Michael Gallagher's Blog, page 2

June 2019: Simple ways to improve your manuscript

Whether you plan to self-publish or go the traditional route, there are some basic things you can do to help yourself that don’t require shelling out money.

Identify your grammar weaknesses

If there’s something you have a problem with, go online and get it sorted out. There is help out there for practically everything. Is it “stainless-steel” or “stainless steel”? The answer is both, but it depends on how it’s being used. I have a stainless-steel sink (used as an adjective), but my sink happens to be made of stainless steel. Nothing puts a reader off faster than a catalogue of grammatical errors, and my own particular bugbear is seeing apostrophes being misused. My heart sinks. And if I find it’s not a one-off typo—wouldn’t matter how intriguing the story is, or how rounded the characters—I stop reading then and there. One of my #amwriting colleagues on Twitter, C. T. Moor, threw a really interesting question my way: what if a writer is dyslexic, and no amount of online grammar tutorials will help? Then I’d suggest they find some kind person to copy edit their manuscript for them—preferably chapter by chapter as a 60K-word MS is a daunting prospect for anyone to undertake. See my tips below about finding yourself a proofreader.

Type your MS without formatting

Type your manuscript with minimal formatting then format it later—when you know just what style is required of you. When your unformatted MS is finished, select ALL, then clear formatting. Hey presto! You should now have a squeaky clean file. Keep this in its pristine state and only ever format copies. Why? Because formatting adds invisible commands to the document. If you are ever obliged to re-format your work, they are easy to overlook. So, what is minimal formatting? Default text only, always left aligned, no indentations, no centering or justifying, no page breaks, and no extra spacing between paragraphs or sections. No bolds, italics, or underlining (though you can use html tags as place-savers to be removed by using Find & Replace once you have formatted your copy)—and absolutely no tabs, lists, or tables, bookmarks or hyperlinks.

Create your own house style

Though it may not be so apparent these days, years ago publishing houses would create a house style for the titles they published, which their copy editors would religiously adhere to. It gave a uniformity to the individual books and to their catalogue as a whole. If you create your own house style—and stick to it—it can lend an impressive consistency to your own work. Where to start? By making decisions. American or UK English (or some other form of it perhaps)? Oxford -ize, -izing or Cambridge -ise, -ising for verbs (though it’s always “surprise”)? The Oxford comma (I ate beans, chips, and egg) or no Oxford comma (I ate beans, chips and egg)? UK ‘’ or US “” for speech marks? UK “” or US ‘’ for quotes? Do you start each chapter with three or four capitalized words (“ONCE UPON A TIME, many years ago…”) or not (“Once upon a time, many years ago…”)? If so, how many words do you capitalize (usually at least three)? When it comes time to format, will the first line of every chapter and every new section of a chapter be indented (like the rest of the text), or will it sit flush against the left-hand margin?

Edit your work by viewing it as a book

Nothing quite focuses the mind when editing more than the sight of unalterable text in a PDF that’s been formatted to look like a book. Every little horror screams out. So, alongside my unformatted MS I keep a formatted A5 document going, with Times New Roman 14pt text as standard. Any changes I make to my MS I cut and paste to my formatted version, which at the end of the day I export as a PDF.

Do a proper spellcheck

You’d think this would be obvious, wouldn’t you? And yet I’ve known published authors who’ve had spelling mistakes in their final Word files. So, proper. Step one. Select all, then set the language and save. Now do a spellcheck from the beginning, scrutinizing each word that is highlighted. There will be a reason for its highlighting, even if it is just because it’s somebody’s name. Be aware, however, that spellcheckers aren’t always correct, so if you are not a great speller, do this in conjunction with a dictionary.

Do a basic typo check

A Find & Replace search can be a writer’s best friend. Type in a double space, tap “find”, and you’ll soon see what I mean. It’s almost impossible to write a 60K+ MS without at least one of these slippery devils burrowing in. Now try “,,”, “..”, “the the”, “a a”, “an an”, “in in”, “on on”, “to to”…I’m sure you get the picture.

Find yourself a proofreader

This is the hardest step of all, but it’s also very important. You need to find someone whose grammar you trust, and who is prepared to read with minute attention to detail. It’s a big ask of anyone. Maybe you know someone who is retired who might do it? Someone from your local reading group perhaps? Check in with them frequently as they work through the chapters. If they ask questions, you’ll need to figure out why. Are they asking because this is what any reader would ask at that point in the story? Or is there something you’ve failed to make clear? Be scrupulously careful when making any changes to your MS. If any lengthy passages need changing, ask your proofreader to check them again. Btw, when everything is finally perfect, a second or even third pair of eyes can only help.

Michael Mills, an author who’s considering self-publishing, replies:

MM: I have to admit that a lot of these were painfully learnt lessons during my writing. I checked and double-checked but in the end I couldn’t be sure that I had eliminated all the mistakes so, I eventually paid a proofreader. However, due to my experimental writing style, there were some things that I insisted on staying the same. So I would be careful to not just be making changing for the sake of it.

MG: Exactly. My proofreader and I have lengthy discussions about the changes she wants me to make. She usually wins, but only if I can see her point. I am incredibly lucky to have someone who knows my characters well and understands what I’m trying to do.

MM: In regards to the grammar, I couldn’t agree more. There are so many places you can go to get help and a lot of the time you won’t even have to look that hard. You may be overlooking some close friends and family. We all know that person or people who are avid readers. These people can be your greatest critics and an asset to you as they tend to know subtle differences between good and bad grammar. Also, getting readers who favour different genres to see whether your idea is getting across.

MG: I’m so glad you mentioned families. I know I’ve already said it, but this is an area where people my age and older can shine.

MM: These brief and incredibly helpful tips would have been, and are, invaluable. I will definitely be applying them going forward. Something as simple as the aforementioned “formatting” is an issue that I personally faced when finalising my MS and it cost me a lot time.

