Anna’s Comments (group member since Mar 21, 2017)

Anna’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

I know someone who paid nearly $5,000 (or it might have been £) and her books are languishing at the bottom of the charts (and some bottoms are lower down than I thought possible) ;o(

I've shown her the Indie way now.

Oh just remembered, I know 2 people, the other one paid £3,000.

I am so very grateful I found Amazon and for the person who introduced me to Goodreads.

Don't pay up front!

You've found a good place!

Carole, my stomach turned over. Review? Which book? Where? Then I found it and my heart leapt! You're ruining my body, you beautiful lady.

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Zip-A-Dee-Ay
My oh my what a wonderful day

I cannot thank you enough, but I shall try. :o)

That's very brave. I make a point of not asking... quiver, quiver.

However, I can't thank those who take the trouble to write a review enough. Although occasionally it's really hard to rustle up a thank you but I guess we all have those reviews where they clearly didn't enjoy even the first ten pages!

Welcome, Charles.

Amy, the thing about reading while I'm writing is that I don't want to be influenced by someone else's story or style. I need to hang on to the originality of mine (ahem!). In between my sequel and this next book I'm writing, I started reading a book about smuggling (mine are about smuggling) and I love it, but as soon as I started writing again, I stopped reading it. I can read something completely different so I started a time travel one.

And those negative reviews? Sigh. In the Amazon UK market I don't have any negative ones. In the US market I have loads. If I had the time, I'd try to analyze the reasons for this. Top of the list must come that I wrote them for UK readers! It never, never, never occurred to me that Americans would be reading my books. Oh how backwards can I be? I haven't quite grasped that globalisation impacts on me as well as big companies. And when I sold some in Japan, I was gobsmacked.

Thank you, Groovy!

You see, Ulises, and other newbies, we're all very supportive!

And if you want to see how to write a warm Goodreads profile - take a look at Groovy's.

I've not got time to prepare for this, so I'll have to pass on this wonderful opportunity. Drat! I've got a busy week coming up and I'm replying to this way past my bedtime. Zzzz. But trying to think if I could my act together - but no, I'll have to wait for another opportunity.

Wishing you all the very best for this.

Eldon wrote: "Great story Anna!!"

Thanks Eldon and Carole - I just find it hard to believe that what happens to some of us now, happened to one of the greatest, best known writers of all time.

And...

Welcome Ulises.

It's me again - with a little support for my friends!

My newspaper is carrying a report on a book about Arthur Conan Doyle. I quote, "Arthur Conan Doyle, whose struggling medical practice on the outskirts of Portsmouth left him idle enough to write (so he was doing it part-time like most of us here) had been paid a desultory £25 for the copyright to his story, (So, like most of us, he wasn't making much money from his writing.) before his 'A Study in Scarlet' disappeared into obscurity. He reflected: 'If the secret history of literature could be written, the benighted hopes and heart sickening disappointment... would be the saddest record ever penned.'

And we all know that his Sherlock Holmes stories are some of the most successful of all time. So... Don't give up!

Nice to be here, Carole!

Oooh... I missed this thread in my inbox. So I'll just sum up by saying hi everyone - both to those I know and those I don't know but soon will do.

I 'm just about the worse person to join something like this because I don't FB, don't Twitter, don't Blog and my website is run by an elderly kind friend who volunteered... and he's dyslexic :o) nice guy though. And I get through only about half a book a month.

However, in all other ways (tell me some!!!) I try to support my friends. And by golly (sorry about the language, I'm English and I write historical fiction) I'm cheering you on - really rooting for you, and loving it when things work out well for you.

Thanks so much Sam. A hug is much appreciated.

Thanks to you also Carole. But I'm so worried about you and Alex!

Attagirl, Carole.

I'm hopeless at writing reviews. Honestly. The words just don't come but I do know how important it is to try.

The silly thing is, I won a county award for writing a book review when I was 11. It's been all downhill since then.

I've read Eldon's book 'Stillness' and here's my review:

The story opens with someone searching for justice. And the reader can tell this isn't going to be easy. Digging up your parents' grave doesn't seem the right thing to do, so the reader knows there's a lot at stake. By the time the parents are re-interred, we've been treated to a well written, well told and fast paced story.

Diamonds. Pure diamonds. Thank you, P.D.R.

But where are the 'ten things to do to present your novel successfully' and the analysis. I couldn't find them. (Possibly 'cos I'm thick.)

I do have a couple of brilliant beta readers. One likes commas, one doesn't. One spotted I'd left closing quotation marks several times (how come I didn't?!) . The other gently showed me I'd skated over a scene that needed expanding. In fact, I can hardly bear to say this, I'd missed it out altogether.

Missing comma? Huh! I can miss out a whole scene.

And same here, too. I rely on me - oh help...!

I can spot other people's mistakes but it's more difficult to spot one's own, don't you think?

Well done, Marie. I'm sure your book will do well.

Stop it! You're all messing up my alliteration: pale purple prose.

Couldn't you have said pink?