Present Tense

Christmas is coming and will soon be dominating our thoughts about what presents to buy friends and family. You could do no worse than thinking of buying those you love, or like enough, to make an author’s day and give books as presents. When me and my two brothers were youngsters, we almost always received books in our Christmas stocking. One aunt always made sure of that, and it was because of this that I developed a liking for the children’s classics. An album was always welcome, but I’m not talking of music; I’m talking about the bumper books that were published by the ‘Comic’ houses. Great stuff, great reads.

When my book group, CHINDI, have a book sale, the children’s books always sell well, leaving thriller writers like me looking on enviously as the pile next to mine diminishes rapidly. You can find these books on the CHINDI website at www.cindi-authors.co.uk All our books are available through the website’s bookshop, so why not look in on us and have a think about Christmas?

My own progress in finishing my latest novel has been hampered for all sorts of reasons, procrastination not being the least of them. I seem to be grinding to a halt, losing a couple of days and picking it up again. Like a lot of writers, I reach a sticking point and wonder how I’m going to get through it. I always manage to find some convincing way to move the story on, and sometimes manage to give the story a significant lift. I reached that point during the week when I had my main character, Marcus Blake, find the Samsung laptop that was essential to lead him to the killers of at least four people, but I had reached this key point too early and needed to delay the revelation. But then, what would I do for the next 20,000 words? After all, I still needed to round off other elements of the story that were essential in the whole jigsaw. I had almost been hoisted ‘by my own petard’. I changed direction, ensured the laptop had been wiped and then sent Marcus off in a different direction. But I left a little teaser, for the reader, which pointed the location of a memory stick on which all the data had been copied. This is like the needle in a haystack: where in the whole of England will Marcus find something as small as the memory stick? It’s great fun being a writer, but it does yer ‘ead in at times!

The fish tank is looking good. Couple more days and I’ll be buying some fish. After that, it might get a bit tricky maintaining the right chemical balance and keeping the fish alive.

I will be doing the hospital book talk next week. I’m looking forward to it. One of the joys of being a local author is that from time to time people ask you to talk about yourself. Once again I will be promoting the CHINDI group, but only for a wee while; most of the time it will be about me (and my books)!

Still battling with my Ingram Spark file. It’s the jacket that’s causing the problem, only because I’m not too sure what I’m doing. I worked on it this morning using PhotoShop, and uploaded. It will be a couple of day before they let me know if I have it right. Fingers crossed.

I’ve given up on Facebook ads. for now. The returns I was achieving were doing nothing significant. I reached my budget limit, which meant the ad. was stopped. I’ll go away and lick my wounds, work on my novel and try to have it ready for the New Year. Then maybe I can think about using FB ads. again. Wish me luck!

Half an eye on things that matter

I sold another copy of my mini, autobiography, The Sum of my Life (The early years). Somebody must like me, or is curious about me. Two sales in a month mean that on a pro rata rate since I published the book it shouldn’t be too long before I hit the best seller status. Ah well, back to reality.

I did very little writing during the week because of a cataract operation on Wednesday. Obviously it does kind of cramp your style a little. I managed about a thousand words, so I’m pleased with that. The fish tank turned up Thursday, so that was another distraction. Perhaps I should write a novella about the chap who bought a fish tank and tried to put it together with one eye. He ends up on the funny farm because it was rather like easy assembly IKEA stuff. It’s all about planning — wait a reasonable time before launching into the next venture.

I’ve been in contact with a lady who does the hospital talk radio. She will be interviewing me in the near future with a kind of “Desert Island Discs” feel to the programme. Trying to tunnel into my past and come up with favourites proved difficult. Some of the stuff I enjoyed in my middle years were bands and musicians like Supertramp, Dire Straits, Jacques Loussier, Isao Tomita (who?), and many others. Oh, and the song “You are my Sunshine” by any artist: but that’s another story.