MG: Me too. While it might seem like a lot of extra work on the face of it, next month, when we look at what’s needed to upload ebooks to Amazon KDP and Smashwords, you’ll see why it can save you a lot of heartbreak. Anyone considering the self-publishing route, do join us then!

This month’s special offer is for Octopus: Octavius Guy & The Case of the Throttled Tragedienne (#2). When the leading actress dies in mysterious circumstances during a performance of The Duchess of Malfi, Gooseberry feels duty-bound to investigate. It is, after all, a great deal more exciting than the last case he was assigned to: the tracking down of a rich old lady’s errant cat! Offer ends on June 30th 2019! You’ll find links and details on my website.

“Here is a sensational historical fiction who-dunnit that gives nothing away until the very end. To me, it reads like an old time radio show. It leaves you breathless.”—Connie A., LibraryThing Early Reviewer (5 stars)

Happy reading!
Michael

Follow me on Twitter @seventh7rainbow
find me on my website Michael Gallagher Writes
and on Facebook
and visit Murder Most Cozy for a round up of the coziest Crimes & Thrillers reviews

May 2019: The rise and rise of vanity publishers

Once upon a time, before the advent of ebooks, there lived a much despised, poor relation to the beloved publisher, and its name was the Vanity Press. Or so many writers believed. But here’s the thing. Unbeknownst to said writers, it provided a valuable service to those who simply wanted to write a book, hold it in their hands, and maybe give it away to their extended families to read—their memoirs, as likely as not, to be recorded for posterity before they died. Given how easy it is to self-publish these days, I would have thought such services a thing of the past. Apparently not, as I discovered when Michael Mills, one of my writing friends on Twitter, contacted me to ask my opinion of an advertisement he’d seen. I’m really delighted that he agreed to discuss the matter with me.


MG: Hi Michael! Care to tell us about yourself? What made you want to write? What are you working on currently?

MM: Hi Michael! First I would like to say that it is always strange to be talking to another Michael. It makes me feel like I am finally losing the proverbial plot. I digress. I am very new to the world of writing and I am still very much trying to find my footing. I have always enjoyed storytelling and in the past I entertained the idea of getting into game design. This soon developed into an itch to expand of some of the stories I was trying to write for some of my video game ideas.

I think I have always wanted to write because at a very early age I remember my mum always being enthralled in one novel or another and although I wasn’t much of a reader growing up I had always admired her for that. She had a big collection from Stephen King to Barbara Taylor Bradford and many more. However, I think the story telling embers were stocked and fanned aflame by my late grandfather who always has a tale for me. Tall or otherwise.

We would gather around him almost every day and believe it or not he would somehow have a different story. Aside from that, the courage to make the leap came from my lovely wife who has always encouraged me to write. Thankfully I am never short of ideas—good or bad—and I settled on Inheritance: The Sins of a Father (book 1). I am currently working on book 2 and hope to have it completed very soon.

MG: You saw an ad for a vanity publisher, I believe. What made you answer it?

MM: About halfway through my first book I realised that I really had no idea how to get it published and a little panic set in. I started to google publishers and after seeing that most of the publishers weren’t interested in new authors or weren’t taking any submissions in general, I started to look a little deeper. Somewhere along the line I must have signed up to what I thought were publishers in the traditional sense. At the time I really couldn’t tell the difference. This was when I started getting contacted.

So, what made me answer? I got an email asking if I was still interested in publishing my book. Of course I was and I was rather excited too. I couldn’t believe it. They wanted to arrange a time to speak with me in order to discuss how to proceed.

During the call they immediately told me how much they liked the story and how they would like to get it published and made available all over the world. They made it clear that they were a very big publishing company with offices all over. You can imagine my excitement by this point. I didn’t even think to ask what they liked about the book. After completely buttering me up and prepping me ready for the sale, the inevitable price rudely interrupted my daydreaming and brought me crashing to earth confused and bewildered. “Is this how it’s done?” I thought to myself. They mentioned a figure, 800 of the Queen’s finest (GBP) but, I am in luck, they can do it for a special one-time fee of £500.00. In cases like this I always listen to my wife’s advice and she would have told me to ask for more information to review and get back to them. So, I did just that.

MG: Let’s look at the basic package from one such publisher. For US$899 (quite probably the equivalent of your GBP£800), you get a choice of 8 book cover templates to use, plus 5 interior templates, and you can supply images for the cover as well as an author photo. Your book will be made available to the public in paperback and as an ebook; you’ll get an ebook galley (copy) to proof, and up to 25 corrections can be made if necessary. Your book will be given an ISBN (International Standard Book Number), which will be registered with the Books In Print® database. It will be available for purchase worldwide through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and you’ll be able to check book sales and accounting online. Any royalty payments will be made quarterly. You will receive 6 paperback copies, plus 50 promotional business cards, bookmarks, and postcards, in addition to 5 promotional posters.

The thing is, apart from the 6 paperback copies (which, as the author, might set you back about $35) and all the printed bumph, if you know your way around Word, you can do everything else yourself for FREE. And there’s plenty of online help available to get you started.

MM: Yes, I was lucky enough to have opened a dialogue with the author Eric A Asher who was kind enough to point me in the right direction in regards to self-publishing. Before that the idea seemed like a daunting one and I honestly didn’t think it was something that could be so easily done. I was contacted again by another company flogging the same dead horse and that was when I contacted your good self for more advice. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something.

MG: Something you won’t be missing is a substantial chunk out of your bank balance! I would point out that was just their basic package. They “offer” so much more. Whilst browsing through their website I came across a “Cover Copy Polish”—to make sure the text on your cover (yes! just your cover) appeals to readers—for a whopping GBP£249.00!

I think one of the most daunting things about self-publishing for the first time is that you have only the faintest grasp of the process. Over the next few months, I’m going to try to demystify that. I’ll be looking at how you can do many of the things that vanity publishers do—but on your own…and for free.

