Simon Haynes's Blog, page 4

Experimenting with Free

One of the beauties of digital distribution is that you can give stuff away, at little or no cost to yourself. If you're trying to promote a series of books, reducing the price of the first to 99c - or zero - can hook new fans and increase sales of the whole series.

So, what's my experiment? Right now, Hal Spacejock book one is a free download on Amazon.com, Smashwords, B&N (Nook) and iTunes

Overnight it hit #1 on Amazon's science fiction category, and #2 in humo(r). They maintain separate lists for paid & free books, but there's a kicker ... the free and paid tables are displayed side by side on Amazon's bestseller pages.

Gaining exposure is the toughest challenge most writers face. If you're prepared to give away the first book in a series, or perhaps a short story or two, it could be a cost-effective way of promoting all of your published work.


Has anyone else tried free? If so, how did it work out for you?

Dan DeWitt Fiction: Guest Post by Simon Haynes: Why (and How) I NaNo.

Dan DeWitt Fiction: Guest Post by Simon Haynes: Why (and How) I NaNo.: Dan here: I'm excited to bring you this guest post. It's relevant to all who are participating in NaNoWriMo (especially first-timers), an...

Nano day 6 - Hal fragment #3 (Sample Sunday)

Hal eyed his oxygen indicator. Even if they got his suit free, he'd barely make the ship.
There was a flash of light as Clunk approached the cavern. The robot's shiny head appeared through the jumbled rocks at the entrance, and Hal smiled to himself. The situation was tricky, but Clunk was always resourceful. He'd know what to do!
"I don't know how we're going to get you out of this," said Clunk, inspecting the metal shard. "Removing all these barbs will take far too long, and cutting the suit will release the last of your air."
"I was hoping for something a bit more positive," said Hal. "You know, unpick the tape, carefully peel back the fabric, patch it up as we go. That sort of thing."
Clunk shook his head. "No, we'll have to cut it off."
"Eh! That's a bit extreme, isn't it?"
"It's the only solution. The longer we spend here, the more likely Sandy will run out of air too."
"No! You'll have to find another way."
"I'm very sorry, Mr Spacejock. Time is of the essence."
"But --"
Clunk raised his right hand, holding it in the beam from his chest lamp. The plasteel skin parted along the side of his palm, revealing a fine-toothed blade. "Hold still please."
"No, wait! You go back with Sandy and I'll take my chances. I'm sure I can get it free!"
"This is the only way." Clunk bent over Hal's leg, saw at the ready.
"Don't I get anaesthetic?"
"Trust me, this won't hurt a bit."
Hal screwed his eyes shut, clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. There was a gentle pressure on his shin, and he steeled himself for the bite of the saw. Instead, he felt rapid vibrations, and he realised Clunk was using some kind of self-healing surgical blade. The vibrations continued for several seconds, and then the pressure was gone.
"All done," said Clunk. "Let's go."

Nano day 4 - another Hal 5 fragment.

A fragment from today's NaNoWriMo effort.  (As before, it's unedited, unpolished, etc, and may not make it into the finished novel.)
This is from Hal Spacejock book 5, not Hal Junior!



Hal sailed across the surface of the asteroid, watching it fall away beneath him. The further he travelled the darker it got, and before long he'd be invisible to the others. Would Clunk be able to round him up in the Volante? Could the ship's sensors pick up an insignificant human sailing through space? It didn't seem likely, even if he waved his arms and flashed for all he was worth.
Splot!
Something whacked him in the rear, a painful blow like a whip across the back of his leg. Hal was still recovering when his peaceful flight ended in a vicious tug. The suit tightened, and his eyes crossed as someone applied the biggest space-wedgie in the history of the universe.
There was another tug, then another, and when Hal looked down he discovered he was moving backwards. They were reeling him in like a prize catch! He crossed his arms, resigned to the embarrassing spectacle, and only unfolded them when he was deposited on the landing platform. When he twisted to inspect the damage he saw the safety line attached to his suit with a big dollop of instant glue. "Gee, thanks Clunk. Did you have to shoot me in the arse?"
"I merely aimed for the biggest target."
Sandy snorted.
"It was also the least likely to suffer permanent damage," said Clunk, who was struggling to keep a straight face. He snipped the safety line, leaving the blob behind. In the gloom it looked like a giant barnacle attached to Hal's right buttock. "If your pride was the only casualty ..."
"Yes, all right. Can we get on with it?"
"Certainly. Only this time perhaps you could use the railing?"

Hal Junior giveaway

I'm offering a free copy of Hal Junior to one lucky reader of this blog. Let me know in comments why you'd like a copy and I'll pick one out at random on the 11th of November 2011.

You can find out more about Hal Junior: The Secret Signal here.

Terms and Conditions (please read before entering):


This draw is open to residents of the UK, USA, Canada and Australia only.
 * If the winner lives in Australia I'll post the book myself.
 * If you're the winner and you live in the UK, Canada or US, your copy will be ordered & delivered via the relevant Amazon store. (This involves adding Hal Junior to your wishlist, which means you'll need an Amazon account to claim your prize.)

Nanowrimo day one - Hal 5

Here's a fragment of today's nanowrimo, unedited, unproofed and raw. Enjoy!