The idea of the hospital talk is simply another venture by CHINDI authors into expanding the name into the local community by way of supporting charities and meeting the reading — and non-reading — public. We will be shadowing the #lovetoread campaign by the BBC and hope to encourage other book groups to do the same. We believe that the more, local authors get involved, so the public will begin to recognise that there are people like us who offer a credible alternative to the major publishing houses.

We are also planning a Ghost Tour around Chichester. The idea is to take people round the historic places in the city, or any pubs that hold a macabre secret, and tell them why these places are haunted. It’s complete fiction of course, but that’s our raison d’etre. Some of the local Bognor Writers Group may also be involved.

I have stopped my Facebook ad. for now. My results were not encouraging, so I’ll change the slant of the ad. and activate it again in the next couple of days. Something else I did which I believed might encourage my subscribers was to contact them for a chat and the link to my blog. The result was that twenty two unsubscribed. I read of other authors on the Web who hesitate to get in touch with their subscribers because this is how it usually ends. When you’re building your list by about one a day, losing that many represents most of your past month. But it was their choice, and I still have over 1100.

I am still trying to upload my latest title, A Dangerous Game to Ingram Spark to take advantage of their latest, free offer. I had no problems with my earlier books, but somehow they have shifted the goalposts and it’s giving me a headache. Not to worry; I’ll get there in the end. Wish me luck!

Choosing the right direction

I would like to say that I put in a good shift this week and added a few more thousand words to my WIP, but that isn’t the case and I have no excuses. Well, perhaps I do, but I’m probably kidding myself. The character I mentioned in last week’s blog who insists on dragging me away in a different direction is at it again. Perhaps I should listen to her and follow, but then I would lose the main thread of the story, which would cause me problems when it comes to re-writing the first draft and the subsequent edit. I expect a lot of writers would encourage me to change direction, while others would insist I stick to my guns and ignore her. We’ll see.

My Facebook advert seems to be attracting people. I’m not sure that I’m selling more books because of it, but from time to time my Amazon Rankings shoot up from the doldrums where they usually nestle before sinking back down again. My FB page likes and views are showing healthy increases, so I must be doing something right. I’ll let the advert run for another few days before making changes. Often it’s a simple change of audience or interests that trigger higher sales.

I received an e-mail from Ingram Spark offering a free deal for any new or existing title. I thought it would be nice to have my latest, self-published title, A Dangerous Game, published as a hardback to go with my other books. The whole process is vexing, even though I have published three titles with them. The interior file was rejected because it wasn’t PDF and the fonts were not embedded. I sorted that out and uploaded. The cover file was rejected because the image hadn’t been saved in Adobe Presets with flattened layers. I sorted that out too. Each time the message was that there were errors but they could be dealt with by IS. So where’s the next step? There isn’t one: there was no way on the page to continue the process, simply the instruction “back to files”. I had to resort to an e-mail to them. Still waiting for a reply.

Met up with a lad called Jamie Dyer of http://www.SouthWavesRadio.co.uk for a coffee and a chat about linking the CHINDI author group with the station for a series of book reads/talks. Jamie will be coming to our next meeting to discuss the project and see if it’s viable or not. Hopefully we will be able to increase our reach through the station, which is broadcast 24/7 on the internet.

On the domestic front I had my four monthly check-up with my cancer specialist and got the all-clear again. Next appointment in four months. Picked up our new car last Monday (KIA Venga auto). Smaller than my KIA Sportage, but comfortable, quiet and fun to drive. We went over to Dorset yesterday to visit our son and his wife. Took the dog and enjoyed a good day over there. Then we had to battle back along the M27, crawling for about an hour. After that we had a diversion through Chichester because of an accident on the by-pass. Too many cars on the road, that’s the trouble.

Today, Saturday, we have my brother-in-law and his wife coming over for lunch. Should be good. No writing today then. Maybe tomorrow? And will that character keep dragging me away? Hope not. Wish me luck!