Michael Mills, thank you for sharing your experiences this month, and I really hope you will join me in June when I’ll reveal some easy ways to improve a manuscript, whether one’s going the self-publishing route or the traditional one.

This month’s special offer is for Gooseberry: Octavius Guy & The Case of the Thieving Maharajah (#1). Fourteen-year-old Gooseberry once helped solve the mystery of the Moonstone. Now fate is about to throw him a new case, sending him sleuthing round the Victorian capital once more. Offer ends on May 31st 2019. You’ll find links and details on my website.

“Sometimes you see a book and just know you’re going to love it…An absolute treat for fans of Collins’ novel and a successful novel in its own right.”—Emma Hamilton, LibraryThing Early Reviewer (5 stars)


Happy reading!

Michael


Follow me on Twitter @seventh7rainbow
find me on my website Michael Gallagher Writes
and on Facebook
and visit Murder Most Cozy for a round up of the coziest Crimes & Thrillers reviews

April 2019: Now we are six!

Bring on the cake…crack open the bubbly…this month my website turns six! It’s interesting to reflect how much both Malane—who built it and who now maintains it for me—and I have learned over the intervening years. Everything, really. Neither of us knew diddly squat when we started down this road. I still wouldn’t, had I not been obliged to take over for a while a few years back. That was a steep learning curve I’m not anxious to repeat.

Last month I decided it was high time I started advertising my books on Twitter. Up till then, while I may have run the occasional advert, I tried to limit them to a maximum of three per month. Why, I hear you ask? Simple really. Rightly or wrongly, I felt that just by being on Twitter was advertisement enough. If my books came up naturally within a conversation, so be it. My main purpose was to make new friends. Recently, however, it occurred to me that I was not taking full advantage of what the medium has to offer. I have a wealth of great reviews to cherry-pick from, many of which my followers will be unaware of—just take a look at my Meet the Readers page; scroll down and you’ll see what I mean. And again; it’s a very long list. These are some of the reviews in full that my books have received over the years—used with the reviewers’ blessings, I hasten to add. It seemed a shame not to share them with a wider audience.

And it worked. Followers who weren’t aware of just how well my books have been received replied to my tweets. “Very high praise indeed,” as one person put it. “This is the kind of review that every writer dreams about.” The question then became, “How often?” So I ran a poll—my first and, given the intensity of the experience, quite possibly my last. I knew what I wanted the outcome to be, but what would my followers want? Hourly? Daily? An occasional run? Or DON’T DO IT, MICHAEL!? For much of the time “Daily” and “An occasional run” fought neck and neck. With 76 votes in, here are the final results. Quite what became of the missing one percent, I can only begin to speculate:

Hourly: 5%

Daily: 43%

An occasional run: 47%

DON’T DO IT, MICHAEL!: 4%

Hmmm. Were I a cynical person I might be tempted to imagine that the majority of those who voted “Hourly” and “DON’T DO IT, MICHAEL!” found a way to vote twice. Thankfully I got the result I was looking for and, more broadly, I learned that the majority of my followers are happy for me to plug my titles. And that’s a good thing to know if you’re an author.

This month’s special offer is for The Scarab Heart. The Valley of the Kings, 1885. Lizzie wants nothing more to do with her powers. Her powers, however, have other things in mind. Offer ends on April 30th 2019. You’ll find links and details on my website.

“As much as I loved The Bridge of Dead Things ~ I adored The Scarab Heart! These books are marvelous, really and truly something special!”—Paula Fetty-King, Goodreads Reviewer (5 stars)

Happy reading!
Michael

Find me on my website Michael Gallagher Writes
on Facebook
follow me on Twitter @seventh7rainbow
and visit Murder Most Cozy for a round up of the coziest Crimes & Thrillers reviews

March 2019: Taking back control over Twitter

How to mute a conversation: “I went out for beer and when I got back I found a hundred new notifications waiting for me,” as one account put it. If you’ve ever been tagged in a popular, ongoing conversation with 36 others taking part, you will know how overwhelming this can feel. The Friday follow (#FF) trains on which the writing community thrives are a prime example of this. There’s not much you can do once the notifications are there, but you can certainly nip it in the bud—by muting the conversation. Click on any of the tweets in question, then keep clicking until you reach the actual thread. If you then click on the downwards chevron in the top right-hand corner, you’ll see an option to “mute this conversation”. Hey presto! It may take a second or two, but no more responses in your notifications! The downside however…you may still hear that little warning bell sound (or, in my case, what they optimistically call “bongos”). BTW, if you click on the link to my website, you’ll find helpful diagrams for these fixes.

How to see only the latest tweets in chronological order: Ever wondered who the hell half these people are who seem to pop up all over your Twitter feed? Especially when you click on their profiles only to discover that neither you nor they are following each other? Hmmm. This is Twitter deciding that you want to see tweets that people you follow have liked. If you add these to the plethora of retweets you see, it’s a wonder you see any of the tweets that the people you follow put out. Fear not! Help is to hand in the form of filters. Step one. Do a Twitter search, typing the following into the search box:

filter:follows -filter:retweets -filter:replies include:nativeretweets

Step two. If, like me, you don’t really care about the most popular tweets, click on “latest” in the header bar. Behold! Actual original tweets by the people you follow! And, more amazingly, in proper chronological order. Oh yes. *takes a bow* Step three. Click on the tiny column made up of three little circles at the top-right of the header bar. It will bring up a drop-down menu that allows you to save your search. If you want to see the retweets, however, omit the “-filter:retweets” part.

How to find the accounts that you actually want to see: But what if you want to see solely what close friends have been tweeting? The easiest way to do this is by adding them to a “list”. Click on your friend’s account. Somewhere near the top on the right-hand side (in both the phone app and online) you will see a tiny column made up of three small circles. Click on this and you get a drop-down menu, which gives you the option to “Add to list”—or some such similar wording. The first time you do this, you’ll be asked to create a list that you can add them to (in the app, it’s the little circle with the plus sign at the bottom right). You can give the list a name, and you can decide whether it will be public (everyone can see it) or private (just for you). Once you’ve added your friend, you can come back to your list at any time by clicking on your profile pic in the header bar (top right online, top left on the phone app) for a drop-down menu that will take you there.

