How much is too much?

Afternoon loyal and faithful reader,

With a view to trying to stay on topic for once I'm going to open with some stats. This blog has now had over 5400 views which I think is superb given the drivel I come out with. So thank you to everyone who has made the effort, and especially those who come back for a repeat visit.

I don't promote the blog, or anything else, much which brings me to the question. How much is too much? The wife often complains she drinks too much, she's convinced I do too. But we both get up for work every day, work pretty long hours and I've never felt impaired to any degree. We saw a couple of regulars in the local pub during the week and they could hardly stand up. I sank a few pints, had some tea (which was lovely as ever), went home to bed, got up the next day and did it all again. Just as an aside, because we're both earning a fair bit at the moment we've been eating out more. I did some rough maths and it turns out we've spent over 200 quid in the local in the last fortnight. Too much?

I'm also still obsessed with House of Cards on Netflix. Despite a busy week at work I stayed up until 3AM and watched another 3 episodes. Too much? Maybe, but I like it so where's the harm?

Which brings me to book promotion for the Indie author. I don't do much. I never have. I find time to write and publish. I don't have much time to post link after link on any number of websites in the hope I sell one more book. But I'm aware of plenty of folk who spend literally hours each day doing just that. Good luck to them but I'd rather be doing the things I've mentioned above.

Besides, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that readers get fed up of incessant promo. Twitter and Facebook feeds are clogged with blurbs and links and events and offers, few of which I read. So why would anyone read mine let alone buy the book?

I haven't stumbled across a perfect strategy, I maintain that dumb luck and quality are pretty much the biggest factors in gaining success. So in terms of how much is too much I don't know. Everyone is different. I like a few ales every night, it works for me. Some folk might not, others might want to drink until they fall over. Go for it.

If you want to promote your book all day every day, have at it. But don't get upset if I delete your tweets or block you etc. Free world and all that.

Equally, and here I'm talkng to the wife, if I want to stay up until 3AM again getting my fix of House of Cards with a pizza and a bottle of ale, go with it. Look at it this way, if someone breaks in at least I'm up and ready to roll/hide in the downstairs toilet.

Anyway, enough rambling. Feedback on new book The Trust has been largely positive so far and it continues to sell well. I've even done a press release for it which won't do any harm. I'm off work next week so I'm going to start editing the follow up to The 24 Hour Jazz cafe and possibly decorate the wife's music practice room too.

Valentine's day was a success. Cards were exchanged, sparkly alcohol and a particularly pleasant Indian take-away were consumed to a back drop of Liverpool losing for the second time in a week. Tedious.

Speaking of football, there's some FA Cup on right now so I'm going to make a brew and check some scores before doing just a little bit of promo for the new book. Not too much though.

The pope, Liverpool and writing. It's all religion.

Evening gang.

A generally positive start to the week has been kicked off course by Liverpool's dismal home defeat to West Brom which has just finished.

Indeed it's been a day of surprises. Earlier in the day the Pope resigned. Sky News has had folk stationed at the Vatican all day and that's been quite nice since I've been there. Still, it's a hell of a job and not one I can imagine many would relish.

Which brings me to that other form of religion. Football. Specifically Liverpool, in the opinion of many the most famous club on the planet. Every bloody time we dare to believe the corner has been turned we go and get turned over by a lesser team at Anfield. I'll be off to bed in a bad mood now. Very frustrating and yet you can't help but be drawn back to watch the next game.

So, to end on a positive. Sales of the new book are going well. In fact sales in the last week have been good, though I have been motivated to do some promotion for a change since I'm not writing at the moment. As ever, thanks to everyone who has parted with their cash and I hope you enjoy the stories.

By the way, just as an aside, if you haven't seen House of Cards on Netflix I recommend you dive in. It stars Kevin Spacey and it's utterly brilliant. I was up until 3AM last night/this morning watching it. Top drawer.

Right, time for another ale and then bed.

The Troggs and horse meat

Evening everyone,

Another week's flown by. I had the chance to spend some time with a couple of the chaps from my old job last week which was nice. As ever the task at hand degenerated into the three of us pretty much talking crap, drinking coffee and not doing much work. Which probably explains why we were still there at quarter part six in the evening.

In other news Reg Presley, writer of Wild Thing for those who can't place the name, died this week aged 71. I can't imagine anyone not liking that song, though he doubtless made lots more cash from the success of Love is All Around. The internet is littered with tributes but I like this link the best. It's Reg and the other Troggs arguing, with much swearing, about a song in the studio. Parts of it are hilarious.

