New strategy
A tell it like it is post.
The day before yesterday I was near to despair – consoled only by the knowledge I’m not alone. Over there’s Robert Polevoi with a magnificent novel in the doldrums. “Ask me in a year” has been my answer to the question, how’s your book going? A writer needs among her or his equipment the faith of a Christian in the arena, and that I have. But it isn’t humanly doable to keep our chins up, and mine was sagging.
Yesterday I heard for the hundredth time the tale of an indie who’d sold one a month, until she set the first in her series to free and caught attention. I have two 600-700 page books – depends on how you count. The first agent I submitted to told me publishers won’t look at a book that size from a new author. I knew I’d have to offer the first in halves. Very fortunately, the first is in two titled sections and splits neatly 50-50, and works as either one book or as two. When I went indie I returned to one book, because those two halves do make a whole. And God knows I’m not out to exploit the buyer by charging for two books when artistic judgement tells me they’re one (I’ve heard this beef from them as purchase books. Me ethical author and writer of integrity).
With this first-in-a-series-free thing I’ve thought, that’s fine, for those who write a book a year, but mine take five, even with drastic reduction of other activities, such as paid work and relationships (yes, we’re committed). But I’ve always had a 50% sample on Smashwords, where the choice is mine. So – in addition to Amgalant One and Two as they stand – I’m going to issue those two sections and set the first to free. It’s a way of getting that much sample into other shops. Of Battles Past permanently free; then they can either buy When I am King – the 2nd half – or the original book One, with both these.
Is that messy? It’s flexible. Think flexible, think e. It’s what you can do with ebooks, and indie. Anyhow, it’s a chance to save us from the doldrums. Mark Coker has drummed into me, ‘leverage free’.
Since yesterday – interrupted only by a visit to work – I’ve drafted a cover and a blurb for the free. The cover’s above, here’s the blurb. Both, I hope, and suspect, are bold, and if we’re provocative, that’s no bad strategy either.
China has executed Ambaghai, the Mongols’ khan, on a hurdle with donkey ears and tail from the theatre, in mockery of the horse peoples of the steppe. It cries for hachi.
‘Hachi means that which is owed, or felt due. It can mean an act of humanity. It can mean vengeance. It meant justice.’
The Mongols go to war for Ambaghai’s hachi, in a century when no steppe people is fit to tackle China. They believe battles are won by the just, and the size differential doesn’t bother them. They are wrong, but the Mongol God comforts them with an omen. Temujin, the baby of that battle day, has in his hand his people’s future victory.
The Chinese have crossbows, but the Mongols have belief.
