Publishing Platform Of The Year 2014: SMASHWORDS

When it comes to places to self publish books, there's a clear winner for me this year.

Smashwords has kept sales of my books ticking over nicely all year long, and all around the world.

Amazon has been disappointing. Sales have fallen off a cliff in 2014. I gave them exclusivity on my new novel A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks via a KDP Select Countdown deal and the KDP Select Free Promotion.

Both bombed.

Sure, that may be because people think the book is a pile of shit. But I'm getting the feeling that Amazon is becoming a marketplace overcrowded with self-publishers like me.

The KDP Select exclusivity period on A Dead Chick ended on December 23rd and I'm already shifting more copies on Smashwords than I did in 6 months on Amazon. But let's not knock Amazon, they finish 2nd on my list, ahead of Createspace, Draft2Digital and Kobo. In that order. There's no place else I publish at the moment. GoogleBooks was just too complicated to set up.

Here's hoping that the new year brings you plenteous sales. And let me know if I'm missing out on any other self-publishing platforms.


Happy Betwixtmas

If ever some days deserved some branding, it's the quartet that finds itself turkey sandwiched betwixt and between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve.

And Betwixtmas works perfectly as the unifying brand name for December 27, 28, 29 and 30. (I'm not claiming the name as mine, but if this is the first time you've encountered it, I'm happy to take the credit.)

These four days are days a good percentage of people take as holiday. A chance to chill with family and friends without the pressure to have fun or eat traditionally that the days either side force us to do. An opportunity to settle the stomach, try out Christmas presents and rest the body for the new year battering.

Betwixtmas. Yes. It has a Dickensian ring to it too, right for the time of year. And if it catches on, there's a British chocolate bar that could really cash in.













The campaign to get Betwixtmas officially recognised starts here. If we can have things as ridiculous as a National Garlic Day, we can have this. Yeah!

So if you didn't celebrate Betwixtmas this year, be sure to next. But before all that, happy new year...


A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks Is Free Today

Here. http://tinyurl.com/k2o5hek
And here: http://tinyurl.com/k2o5hek
Not to mention here. http://tinyurl.com/k2o5hek


But A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks will not be free if you are looking at this page tomorrow, or the next day, or the next etc...

New A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks Blurb

Had your fill of formulaic detective novels in which you can see the end coming as early as chapter four? Fed up of unbreakable hero cops who you know will survive whatever happens because the author’s already penning the next book in series?
There’s no such predictability in A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks.
Right from the off, this fast-moving novel stakes its claim to being a totally different kind of detective story.
A magician, Dino Camballi, staggers from his apartment, his own ornate daggers protruding from his torso. Who wants him dead? Where has his wife, the chief suspect, gone? And what’s the deal with the plume of smoke the only witness reports seeing at the scene of the crime?
PC Jake Rodwell needs to find the answers. 
Rodwell’s uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time to witness crime has seen him become the force’s top thief-taker. But he wants out of uniform and a move into a detective role.
His world-weary boss, Bannen, is loathed to lose him, and tries to pacify his top cop’s ambitions by assigning him the task of guarding the magician’s hospital bed. Rodwell reluctantly agrees.
While Camballi is recovering, his wife is found brutally murdered. Is Camballi victim or perpetrator of terrible crimes? What dark secret is the magician keeping hidden under his hospital duvet until he’s fit enough to unleash it? And why are the nursing staff at the hospital bending over backwards to win Camballi’s favour? 

Only by uncovering the truth about the mysterious magician will Rodwell work out how to survive his encounter with Camballi and discover whether he is truly ready to make the leap to detective.

