Is it worth investing in yourself?

Evening gang,

Regulars will know I've spent a few quid on myself this year so far in the interests of promotion and selling more books. Some have worked quite well, some have ben utter crap. But I'll be sticking at it.

I'm just having a discussion with a musician mate of mine who invests hundreds, maybe even thousands of pounds in himself in terms of mastering his music, PR etc. Compared to the few pounds I've spent it's a big deal so I'm left wondering if I should really throw money at my books, invest in some proper promo etc and see what happens. As ever my big concern is that working full time will get in the way and I won't be able to take full advantage of it.

In other news the latest book is pouring out of me. Cleared the 17,000 word mark earlier. I imagine I'll get beyond 20,000 before work on Monday and then I suspect things will slow right down again. Can't be helped. The good thing is it's taken me less than two weeks to write all that and it's pretty good. I haven't done any promo or any editing of my other book, but it's been worth it to get the new material out. I've got a pretty clear idea where the various plot threads are going, although there are always random tangents which make it fun, so hopefully I can keep plodding even while at work.

Mind you, if I'm not successful in applying for the upcoming job, or I just don't apply, I'll be back in my old job by the end of June, so I'll have all the time I need to finish the book. Silver lining to the harsh reality of the pay cut.

Anyway, if you could spread the word that my other books are still available that would be super. It's also worth mentioning that I'll be doing 3 appearances in Morecambe at the end of this month. I'll be sending the posters out shortly, so I'll post one on here when it's done. If you want a book signed, or just want to talk to me about writing, or anything else, come along.  I'll post times and venues nearer the time .

Right, quick brew break and then perhaps another hour on the novel before we start the evening session.

Do positive comments help?

Evening gang,

I suppose the easy answer is... depends on the context.

In terms of my last post about depression, the black dog etc, positive comments don't help apparently. Telling someone to "man up" and that "it's a lovely day outside" can apparently make things worse so best avoid that shit then.

Apparently being more helpful and knowing when to get out of the way are high on the list of clever things to do. It's all about reading the signs.

Which leads me nicely into some shameless book promotion. I've had a number of positive comments about the new book which I am about to paste in below. These are from folk who have bought the book, read it or are reading it. The theme is essentially positive.

"Got it. I loved Jazz Café so I'm looking forward to this one!"
    
"Same here! One-clicked!
Good luck with the new release Jamie"

"Finished it... not too shabby at all :)"

"I'm loving the memories the book is kindling. I visit Ayr every year and I think I remember the hotel in Morcombe as well, it was covered in scaffolding about 6-7 yrs. ago when we had a break in a wee cottage at Over Kellet.
The story has really grabbed me, 20% in and looking forward to bedtime;@)"

"51% in and the plot thickens ;@). Another early night methinks"

So you see, folk are right into the new book, which I have linked to throughout this blog. There is also an opportunity to read the opening scene for free at the top of the page. In other news my copy of the paperback arrived today. The cover is superb if I do say so myself. Createspace never quite get the internal print to look exactly like a mass produced book but it's okay. Bit small but that was necessary to keep size and cost down. It's 400 pages of a job band over 95,000 words. Value for money!

Anyway, that's enough for today. Few ales and some Xbox before bed and then Liverpool v Arsenal tomorrow lunchtime to start the weekend. Proper top of the table clash. Every game a must win now.

Night
    

Do you listen to music while you work?

Evening kids,

How's things? You will have noticed my blogging activity has increased. Benefits of being off work right there.

Anyway, I've spent a very productive evening listening to The Man Who by Travis and currently I'm halfway through Odds and Sods by The Who. The dog - Ralph - is asleep next to me on the couch and I've got the first 105 pages of the new novel in much better shape.

I do find that I focus better when I have music on. It has to be at quite a low volume, background almost, and then I sort of know it's there but I can concentrate on what I'm doing in a way that I struggle to do when the room is completely silent.

