Three in the Charts

Yesterday was a day of pleasant surprises.

Checking my titles on Amazon at about quarter to six last night, I learned that I had not one but three STAC Mysteries in UK Kindle British Detectives chart. Lower end of the top 100, for sure, but they were making a show, and that’s important, not only to me as a writer, but all those whodunit lovers out there seeking new avenues.

Getting the word out, raising a book’s visibility and therefore its discoverability, is one of the most difficult tasks an author faces. Unless you’re well known (e.g. an established best-selling author or a celebrity) even those writers published by one of the big six houses can struggle to make their voice heard amongst the deluge.

Indie authors and those like myself, who are published by smaller houses, have different approaches. Some push for reviews, others pay for advertising, some use use video trailers, a few utilise professional marketing services.

I never bother about reviews. Readers read, and if they want to pen a review on Amazon or Goodreads, then fine. I don’t badger them for one. Good or bad, I don’t respond to them, either. Replying to a good review could be seen as sycophancy, responding to a negative review could be seen as sour grapes. After the so-called sockpuppet scandal earlier this year, I have my doubts on the efficacy of reviews anyway.

I tend to concentrate on social media, mainly Facebook and Twitter, but you’re often treading a fine line between letting people know your titles are there and annoying the hell out of them. I’m especially good at the latter.

My main method of marketing is to turn out more and more titles. Since I signed on with Crooked Cat Books at the beginning of the year, I’ve published six, and there are two or three more to come early in 2013.

And it’s not that difficult. I find the STAC Mysteries easy to write once I get in my stride, and although many authors (me included) will insist that novel can take anything up to two years to write, it’s not really a true reflection on the process. It can take a long time to produce but the actual writing takes very little time. Turning out 3,000 words a day is not difficult, and if your target is 100,000 words, the actual writing only takes about a month. The STACs tend to be around 60-80,000 words, the plots are worked out in advance and I know the characters so well that the polishing and editing take less time than they would on a major work like Voices or The Handshaker, both of which took about 18 months from conception to completion.

And it’s my productivity which led to the second bit of good news yesterday.

I’ve taken Writer’s News on subscription for over 20 years now. I haven’t received this month’s copy, but Jeff Gardiner, an online friend and fellow Crooked Cat author, assures me I get a mention in this month’s edition.

Happy? I haven’t been this chuffed since I cleaned the car interior and found five pound’s worth of loose change.