The Tiger finally passed out of range, and with Traffic Control's grudging permission the Volante docked with the space station. Hal charged out as soon as the airlock opened. He didn't know where to go or what to do when he got there, but that wasn't the point. Speed was of the essence.
As he dashed from the ship he almost ran into a welcobot. It was waiting in the boarding tube, all friendly eyes and fake smile. "Why hello, fine sir!" it said, extending a white-gloved welcoming-hand. "Can I interest you in a rundown of our facilities?"
Hal put two hands on the welcobot's head and vaulted right over it. His feet pounded the boarding tube carpet as he ran full tilt for the exit, rocking the tunnel in his wake. The welcobot oohed and aahed as it tried to maintain its balance, then toppled over and landed flat on its back. It lay there with its little rubber wheels spinning in space, shaking hands with thin air.
"Left, Mr Spacejock!" called Clunk, while Sandy helped the welcobot to its feet. "It's the other way!"
Hal skidded to a halt, did a quick U-turn and ran in the opposite direction. The welcobot had darted up to the main tunnel and was now waiting for him, its smile a touch less friendly and its large shaking-hand at the ready. Hal feigned a pass to the left, then darted right at the last second. The welcobot lunged, Hal leapt and there was a rip of tortured fabric as the mechanical fingers tore the pocket out of his flightsuit. What exactly it was trying to grab and shake Hal didn't like to think.
He pieced his flightsuit together and met up with the others further along the main corridor. Clunk was studying the information package they'd been given at the hotel. He inspected every page carefully, turning each one as though they were made out of the finest parchment. Hal wanted to grab it and rip through the pages until he found what they were after, and he restrained himself with difficulty. "Well?" demanded Hal. "What's the plan?"
"Historical records are on level three, corridor eighteen. There's an elevator just round the corner."
"Let's go!"

And so it begins

Update 10.55am (31st October ...) LOL, started Nanowrimo one day early. Who stole my calendar?


It's 8:30am on November 1st, and I have two NaNoWriMo forms in front of me. The first shows 30 rows with a blank space for the number of words written during each day. The second is an intraday progress form, broken down into hours from 9am until 11pm. (You can download both forms from this page)

I'll deal with the second form first. The idea is to write 500 words per hour, starting at the top of the hour and finishing when I have the 500. Then I get to do whatever I want (work, coffee, chocolate) until the beginning of the next hour. If you have a day job, just block out the hours you work and do your writing in the rest. (You need about 4 hours to do your daily NaNo wordcount, but should only use about 15-20 minutes of each hour for actual writing. E.g. 6pm until 10pm, or 6am to 7.30am, 30 mins at lunch, then another 1 1/2 hours at night.)

By the way, during Nano I recommend oven-cooked meals, not things you have to babysit every step of the way. Roasts and pies and one-tray meals are in, steaks and stir fry and so on are out. There are plenty of simple recipe ideas on my website, many of them ideal for Nanowrimo.  (E.g. chicken rice one night, then chicken wraps the next with the leftovers.)

Now, I'm already breaking a rule by writing this instead of getting on with my wordcount, but I'm actually starting at 9am today. By then the rest of the household will have gone out and left me in peace.

Delayed YAY! post

At the end of September I received my first copies of Hal Junior. I took pics, then realised I'd misplaced the XD card reader for my camera.

Well, I just found it and the pics were still sitting on the card:

PIP part 3 - Adjusting the look of your PDF

In the previous post I showed you how easy it is to create a PDF from yWriter5.

I also left you with a cliffhanger: those doubled-up chapter headings. And you're probably wondering how you change the layout when yWriter doesn't seem to have any formatting options. (E.g. paper size, gutters, etc.)

I don't want to throw lots of code at you, so I'll cover the basics in this article and move on to more detail in future.

For now you need to know one thing: where yWriter is concerned you adjust your layout by altering a special text file called a LaTeX header. (You can also override layout on the fly, e.g. in the middle of a scene or chapter, but we'll get to that later.)

In yWriter5, click the Project menu, then Project Settings. This is where you enter the title of your novel, the author's name, and various other novel-specific values like deadline dates. Click the LaTeX tab and you'll see the following:


The Header File textbox is blank, which means yWriter will use the default. This is a file called 'LaTeXDefaultHeader.txt' which yWriter creates in the project folder every time you start a new project.

What you need to do is make a copy of the default header file, then tell yWriter to use the new file instead. Here's how: First, click the Open Project Folder button. Then rename LaTeXDefaultHeader. (I suggest something like LaTeXNameOfProject.txt)

When you've renamed it, click the [...] button and select the new file.

Now click the Edit button to open the header in Notepad. Woah! Nobody told me there'd be codes like these!


That shows my modified Latex file which you can download here. To update yours with mine, open the downloaded file, copy the contents, and paste them into your renamed LaTeX file. Then save your file.

Save the project settings, press Ctrl+Alt+X, open the exported Tex file and press Ctrl+Shift+F5 to generate and view the PDF. It's similar to the one you saw in the previous article, but this time the chapter headings should be correct.

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Here's the layout I used for Hal Junior. It's ideal for shorter books with chapter titles. (Instead of 'Chapter 1', 'Chapter 2', etc, I used proper chapter titles like 'The Secret Signal')

In the next article I'll explain how to tweak the codes in the header, and where to find more information on the LaTeX memoir class.

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock Series and Hal Junior: The Secret Signal. By day he's a computer programmer and author, and by night he's the same only sleepier.

Free is good ...

A straightforward cargo delivery takes a left turn when Hal Spacejock gets sidetracked. But with 200 shares in a worthless company on offer, who wouldn't step into a makeshift teleporter which has already claimed one victim? Hal and Clunk, stars of the Hal Spacejock comedy series, feature in this brand new 8000-word short story. 'Framed' slots in any time after Second Course.

Hal Spacejock Framed is now a free download on Smashwords.

Enjoy!