Liam Leddy's Blog, page 2
July 20, 2020
KINDLE LENDING FOR READERS
Keeping up with informing my readers of everything applicable to my writing could be a full time job if I let it be. I apologise to readers all the time about this. The point is that if I allowed that to be the case I would never get any actual writing done and therefore there would be no books written to discuss in the first place!
Hopefully readers understand this is a problem for all writers so I am certainly not alone on this Catch 22 situation.
Two quick points to make therefore. Along with selling my Kindle books Amazon , through KOLL ,make all of my books available to read on a lend basis. Ideal for dedicated Kindle readers of course.
The other point is that I also offer my books through D2D. Draft to Digital have all my books there also. Just before lockdown captured us all I reduced my D2D prices considerably and I forgot to mention this to readers after doing so. Not much point to that is there? Sorry D2D users. Readers who wish to check out D2D will be very pleasantly surprised with just how inexpensive my books with them are now.
Hopefully readers understand this is a problem for all writers so I am certainly not alone on this Catch 22 situation.
Two quick points to make therefore. Along with selling my Kindle books Amazon , through KOLL ,make all of my books available to read on a lend basis. Ideal for dedicated Kindle readers of course.
The other point is that I also offer my books through D2D. Draft to Digital have all my books there also. Just before lockdown captured us all I reduced my D2D prices considerably and I forgot to mention this to readers after doing so. Not much point to that is there? Sorry D2D users. Readers who wish to check out D2D will be very pleasantly surprised with just how inexpensive my books with them are now.
July 16, 2020
KOBO PLUS
Delighted to see all my books featuring here as Rakuten Kobo Plus makes another big push in Canada
There are many Scots and people of Scots descent in Canada. Particularly from the Glasgow area. Check out my real Glasgow crime fiction novels and short story collections. Kobo Plus have put them in all Walmart stores out there I see. Hello to all my Glaswegian friends in Canada. You really didn`t have to go as far as Canada to get rid of me did you? Check these books out and you`ll find out we don`t change all that much here. Oh and one other thing. I`m not that easy to get rid of after all am I?
There are many Scots and people of Scots descent in Canada. Particularly from the Glasgow area. Check out my real Glasgow crime fiction novels and short story collections. Kobo Plus have put them in all Walmart stores out there I see. Hello to all my Glaswegian friends in Canada. You really didn`t have to go as far as Canada to get rid of me did you? Check these books out and you`ll find out we don`t change all that much here. Oh and one other thing. I`m not that easy to get rid of after all am I?
July 10, 2020
WHY
Why are so many of the big publishing outfits so secretive about sales figures for books? Indie writers in particular will know exactly what I am talking about here.
The moment an author dares to mention the word royalties he invariably meets with the following response. "Yes of course we list all your books and we put them into every major bookstore in not only your own country but every other country in the world as you can see in any Google or other major search engine. There they all are all 26 publication of yours to date. Right next to your name. That`s what we said we would do and that`s exactly what we`ve done.
Sorry. Did you say sales figures? Royalties? I`ve kind of lost you there. What are they and how are they relevant to what we were just explaining to you? You are what? The author? Oh that explains it all then. We don`t talk directly to authors under any set of circumstances.
Oh before you go is there anything else I can help you with? I do hope you found my response helpful. Please take time to fill in our survey on customer response. Remember we are constantly trying to improve our customer service and your feedback is always helpful. Have a lovely day now."
The moment an author dares to mention the word royalties he invariably meets with the following response. "Yes of course we list all your books and we put them into every major bookstore in not only your own country but every other country in the world as you can see in any Google or other major search engine. There they all are all 26 publication of yours to date. Right next to your name. That`s what we said we would do and that`s exactly what we`ve done.
Sorry. Did you say sales figures? Royalties? I`ve kind of lost you there. What are they and how are they relevant to what we were just explaining to you? You are what? The author? Oh that explains it all then. We don`t talk directly to authors under any set of circumstances.
Oh before you go is there anything else I can help you with? I do hope you found my response helpful. Please take time to fill in our survey on customer response. Remember we are constantly trying to improve our customer service and your feedback is always helpful. Have a lovely day now."
June 29, 2020
Very Briefly
Read somewhere that someone somewhere- not important to me who- knows they can programme a computer to write a guaranteed best seller. 2 immediate reactions from me
Why does that terrify me so much?
Why on earth would anyone want to do that
Why does that terrify me so much?