How NOT to appropriate someone else’s thread: If you’ve ever responded to a friend while they were caught up in a conversation with several others (I know I have), everyone in that conversation gets notified. They get notified, too, when you and your friend start onto another topic quite unrelated to that original thread. It’s rude, and it isn’t necessary, as you can choose who to respond to in situations like this. When you write your reply, you can see exactly who you’re replying to in blue at the top. Click on this, and you’ll see the accounts in the conversation, with your friend in a default position at the top. Simply uncheck those who aren’t part of your spin-off conversation, and click “Done”. Simple as.

How to track your unfollowers: People unfollow you for all kinds of reasons. They may object to something you’ve said. They may be disappointed with your lack of engagement with them—though, trust me, that goes both ways. They may even be one of those sleazy accounts who unfollow you once you’ve followed back, in the hope of boosting their numbers. I’ve a Twitter friend who calls this their “followers-to-following ratio”. He’s right, but it’s a bit of a mouthful. The question is: how can you strike back when Twitter allows you to see only a fraction of those you are following? His answer—and now mine: use an app. Though other social media management apps are available, Who Unfollowed Me? does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s free, it tells you who has unfollowed you, and best of all it allows to to unfollow them back. Before you do, however, here’s a little tip. Visit their account and mute them. Mute, don’t block. If they ever try following you again (and, believe it or not, some do), their name will come up with a mute sign beside it. Don’t bother following them this time. Let them sit there swelling your numbers for a change. One little warning about Who Unfollowed Me? When you join, it can take a while for it to read and understand your account. You won’t be able to do much on the first day. Once you can, though, make sure you check out “Connections” in the header bar. Oh yes!

This month’s special offer is for The Bridge of Dead Things. Murky Victorian London. When 13-year-old Lizzie starts having fits, the people around her begin to realize that she may have unusual powers. Offer ends on March 31st 2019. You’ll find links and details on my website.

“I have got to say, these books are unlike any other I have read...almost impossible to put down.”—Helene Gårdsvold, Amazon.com Reviewer (5 stars)

Happy reading!
Michael

Find me on my website Michael Gallagher Writes
on Facebook
follow me on Twitter @seventh7rainbow
and visit Murder Most Cozy for a round up of the coziest Crimes & Thrillers reviews

February 2019: Further thoughts about Twitter

Hello February! Last month I talked about my resolutions regarding Twitter and how I use it. The sentiments seemed to resonate with a good number of my Twitter folks, who kindly tweeted back to me their concerns, and, around the same time, some rather serious issues started being raised within the #amwriting community, so this month I thought I’d take a look at some of these.

The most serious matter (in my opinion) was a result of the follow-everyone-back policy that the writing community has. Many followed an author named Daniel Rumanos, who claimed to be a “proud hebephile” in his profile blurb. They had no idea what this meant (nor did I, come to that, but then I’m very sceptical about words I don’t recognize). It turns out he’s a proud lover of young, pubescent teenagers. You’ll be pleased to know that the community rushed to do its thing when somebody pointed this out, and his account is now closed. But there’s still a lesson to be learned here: following back blindly is never a good idea.

One of my Twitter friends, who has done much to support me and countless other writers, runs a great weekly contest she calls “Writing Community Superlatives”. She decides on a category (on the week in question it was for the most helpful accounts), then calls for nominations. She then whittles these down to a poll and invites people to vote. Simple, engaging, lots of fun, and yet still managing to highlight other writers—you’d think! Oh, no. The amount of flak she received for this particular poll was astonishing, and in almost every case it was to blame her for supporting people who already had a large following. Writers of Twitter! She can tweet what she likes! If you can’t engage in a positive way, then don’t engage at all; doing so does you no favours, especially if you wade in without bothering to familiarize yourself with the process, as these people did. Instead, put your money where your mouth is and start your own version, running it however you please.

The latest permutation of this kind of behaviour has members of our community DMing (direct messaging) other writers to tell them what they should and should not be tweeting about. News flash! Our community is all the better for our differences. These people are not the Twitter police (whatever they themselves might think), and this behaviour is bordering on harassment. You are resorting to DMs to avoid the kind of backlash you know you would receive if you did this publicly.

Another of my good Twitter friends brought up this thought-provoking topic: when do tweets stop being conversational and cross over into the realms of stalker territory? Here’s one particular thread I participated in that almost crosses the line. Almost. I hasten to point out that I know X and Y quite well through Twitter, and like them both very much. Had it been anyone I didn’t know well, however, it might have been another story…

Postcards From The Past: (image of a beach-front resort from the air) “Drinking does not start until 4 o’clock.”
X: “No one—no one—starts drinking until our dear friend (Y, wrongly tagged) arrives and explains to all and sundry via Google Maps just where the bloody hell we are?”
Me: “Sure you tagged the right Y, sir?”
X: Nope.
Me: “I thought not. (Y, correctly tagged), wizard at revealing things embedded in Google Maps.”
Y, now that he’s successfully been tagged: “I’ve always loved maps, and I love hunting around looking for clues to places. Of course, Google Maps plus a couple of well known landmarks make it quite easy. ;)”



Me, shocked because there’s just enough information for me to recognize the sign (though I doubt anyone else would): “I’m guessing that’s Canada?”
Y: “Round there. I didn’t want to get too specific.”
Me: “You may have noticed how terribly small Canada is! Do you think I could get the sodding sign in focus?”



