Steven O'Connor's Blog, page 7

Writers are nothing without readers

Ptechnodactyl says: ‘Hey, I gotta bargain! Download the ebooks now! While they’re free!’

Well, I’m into my second go at a promotion. Let’s hope I’m improving.

E-FPS1 and E-FPS2 are free right now. If you go there right now – right now! – you’ll get them free as a … as a ptechnodactyl.

You can download E-FPS1 for free on Amazon here and Amazon UK. here.

You can download E-FPS2 for free on Amazon here and Amazon UK here.

And why are they free? Because writers are nothing … nothing at all … without readers.

In this, my second go at attempting to promote my book, here are a selection of websites that are getting behind me with reviews and features:

* Book of the day – Flurries of Words (UK).

* A review on Squidoo – by fellow author, Tracy R Atkins.

* E-FPS1 and E-FPS2 features on Snicklist.

* E-FPS1 feature on Free Ebooks Daily.

Happy downloading! Happy reading! Happy, happy, happy!

When it comes to promoting my book …

Relaunch dates!

EleMental: A First-person Shooter (level 1) will be free through Amazon and Amazon UK on: Friday 5 and Saturday 6 October (US times).

EleMental: A First-person Shooter (level 2) will be free through Amazon and Amazon UK on: Friday 5, Saturday 6 October and Sunday 7 October (US times).

E-FPS1

I’m rubbish at promotion. This is not me whinging,  this is me stating a fact. And something other writers in this new world of indie ebooks must feel as well. To be a successful indie writer, you need a business management degree, you need to be a whiz at IT and you need to have the mindset of a car salesman. Oh, and it also helps if you can write. But that last one only comes later – when you have readers, and they begin to weigh you up, deciding if they would be happy to read another of your books. But you have to get to those readers first!

In truth, this is how traditional publishing houses are anyway (to varying degrees of success – my old one has just sold itself to A&U as of this week). They are businesses after all. Some staff working in publishing houses might be there for the love of books, but a business is there to make as much money as it can from its product. What an attitude! Like when I worked in hospitals in the eighties and patients were treated as daily cost figures indexed against average length of admission rates.

I’m loving the sense of control indie writing is giving me, but there’s a real down side. The expectation that you now must treat your writing as a product to be pushed on to others. If you’ve been an insurance salesman and you’re  now turning your hand to writing ebooks … well, you have a real edge.

E-FPS2

Having spent years as a health social worker, I’m finding it a big ask to suddenly turn around and start acting like I’m a Mad Man advertising executive.  I can’t do it! The number of times people have offered me money for my print edition, and I’ve just given it to them instead. Silly me. And I’m paying for my lack of experience and slack business attitude now. Take a look at any of my ebooks on Amazon and Amazon UK, and it’s hard to believe I have just finished launching the first level of my newly-republished book. The Amazon ‘likes’ are  low, I have one review (good on him, though and thank you), and I daren’t for the life of me check out those much-discussed algorithm sales figures things Amazon so obligingly provides its indie writers. The less I know the better.

It’s such a different way of doing things, this new writing game. Once, it seemed fine that someone from a welfare background also had ambitions as writer. So many of us did. But, today, does that translate to saying that I also hold ambitions to be a salesman on the Internet?

It’s about finding a balance that hopefully works, and to some degree I’m comfortable with. I haven’t found that balance yet, that’s for sure. No amount of happy tweeting and Facebooking made a heap of difference during my launch a few weeks ago. One good thing, I have joined a terrific Internet-based group known as the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and from there have received some advice from experienced indie writers who have managed to find a balance between  high quality writing and self-promotion activities. It’s different for all of us. But it’s good to hear what they have to say.

And so I am starting again. See my new dates above. I’m going to be giving away all four levels of my ebook for free at intervals, starting this weekend. Through ALLi I found out that a whole new industry of free ebook promotion websites has sprung up. The irony is, many won’t agree to promote your book unless you have five, 10 or more Amazon reviews and you’re averaging four to five stars. How am I supposed to get Amazon reviews without their promotion help? (Certainly I won’t be hounding family and friends for reviews, that’s not cool.) It reminds me of the old catch 22 in traditional publishing, where a publisher will only look at manuscripts from agents, and agents will not consider representing you unless you are already published.