Why on earth would anyone want to do that
June 18, 2020
NOT REVIEWS
Sorry for bringing this up once more but as time passes and nothing changes I feel I must. I am a Glaswegian who writes his novels - in particular my novels- the short stories less so, in the language of the Glasgow streets. Like Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester indeed most big cities street language belongs to the inhabitants of that city. We know it, we understand it and apart from some gainsayers- we always have gainsayers about everything don`t we?- we love it. It`s ours because it belongs to our city . The city we love. Glasgow street talk is so creative, descriptive and hilariously, outrageously funny that it must be preserved for posterity. That is why I write the way I do. My characters speak that way. That is who my characters are!
On Amazon Author Central there are 2 statements-I refuse to call them reviews because reviews they very definitely are not- from 2 people very definitely not from my home city saying things like "unreadable" " very poor" being two of the nicer points they make or attempt to make. Well it will be of course my friend because you haven`t read the label on the tin have you? You didn`t read the book description or my author biography before offering your your utterly pointless opinion either did you? So how can you possibly say you have reviewed a book when you have absolutely no knowledge of what you are reviewing?
Long winded I know but all this always gets to me.
My point is this. These "reviews" are always the first to come up on Amazon Author Central and heaven knows where else on Amazon totally ignoring the many, excellent Amazon reviews I get frequently from sensible readers who bother to read what a book`s description tells them first before buying it.
Please if you think I am averse and being a "bit precious" about good ,constructive reviews no matter whether they like my book or not I can assure you I am not. Authors actually like that. The readers opinion is the readers opinion and they have every right to to judge either way. It`s their money that buys said book after all.
One or two good reviews on Goodeads now I see also. Many thanks for them
Sometimes I wonder whose side Author Central is on. Certainly ain`t mine
On Amazon Author Central there are 2 statements-I refuse to call them reviews because reviews they very definitely are not- from 2 people very definitely not from my home city saying things like "unreadable" " very poor" being two of the nicer points they make or attempt to make. Well it will be of course my friend because you haven`t read the label on the tin have you? You didn`t read the book description or my author biography before offering your your utterly pointless opinion either did you? So how can you possibly say you have reviewed a book when you have absolutely no knowledge of what you are reviewing?
Long winded I know but all this always gets to me.
My point is this. These "reviews" are always the first to come up on Amazon Author Central and heaven knows where else on Amazon totally ignoring the many, excellent Amazon reviews I get frequently from sensible readers who bother to read what a book`s description tells them first before buying it.
Please if you think I am averse and being a "bit precious" about good ,constructive reviews no matter whether they like my book or not I can assure you I am not. Authors actually like that. The readers opinion is the readers opinion and they have every right to to judge either way. It`s their money that buys said book after all.
One or two good reviews on Goodeads now I see also. Many thanks for them
Sometimes I wonder whose side Author Central is on. Certainly ain`t mine
June 16, 2020
SHORT
When we are first taught how to read from a story book or , magazine, comic or whatever our reading material would of necessity be short and hopefully had a specific point to it. As toddlers we loved them. We would progress to longer stories of course. However I have never lost my fascination and love of the well written short story as a unique little gem in the world of literature. Give me a previously unread collection of them and I am like a child with a new toy.
I learned to read on a diet of short stories, my early writing consisted of short stories- I still read and write short stories - so I find it sad when I hear people dismissing them as if they are somehow not fit to be discussed so much anymore. The novel and the short story are very different writing arts. Not a massive difference when penned by a literary giant granted - anything from Dickens, Poe, Stephen King, Roald Dahl , Saki and so on is normally instantly identifiable in any case -however a difference just the same. A really well written short story will remain in your memory forever.
When I was young most libraries had separate short story sections. I believe I read all of the short story collections in our fairly small little library in a Glasgow housing scheme.
So have a look at some of mine. I write what I love to read. Twists, turns and the big surprise only at the end. You will notice they are normally entitled Tales of something or other with 2 exceptions Aiding & Abetting and Slinger.
The "Tales of " thing I unashamedly stole from Tales of the Unexpected, Tales of Terror, Tales from the Crypt and so on ,those fabulous little collections that kept me up reading long after I should have been asleep at night
I learned to read on a diet of short stories, my early writing consisted of short stories- I still read and write short stories - so I find it sad when I hear people dismissing them as if they are somehow not fit to be discussed so much anymore. The novel and the short story are very different writing arts. Not a massive difference when penned by a literary giant granted - anything from Dickens, Poe, Stephen King, Roald Dahl , Saki and so on is normally instantly identifiable in any case -however a difference just the same. A really well written short story will remain in your memory forever.
When I was young most libraries had separate short story sections. I believe I read all of the short story collections in our fairly small little library in a Glasgow housing scheme.