Opening Chapter from A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks

Dom Tenby pressed mute, his work papers spread over his lap and sofa like a white patchwork blanket. Something bad was happening over the corridor in apartment twenty-two.
This was the third night in a row his attempts to get some work done at home had been ruined by the couple who lived there. He wasn’t in the mood for them tonight, hadn’t been the previous two. But at least then the noise had stopped after a few minutes. Tonight, Tenby was convinced that one, if not both of them, had been seriously hurt.
Ever since he first saw them, not long after he’d moved into the apartment across the corridor with his girlfriend of the time, whose name he couldn’t bring himself to remember, he thought they made a strange pair. It was an opinion he couldn’t shake. They were both in their forties, Tenby estimated. She blonde and doll-like, probably attractive back in the day, but now layered too thickly with make-up that was slapped-on to cover-up the cruelty of years. As for him, the husband, partner, whatever his relationship to her was, his hair was blatantly twenty years younger than the rest of him, dyed an oily black and styled to cover up the brutal, shiny scalped truth that he was receding. They spent most of their weekdays at home, from what Tenby could gather, leaving together at just gone six most nights, not returning until late, usually after Tenby had called it a day. 
But three nights ago, that all changed. 
Tenby heard crockery smashing first. Didn’t think much of it. Everyone drops a bowl or plate now and again. But seven, eight in one night? The multiple smashes were followed by dull, inexplicable thuds. Then silence.
The second night, last night, the soundwaves of a fully fledged shouting match carried through the walls of the Byron Close apartment block, shuddering across the neat, white walled, real oak floored corridor. The shouting ended with her screaming where he could stick something (Tenby didn’t catch exactly what or where, but imagined it would be painful). He certainly heard the echo of the front door slamming, a sound that disturbed his train of thought to such an extent, he was forced to abandon his work for the night. 
And then there was tonight, the crescendo. Apartment twenty-two played host to scrapes, thuds, yells, bangs and crashes, intercut with him shouting and her screaming, then her shouting and him screaming. Tenby couldn’t quite make out details, much to his annoyance, even after he’d pressed mute, lowered his breathing and leant toward the door.
As he listened, a yell sent Tenby’s heart racing. Was that her or him? He stood up, letting his work papers slide off him like slates off a roof in high wind. What was going on over there? He pictured one savagely attacking the other, inflicting merciless hits around the head with a laptop, an iron, a toaster, a trouser press (his neighbour looked like the kind of guy who’d have a trouser press). 
Tenby’s remote slipped from his grasp as he contemplated the gravity of the situation - a serious assault happening across the corridor and he was sitting there, listening to it happen. 
Pangs of nervousness infected a stomach that had been over-fed and under-nourished by too frequent eating of the wrong kind of food over a Christmas break that had been curtailed by a call from his boss demanding he go into the office the day after New Year’s Day. 
He slipped on novelty crocodile slippers that had been a ‘surprise’ present from his parents and edged open his front door. He looked left down the corridor, hoping someone else would be peering out of their apartment or stepping out of the lift. 
He was out of luck on both counts. His neighbours were either out or out for the count. 
He glanced across to number twenty-two. His apartment door was definitely the nearest. Twenty-three was four, maybe five feet further down the corridor. Tenby reckoned that rendered him honour-bound to be the first to intervene. The no-show of his other neighbours suggested they agreed. 
After cursing his choice of apartment and checking he had his keys, he crept toward twenty-two. 
As he approached the door, the great slab of wood rattled in its frame, the sound of splintering ripping from inside the apartment. 
Tenby rocked back on his heels. That noise had to be something sharp embedding itself in the other side of the door. Something like a…
Tenby battled the urge to run back inside his own apartment, double-lock the door, don his Plattan headphones and pretend he’d been asleep all evening. 
His heart was racing, his conscience clouding. He had to find out what was going on before he found out about it on the local news. 
Tenby clenched his fist and reached toward the door. 
Before he had a chance to knock, the handle moved. 
Tenby froze, unable to comprehend why he was still standing there and not running away.
As it slowly opened, a hand reached around the door. Tenby stifled a laugh when he saw blood trickling between its shuddering fingers. This had to be some kind of drunken party game. Come on you guys, the joke’s over. The hand was followed by a forearm with blood streaming up to the elbow and dripping onto the corridor floor.
Tenby would have yelled for help right there and then, had whoever the arm belonged to not tried to do exactly that, choking on a throat thick with blood and vomit.
As Tenby leaned to his left to get a better angle on the owner of the bloodied arm, the door flung open. Tenby’s neighbour stooped in the doorway, the handles of five ornate daggers protruding from his midriff. He didn’t know why, but Tenby quickly counted them all. The lion’s share of the blood that was leaking onto the floor was being generated by a gaping wound in the lower abdomen, from which Tenby assumed the victim had recently pulled a sixth blade. 
As he reached out to help, Tenby was forced back by a flash of brilliant white light from within the apartment, accompanied by a soft ‘phut’, too weak to be a gunshot, more akin to a tame firework. 
Tenby squinted, temporarily blinded by the dazzle. 
He heard footsteps, charging toward him. 
‘Who is it?’
Still blind, he stood helpless, expecting a knife or six to slice into him.
As he held his breath and waited for the inevitable, Tenby felt someone brush past him, a waft of cool, fragrant air. 
‘Hello,’ he called out.
No answer.
As he blinked his eyes out of their blindness, Tenby saw his multi-wounded neighbour cowering next to him, the daggers making him look like a macabre hairbrush.