Sadly his passing has been shunted from the news by continued scandal about us all eating horse meat without realising it. Grim stuff and I suspect someone is going face hefty fines. The wife has taken great delight in reminding that my guilty pleasure freezer food - Findus Cripsy Pancakes - are no doubt made with 100% prime pony. I care not. They taste nice and I only eat them when she's out. Plus I can run for miles and love jumping over fences.

Sales have been good this week, the new book The Trust, is selling well and the paperback is due out by the middle of next week. A proof is on its way to my house as I type this. I was out for lunch with my new colleagues this week and one of them mentioned she'd bought a copy. My heart nearly stopped and it was all I could do to keep chewing my beer battered haddock. As regular readers will know the content of the new book is a bit close to the bone, depending on where you work and your thoughts on euthanasia. Hopefully I won't upset anyone but I do feel compelled to keep stressing it's a work of fiction.

Anyway, that's it for now. Time for a few ales and a pizza I think. Carry on.

Is my new book for you?

Evening all,

The answer to this question is actually probably not. It has some fairly controversial themes. Euthanasia. Murder. Government cover-ups. Patient abuse. All the sorts of things that might upset some folk.

Of course you're not obliged to buy the book and if you don't like it you certainly don't have to finish it. Plus, all the events in the book are based on real events i.e. things that actually happened. I just put a few of them together and created a story around them. And there is justice all round at the end so it's all good.

The book is called The Trust, as in Primary Care Trust, like the NHS. It'll make more sense when you read it. It's set in Lancaster. I've changed the name of the asylum to Moorcastle. It was actually called the Moor (and is pictured on the front cover) and it really is being redeveloped. In fact, lots of it already has been. The loan store where one of the central characters works is real too. I know because I used to work there.

Anyway, it's a twisty turny crime thriller although I've introduced a rather nice romance angle for those that like that sort of thing. It's out now on Kindle with all other formats, including paperback, to follow. It's also less than a quid!

Last thing, here are the links!

Amazon UK version

Amazon US version

Why is the Kobo website and software so rotten?

Evening all,

I'm battling the rage! Today I had a number of things I wanted to do. Namely edit more of the final draft of the new book, quick blog, post some stuff on Goodreads and add my books to Kobo.

What have I achieved as I sit here at 7PM? None of the above. Why? KOBO SOFTWARE!!!

Months ago I went to the trouble of uploading a version of The 24 Hour Jazz Cafe to the Kobo bookstore and then forgot all about it, presumably because it's miles easier to do it via Smashwords which does all the hard work for you. I recieved an email the other day from Kobo saying I'd sold a couple of copies of Jazz Cafe. So I thought, sod it, I'll upload the others. How hard can it be?

I kid you not, I have very nearly hurled my laptop through the front window. On two occasions I've had to leave the room to do something else to avoid smashing my fist through the screen, it's that bad.

The pages on the author bit of the Kobo site take an age to load but the actual adding of book info is pretty straightforward. Until you want to upload your book file. Because Kobo uses Epub I decided to upload the Word Doc file which the site then converts. Of course you want to check it's okay first. So you download a preview version. But nothing opens epub files! I tried Mobireader which I use for all my publishing and that wouldn't do it. I downloaded Adobe Digital Editions and the book looked awful, totally unreadable so I have no idea how it will look on a real Kobo.

I know I thought, let's use the Kobo desktop software! AAAAAARRRGGGHHH!! It won't open it's own epub file, downloaded from it's own website!! And it's the slowest thing I've ever used in my life. So I've given up. Life's too short. If you do have a Kobo, and I'm sure the actual ereader device is lovely (it has to be better than the website and desktop software) then you can buy any or all of my books thanks to Smashwords. Just search on the Kobo bookstore and there they are.

Incidentally, I noticed that one of the two people who has bought the Kobo version of the Jazz Cafe gave it a 2 out of 5 rating. Which is fine, though totally at odds with all the 5* Amazon reviews and 5* Goodreads reviews. I can't help wonder if it's because when they opened the book it looked horrid, poorly formatted and was hard to read. If this was the case, I apologise, but the book looks great on Kindle and in paperback. I know because I've seen it. Sadly, owing to the vile Kobo software, I cannot check how my own books look.

Ahh, I feel a bit better now. Right I'm going to have some tea and then spend the evening editing my book. It's a Word document so I'll view it using Microsoft Word. It just works! Bloody rotten Kobo.