The truth is I regularly post photos of how London looks outside my window—with a sufficient display of major and local landmarks to identify where it is I live. Someone I follow asked only yesterday where that was (btw, it isn’t Canada, it’s in London). I told them quite happily, and a great conversation ensued on the topic of historical research, especially as regards the poor. It turns out she’d researched several local families in the area. But it’s a fine line—isn’t it?—and it seems to depend very much upon context and on the relationship you have with the respondent. Yet what if one of you misreads that relationship?

And on we go. “Twitter can’t stay the old way,” came a reply to one of my tweets, “and needs to adapt to [the] market.” So far so good. But then it got personal. “This format is very much designed with a global user [and] not the old Caucasian male user in mind.” Thank you so much for explaining that to me, though you clearly have some issues to work through regarding age, race, and gender. I suppose some of those “global users” you cite might agree with you; I cannot help wondering though if they might also be “influencers”?

My original question about Twitter, however? “Why tinker with something that isn’t broken?” and I know there’s an awful lot of people out there from all kinds of backgrounds who would happily agree with me on this. Fact is, Twitter did tinker and it’s tinkering still. So next month I’ll be exploring some fixes that will let you wrest back control. I guarantee you one of them’s a doozy!

This month’s special offer is for Big Bona Ogles, Boy!: Octavius Guy & The Case of the Mendacious Medium (#3). This time young Gooseberry investigates a shadowy Spiritualist medium, only to discover that somebody wants her dead. Offer ends on February 28th 2019.

“Thank you so much for writing these books, and for bringing these characters to life. I have a feeling they'll always be lurking around in my head. Excellent, excellent, excellent!”—Laura Brook LibraryThing Early Reviewer (5 stars)

Happy reading!
Michael

Find me on my website Michael Gallagher Writes
on Facebook
follow me on Twitter @seventh7rainbow
and visit Murder Most Cozy for a round up of the coziest Crimes & Thrillers reviews

January 2019: My New Year’s resolutions regarding Twitter!

In 2018 I managed to come to terms with Twitter, mainly because I finally got myself a smartphone. I started off with something like 11 followers in March. Thanks mainly to the huge and highly supportive writing community, I’m now on my way to 3,000. I’ve had some brilliant conversations with some brilliant people along the way; I feel as if I have made some friends. Would you believe I even hooked up with two of my favourite authors, Steven Saylor and M. R. C. Kasasian? And yet, as great as this undoubtedly is, not everything is peaches in the Twitterverse.

The reason for my expanded following is that I get mentioned in numerous “follow trains” and pyramid-style “tag” games. Both have their downsides. “I went out for beer and when I got back I found a hundred new notifications waiting for me,” as the recipient of one such tag game put it. It can cause those of us who don’t know how to mute conversations enormous distress. One of the ones I participated in (you’ll probably know it—“7 book covers over 7 days; no explanations, no comments”) proved stressful for one of the people I tagged. Yet someone she tagged enjoyed it so much, they set up a brand new round of their own. So my first resolution is to join in only those games I can see some benefit in, and to be very, very careful about whom I tag, if anyone. I’ve never been good at following rules.

You won’t be surprised to learn that there are rather unscrupulous people out there who use the writing community’s follow trains for their own dastardly schemes. Media types, “influencers” (what a horrid word), bank executives, and even footballers (mine played for Arsenal) follow you, knowing full well you’ll diligently follow them back. Then, after a suitable amount of time has passed, they drop you like a hot potato, with the hope you won’t notice. Why? Because it boosts their following. Here’s a tip: mute them before you unfollow them. If they ever try their scam on you again (and sometimes they do), their “follow” will appear with a mute sign attached, warning you that you’ve had dealings with them before. This time, let them hang: they can boost your following for a while. Or—and here’s my second resolution—learn to recognize the signs, and don’t follow them in the first place.

Then there are the people—typically with fewer than three tweets to their name, if any—who immediately start DMing you (sending you direct messages) as soon as you click their follow button. Often they’re young women, who tell me they want to get to know me better. I used to reply that I do not DM, not that that ever stopped them. “Why not?” “We could always use (insert the name of some other app here) instead?” My third resolution: if by chance I mistakenly follow any more of them, I have prepared a brilliant, very obviously pre-written advertisement for my books, in which I thank them for following me, politely explain that I do not DM, and say that I look forward to reading their proper tweets.

Which brings me on to the book promotion schemes that DM, especially ones claiming to get you reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. “How does that sound?” they ask. “It sounds like it’s a bit too late,” I answer. “I already have quite a good number.” But they are a tenacious breed. They are not going to let a sales lead stop at that. Apparently by increasing my reviews, I increase my ranking on both sites, which in turn increases my “organic reach”. Two brow-beating interactions later, having quoted my titles to me (shows that they care), they finally concede defeat. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet come up with a strategy for cutting them off right at the start.

On a final note, two of the accounts I follow sadly stopped tweeting last year. Both are OK; for the time being, they’d just had enough. If by some miracle they happen to see this: please know that Twitter is poorer without you. And that brings me to my fourth resolution: to try to talk to people more and get to know them better. It is what Twitter is particularly good at, after all. Which only leaves me to wish you all, dear friends and readers, a very happy and healthy New Year!

This month’s special offer is for Octopus: Octavius Guy & The Case of the Throttled Tragedienne (#2). When the leading actress dies in mysterious circumstances during a performance of The Duchess of Malfi, Gooseberry feels duty-bound to investigate. It is, after all, a great deal more exciting than the last case he was assigned to: the tracking down of a rich old lady’s errant cat! Offer ends on January 31st 2019, and no, there are no strings attached and no review is required. Phew! You’ll find links and details on my website.

“Historical fact is deftly combined with fiction that makes Octavius’s world a new form of old London that I am eager to visit again. Pour some tea or a wee dram, put your feet up, and enjoy cover to cover.”—Gladread LibraryThing Early Reviewer (5 stars)

Happy reading!
Michael

Find me on my website Michael Gallagher Writes
on Facebook
follow me on Twitter @seventh7rainbow
and visit Murder Most Cozy for a round up of the coziest Crimes & Thrillers reviews

December 2018: A round-up of my favourite reads over the past year

Hello, dear readers, and welcome! With the holiday season almost upon us, what better time than now to share with you some of my favourite reads over the past year! Most of them are titles that the Canada Water Crimes & Thrillers Reading Group tackled. Some are quite old; others less so—though even a number of the more modern ones have a period feel. They’ve nearly all got a link to Agatha Christie, too, in one small way or another.



Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah writing as Agatha Christie

Lady Playford, author of the beloved Shrimp Seddon mysteries (whose precocious ten-year-old heroine leads of a gang of child detectives), invites Poirot and Catchpool to a family house party at her rural Irish mansion where she announces that she has changed her will, disinheriting her two children in favour of her terminally ill secretary. Hannah’s characters are at once complex and yet instantly recognizable. Even the supporting cast is beautifully drawn. I was immediately attracted to the ageing Irish cook who takes one look at Catchpool and says, ‘I knew I was right—you’ve got that look about you!’

“…I asked the obvious question, to which she answered, ‘The look of a man who drinks water all through the night!’ She said this as fiercely as if she were accusing me of baby farming or some equally hideous crime, then pointed to her mouth and said, ‘Dry lips—I can see them from here!’”

She enigmatically goes on to relate a seemingly unconnected story about a nephew who had once stolen some peppermints from a bowl and had broken the bowl in the process. Although I wasn’t expecting an explanation for these bizarre and unfathomable utterances, I was truly delighted with it when one finally came. That kind of sums up how very generous this book—and its author—is. Cozy thrillers don’t get much cozier…and certainly no more challenging.

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Magpie Murders has been lauded for its cleverness. Stephen King (no less) tweeted this of it: “It’s as good as an Agatha Christie. Better, in some ways. Cleverer.” It’s certainly more complex (almost to a fault), though I wouldn’t say it’s cleverer. If you’ve heard of it, you’ll probably already know that it’s a book within a book, first an Agatha Christie style whodunnit set in the 1950s by the (fictitious) recently deceased crime writer Alan Conway. Conway’s detective is Atticus Pünd—a cipher for Hercule Poirot—and the setting is classic Poirot territory, the quiet rural village on Saxby-on-Avon. When the busybody of a housekeeper at the manor house dies in a fall down the stairs, Pünd is called in but resists the call, only accepting the case when Sir Magnus Pye, her employer, is later murdered. Anyone who likes Poirots will probably enjoy this part. In style it reminds me a little of Dead Man’s Folly. There are clues, naturally, but they are by far outweighed by the number of red herrings.

The second half of Horowitz’s book concerns itself with the apparent suicide of Alan Conway, Pünd’s creator. We are no longer in cozy mystery mode anymore. Conway is a nasty piece of work and there are many of his acquaintances who would wish to see him dead. Susan Ryeland, his editor at Cloverleaf Books, is determined to investigate. Horowitz goes to great length to make this part of the novel as realistic as he can. We get mentions of Agatha Christie Ltd. and Sophie Hannah; indeed, even Agatha Christie’s grandson Mathew Pritchard turns up as a character. We are taken into the mind of an author at work: how they name characters; how they create settings; where their ideas come from; what their bookshelf contains (I’m glad to say mine holds up pretty well). It’s all fascinating stuff, at least to a writer of the genre. And yet, for all that, if you want to solve either of these mysteries, I suggest you stick to good old motive, means, and opportunity.

The Clock Strikes Twelve by Patricia Wentworth

When this was written in the 1940s Patricia Wentworth was as popular with readers as Agatha Christie was, and it’s easy to see why, for it belongs to the needle-clicking spinster who runs rings around the police trope. On New Year’s Eve 1940 the head of a large, well-to-do English family announces at dinner that one of their number has betrayed them. He doesn’t say who or how, but he proposes to sit in his study till midnight, waiting for the guilty party to come and confess. I expect you can guess what happens. As luck would have it, Miss Maud Silver is staying in town with her niece. She agrees to investigate his murder at the family’s request—though not everyone is happy with this.

This is a densely-written narrative in the third person, with different people’s emotions on show as we move through a single scene. In a lesser writer’s hands this could be a mess, but Wentworth makes it work for her, and the overall effect has a film-like quality, like a camera moving slowly round a room. The plot is really rather good, and you’ll be delighted to know that Wentworth sets traps for people like me, who vainly consider themselves to be hardened armchair detectives. The characters are enjoyable enough, though their dialogue does tend to err on the side of Noel Coward. Miss Silver’s continual coughing worried me terribly. And be prepared for some sexist drivel.

The Family Vault by Charlotte MacLeod

This title—by the woman who was hailed the American Agatha Christie—was suggested to the Crimes & Thrillers reading group I attend by one of my readers (and now firm online friend) in Canada, and I find it absolutely incredible that I’m only now getting to discover this wonderful series featuring the amateur sleuths Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn—for the fact is its author Charlotte MacLeod is virtually unknown here in the UK.
Great characters, great story, an attractive pair of detectives; quite simply a fab introduction to what promises to be a truly excellent series. But you probably know that already and have known it for years.

Recipes for Love & Murder by Sally Andrew

Try as I might, I cannot think of any link to Agatha Christie for this one. It reads like an Alexander McCall Smith novel realized with a little less humour though with an actual murder to solve. In this case our detective is a cook who writes an advice-for-the-lovelorn column in a small-town South African newspaper. Tannie (“Aunty”) Maria, divides her time between chasing up culinary and housekeeping clues (that the police fail to recognize as being significant) and cooking meals for her friends. Loads of local colour and a thoroughly enjoyable read.


This month's special offer

This month’s special offer is for Gooseberry: Octavius Guy & The Case of the Thieving Maharajah (#1). Fourteen-year-old Gooseberry once helped solve the mystery of the Moonstone. Now fate is about to throw him a new case, sending him sleuthing round the Victorian capital once more. Offer ends on December 31st 2018. Perfect for the holiday season! You’ll find links and details on my website.

