Heather Burnside's Blog, page 14

A Change of Plan

Now that I’ve published my debut novel, ‘Slur’ and my short story book, ‘Crime, Conflict and Consequences’ I’m pressing ahead with my second novel. I originally intended the second novel to be a disturbing psychological thriller called ‘Bad Brother and I’. Having already written about 10,000 words of this book, mostly in outline form but with the opening and concluding chapters drafted, it seemed the logical next step. In fact, I had also published the blurb for ‘Bad Brother and I’ in the back of ‘Slur’.

Then something happened.

As I was writing ‘Slur’ I thought of a great idea for a sequel. I had grown attached to one of my main characters in ‘Slur’, called Rita, and through my debut novel I had alluded to the fact that she had a rather colourful home life with a father who was a petty criminal and a sister who hung about with some dubious characters. Rita is feisty, foul mouthed and brash but she’s also loyal and has a strong sense of right and wrong as a result of her grandparents’ influence when she was a child. Therefore I thought it would be interesting to explore her character further and place her in an extremely challenging situation.

I decided that I would push on with ‘Bad Brother and I’ once I had published my short story book, and then write the sequel to ‘Slur’. My reasoning behind this was that I was much further forward with ‘Bad Brother and I’ than with any of the other novels I had planned. However, whilst I was getting ‘Slur’ ready for publication, additional ideas for the sequel were forming in my mind. I already had the plot roughly sketched and I was adding notes to it daily.

I was so excited about the idea for the sequel that I also typed up the opening chapter in draft form. Then, one morning I woke up at 5 am after a dream and I had the whole of the ending in my head. I couldn’t wait to get it down on paper. Fortunately, I have a notepad at my bedside because of my overactive imagination (these ideas always seem to come to me in the middle of the night – sod’s law!)

The following day I typed up the ending in draft from my handwritten notes and I could see the novel starting to take shape. I knew then that I didn’t want to put it off until I had written ‘Bad Brother and I’. After all, I was still immersed in the world that I had created and the characters were fresh in my mind so I decided to go for it. I changed the blurb in the back of ‘Slur’ and started work on the sequel as soon as I had launched the short story book.

I am now four chapters and 10,000 words in and I’m so glad I made this decision. There is no way I could have focused on ‘Bad Brother and I’ when all my enthusiasm was for the sequel. I’m really enjoying working on this book although it may have to take a back seat for a couple of weeks as I’m currently organising a couple of client jobs.

Although I was further forward with ‘Bad Brother and I’ than with the sequel to ‘Slur’, I actually think that this book will flow more quickly because I’m full of enthusiasm for it. There’s another advantage in writing this book next, and that is the fact that it is similar in type to ‘Slur’. Therefore, I can target them to the same readership.

My husband actually came up with an idea for a third book in the series. At first I wasn’t sure if it could be developed into a full-length novel as it was just the bare bones of an idea. However, the more I thought about it, the more it appealed to me and I began fleshing out the plot and adding detail. It is now definitely workable as a novel and, as a result, ‘Slur’ has become the first part in a trilogy.

So I think my Bad Brother will have to wait a while longer before he gets his turn in the limelight. Sorry Bad Brother but my female characters are just too dominant. I will get back to it one day though and I think that once I’ve taken the characters from ‘Slur’ as far as I can, I’ll be ready to work with a new set of characters and give them my undivided attention.

Authors, have you ever had a writing dilemma that has caused you to make a complete change in your writing plans? Or, perhaps you’ve had a character who has taken on a life of his or her own. I’d love to hear your comments on this.

 

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Announcing the Launch of ‘Crime, Conflict & Consequences’

I am pleased to announce the launch of my new short story book ‘Crime, Conflict & Consequences’, which is now available to download on the Kindle at: http://viewbook.at/Consequences for only 99p (UK) or $1.48 (US).