‘Somebody help!’ Tenby shouted.

New Cover

Not been able to get a cover I like for my new novel. Until this one came along...


Free For Three



A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks, a rather splendid novel, is available three for free days here. Or should that be free for three days?

There's Another Book Coming Out With The Same Title As Mine. What do I do?

The long-winded title basically sums up the essence of this post. So if you're expecting something else, you'll be sorely disappointed.

My book, The Wronged, has been out since 2012, selling OK, mainly in the USA.

But from January 29, 2015, there's gonna be a new The Wronged in town.

Is this good news or bad? Can you copyright a book title?

Can HarperCollins, who are publishing the new title, bring their clout to bear and force me to change my title?

Should I raid my piggy bank and hire to a lawyer to take on HarperCollins and force them to change their title, citing the rather childish-sounding 'I was here first' argument?

Is this doppleganger title good news for me in that I could pick up a few stray downloads from people who think my The Wronged is the other The Wronged?

Or should I just accept the reality that this new The Wronged is going to outsell and outmuscle my humble effort and just skulk off into a corner somewhere?

They Say Never Work With Children And Animals...

But they also should add to that, never launch a new book in the summer, during the biggest sporting tournament in the world.

A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks is out there, waiting for the World Cup to be decided, for people to tear themselves away from their tellies and give it the electronic equivalent of a quick flick through.

At the moment, the novel feels a bit like Neymar, watching helplessly from the sidelines as everyone else has all the fun.

Don't worry, my dear little 4th novel, your turn in the spotlight will come.

A DEAD CHICK AND SOME DIRTY TRICKS. Out on Friday 27 June 2014

The stars will align. The runes will speak of good fortune. The tea leaves will arrange themselves into a lucky formation upon the bottom of my best bone china tea cup. And I shall wear my lucky pants.

For Friday 27 June is the date that A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks will be unleashed upon the world.

Like an overdue baby, the novel is six months late. Like a doting parent, I worry about letting it out into the big bad world. So far, I have taught it all I know. I have cared for it. Corrected it when it was wrong. Protected it from outside influences.

But soon I must set it free. To let others judge what I have raised. Will it sink, will it swim, Will.I.Am?  I don't know.

All I know is to stand a chance, it has to be out there.

Go forth, my fourth.


A Quick Guide To Turpenton

It was never meant to be so omnipresent.

This place called Turpenton.

It was just a name for a place that I thought up because I needed to think up a name for a place in an early draft of Last Night At The Stairways. And I got so attached to it, I never thought of a better place name. So the name stuck, and I'm stuck with the name.

I mean, Stairways is loosely based on a couple of old night clubs in my hometown of Croydon, south London. But I didn't want to namecheck Croydon in my fiction, mainly to protect the innocent and prevent an unmanageable influx of tourists to the area. 

And Turpenton was the first made up name I could think of that sounded like a place without actually being a place.

But it wasn't meant to stick, and Turpenton East station certainly wasn't meant to crop up in The Wronged. And Turpenton General certainly wasn't meant to be the setting for A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks.

But before you get to thinking he's gone Turpenton crazy, fear not. My next novel, the second to feature Jake 'will he/won't he start smoking again' Rodwell isn't going to be based anywhere near Turpenton.

I don't think.

The Battle Of The Blurbs - Part Two


So here it is, the Blurb that's ready to take on the previous Blurb, which you can catch here if you missed it.

Vote A if you prefer that one over this one. Vote B if you prefer this one over that one. And Vote C if you wish Jon Lymon would stop inflicting his crazy novels on the populace.