Quick update on the new novel then. I've tweaked a couple of characters, their relationship to each other actually, so that key scenes make a lot more sense now. The aim of this draft - the second - is just to make sure the plot holds together and to spot any glaring errors. Then I'll do a third draft where I pretty it all up, sort the formatting, grammar, lob some colour on it all I suppose.

But I'm pretty happy with it so far. However I've been known to do some pretty major rewrites at this stage before so we shall see. In a fun twist, the novel is set in and around Morecambe, specifically the Winter Gardens. Guess where the wife is tonight? Yep, Winter Gardens watching a colleague and a friend in a performance of Beauty and the Beast. I was going to go but then we got Ralph. I have to admit I'm pretty happy to be here rather than there.

Anyway, that's it for now. As ever my late evening plans are to watch more Breaking Bad on Netflix and drink ale.

Medals and reviews

Hi folks,

Just a quick post while I have a brew at work.

Federer is cruising inthe Olympic tennis, our omwen set an Olympic record in the rowing earlier and there's Tom Daley to come in the diving shortly. Epic!

But to more pressing news. I stumbled across a review of my book All the fun of the Fair which was quite simply bursting with enthusiasm, to the extent that I've included it here. Huge thanks to the reviewer, it's much appreciated.

"Usually, I only ever read horror. However, after being 'horrored out' on holiday in Corfu I decided to read something from a different genre and had downloaded this book a while ago. I am so glad I did. The story centres around a group of Morecambe residents. The author does an amazing job of inter-twining all the main characters to tell their individual stories. It is funny, sad and heart wrenching. What I especially liked about the book is the fact that Morecambe holds many dear memories for me and it was lovely to read about places I recognised (Happy Mount Park being one) and it gave me a nice warm fuzzy feeling! I could picture the streets of Morecambe clearly. This is a really well written book, and after reading it I am eager to read more by Jamie Sinclair. The author portrays his characters exceedingly well and the reader becomes attached to them all. He gets into the minds of the young and the old alike, seamlessly. This is a brilliant book and I am so glad I read it. Look forward to reading more by this author."

Midland Hotel & the Jazz Cafe

Evening gang! Everyone okay? Excellent.

First off, how on earth does an 11 year old child get from Wythenshawe to Rome via plane on his own without a bloody passport? For God's sake the Olympics starts on Friday. Should we not be on top of security at major airports? Just in case you've missed this story here's the LINK TO THE BBC.

In other news, this picture is of the iconic Midand Hotel.

Awesome photo isn't it? Thanks to Crosby Camera Club for the image.You should see the inside of the hotel. In fact, come to Morecambe and stay there. This hotel features in my book The 24 Hour Jazz Cafe. In fact, it's on the front cover.

Not bad is it? Accordng to the reviews it's a pretty good crime thriller too. Sadly in the book the Midland is not open but being redeveloped as it was a few years ago. Then the hotel is burned down at the end. Don't worry, they build something awesome on the site for the follow up!

Anyway, that's the point of this post. I use real places in my books to ground them in reality. Makes the story more believeable. In Edinburgh you can go on an Ian Rankin Rebus tour to see the places featured in the books. I hope one day that folk will come to Morecambe and district for my books in the future and, hopefully, that will help the regeneration of the town.



Will this Blog Post lead to a book sale?

Hi folks and welcome to my first post since announcing the relaunch of my blog. The purpose of this post? To see if a single post can lead to

a) more traffic to this blog
b) more followers of this blog
c) increased sales of my books

It's a big ask but here we go.

Today I changed the title and description of my blog. I am going to mention that I am an English author of crime thriller books in this post. I am also going to tell you that they are set in a small seaside town called Morecambe where I grew up. Hopefully you'll wonder where that is and click the link I put in the word Morecambe. The reason I'm sharing this is because it's relevant and also because I hope that people like you will search for these terms and find my blog.

If you're still here you might wonder what my books are about. You can learn about them from this very blog or from my Facebook page or even my Amazon author page. It shouldn't be a surprise that I've put links to all these in the text too.