I’ve trawled through the many websites and have approached sixteen that look possible. Fingers crossed they’ll include my book in their promotions this weekend.

I’m proud of EleMental: A First-person Shooter. It reviewed well when it came out as a traditional print book (including Book List). And, through this indie ebook phenomenon, I’m rapt that I’ve had the opportunity to give it a makeover (and bring back some of my old ideas, like the title,  that the publisher did not want). I believe in my book. I’m standing by it. Here’s to a better promotion second time around. And to finding a balance I’m happy with.

Back from Bali, Back to writing

The memorial for those who died in the first of the terrible Bali bombings.

I am back from my family holiday and am working hard to re-establish my writing rhythm. Family holidays are important, and this last one especially so as it’s likely to be the last with the whole family – my son and daughter are getting older!

As a writer, you’re never too far away from thoughts about your writing projects. I may have spent some time sitting on a banana lounge by a pool, but let me reassure you I was still very much engaged in chapter revising on my iPad.

And I also read my very first ebook novel. A copy of Hunger Games a friend gave me. Easy reading! But I was amazed at the number of typos. It was like an un-proofed copy. Perhaps it was? My daughter owns the print version and the typos weren’t there. So what’s that all about?

I also read about half of Catherine Ryan Howard’s ebook The Best of Catherine, Caffeinated: Caffeine-Infused Self-Publishing Advice (available here). Catherine Howard is an indie writer who very much wishes she was a traditionally-published writer. She’s from Cork, Ireland (where they say Cark  for Cork). As my parents and my eldest two siblings are all born in Ireland, I feel a sense of connection in a number of ways.

I recently began following her blog for her self-publishing advice and this ebook is essentially a collection of her website posts over the last few years on indie-publishing. It’s marvelous, honest stuff, full of big-picture as well as micro advice, and is engagingly written and super generous. I happily downloaded it as a part of her free launch back in May, but it’s well worth the tiny price tag attached to it, if you’re after self-pub advice.

Catherine Howard lays out her posts as chapters and you can easily dip into them in any order that takes your fancy, or follow through chronologically, as I am doing, as it gives more of a sense of story.

Her passion to be traditionally published is her life’s ambition (well a prominent one, she has a number) and the irony that she is not, and yet clearly can write, makes for an intriguing subtext. One can’t help wonder along with her why she isn’t (as she does dwell on it a few times). She feels – largely based on publishing house feedback – maybe it’s because her non-fiction writing is ‘too niche’. Certainly, travel writing doesn’t appeal to me (perhaps because I want to go there and do that too, but can’t!). Yet it’s interesting to see how many travel writers there are in the global indie writing community. It’s clearly popular.

The view from my window in Ubud, Bali. I kid you not.

Well, enough about Irish Catherine – this has turned into an unintentional review!  I’m confident she will achieve her ambition one day – all she needs is staying power, like the rest of us. But now you know a little about my Bali holiday. Not really. But you know about what I was reading by the pool and on the plane home, crammed in with everybody else (watching Hunger Games on airline iPads).Meanwhile, I am very happy to be back at my desk and ready to throw myself wholeheartedly into promoting EleMental: A First-person Shooter and preparing its follow up.

PS: Having spent some time on Catherine Ryan Howard, I should also link you to her website here, if you are interested in checking out more about what she has to offer.

The Man from Uncle doesn’t want my book

Matt Handbury is Rupert Murdoch’s nephew and the owner of Murdoch Books. He’s known as ‘The Man from Uncle’. I have received two emails from him in recent months. All right, I’m not that important – they were group emails.  The first included a press statement and it went out to all of the ‘MB family’ from the publishing house CEO. (Murdoch Books originally published my book EleMental: A First-person Shooter, through their imprint Pier 9.)

Matt Handbury’s words made for very interesting reading, and it was rather sad in parts: ‘Many staff will lose their jobs …’

They (Matt really, I guess) were planning to cut right back to their core business of stylish books about food and lifestyle. Gone, any idea of publishing more young adult novels like mine!