The book has ten short tales, which cross a number of different genres and styles, and cover various topics including crime, love and family dilemmas. There are also a few twist in the tale types. The stories are ideal for an enjoyable quick read during your coffee break or whenever you have a spare few minutes.

Developing my Alter Ego

I am continuing to publish under my new pen-name Heather Burnside and am making a few changes to the blog. I have separated my book writing endeavours from my writing business entirely so the blog is no longer an add-on to my writing services website. I now want it to have its own presence to complement my new identity.

As part of the ongoing development I want Heather Burnside to have more than a blog so that I will be able to showcase my books etc. The first step was to drop the ‘wordpress’ from my URL and pay an annual fee which allows me to have my own name for the URL i.e. www.heatherburnside.com and add more pages to the website rather than just the standard About page and blog that you get with the free WordPress account.

At the moment I’ve only added a books page but I’ve made a few other changes such as the theme and the addition of my mailing list link at the top right of every page. As I publish more books I will be expanding the website and hopefully adding more features.

What’s next?

Now that I’ve published my short story book I can’t wait to move onto my second novel which is also a crime thriller. In fact, I’ve already started work on it, but it isn’t the book that I originally previewed in the back of SLUR. I will be writing that one eventually although it will have to wait a while. There is a reason for this switch, which I will tell you more about in my next blog post. In the meantime I hope you enjoy reading ‘Crime, Conflict & Consequences’.

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Cover Reveal – Crime, Conflict and Consequences

At last, I’ve reached the stage where the publication date for my first short story book is finally within reach. So now that it’s drawing closer, I thought I’d publish the cover image along with the blurb. I’ve used the same designer for Crime, Conflict and Consequences as I used for my debut novel SLUR. He is the wonderful Chris Howard who can be contacted at: blondesign@gmail.com, and once again I’m thrilled with the great job he’s done.

Here is the book blurb:

This entertaining collection of 10 assorted tales explores a variety of genres with stories of crime, love and family dilemmas. There are also a few twists and surprises along the way. The common thread running through each story is – consequences.

- In HELD UP our heroine is caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and becomes a witness in an unusual bank robbery.

- In ISLAND OF DREAMS Joe and Bev are looking forward to returning to the island they visited on honeymoon 34 years previously. Will it still be the same?

- In WELCOME ABOARD find out how Helena copes with the job from hell.

These short stories are a great introduction to the work of Heather Burnside. Each one makes an enjoyable quick read with a satisfying conclusion.

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You may have guessed that the dominoes represent the idea of consequences but there is also plenty of conflict in the stories and a little bit of crime too.

If you want to be one of the first to find out when the book becomes available, why not sign up for my reader newsletter? You can find the link at the top right of this screen.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the cover and blurb.

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2014 in Review – The Heather Burnside Blog

This blog post is probably a bit late in coming but I’ve only just noticed that this information is available so I thought I would share it with you. I want to take this opportunity to thank all the people who have linked to my blog, and contributed by commenting and liking my blog posts.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

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Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,800 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

New Year, New Name

You may have noticed that the name and URL of my blog has changed. This is because I’ve changed my author name and I’m now using the pen-name of Heather Burnside. I also changed my imprint name to D M Publishing when I published my debut novel SLUR. This replaced D M Writing Services because the previous name sounded too much like my writing services business rather than an independent publisher. Plus, I wanted to separate the two because I publish my books entirely independently from my writing services business.

When I first wrote my debut novel SLUR some years ago I planned to use a pen-name. It’s a personal decision that many authors take. Sometimes, in order to express yourself fully in a novel you may write about topics that you aren’t always comfortable with. In SLUR, for example, I took the decision that my characters would be authentic and that this would be reflected in their behaviour and language. At the same time I was a bit embarrassed when generating local publicity because it made me feel exposed.