If you are a fan of romantic fiction you'll hopefully like my book Playground Cool or All the fun of the Fair. If you're not sure why not download a sample? You can do that via Amazon or Smashwords and, soon, Bibliocracy.

Do you like crime thrillers? Great, try my latest book The 24 Hour Jazz Cafe. It's set in Morecambe and you can try a sample fo that for free too. If you've been paying attention you'll know the link was in the title of the book.

As part of my new strategy to meet aa many people as I can and introduce them to my books, today I aso updated my LinkedIn profile, did a press release and made sure that my entire online presence is linked. That means this blog post will go straight to this Facebook page. It will also appear on my Goodreads page too. If I post a Tweet that will appear on this blog and on my LinkedIN account.

Why? Because I want you to know about me and where I'm from. Then I want you to buy my books, and enjoy them. Then, finally, I want you to tell all your friends about me.

But it all starts with you reading this blog post. Welcome aboard.

SEO. Using Keywords to get seen.

Afternoon folks,

Morecambe. Crime thriller. Romantic saga.

You might have noticed, if you're a regular reader, that the name of the blog has changed. And the description too. Why?

Well, as part of my ongoing efforts to drive traffic to this blog and, ultimately, to drive sales of my books, I am trying to embrace the idea of Search Engine Optimisation. Like most folk, I'm aware it exists but I don't have a great understanding of it. But I've been doing some reading and have decided to give it a go.

The idea seems to be to mention certain keywords regularly throughout blog posts which are then picked up by search engines. These need to be words that are likely to be searched for so there's no point picking something random like Handbag Clasp. So, for this post I'm trying Morecambe because it's where two of my books are set and Crime Thriller, because it's the biggest selling genre of fiction.

Apparently the trick is also to reference old blog posts too, with a view that you drive traffic to yourself. I haven't grasped that yet but I'll persevere. The plan is to keep an eye on my traffic stats for a month and see if there's been an impact and review after that.

So, to recap. My book The 24 Hour Jazz Cafe is a CRIME THRILLER set in MORECAMBE and has received fantastic reviews. My book All the fun of the Fair is a ROMANTIC SAGA and is also set in MORECAMBE. Too subtle? We shall see.

Making the most of Morecambe

Evening folks,

Just a quickie tonight. The wife's out so I'm going to indulge in some big screen film/xbox tom-foolery. But I will be recording Turn Back Time on BBC 1 as it's set in Morecambe and features several places featured in my books.

Speaking of which, I have recently acquired the Winter Gardens in Morecambe as a follower on Twitter. If you've got a spare million or ten, send them a donation. If they crack on and get it refurbished they could have The Rolling Stones do their 50th anniversary gigs there next year. Now wouldn't that be something to aim for!

Dreaming aside, here's a bit of Morecambe based book promo. You'll like this, it's clever.

The photo above is the entrance to Happy Mount Park in Morecambe. Alfie, the central character in my book, All the fun of the Fair, is park keeper here. Also, the vile Lee Etchman runs the cafe and has an ice cream van in there too. He is obsessed with his young assistant Tania Streatham.

The park also features in my book The 24 Hour Jazz Cafe. The body of a schoolgirl is found at the back of the park by a dog walker.

So you see, while the work is fiction, the places featured in the books are quite real. You could even come to visit, perhaps use my books as a kind of guide to places of interest.



Turn Back Time on the BBC

Interesting news folks.

UK readers might be aware of a series called Turn Back Time on the BBC. It's set in Morecambe like my books! Places like the Midland Hotel are featured, as well as local theatres, the park, the promenade and the beach.

Why is this interesting? Aside from being set 200 yards from where I was brought up, these places also feature heavily in my book The 24 Hour Jazz Cafe and All the Fun of the Fair. In fact, the Midland hotel is on the cover of the Jazz Cafe and All the Fun is set on Westminster road which is the street next to Albert Road as featured in the BBC programme.

I'd be daft not to try and use this to market my own books so if you want to read more about Morecambe and the locals, buy my books. Then, watch the BBC series, it's very, very good.