“Sometimes you see a book and just know you’re going to love it…An absolute treat for fans of Collins’ novel and a successful novel in its own right.”—Emma Hamilton, LibraryThing Early Reviewer (5 stars)


Happy reading and happy holidays to you all!

Michael


Find me on my website Michael Gallagher Writes

on Facebook

follow me on Twitter @seventh7rainbow

and visit Murder Most Cozy for a round up of the coziest Crimes & Thrillers reviews

November 2018: Will top tips for writers actually improve your writing?

We’ve all seen them, haven’t we? “Ten Top Tips to Improve Your Writing”. While I’m not about to make a list of my own, I will happily distil for you what these generally include:









1. Write in the active voice and avoid the passive.
2. Use fewer adjectives.
3. Avoid adverbs; choose verbs instead that describe the action.
4. Vary the lengths of your sentences.
5. Vary your sentence constructions.
6. Show, don’t tell.

If you follow this advice, your writing will almost certainly improve. It will cut out the flab. It may even turn you into the next Stephen King. Why? Because that’s exactly how Stephen King writes. And therein lies the first problem for me. As much as I admire the man’s writing, I don’t wish to write like Stephen King. I want to write like me. If I were writing a hard-boiled thriller in the third-person, then this advice would be perfect. The style suits the genre to a tee. But I write first-person cozy thrillers where the narrator is little more than a runny-nosed child. I also like their voice to be quite humorous; it helps offset the mounting body count. If I were to do these things I’ve suggested, it would squeeze most of the life out of their characters.

The second problem I have is that this advice can so easily be misconstrued (note the dreaded passive I used there, folks). I saw a recent instance on Twitter of a respondent suggesting ways to improve a perfectly good piece of writing that someone had posted. They seem to have taken the active voice to mean “the most active, unusual verb you can find”. The result wasn’t pretty. The recipient of these proposals thanked the person kindly and politely declined to use them. The pearl I took away from this is that if you overdo any of these things—any—you are likely to end up with a hideous mess.

That said, I would like to mention a couple of the very best advice sites I happened across whilst nosing around. First there’s Ricardo Fayet’s blog, a guest blogger at Bookbub. Personally, I loathe the cliched inclusion of an internal conflict, one of the many topics presented here. My heart sinks every time it crops up in a book. But hey-ho, that’s just me. Then there’s Andrew Noakes at andrewnoakes.co.uk. His post on the third-person limited voice is equally informative and revealing about the other narrative choices there are on offer. If you would prefer a slightly lighter approach, you might try one of Stephi Cham’s threads on Twitter @stephiesque, as well as another of her threads, this one @Write_Plan.

This month’s special offer is for The Scarab Heart. Egypt 1885. Lizzie deals with theft, murder, and the fall of the 18th Dynasty in the Valley of the Kings. Offer ends on November 30th 2018. You’ll find links and details on my website.

“The imagery is fabulous, the characters are likeable, and the story is believably enthralling.”—Nightwing, Goodreads Reviewer (5 stars)



Happy reading!
Michael

Find me on my website Michael Gallagher Writes
on Facebook
follow me on Twitter @seventh7rainbow
and visit Murder Most Cozy for a round up of the coziest Crimes & Thrillers reviews

October 2018: What future for publishing?

I started this series of posts by reflecting on the current state of publishing. We are mired in a marketplace that is grossly oversaturated, and—given humankind’s desire to express itself, combined with tools that make it ever easier to do just that—we are probably going to remain that way for some years to come. Along with the other two million authors to publish this year, you’ll be struggling to get your book noticed at all. In such circumstances you are unlikely to have a best-selling title on your hands without a huge amount of luck, a huge amount of help, and massive support for you on social media. But then there’s that nagging voice at the back of your head always whispering, “But it might just happen, mightn’t it?” Well, yes; I suppose it might. And if it were to happen, what then? Well, you’d be obliged to write another one that’s at least as good and still manages to satisfy the same market. And do it quickly before the interest in you fades. Perhaps Harper Lee had the right idea all along—right up until she didn’t.

But publishing is a business, and the majority of new writers will soon learn the sad truth that there’s simply no money in it. That might just be enough to stem the flow a little. Interesting fact: there never was. As the children’s author Belinda Hollyer (now sadly deceased) once said to me in the days before self-publishing, “You don’t get rich by writing. We write because we have to.” And it’s not as if it’s an easy task. I always liken penning a novel to running a clutch of marathons back-to-back. And when you finally have the finishing line in sight…well, that’s when you start the proofing and formatting, the commissioning of reviews and the timetabling of publicity, all of which feels like yet another long-distance schlep to be endured. Ah, but how glorious those finishing lines can feel…

And it’s not as if there isn’t help available—at a price. Self-publishing has spawned its own myriad support service industry, from proofreading to editing, from cover art to file formatting, from career review-blogging to (**truly horrified gasp!!!**) companies guaranteeing to get you fifty great reviews up on Amazon—for a percentage of your sales, that is. Hmmm, as Gooseberry would no doubt say. Personally I recommend you steer well clear of that one and learn to do the rest of these tasks yourself—though having a good friend who’s a crack proofreader never goes amiss! It may take you longer, but it’s much more rewarding—and you end up with a whole new set of skills (not to mention being several hundred shekels better off)!

Back in April I compared the state of publishing to a gold rush, and I think parallels can be drawn with that kind of boom-and-bust business model to predict what will happen in publishing. At some point the majority will realize there’s no gold left and move on. The others, content with the few odd specks they pick up through their long and diligent labours, will stay the course. We’re not in it for the gold, you see. We write because we have to.

This month’s special offer is for The Bridge of Dead Things. A working-class Victorian girl discovers she has a unique if unwanted power and is soon drawn into a world of seances, ghost grabbers…and murderers. No mention of a gold rush, but there’s a diamond rush that comes into the story! Offer ends on October 31st 2018. You’ll find links and details on my website.