With my non-fiction books, on the other hand, I didn’t see any reason to publish in any name other than my own. Therefore, as these were the first books that I published, they went under my own name. By the time I published the novel I had built up a following on social media etc. through the non-fiction books, which left me with a bit of a predicament. I knew that if I changed my author name when I launched the novel I would have a mammoth task in changing everything over to my new pen-name. Consequently I decided to leave things as they were for the time being.

Recently I have been carrying out the research for my second novel whilst also finalising the short story book that I plan to publish in the coming weeks. The more research I do for the second book, the more I have come to realise that I would prefer to write under a pen-name. Some of the material will be quite contentious as well as violent in nature and I would feel more at ease with publishing under a different name.

Whilst I have had some down time over Christmas this has given me the opportunity to assess my future direction with my books. I decided that although it would be a burdensome task to change everything over to my new name, the longer I left it, the more difficult it would become. So, although it has been quite stressful changing everything over, I’ve decided to go for it.

There have been some complications. For example, as my second book will be a sequel to SLUR this means that I have also changed the author name for SLUR. This was easy enough to do with the Kindle version but for the print version CreateSpace have told me that they need a new ISBN number and a new title. As I want the title to stay the same I’m still trying to figure out a way round this. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Additionally I have changed my blog, Twitter Account, Facebook page, Amazon author page and Goodreads page. Here are all the new details:

Website (with WordPress blog) – www.heatherburnside.com.

Email – I can still be contacted via my previous email address.

Facebook – This is still currently www.facebook.com/DianeMannionWritingServices. I’ve submitted a request to change the name of the page to D M Publishing because I use it for news about my books rather than my writing services business but I will have to wait up to 14 days to find out whether they have accepted the change. Therefore I’m not changing any of the other details yet as I may end up having to set up a new page.

Twitter Handle – @heatherbwriter. N.B. There is also a smaller account for D M Publishing with the handle @heatherpublish.

Amazon – The links for SLUR are unaffected: http://viewbook.at/Slur although some details still show as Diane Mannion so I’m currently trying to sort this out. My author page should be changed in the next couple of days but I’m still working out how I can get the CreateSpace version of my book changed.

Goodreads – My new Goodreads URL is https://www.goodreads.com/goodreadscomHeather_Burnside.

Mailing List – You can also sign up to my mailing list here to be the first to hear about books by Heather Burnside and any special promotions that I will run from time to time. I promise not to clog up your inbox as I use my mailing list solely to tell readers about my books and I will never share your details with any third parties.

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Why I’m withdrawing my Parenting Books

It���s been a difficult decision but one that I���ve thought long and hard about. At the end of the year I���ll be withdrawing my two parenting books from Amazon. These are ���Kids��� Clubs and Organizations��� and ���Great Places for Kids��� Parties���. I still have a few print copies in my loft but, apart from that, they���ll cease to exist. There are several reasons for this but, before I go any further, I want to recap on what led me to publish them originally.

My plan was always to publish novels eventually and I had SLUR on the backburner for many years. Prior to publishing Kids��� Clubs, I knew that the independent author market was taking off but didn���t know much about the promotional side of things. I therefore decided to test the market by starting off with something small. This would also give me an opportunity to learn as I went along. However, I underestimated how much work would be involved in the parenting books in terms of the amount of research and promotion.

As a new author I absorbed as much information as I could. Unfortunately not all of the information out there is good but as a newbie you have no way of filtering the good advice from the not so good advice. Somebody on a ���Linked in��� group advised that it was much easier to market non-fiction than fiction so I decided that I would start with a small non-fiction book. Perhaps the marketing advantage may apply for certain types of non-fiction but it didn���t prove to be the case for the type of non-fiction that I was producing.

Limited Market

I put myself at a disadvantage to start with as my market was limited to UK parents of mainly 1 ��� 12 year olds. Although this is still a sizeable group, I eventually concluded that parents of children in this age bracket are far too busy with the process of bringing up a family to spare the time to read about all the exciting opportunities that are available for their children.

Both of my parenting books were well received by parenting magazines, mums��� blogs etc. (including a feature on the Netmums website) but very few parents actually bought the books. In fact, my biggest customer was UK libraries.

