Chris James's Blog, page 27
August 30, 2017
100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #77: The Moody Blues, The Voice
By 1981, the Moodies had fallen out of mainstream popularity, but that didn’t stop Hayward and Lodge continuing to produce great music. That year’s album, Long Distance Voyager, must qualify as one of their best five as it was jammed packed with great songs and benefitted from its impactful artwork: a blue-hued bucolic scene of a fair suggesting some point in the 19th century, with the Voyager 2 space probe observing from high in the sky above. Things like that can grab a young man’s imagination and not let go, especially when the album begins with a foot-tapper as good as this.
Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.
August 29, 2017
100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #78: Supertramp, Give a Little Bit
Roger Hodgson’s opening track from 1976’s Even in the Quietest Moments remains one of his best, with its simple message of tolerance (relevant more than ever 41 years later) and its uplifting tune. Hodgson himself is still touring and performing it, and in an example of how to take a great song to the next level, this performance enhances the track with a full orchestra and backing choir to something quite otherworldly.
Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.
100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #79: Gerry Rafferty, A Dangerous Age
With Baker Street, Gerry Rafferty is assured of musical immortality, but his was not a pleasant journey. Rafferty was fundamentally unsuited to commercial success and loathed the whole circus of fame and celebrity. Ultimately, that success played a part in the alcoholism which killed him in 2011 aged only 63. Much of his work is shot through with pragmatism bordering on cynicism; none more so than this great foot-tapper of a song, A Dangerous Age.
Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.
August 28, 2017
100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #80: Genesis, After the Ordeal
When it comes to 1973’s Selling England by the Pound, few Genesis fans would cite this instrumental track as the best on the album. Indeed, there are rumours of annual fights taking place in Epping Forest every October between supporters of Dancing with the Moonlit Knight, followers of The Cinema Show, and fans of Firth of Fifth, during which much blood is spilt (I just made that bit up; it’s not true at all… Although being a Genesis fan might be more fun if it were).
After the Ordeal, however, is a wistful, beautifully melodic piece in which, for once, guitars and flute dominate, and Banks’ piano takes a supporting role. There are few better tracks to listen to while writing fiction.
Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.
One Year of Gratitude
[image error]I’ve learned a couple of things in the last year, but not what I hoped to learn. Firstly, KDP Select is a worthwhile route for an unknown author to try. Repulse‘s readership is split 48/48 between ebook sales and pages read by Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library readers (KENP), with the remaining 4% made up of paperback sales. For years, I refused to have anything to do with KDP Select because I regarded it as Amazon trying to corner the e-book market. Be that as it may, I also believe one’s morals may occasionally need some flexibility, so by the end of last October, all of my books were in KDP Select. Secondly, selling ten e-copies a day in the US is not enough to get a book inside the top 10,000 in the whole US store, which I thought at the time was a little amazing.
The thing I didn’t find out is how Repulse began to sell, so I could replicate that tactic with my next book. For the first few weeks after publication, Repulse trundled along selling two or three copies a day. My own social media promotion blitz finished at the end of September, at which point I expected the book to sink without a trace. Instead, with me doing nothing at all and the book having just a couple of good reviews from my most loyal supporters, it began to sell more. By the second week of October, Repulse was moving 15 to 25 Kindle copies a day, with a similar and equally sudden increase KENP pages read, up from almost nothing to between 4,000 and 7,000 pages per day (equivalent to 10 to 15 copies).
[image error]In the UK, the book was assured of further readers: it went to #2 in the Hard Science Fiction category and stayed there for weeks, clearly visible to any casual Sci-Fi fan (it did make it to #1 for a couple of hours on a Friday night in December). But in the US, even with those sales it seldom broke the top 100 in the Hard Science Fiction category, so I assume Amazon must have decided Repulse deserved a break and used its vast marketing power to tell people about it. The good times lasted through the winter before tapering off in the spring, but even now the book still finds around 100 new readers every month.