So have a look at some of mine. I write what I love to read. Twists, turns and the big surprise only at the end. You will notice they are normally entitled Tales of something or other with 2 exceptions Aiding & Abetting and Slinger.
The "Tales of " thing I unashamedly stole from Tales of the Unexpected, Tales of Terror, Tales from the Crypt and so on ,those fabulous little collections that kept me up reading long after I should have been asleep at night
June 12, 2020
MY CHARACTERS
Thought I`d let others know why the characters I brought to life in Body Language mean so much to me. Well you really do care about people you choose to spend a lot of time with don`t you? And boy do I spend a lot of time with this lot. They feel free to wake me up just as I am drifting off to sleep because they demand to be written into or out of some new situation they seem to have got themselves entangled in. Take Lassiter himself for instance. If he ever decides to start drinking again he`ll kill himself and I can`t allow that to happen. The policemen and women like Bradford, Hegarty , Galbraith and Dawson I don`t worry about so much. Sorry I do worry about Dawson. He`s got a ferocious temper equal to that (those?) of both Horner and Hagan and all three are just itching to kill somebody at the best of times simply because they`re in a bad mood. Horner and Hagan are real Glasgow hard men. So is Dawson however and he`s a ploiliceman!
Now the girls Maggie . Sarah , P.J. etc. are out for a giggle most of the time so any bother they get themselves into is normally over a riotous night out or something. However they are hilariously funny and really good company plus they seem to have more common sense than the all the others together.
And then we have Reggie. What can anybody be expected to do with Reggie? But he`s always there, carry-out in hand waiting on his Giro and looking for a tap. The only way I can keeping giving him that tap is if my Amazon, Smashwords Barnes & Noble, Apple and Lulu etc. readers keep reading the Lassiter series.
Incidentally I really do have a great deal of time for this lot. They don`t get it easy either. I write them some really, bad, nasty, vicious, so-and -sos to deal with. Well they woke me up after all didn`t they?
Now the girls Maggie . Sarah , P.J. etc. are out for a giggle most of the time so any bother they get themselves into is normally over a riotous night out or something. However they are hilariously funny and really good company plus they seem to have more common sense than the all the others together.
And then we have Reggie. What can anybody be expected to do with Reggie? But he`s always there, carry-out in hand waiting on his Giro and looking for a tap. The only way I can keeping giving him that tap is if my Amazon, Smashwords Barnes & Noble, Apple and Lulu etc. readers keep reading the Lassiter series.
Incidentally I really do have a great deal of time for this lot. They don`t get it easy either. I write them some really, bad, nasty, vicious, so-and -sos to deal with. Well they woke me up after all didn`t they?
June 10, 2020
AMAZON KINDLE
Amazon Kindle is a fantastic way for any aspiring author to get their work "out there"
For all sorts of reasons of their own some people may try to suggest that is not the case.
That does not now and has never at any time made any impression on me. All writers need some sort of platform to give their work any chance of being seen by the general public and therefore potential readership. Amazon Kindle gives them exactly that. No ifs no buts no questions asked.
What can possibly be wrong with that?
My books have always all been available on Kindle and always will be. No ifs no buts about that either
For all sorts of reasons of their own some people may try to suggest that is not the case.
That does not now and has never at any time made any impression on me. All writers need some sort of platform to give their work any chance of being seen by the general public and therefore potential readership. Amazon Kindle gives them exactly that. No ifs no buts no questions asked.
What can possibly be wrong with that?
My books have always all been available on Kindle and always will be. No ifs no buts about that either
June 6, 2020
THE ONE THING
We are all experiencing lockdown`s effects to some degree or other. My loss of normal day to day family contact has been the worst thing for me. Considering the tragedies that many, many families across the globe have suffered and are still suffering I have absolutely nothing to complain about. The other day- a gloriously warm day it was at that- I sat outside with my coffee and noticed just how peaceful everything around me seemed. No traffic noise. Barely any noise in fact.
No clamour. In the space of an hour or so only about four or five people passed by. All out for a quiet stroll. Total peace
As a Glaswegian born and bred I realised that perhaps those of us in relatively good health could perhaps all just try to focus more on that aspect of being alone.
It ain`t always all that bad
No clamour. In the space of an hour or so only about four or five people passed by. All out for a quiet stroll. Total peace
As a Glaswegian born and bred I realised that perhaps those of us in relatively good health could perhaps all just try to focus more on that aspect of being alone.
It ain`t always all that bad
February 11, 2020
www.liamleddy.com
Short and to the point. My own website www.liamleddy.com is now back up and running smoothly. Techy hitch for a few weeks. Direct links to Amazon Lulu Smashwords and of course Goodreads