Please ask the bill payer's permission before voting. And if you vote after the deadline, your vote won't be counted but you still might be charged.



BLURB B

‘You have no idea of the strength of the forces you’re up against, Rodwell.’

So declares small-time conjurer Dino Camballi from his sick bed as PC Jake Rodwell stands guard over him. Somebody wants Camballi dead, and although it’s not strictly Rodwell’s job to find out who, he takes it upon himself to find out who.

When Camballi’s assistant is discovered decapitated, Rodwell realises that the case is dragging him deeper and deeper into a disturbing and unpredictable world of magic, deception and illusion that challenges everything Rodwell has ever believed in and threatens to destroy his future and his family.

Book Reviewer or Blogger? Get your hands on a pre-release copy of A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks

That's a long title for a post, but there's only a short while to go until A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks gets released into the wild.

But before then, book reviewers and bloggers can get their hands on this quite frankly captivating collection of words simply by clicking this link that will take you to my official website from whence you can request a copy.

Surely I deserve five stars out of five for making it so easy!

The Battle Of The Blurbs - Part One

The blurb, that couple of paragraphs of text on the back of a book, or under the thumbnail that gives you an outline of what the story's about.

Writing them is an art form in itself. It's incredibly difficult for an author to distill 70,000 odd words of plot, subplot and character into a few hundred that tempt people to part with their cash. But that's the deal.

So here's the first blurb for my forthcoming novel A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks. Have a read and see if this floats your boat, tickles your fancy, flies your plane and any other of those sorts of phrases.

But don't make your decision based on this blurb alone. I'll be releasing a couple more into the internetosphere over the next week or so, and running with the most popular.

So here goes, Blurb Exhibit A, m'lud....




BLURB A

Magician Dino Camballi staggers from his apartment, five daggers sticking out of his torso. As medics battle to save him, PC Jake Rodwell is assigned the task of guarding Camballi in hospital. But is the magician victim or suspect? Rodwell vows to find out, seizing the chance to realise his ambition of becoming a detective. 

But his inexperience soon proves costly.

As Camballi’s wife is found decapitated and key witnesses are discovered brutally murdered, Camballi hides an incredible secret that he’s preparing to unleash from his sick bed.

Can Rodwell discover the truth about the magician before he pulls the whole hospital under his spell and makes his escape?

Exclusive: The first chapter of forthcoming novel 'A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks'