I had hoped that some of the organisations featured in the second book would help with sales by stocking the book in their gift shops. Had I gained their co-operation it could have made a huge difference as some of these attractions have vast numbers of visitors every day. Unfortunately this didn���t come to fruition, with the exception of one organisation who stocked a small number of books.

I was at a further disadvantage in running Amazon promotions because a lot of the free promotion sites were reluctant to feature the books. I presume it was because they weren���t targeted at the US market.

Input versus Rewards

I have now tried most avenues relating to promotion for these two books and feel that I have taken them about as far as I can. It���s a shame because the bulk of the feedback I have received has been positive. The only negative feedback suggested that the first book would work better as a website because the information could be more readily updated. This is something that I haven���t ruled out for the future but it would be a mammoth task and I would need input from various organisations.

When I produced the books I knew that the information was time sensitive and I therefore intended to update them every couple of years. As the first book has now been on the market for over two years and the special offers in the second book expire at the end of 2014, these factors have prompted me to make a decision. The amount of time that it would take to check all the factual information and make updates just isn���t worthwhile in terms of the potential gains. Therefore, rather than let the content become increasingly outdated I would rather take the books off the market.

Focus on Fiction

Having released my debut novel SLUR three and a half months ago, I know that I want to concentrate on fiction in the future. I already have a short story book planned for release early in the New Year and am currently carrying out the research for my second crime thriller. SLUR is a much more marketable product than the parenting books and, in fact, it has already sold more copies than both parenting books put together.

Another reason that the parenting books don���t quite work with my fiction books is because my novels contain a degree of violence, sexual references and bad language. Marketing these books alongside the parenting books doesn���t sit comfortably with me as the two aren���t really compatible. I could overcome this problem by writing under a different name for each genre but, in view of the other factors referred to above, I still prefer to withdraw the parenting books.

I am looking forward to releasing other fiction titles and getting involved in more promotional activities in the New Year. From all the marketing books and blog posts that I have read I believe that it is easier to sell more books if you have several for sale which fit into the same genre. I therefore feel that having more fiction books on the market should increase my chances of success.

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My First Kindle Countdown Experience

From 20th November until 22nd November I had my first Kindle Countdown promotion for my novel SLUR, pricing the book at 99p in the UK and $0.99 in the US. My objective was to increase visibility, particularly in the US as the bulk of my sales to date had been in the UK. I also wanted to sell more copies of SLUR. With this being my first KCD I made a few mistakes but learnt a lot as well. I am hoping that by sharing my experience, other people may be able to learn from it too.

In order to raise awareness about my KCD I put notifications on social media including a few readers’ groups. I also posted notifications on several sites offering free advertisements and took out two paid advertisements. As far as I am aware only two of the free advertisements were posted during the KCD and unfortunately one of those advertised the book as free.

A Few Problems

On the first day of my KCD there were no sales at all and I managed to work myself up into a frenzy when I noticed that Amazon.com were advertising the book at $1.55. As I didn’t want to mislead any potential purchasers I quickly wrote to the advertising sites and asked them to change the price. At the same time I queried this with Amazon and was later told that the reason the price showed at $1.55 was because I had set the start time for my UK promotion a few hours earlier than my US promotion. I honestly couldn’t remember because I had set up the KCD several weeks before, but I had obviously done it because of the different time zones. Amazon had therefore adjusted the price in line with the UK price.

Even when the start of my US promotion kicked in, I was still viewing the price on Amazon.com as $1.55. Amazon assured me that it was because I was viewing from the UK and they sent me screen shots to verify that the price showed at $0.99 in the US. Although this was a relief it meant I had to send another email to the advertising sites telling them to keep the price at $0.99.

The other problem that was stressing me out was the fact that the screen (Amazon.com) was constantly trying to reload when I attempted to view the Kindle version of my book. I was obviously concerned because I knew that this would make it extremely difficult for anybody to download the book, and I felt that most people would give up.