A lot has changed in the world of publishing books. Once upon a time emerging authors such as myself, finally landing a publishing deal, would receive support to help them gain a foothold. To sum up the world now, I give you another quote from Matt Handbury’s press release. They’re dramatic words:

‘While digital publishing is still a fledgling business in Australia, overseas trends tell us that a tsunami of change is coming our way, as it did the music industry. Certainly the online sale of physical books has already had a devastating effect on Australian bookstore and other retail sales. … Clearly the old model will not suffice into the future. … While there is clearly sadness and pain in letting go of so much and so many people integral to the old way of doing business, not to act now would be to ignore the alternative end result.’

And then I received a second email a few months later. It was blunt. They are entering into merger negotiations with A&U. I guess the cutbacks, though clearly drastic, still weren’t enough.

 

MotherCraft – A short story

MotherCraft – A short story, is leading my charge into indie publishing. It’s available on Amazon here and Amazon UK here. I’m very happy with how it looks.

The tagline: Leaving at any time can be painful. Leaving the planet, doubly so.

My plan was to give it away for free. This in no way means it’s not worth much! I have given to MotherCraft the same rigor I give to all of my writing and the story went down very well with my test readers. However, as it turns out, one is required to put a price tag on ebooks on Amazon. Did you know that? Learning all the time! The lowest price option is 99c. As my wife says, cheaper than a lolly snake!

MotherCraft began life as a deleted scene from my first traditionally-published novel, EleMental–A First-person Shooter (or E-FPS).  If you have read that book, this story describes in greater detail Zeb’s father’s departure from Earth. Obviously, you don’t have to have read E-FPS to enjoy or understand MotherCraft, it stands by itself.

When I was young, my own father often left us for months at a time, working overseas. Some of the feelings I had at the times of his departure have informed this story.

Also included is a sample chapter - ’The Age of The Pigs’ – from my forthcoming novel MonuMental. The chapter describes a virtual game of the near future.

Happy reading!

PS: here‘s where it is again. And in the UK here.

US Tax Piggy and me

US Tax Piggy (I’m off camera)

This week I learnt that the Australian treaty with the US is not as good as the UK’s, Canada’s or Ireland’s. And no doubt not as good as treaties held by a whole bunch of other countries! If you’re an Australian citizen, like me, the best you can hope for when publishing and selling in the US as a ‘foreign entity’ (actually, I quite like that term, spooky and MiB) is a five per cent US tax on your earnings. Everybody else seems to be getting zero per cent. Confounded curses! These are the kind of not-so-exciting things one learns on the road to indie-publishing.

(What the hell’s that to do with a piggy? Well, to tell you the truth, not much. But isn’t it a great picture?)

I shouldn’t grumble. Things could be a whole lot worse. If you don’t take on the US tax system at all, in all their fine red tapery, the US government will swoop in (like a flying pig) and slap you with a much higher tax rate – 30 per cent!

But the marvellous support offered between indie writers the world over has kicked in and saved the day – at least as far as the horrific 30 per cent is concerned. (They haven’t been able to do anything about Australia’s less-than-great treaty.) If, like me, you’ve been fretting about the US tax system (sad I know), then fret no more. Or at least, fret a little less. For there is much useful advice to be had from David Gaughran’s guest post on Catherine Howard’s website. David Gaughran and Catherine Howard are two Irish Indie writers who have been there, done that, and I’m following their instructions to the letter.

And so far, so good.

For there I was, midnight thye other night, after carefully taking in David Gaughran’s advice, on a call-wait to the infamous IRS (Internal Revenue Service) in Philadelphia, to obtain my Employee Identification Number or EIN as they so catchily call it. I had to sit through roughly thirty minutes of muzak interspersed with a recorded voice informing me of what I already knew extremely well, that I was still waiting. (I so hope my Optus landline contract includes free, or at least cheaper, international calls. Mustn’t tell my wife.)

When I finally got through, it took less than three minutes. The IRS lady on the other end spoke to me in a tone that was a mixture of impatience and boredom, asking me questions that were laced with mystifying business terms. To me anyway. I did my best to answer with a pretence of confidence. But then, wonder of wonders, suddenly she said, ‘Do you have a pen ready?’