“A fantastically detailed historical fiction novel ~ rich with period details, colorful characters, AND a very gripping ghostly tale. Read this book, you will not be disappointed.”—Paula Fetty-King Smashwords Reviewer (5 stars)

Happy reading!
Michael

Find me on my website Michael Gallagher Writes
on Facebook
follow me on Twitter @seventh7rainbow
and visit Murder Most Cozy for a round up of the coziest Crimes & Thrillers reviews

September 2018: The shocking truth about SEO…it’s so easy!

Hello newly published author! If you (like I do) have a very common name and aren’t famed for anything in particular (either in a good way or a bad way), the chances are if you Google yourself, you’ll have an awful lot of wading to do before you end up finding your listing. Six years ago, I doubt I even could have. I had no digital footprint. Now I only have to wade through nine pages to see me there. Hmmm. Note to self: probably could do better.

What I couldn’t improve on, however, is the ranking for my article about Maria B. Hayden, the Victorian medium who provided the inspiration for Mrs Harmon in Octavius Guy & The Case of the Mendacious Medium. Yes, that’s my website in the number one slot…and on the very first page!—though it does help that there’s no Wikipedia entry, and only 2 million similar results. My article about Florence Cook (inspiration for a very different character of mine) ranks sixth in a search for her, but there are two Wikipedia entries above it and this time a hefty 7.4 million results. As you may have guessed, this month we’re looking at ways to improve your ranking—and therefore your discoverability.

A lot is written about SEO (Search Engine Optimization to make your website—and online presence—search-engine friendly), as it helps to determine your rankings. People even do it as a job. Most of what they say is very techie. It needn’t be. It basically boils down to this: what is it those cute little crawler-bots are looking for?

It turns out that, apart from a few important things which I’ll list later, it’s exactly what any ordinary visitor would expect: an easy-to-navigate layout, regular updates, clear titles and other indications of what pages are about, links that actually work and manage to take you to the right place, signs that other people like the site, and informative (information-rich) text which is both authoritative and not readily available elsewhere. The more obscure the subject matter—though still relevant to you or your book—the better (there’ll be fewer similar results to contend with). Oh, and it helps if there’s a mobile-friendly version if visitors happen to be using their phones. Do these simple things (and give it a spring clean once in a while) and everyone is happy.

What they don’t like (and nor do many visitors): a website that’s hard to navigate, slow-loading pages, irritating pop-ups or forms to fill in, links that have expired or simply don’t work, images that only appear as “alts” and even then with no written description, 404 errors (page not found), and repetitive, poor-quality text of little relevance. Almost a perfect score for my email provider’s latest galumphing incarnation, then! They don’t much like spam, either, or plagiarism (scraping) of other sites. You avoid these things? Good! So what can you do to become even more search-engine friendly? Well…

Use headings, tags/labels, and metadata where available
This is especially important for any unique, high-quality content you might generate. These are the pointers that help determine how relevant your post is to any given search query. Whatever you do, don’t lie or spam when you add them. If your post is mainly about what you did last Thursday, then own up to the fact; don’t label it, “How to become a best-selling author”. You may fool the bots (unlikely), but you will never fool the humans. When they immediately hit the “back” button to return to Bing or Google after two measly seconds on your site, don’t think their annoyance will slip past unnoticed. The search engine’s analytics will be watching their pain. And you will be scored accordingly.

Write good links
Example of a bad link: Want a free gift? Click here!
Example of a slightly better link: Want a free download of my book? Click here!
Example of a good link: Want a free download of my latest book, The Mendacious Medium? Just click on the link!
The first one tells your visitor (human or crawler) very little unless they’re prepared to go exploring, the second a bit more, but only the third places your book title in the anchor text (which crawlers assume is important), and everyone can see what’s on offer at the other end of the link. And while you’re at it, don’t write too many links. Don’t make the crawlers’ trip too exhausting for their little legs.

Link all identical/near-identical posts
If, like me, you write a monthly post that syndicates to your various author pages and blogs, make sure to link them all to the page where the text originates (presumably on your website). If you don’t, search engines may see all the various copies of your post and decide that it’s all spam. It’s not; it’s your attempt to engage with new readers on alternative sites, as well as with people who prefer to follow you on a particular site. So how do you go about linking them, then? Use this special bit of code: (link rel="canonical" href="http://www.yourwebsite.com/whereyouha..." /), replacing the rounded brackets “( )” with the pointy type like this “< >” and the URL with your own (I had to write it this way because the link disappears if I use pointy brackets, which it’s meant to). This goes on each of the copies—but not the original—and preferably in the html header section. If that’s not possible (and it seldom is), then put it at the start of the html text; that seems to work. A good tip to know: unlike most other links, this one doesn’t close. And finally…

Aim to get reputable sites linking to yours
The keyword here is reputable. Any site that charges you for a link is unlikely to meet that criteria, and may even prove damaging to your own reputation. If people want to link to you, let it happen naturally.

This month’s special offer is for Big Bona Ogles, Boy!: Octavius Guy & The Case of the Mendacious Medium (#3). This time everyone’s favourite Victorian boy detective and his ragtag bunch of friends investigate a shadowy spiritualist medium (as inspired by the good Maria), recently arrived from Massachusetts, only to discover that somebody desperately wants her dead. Offer ends on September 30th 2018. You’ll find links and details on my website.

“In a locked room, everyone is a suspect…Once again Michael Gallagher creates a vivid, almost tangible reality in Victorian England. That, with his rich character development, and engaging plot makes this book incredibly enjoyable and downright fun!”—Devon Lewis (The Pinkaholic) Goodreads Reviewer (5 stars)

Happy reading!
Michael

Find me on my website Michael Gallagher Writes
on Facebook
follow me on Twitter @seventh7rainbow
and visit Murder Most Cozy for a round up of the coziest Crimes & Thrillers reviews