I want to thank Martina Munzittu, Pauline Wiles and Alice Huskisson for putting my mind at ease. Martina was particularly helpful and I hope she didn’t mind fielding my constant panics. Big thanks too to Pauline for checking the US site and reassuring me that there was no problem with uploading the book there. Thanks also to everybody who retweeted about my promotion.

Paid Advertising

It wasn’t until the end of the second day that my US sales started to kick in. This was in fact the day when my advertisement on the most popular site went out. I won’t disclose which site it was because different things work for different people and genres, so I don’t want to push anyone into something that might not work for them. If anyone wants to email me (dianewriting@gmail.com) for the details though, I’ll happily oblige.

My second day was a Friday and I was actually out in the evening (I needed a drink after all the stress). When I returned home at 12, I checked my downloads a couple of times. The books were downloading at a rate of four every half hour and had reached 35 by the time I went to bed. I therefore expected them to reach over 100 by the time I checked again the following day. I knew that the advertising site sent an email newsletter out late in the evening and thought that perhaps some UK subscribers might open it on the Saturday. However, I was a little disappointed to find that the total downloads for the Friday reached 58. I can only assume that they slowed down as it reached evening in the US with it being a Friday.

Saturday was the last day of my promotion and although I didn’t have any advertising that day I had a further 18 downloads and one borrow. However, these were all from the US and none of them were from the UK. I mistakenly thought that the advertising sites had subscribers from both territories but apparently not.

Sales Rank

In terms of rank, the book did very well. The best overall rank that it achieved in all paid books in the US was #3456. For individual categories, the highest ranks that SLUR achieved were as follows:

Kindle> Mystery, Thriller and Suspense> Thrillers> Historical #10

Kindle> Mystery, Thriller and Suspense> Thrillers> Crime #67

Books> Literature & Fiction> Genre Fiction> Historical> Thrillers #28

The day after my promotion ended I had one sale and one borrow in the US followed by another sale the day after and another borrow the day after that. SLUR then dropped out of the top 100 for all categories and I haven’t had any US sales since. However, I’m still getting the odd borrow so my sales spike must somehow have meant that SLUR is now visible in the Kindle Lender’s Library. I have no idea how that works or how it impacts on rank. N.B. All these figures refer to US downloads. None of this promotional activity affected my UK sales at all.

Lessons Learnt

1. Don’t panic. Amazon.com looks completely different from the UK than it does in the US.

2. Not all paid ads are useful but some of them really pay off. With time I will learn which ones give the best returns.

3. I need to find more advertising sites that are specific to the UK. Tips anyone?

4. In my opinion social media is not near as effective as it was a couple of years ago for book promotions. Perhaps this is down to the fact that it is becoming saturated with book promotions, or perhaps people respond more readily to free book promotions rather than promotions for cut priced books. It may also be down to the fact that in fiction terms I am still relatively unknown.

5. A KCD alone will give a short-term spike in sales but for long-term gains it has to be combined with other promotional efforts.

6. It would have been better to run my most fruitful paid ad at the weekend.

7. To maintain a top 20 position in even one of my chosen categories in the US I would probably have to be selling about 50 copies of SLUR a day. Unfortunately there aren’t any less competitive categories that fit my book’s genre.

I would love to hear your views on Kindle Countdowns especially if you are experienced in running this type of promotion. What was your experience like and do you think KCDs are effective as a promotional tool?

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In the News

I’ve finally got round to adding the news features relating to my recent book signing at my local book store. I would like to point out that there is an error in one of the articles. Contrary to what is written in the article, Diane Mannion Writing Services is still trading.

SLUR will be available on Kindle Countdown for the reduced price of 99p or 99 cents from 20th to 22nd November only at: http://viewbook.at/Slur.