And she gave me my very own US tax file number.

This is something that I know from other bloggers can take months and months to obtain via other routes. It’s almost worth tattooing on my forearm. (Nah, not really.)

The next step in the journey of this ‘foreign entity’ toward indie-publishing is a fight with a pernickety-looking tax form known as a w8-BEN. Which, in my head, I must stop pronouncing as ‘Wait Ben’. I promise I won’t write a whole blog post about it.

One of my favourite books on writing

 

If you love writing like I do, then you’ll also love reading about writing. Surely? If I spot a book about the craft of writing in a bookshop, I can’t help myself, I have to buy it. I guess I feel about writing as I do about life. There is always something more I can learn. And as I do, I feel I’m growing as a person.

And in this post, I want to tell you about one of my favorites, an eighties book on writing with the intriguing title Writing Down the Bones. It’s by Natalie Goldberg.

Her book is both about both the craft of writing and the craft of living.  I have read other books that blend the themes know yourself with know how to write, but few, to my mind, succeed to the degree Goldberg has. She manages to perfectly balance a Zen-like reflective tone with hard-nosed advice on honing one’s writing skills, exploring the art of the creative writing process and identifying many important signs that might help others travelling a similar road.

She even has her very own Zen master – and she quotes his advice to her in the introduction: ‘Why do you come to sit meditation? Why don’t you make writing your practice? If you go deep enough in writing, it will take you everyplace.’

Throughout her book, you can easily see Goldberg has taken her Zen Master’s advice. Her book has a loose structure that permits you the reader to enter at any point, and find yourself anywhere. Everyplace. You can browse through her pages, reflecting, and treat her book like Lao Tse’s Tao De Ching (or pretty much anything by the Dalai Lama).

I read her short chapters (they average two pages and are interestingly titled – ‘Don’t Marry the Fly’ is my favorite) in an order more borne out of whim than anything.  And I found her many thoughtful messages – many feel more like that than hard-and-fast lessons or rules – apply no matter the context of your life.

But what’s with the book title? She does explain. ‘When I teach in class,’ she says, ‘I want the students to be “writing down the bones”, the essential.’ That’s the essence of a Zen approach, I understand: cutting back and searching for the essential, finding what is important. You can feel she’s doing just that in her elegant prose, and in the overall simplicity of the book itself.

She is also a fan of writing in cafes, often with a fellow writing friend. Something I can relate to.

Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (a book once very cool to own and carry about in your bag, some people even read bits of it), praises her book and likens her style to a Zen archer ‘who looks like he’s not even aiming, yet sends arrow after arrow to the bull’s-eye time after time.’ I agree.

 

Writers are nothing without readers

I am very happy and proud to announce the first level ofEleMental: A First-person Shooter (also known as E-FPS1)is now available from Amazon. And because writers arenothingwithout readers, it is being launched for *free* for alimitedtime. As soon as you’ve read this blog post, I recommend shooting over to Amazon and downloading it, so you don’t miss out. Thelinksare at the end of this post.

I have also been luckyenoughto have a reviewalready, on the askDavid website. You can read it here, and...

Fab new artwork for book cover – it’s getting closer!

The cheeky look from a Ptechnodactyl

Curses. The graphic designer is sick. She assures me she is recuperating and, naturally, I am happy for her. I’m not callous, people. But, sigh, it has meant a delay in producing the final artwork for the ebook, which is the only thing now standing in the way of republishing EleMental – A First-person Shooter.

I was aiming to launch the book this weekend – the next big thing after the Olympics. (In my life, anyway.) Ah well, at least while I await that big m...

Ptechnodactyls in Ptechnicolor

Ptechnicolor Ptechnodactyls

I know it’s hardly beenany timesince my last post, which is unusual for me, but I had to share this with you. The artist Aaron Pocock has provided me with a color version of that terrible threesome, the ptechnodactyls who will feature in some way on the cover of my republished EleMental.

Below is some of the action from EleMental that he based the picture on. Zeb is playing the EleMental virtual game on his Plush console. In the game, he is standing on a frail platfo...