CHAPTER ONE

Dom Tenby pressed mute, his work papers spread over his lap and sofa like a white patchwork blanket. Something bad was happening over the corridor in apartment twenty-two.
This was the third night in a row his attempts to get some work done at home had been ruined by the couple who lived there. He wasn’t in the mood for them tonight, hadn’t been the previous two. But at least then the noise had stopped after a few minutes. Tonight, Tenby was convinced that one, if not both of them, had been seriously hurt.
Ever since he first saw them, not long after he’d moved into the apartment across the corridor with his girlfriend of the time, whose name he couldn’t bring himself to remember, he thought they made a strange pair. It was an opinion he couldn’t shake. They were both in their forties, Tenby estimated. She blonde and doll-like, probably attractive back in the day, but now layered too thickly with make-up that was slapped-on to cover-up the cruelty of years. As for him, the husband, partner, whatever his relationship to her was, his hair was blatantly twenty years younger than the rest of him, dyed an oily black and styled to cover up the brutal, shiny scalped truth that he was receding. They spent most of their weekdays at home, from what Tenby could gather, leaving together at just gone six most nights, not returning until late, usually after Tenby had called it a day.
But three nights ago, that all changed.
Tenby heard crockery smashing first. Didn’t think much of it. Everyone drops a bowl or plate now and again. But seven, eight in one night? The multiple smashes were followed by dull, inexplicable thuds. Then silence.
The second night, last night, the soundwaves of a fully fledged shouting match carried through the walls of the Byron Close apartment block, shuddering across the neat, white walled, real oak floored corridor. The shouting ended with her screaming where he could stick something (Tenby didn’t catch exactly what or where, but imagined it would be painful). He certainly heard the echo of the front door slamming, a sound that disturbed his train of thought to such an extent, he was forced to abandon his work for the night.
And then there was tonight, the crescendo. Apartment twenty-two played host to scrapes, thuds, yells, bangs and crashes, intercut with him shouting and her screaming, then her shouting and him screaming. Tenby couldn’t quite make out details, much to his annoyance, even after he’d pressed mute, lowered his breathing and leant toward the door.
As he listened, a yell sent Tenby’s heart racing. Was that her or him? He stood up, letting his work papers slide off him like slates off a roof in high wind. What was going on over there? He pictured one savagely attacking the other, inflicting merciless hits around the head with a laptop, an iron, a toaster, a trouser press (his neighbour looked like the kind of guy who’d have a trouser press).
Tenby’s remote slipped from his grasp as he contemplated the gravity of the situation - a serious assault happening across the corridor and he was sitting there, listening to it happen.
Pangs of nervousness infected a stomach that had been over-fed and under-nourished by too frequent eating of the wrong kind of food over a Christmas break that had been curtailed by a call from his boss demanding he go into the office the day after New Year’s Day.
He slipped on novelty crocodile slippers that had been a ‘surprise’ present from his parents and edged open his front door. He looked left down the corridor, hoping someone else would be peering out of their apartment or stepping out of the lift.
He was out of luck on both counts. His neighbours were either out or out for the count.
He glanced across to number twenty-two. His apartment door was definitely the nearest. Twenty three was four, maybe five feet further down the corridor. Tenby reckoned that rendered him honour-bound to be the first to intervene. The no-show of his other neighbours suggested they agreed.
After cursing his choice of apartment and checking he had his keys, he crept toward twenty-two.
As he approached the door, the great slab of wood rattled in its frame, the sound of splintering ripping from inside the apartment.
Tenby rocked back on his heels. That noise had to be something sharp embedding itself in the other side of the door. Something like a…
Tenby battled the urge to run back inside his own apartment, double-lock the door, don his Plattan headphones and pretend he’d been asleep all evening.
His heart was racing, his conscience clouding. He had to find out what was going on before he found out about it on the local news.
Tenby clenched his fist and reached toward the door.
Before he had a chance to knock, the handle moved.
Tenby froze, unable to comprehend why he was still standing there and not running away.
As it slowly opened, a hand reached around the door. Tenby stifled a laugh when he saw blood trickling between its shuddering fingers. This had to be a set-up. Some kind of drunken party game. Come on you guys, the joke’s over. The hand was followed by a forearm with blood streaming up to the elbow and dripping onto the corridor floor.
Tenby would have yelled for help right there and then, had whoever the arm belonged to not tried to do exactly that, choking on a throat thick with blood and vomit.
As Tenby leaned to his left to get a better angle on the owner of the bloodied arm, the door flung open. Tenby’s neighbour stooped in the doorway, the handles of five ornate daggers protruding from his midriff. He didn’t know why, but Tenby quickly counted them all. The lion’s share of the blood that was leaking onto the floor was being generated by a gaping wound in the lower abdomen, from which Tenby assumed the victim had recently pulled a sixth blade.
As he reached out to help, Tenby was forced back by a flash of brilliant white light from within the apartment, accompanied by a soft ‘phut’, too weak to be a gunshot, more akin to a tame firework.
Tenby squinted, temporarily blinded by the dazzle.
He heard footsteps, charging toward him.
‘Who is it?’
Still blind, he stood helpless, expecting a knife or six to slice into him.
As he held his breath and waited for the inevitable, Tenby felt someone brush past him, a waft of cool, fragrant air.
‘Hello,’ he called out.
No answer.
As he blinked his eyes out of their blindness, Tenby saw his multi-wounded neighbour cowering next to him, the daggers making him look like a macabre hairbrush.
‘Somebody help!’ Tenby shouted.

Books vs Ebooks. The eyes have it

The debate pages, sorry, rages.

Will Ebooks spell an end to traditional hard and paperbacks?

There's compelling evidence from the high street that they will. Music stores closing down. Bookshops disappearing from the scene faster than a murder victim in an opening chapter. People wandering around, heads buried in their phones and kindles.

But I say all's not doom and gloom for the traditional book. There's life in it yet, and here's why.

Screen fatigue.

Not an official medical condition, but one that will be familiar to anyone who works with computer screens all day and experiences the accompanying tiredness of eye. The strain. The flickering eyelid. The watering as the pixels burn into the retina.