Winner of the SLUR Big Prize Quiz

It seems ages since the SLUR launch party when we held several competitions to celebrate the launch of my debut novel. The last of our competitions was scheduled to finish on 31st October at 5pm to give readers plenty of time to find the answers to questions based on the content of SLUR.

I am now pleased to announce that we have found our winner (drumroll please)…

The winner is the lovely Georgia Rose. I am thrilled for Georgia and think that she is a well deserved winner. Georgia entered every one of our competitions and helped to support the launch party throughout by shouting about it on social media etc. Our prize bundle is now on its way to Georgia including a signed print copy of SLUR http://viewbook.at/Slur, a signed print copy of Great Places for Kids’ Parties (UK) http://viewbook.at/KidsParties, a signed print copy of Kids’ Clubs and Organizations http://viewbook.at/KidsClubs and a £50 John Lewis/Waitrose gift voucher. Here are the answers to the quiz questions:

Lindsey Pilkington.
The Flying Horse.
Saturdays.
(See note below).
DCI Marshall.
Belmont Insurance Company.
Greece.
Ernie Cummings.
Clare.
Mike Marston.
Bill Quinley.
Betty Quinley.
She works in a factory.
Norma.
20.
Debby.
Jacqueline Bartlett.
The words “Julie Quinley is a Murderer” are written on the back of the door.
Leslie Stevens.
Rita going into Vinny’s house.

With reference to question four, this actually relates to an earlier draft of SLUR. The quiz questions were prepared well in advance of the launch of SLUR and I inadvertently forgot to amend this question when I changed the final draft of SLUR. I apologise to any readers who spent time trying to find the answer to this question.

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My Lucky Find

Having finally published my debut novel I’m looking forward to following it up with my second one. However, I now know how much work goes into a novel and am also aware that it could take up to a year before my second one is ready to publish. I realise that it would be easier to promote my first novel if I had more fiction books to accompany it and I have therefore found a short-term solution.

A while back I was rummaging through my filing cabinet and going through some of the work that I had done for my writing course many years ago. It’s been so long since I finished the course that I had forgotten exactly what work I had completed. Each module would cover a different type of writing so, for example, there would be modules on writing articles for women’s magazines, trade magazines, short stories for women’s magazines, radio plays, theatre plays etc. Often writers would be required to produce outlines of short stories or articles, sometimes it would be part of a story and at other times it would be a full story.

I had kept all my course notes in my filing cabinet but was surprised that I had also kept outlines for numerous short stories, plays etc. Basically, my brain works like that. If I am studying a module on short stories my brain switches to short story mode and keeps spontaneously coming up with ideas. I jot down the ideas as they come to me and then file them away. I still do this now except they’re usually scenes for novels, which I will develop in the future, and nowadays I type them up on the computer.

Seeing the outlines for so many short stories had me really fired up. I started to wade through my course notes to see if there was anything else I could use. I knew I had lost a lot of work when the computer crashed years ago but didn’t realise that I still had seven short stories fully written. Amazingly, these weren’t just in note form, they were also still on the computer. Another longer story was in my course notes and just needed typing up onto the computer. Then there was a story with the first 700 words written as part of a writing course exercise, which just needed completing. That meant I had a total of nine stories that could easily be used for a book with the addition of one other, which I could choose from the many outline ideas I had kept.

So, that’s my next project sorted – a book of ten short stories, which I should be able to publish in the New Year once I have edited and completed them. The stories are a bit of an assortment. It would have been ideal if they were all crime related so that they sat comfortably alongside the novel. However, as they’re already written for the main part, I prefer to go with what I’ve got rather than writing a book of stories from scratch. That way I can start work on my second novel a lot quicker. I won’t rule out writing another short story book in the future though.

Out of the ten stories, three of them are crime related. Then there are family/relationship dilemmas, a few twist in the tale types and a bit of poignancy. I’m looking forward to finishing my short story book as my next step in the direction of fiction writing. And of course I can’t wait to continue the work on my second novel.

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