Just to finish on a positive, the new book should be out (even on Kobo) by the end of the week.

Is it okay to win at all costs?

Evening gang,

So what does everybody think about Lance Armstrong's confession on Oprah? I've only skimmed through the highlights, if that's the right word, and he didn't seem particularly repentant. Call me a cynic but while he's admitted to the doping etc he didn't seem very sorry and I can't imagine he's suddenly decided to admit to all this cheating without a very good reason.

But the thing that stands out about Lance is this idea of winning at all costs. This week in snowy old Britain we've had a number of high street retailers go into administration, arguably the biggest being HMV. Why is this interesting to me? Well aside from the obvious job losses, empty shop units, economic issues, there's a link to books.

To anyone with any interest in the news it's been no secret that a number of retailers have been in trouble for a while. HMV caught my attention a while ago and I remember talking to colleagues about it months ago saying that they'd be lucky to see out the year. Until recently HMV owned Waterstones but sold it because they needed the funds. But it's no secret that Waterstone's isn't in great shape either.

Now I'm a vocal advocate of paper books, traditional books that you can bend and fold, crease, use to prop things up and chuck at the dog when he's naughty. Although I publish to Kindle I've never owned one and pretty much refused to entertain the notion that they are better than books. Until recently...

I have a library in my house, it's got hundreds of books in it and an antique wooden ladder. I like the smell, how it looks and I like that it never stops growing. I have copies of my own paperbacks on the shelves too. But I bought a 7 inch tablet for the wife this Christmas. She loves it. One of the many apps she's got is the Kindle app. I sent her the draft of my new book to proof read on the tablet instead of printing it like I normally do. She shot through it and I made revisions.

"I'll try it myself I said. I'll read it on the tablet and then I can make live changes on the laptop as I go."

It's brilliant! I almost hate to admit it but it's light, fits in my hand like a paperback, the page turning is natural and fluid and it makes reading as it should be. About the story.

So if they've managed to convert me, where does that leave real books and further more, places like Waterstones? I have no clever answer but it will come as no surprise when we see it on the news that the administrators have been called in.

And that, in a very roundabout, tour de france kind of way, is the point of the topic. Perhaps the high street needed to be a bit sharper off the mark, play a bit dirtier against the online competition and get the government on board to help them, like Lance had his network of helpers to make sure he won at all costs. It's not too late, perhaps Lance could act as an advisor to Waterstones? He's never gonna be allowed on a bike again so he might as well do some good.

In other news, pub tonight for tea. Then a full weekend editing the final draft of the new book which should be out within a week. You'll hear it here first. I also have over 1600 Twitter followers, so thanks to all of them, and sales are going pretty well in spite of my lack of recent promo.

Hope you have a good one, be careful in the snow.

New book, new job, new competition, new year...

Evening all,

It's been a lively week which is why I've not posted anything since last weekend. I started a new job which has taken up most of my time but I've also been cracking on with the third, and final, draft of my new book The Trust.

So what's the plan for the new book you may or may not be wondering? Well, it will obviously be appearing on all ebook formats first, literally within moments of me finishing the third draft I suspect. Then it will be out in paperback via my chums at Createspace. The majority of this work is already done, I just need to upload the final version of the file and away we go.

But I will also be submitting the book for this years Amazon Breakthrough Novel competition. When does the competition open you ask? Midnight tonight actually. It's open until the 27th January so it works out perfectly since I have a new book ready to submit. It's generally pretty pointless since this competition is all about your pitch. You can be rejected before anyone even reads a word you've written, but it costs nothing.

But since I'm so pleased with how this book has developed I'm also going to put myself through the misery of submitting to a few agents. We all know how that will turn out but I'm going to do it anyway so you can look forward to a few posts about rejections over the coming months. Yay!

In other news sales are steady but not remarkable but my promotional efforts these days are limited to the occasional Facebook and Twitter post, Goodreads and this blog. Speaking of which, as of an hour ago I have 1600 Twitter followers. Thanks to each and every one of them. Hopefully they'll help spread the word when the new book launches.

Last but not least I'm reading The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz. It's a new, official, Sherlock Holmes novel. I'm a big fan of all things Conan Doyle so I approached with caution but it's actually very good. Horowitz captures the essence of the original stories while injecting a few of his own touches. It's well worth a read.

Right, I'm off. Few ales etc before bed.