We all need to give our eyes a break. Staring at a screen for eight hours at work and staring at a screen to and from work can't be good for us. Moderation and all that.

Paper based books are the answer. Easy on the eye.

There will soon be a backlash, mark my words (on a piece of paper, not a screen).

I'm no doctor, but there'll soon be health gurus out there calling for people to restrict their screen exposure. 'Eight hours a day, max,' they'll say. Or Des, if you're not called Max.

'Read a book,' they'll say. 'One where you turn the pages not flick a button. Choose paper not pixels!'

Some will heed the advice. Many won't.

It will be a few years before we discover the true damage all this screen exposure is doing to us. Let's hope there's still some bookshops around then to save us...

EXCLUSIVE! First ever published excerpt from my forthcoming novel 'A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks'




Camballi turned and surveyed the ensuite. Shiny white handlebars were screwed onto the wall near the toilet and sink. Emergency cords dangled like streamers from expelled party poppers. Various bins for specified items of waste littered the floor, and notes about the importance of washing hands to combat the spread of deadly germs were plastered to the cistern and storage units. None of it was news to Camballi, but after sitting down, he read all there was to read. Twice.
Afterwards, and with some trepidation, he approached the sink. He turned on the taps full blast and slowly moved one hand under the cold, the powerful water stirring nerves that had been dulled by his recent inactivity. He pushed the plug into place and muttered a quiet prayer as the sink filled, his eyes clenched shut.
He looked down at his hands as he slowly submerged them in the clear, tepid water. He quickly lifted them out and squeezed liquid soap out of the vial screwed to the wall and dipped both his hands back into the sink, rubbing them together. The water felt mild, revitalising, the soap frothing bubbly smooth.
Then something felt wrong.
Camballi tried denial, but he knew it was happening.
His heart began to race. He wanted to stop rubbing his hands together, to scream ‘no’, to run out of the room, away, away. But Rodwell was out there. If he saw… it was too soon for him to see. He wasn’t ready.
The water cascading over his hands was no longer revitalising, the bubbles no longer softly innocent. He daren’t look down into the sink. He could feel something fleshy in there. Something alive.
A hard, sharp fang punctured his right index finger. Instinctively he recoiled, suppressing the urge to yell out in pain, pulling his dripping hands out of the water. A set of gleaming white claws lashed out from under the soapy surface, followed by long narrow teeth that tried to sink themselves into his wrists. Camballi wrestled the beast, pulling it out of the water and holding it at arm’s length as it made several attempts to scratch and bite his face. Long, thick, powerful hind legs kicked out as the beast tried to free itself from Camballi’s clutches. Camballi summoned the little strength he possessed and plunged the beast back into the sink that was still filling with water and on the brink of overflowing. The blood from Camballi’s split finger dyed the water red. Undeterred, he battled to keep the beast’s head under the surface.
But its thrashing body was too big for the bowl, its will to live too strong.
As deep red eyes bored into him, teeth snarling with intent to sever his jugular, Camballi held the scrambling, dripping beast above his head, its long feet kicking air. With a wrestle and through gritted teeth, he gripped the beast’s neck, sustaining scratches to his forearms as he manouvered his fingers into place.
Camballi uttered a quiet prayer then twisted his hands with the skill of an experienced huntsman. The snap was audible, but not loud enough to alert Rodwell in the adjacent room. There were no squeals. The hind legs kicked air for a couple of seconds before the realisation hit home that the rest of its body was dead.
Camballi felt its life evaporate in his hands.
He held up the limp corpse to his face, its spiky ears features kids might find cute in another context, its deep red eyes the sort of thing they’d find horrific in any context.
He tipped open the pedal bin with his foot, pulled out the plastic liner bag and stuffed the corpse inside, tying it air tight. He unceremoniously dropped the bagged beast inside and released the pedal. He had no idea how often the bins were emptied around here, but figured it wouldn’t be long before the corpse was discovered or started to betray its presence through the stench of its decay.
Camballi knew he needed to get out of Turpenton General, and soon.
‘You OK in there?’
Rodwell tapped on the other side of the door. ‘It’s just that you’ve been a while. I know these things sometimes take time, but…’
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ said Camballi. ‘I’ve had a lot to do.’
Rodwell thought that sounded reasonable and moved away from the door.
Camballi wrapped a plaster around his wounded finger and made sure his smock covered the scratches on his arms. He looked at himself in the mirror, his face more pale and gaunt than he remembered, a world away from the expensive promotional shots of him and Lucille that had been spread across the newspapers. He resisted the urge to lift his smock and inspect the damage to his stomach. He knew there’d be little to see save blood soaked dressings, and he could feel where each of those were, the wounds smarting.
Enough of the self-pity. It was more important not to leave a trace of what had happened in here. He was well versed in covering his tracks, in muting the sounds, stemming the blood, disposing of the evidence. The worst thing Camballi had to deal with, and something he couldn’t clear away with ease, was the guilt of the dead beast’s soul preying on his mind. And today’s casualty wasn’t alone. Camballi had the blood of hundreds on his hands. 

