about their other books. Certainly a vital marketing move for new authors (including yours truly). One just hopes that people do take the time to read all those free books...





I don't know whether it really works and I shall tell you all as soon as I find out. Because I've just jumped into that game too now that my book FEAR OF THE PAST is out as a COMPLETE trilogy. I've enrolled it in Amazon's KDP Select program which allows authors to set 5 days of free download every three months. I will let you know on this blog exactly when my book is free, promise! But it won't happen before at least two months...

Meantime, please take note of the prices for each of my books in the right side column: $5.99 for the complete trilogy$0.99 for Book 1$3.99 for Book 2$2.99 for Book 3



Make your calculations: If you buy them separately, book by book, you end up paying $7.97 - practically $8!

If you plunge in and buy the whole trilogy now you save $2! That's much better than a free download: it's a saving!

Now you may well ask, are you crazy?  This is self-competition! Why did you do this? 





Why did you start a price war among your very own books? 

Yes, I know, it seems absurd but it actually does make sense from the point of view of the book itself. FEAR OF THE PAST is a coming of age story - yes, rolled in with a Sicilian family saga, but coming of age  is the main point: this is one guy who has to outgrow not only his father and mother (as most of us do) but all his ancestors put together when he meets them in the Circolo di Conversazione, in an abandoned palazzo where they mill about waiting for Judgment Day.  

The story doesn't add up if you stop at the first book. You only get the first challenge my protagonist faces: his discovery that he takes after an English adventurer who settled in Sicily in the 18th century - a daring man to be sure, but one who met with one disaster after another, including the loss of the woman he loves, the Duchess of Floridia (a real historical character - she married the King of Naples in 1814) 





By Book 2, my protag is in deep trouble as he helplessly watches his family's fortunes collapse. By Book 3, he's grown convinced he is destined for failure as his ancestors were. But he shakes off his fear of failure and finally tries to take his life in his own hands. He comes of age only at the end of book 3, when's he's caught in a pitch battle against the Sicilian and Russian mafia that try to take control of his brilliant creation:  a new social network, a cross between Facebook and Second Life. Things take a turn for the worse when the woman he loves is kidnapped...





Now there's a unique thriller for you! 

Many people already have read and reviewed Book 1 (see the page above that offers a selection of reviews) but down to a man (and a woman) they all end up saying they are looking forward to the next book. Of course they are! They sense they're missing something. 





Mea culpa! 





My fault if at the moment of reviewing Book 1 the rest of the trilogy wasn't available. I needed time to write and edit. Each book took me 3 to 4 months before I could publish it. With hindsight, I realize now that I should have waited to finish the trilogy as a whole first and then published it...oh well, live and learn! 





Now at last you do have it as a whole.





But I want to confess something to you: all this business of selling books as if they were cups of coffee...really that disturbs me. Isn't my blog enough to convince you that my books are worth reading? 





If you enjoy the blog, you're bound to like the books! What makes my blog special makes my books special too. Come on, you'd spend $6 at Starbuck's but with my FEAR OF THE PAST, it will last much longer (it's 500 pages!) and it will give you many different feelings and raise many more questions about matters that concern us all, like how to outgrow our family's inheritance and live free from the past...





To buy it click here: Fear of the Past the complete trilogy



PS: For those of you who've read the early version of my book in Italian (Un Amore Dimenticato published in 2007 - it corresponds roughly to Book 1), you'd be well-advised to download the complete trilogy. You still save a dollar (!) but more importantly, you get the new version:  the protagonist is totally changed. He's a young and gifted Italo-American video game creator rather than a 33 year-old staid Northern Italian who's fed up with his boring life. With a different main character the whole book had to be changed - plot included.

And for those who prefer their books in printed version, it is soon coming on CreateSpace: I'll let you know when.Related articlesHow to Survive a Price War (bjconquest.com)
Top self-published Kindle ebooks of 2011 - a report, by Piotr Kowalczyk (teleread.com)
John Locke Shares His Strategies for Selling a Million Books on Amazon (smallbiztrends.com)
Bargain Alert! 100 Kindle Books for $3.99 or Less (For February) (randomizeme.net)

When Malware Hits Your Blog, Don't Panic! This is What You Can Do

When malware hits your blog, a nasty warning sign appears telling your readers to stay away from your site. It just happened to me and I confess I panicked!



Here's the warning:





Frightening, isn't it?



The warning is still appearing today (February 21) for those of you who use Google Chrome as a browser - on other browsers (like Firefox) it doesn't appear.



I immediately checked what could be done, followed Google's directions and they verified that there was no longer any malware present on my site.



PLEASE NOTE THAT NOW THE PROBLEM IS FIXED!  

MY BLOG IS FREE OF ANY MALWARE - YOU CAN PROCEED SAFELY!



I thought I'd share my experience with you so that the same thing doesn't happen to you.



First, as mentioned in the warning, you want to stay away from the incriminated site: www.idealog.com.



Second, don't panic and follow Google's directions to diagnose the problem and remove the malware. Click into the warning sign and indicate you are the owner of the site. That will direct you to a webmaster page where you'll be asked by Google to prove that you are indeed the owner. That can be a little tricky, there are several ways to do this and I had to try each one out until I found the one that worked for me (it involved pasting a metatag provided by Google into my site's HTLM). Sounds complicated but it really isn't.



The diagnostic was then run on my site and it was determined that no malware was present on it. So I didn't need to proceed with the steps to remove it but should you need to do it, even that is easy to do following their very clear directions. I also did a quick check to find what other sites might be helpful in case of malware, and this is one that looks very informative: securelist.com



But for me, the damage was done...In one day I lost about half my regular traffic! Of course, readers run away, rightly scared, and I can understand that.



Yet, recently my traffic had really shot up and I was so pleased... I had been nominated as a candidate for the Kreativ Blogger Award by author Emma Calin whose witty blog is really worth following. And then I was nominated to the Versatile Blogger Award by Kelley on her attractive Call Me Bookish blog. Kelley is very active: she reviews books, writes for fun and produces educational app content for @BallpointNews... All my heartfelt thanks go to my wonderful blogger friends who nominated me!



By the rules governing the Awards, I was supposed to respond by revealing secrets about myself, things that no one on Internet knew about me...7 secrets for each award, 14 in total (or perhaps more, I lost count)! Honestly, now that I've been hit by this cyber attack I feel like the proverbial turtle, pulling my head and arms in my shell... But now, you know something about me that you probably never suspected: that I really hurt when something like this happens! That's because I am very attached to you my readers...



How long will it take my blog to recover? I don't know, but I count on you all to come back and do tell me that you like me, even if I don't reveal dozens of secrets about myself!