However, the thing which vexed me was that I couldn’t work out how Repulse had started to sell in the first place. With the idea of trying to build on its modest success, I pulled down two of my older titles and rewrote them as a new book, Time Is the Only God. Time fell in the same category of Hard Science Fiction, although it is time travel/multiverse whereas Repulse is military. Nevertheless, Time crashed and burned, and has sold just a handful of copies in the six months since I published it. There are probably many reasons why that happened (and of all them, it’s important not to discard the possibility that Time just isn’t very good), but I’m not going to start navel-gazing here.
In a couple of weeks, I will publish my next novel, The Repulse Chronicles, Book One: Onslaught. The eagle-eyed among you will spot the familiar words. Among the dozens of reviews Repulse has had, a few have mentioned that it would be good to read novels dealing with the events described in Repulse, and I think it’s important to take valuable feedback on board.
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[image error]Onslaught is the first in a series of novels which will tell the full story of the war described in Repulse. I don’t know how many novels will be in this series, because that depends on what happens next. Will Amazon tell the readers of Repulse about Onslaught? Will those readers be sufficiently interested? Will Onslaught be good enough?
While those questions remain to be answered, I do have one more option: to switch genres. The hugely talented author and my dear internet friend, Carol E. Wyer, spent several years enjoying great acclaim as a funny lady who could always make you chuckle. A year ago, she turned her hand to contemporary thrillers and has seen her books hit the stratosphere, shifting hundreds of thousands of copies. So, people, it’s important to bear in mind that there are always options.
100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #81: Yes, Parallels
One of the most upbeat, feel-good power tracks on this list. I’ve always found Yes to be a little too ballsy, with their music lacking sufficient femininity. Nevertheless, on many occasions they have hit the nail on the head. In this track, we have one of the best bass parts ever written and multi-layered vocals which are ridiculously easy to sing along to, even if, as with a lot of Yes tracks, the lyrics don’t make much sense. Even the booming church organ doesn’t sound out place.
Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.
August 27, 2017
100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #82: Electric Light Orchestra, 10538 Overture
In the days before Jeff Lynne decided he just wanted ELO to sound like The Beatles and write uninspired, three-minute commercial songs, he – along with Roy Wood – did indulge in some hit-and-miss experimentation. When they got it right, it sounded as good as this: coarse classical strings overlaying a terrific rock-guitar riff.
Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.
100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #83: Rush, The Spirit of Radio
Opening the 1980 album Permanent Waves with a blistering guitar riff, this anthem of a tribute to radio represented a marked change in the direction Rush would take into the decade. Progressive-rock storytelling receded as tracks became shorter and more radio accessible. As evidenced here, this was no bad thing. Thirty-seven years later and The Spirit of Radio continues to pack a vast and agreeably satisfying punch.
Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.
August 26, 2017
100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #84: Herman’s Hermits, No Milk Today
An excellent example of where writers get their story ideas from. Graham Gouldman (of 10cc fame) wrote this after he saw a note in an empty milk bottle on the doorstep of a terraced house, and his father speculated as to the reasons for it. The note is there because the narrator’s love has walked out on him, so he doesn’t need so much milk; he’s heartbroken, but no one knows because it’s just a note cancelling a bottle of milk. And this is the first version in stereo with the full fade-out.
Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.
100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #85: Genesis, Duchess
A song which, according to Tony Banks, comes from nothing and goes back to nothing. Taken from the band’s best album, 1980’s Duke, this track tells of the rise and fall of a female singer and is one of the few Genesis tracks which I’m convinced hold an entire novel. I wrote up one verse as a short story, The Chat Show Host, which I published in Stories of Genesis, Vol. 1, and the rest of Duchess’s story remains festering – er, ‘fermenting’ somewhere in the back of my head. (Subs pls check: We shouldn’t allow such ham-fisted cross-promotion. Pls delete. Ed.)
Onslaught is available for pre-order at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.