How To Turn A Bad Book Review To Your Advantage

I'm talking really bad.
Like one star out of five.
Like they would have given zero stars if that were possible.
Like they've said a child could have written better.
Like even though they got the book for free, they still thought it was still a waste of money!

As you might have gathered by now, one of my books has been on the receiving end of such a review.

My first reaction when I read it can't be reprinted here.
To put it politely, I wanted to find the reviewer's email address and message them a carefully worded explanation of the story they so despised and so 'didn't get'.
After that rage subsided, thoughts turned to damage limitation.
This novel only has one other review on Amazon, and that was a glowing 5-star one.
Now, in one fell swoop, my average rating had halved.

Then I thought, hold on, could I make this work for me?
Someone really loved the book, and someone else really hated it.
So far no one had said it was just OK or ho-hum.
People either loved it or hated it.
That was something to cling onto.
That's how I could promote this.
You'll either love it or hate it.
(I even considered calling it the Marmite novel, which only readers in the UK would get).

So that's how I'm currently promoting Last Night At The Stairways, and currently sales are as steady as they were pre-terrible review.

Maybe there's a way you can make a bad review work for you.
Either way, us writers know we've got a few more heading our way, however great we think our writing is.

Just don't let them put you off writing and promoting...

Cover artwork for A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks.

They say a picture paints a thousand words.
This one's only got about 19 words in it.
So don't know what that proves.
Hmmm.




Latest on my latest: A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks

Like a sprawling shopping mall, or an ultra modern housing estate, or even a 2000 piece jigsaw of a bunch of unspectacular carnations, my latest novel A DEAD CHICK AND SOME DIRTY TRICKS is taking a lot more constructing than anticipated. 

The project managers are on site, equipped with hard hats, stern expressions and clipboards, going over every facet of the story in detail. 

In short, it's not finished yet. 

It's still at least couple of months from completion in fact but, as I say with every novel I write, it's my best work yet. (Stop yawning at the back.)

It represents my first foray into the detective genre, although there will be my usual touches of horror, madness, utter carnage and the odd weirdly named character (one of the main ones is called Dino Camballi. Seriously. And no, he's not Italian. He's from Rotherham.)

But enough spoilers for one post.

Here's hoping it's worth the wait...

This post first appeared on JonLymon.com So there!

My Experience of The Amazon Price Match

So, those deep web spiders that Amazon like to send scurrying out across the web discovered that I was offering my novel The Wronged free through Smashwords for January.

And, quite fairly, as it's made clear in their Ts and Cs, they offered it for free on their site, through their Price Match. And I have to say I'm really glad they did.

The Wronged was downloaded for free more times than it was when I had it on KDP Select, averaging upwards of 40 a day towards the end.

But, perhaps best of all, these downloads spurned a flurry of reviews, three on the same day. And all pretty positive if I do say so myself.

There's also been knock-on sales of my previous book, Last Night At The Stairways.

All in all a pretty positive experience. The only slight downside being that it was about ten days after I stopped the book being free on Smashwords, that Amazon stopped the price-match, but that's more to do with Smashwords' affiliates being slow to administer the change.

It does beg the question whether KDP Select is worth it, but then again, I've had books free on Smashwords before and Amazon haven't price-matched, so maybe they've only just discovered what a goldmine of brilliance the various works of a Mr Jon Lymon really are.