Dear [insert name here]
Sorry.
Sorry for not always being there physically.
And sorry for sometimes being there physically but not mentally.
Sorry for trying to grab every moment I can with my laptop.
Sorry for using the printer at half one in the morning. Hopefully, I'll soon be able to afford a quieter one.
Sorry for regularly disappearing upstairs for short periods. I'm not up to anything dodgy, just checking my Kindle Reports or Smashwords dashboard, praying for a sale, even a freebie download, any evidence that somebody somewhere might like my stuff.
Sorry for finishing writing one book and then immediately piling in to another. I don't think I can stop.
Sorry for not making this letter longer. It's just that I've got other things to write.
REVIEW: The Pregnant Widow - Martin Amis
What great value an Amis novel is.
I don't subscribe to his late father's view that he should show off his literary talents a little less. I'm in the 'if you've got 'em, flaunt 'em' camp. And Amis has them in abundance.
But it's not been easy for me to read Amis ever since becoming obsessed with the quality of London Fields back in the Nineties. Topping that is as close to an impossible task as you can get. So it was good to see the return of a Keith to his work, Nearing this time, not Talent, and a few nods to the latter's stomping ground of Queensway.
As expected, I found invention on every page, sharp dialogue, cliche-free description and a bunch of twentysomethng characters spending a summer in Italy thinking about having sex with each other.
Certainly a rewarding read for Amis aficionados, but if you're new to the great man's work, may I suggest you head over to London Fields first.
I don't subscribe to his late father's view that he should show off his literary talents a little less. I'm in the 'if you've got 'em, flaunt 'em' camp. And Amis has them in abundance.
But it's not been easy for me to read Amis ever since becoming obsessed with the quality of London Fields back in the Nineties. Topping that is as close to an impossible task as you can get. So it was good to see the return of a Keith to his work, Nearing this time, not Talent, and a few nods to the latter's stomping ground of Queensway.
As expected, I found invention on every page, sharp dialogue, cliche-free description and a bunch of twentysomethng characters spending a summer in Italy thinking about having sex with each other.
What's A Book Got To Do To Get A Review Around Here?
Reviews are big currency in the self-publishing world. A shit one is better than none at all, certainly if the Fifty Shades series is anything to go by.
But how do you get them?
I've approached a few bloggers and reviewers (very politely, I might add) and have yet to receive a reply, let alone a review.
I've resisted the urge to write my own under some alias or other as that just seems a toe-curlingy bad way to go.
But as I've only received one for The Money Star, and one for my non-fiction book Gets Up Your Nose And Curls Your Toes (both fairly good ones, I might also add) on Amazon, I'm on the look out for new ways to get comments, even if they're scathing.
But how do you get them?
I've approached a few bloggers and reviewers (very politely, I might add) and have yet to receive a reply, let alone a review.
I've resisted the urge to write my own under some alias or other as that just seems a toe-curlingy bad way to go.
But as I've only received one for The Money Star, and one for my non-fiction book Gets Up Your Nose And Curls Your Toes (both fairly good ones, I might also add) on Amazon, I'm on the look out for new ways to get comments, even if they're scathing.
An Unexpected Benefit Of A Synopsis
It's the moment writers all dread.
You've written 70,000 plus words, and now's the time to distill all the twists, turns and character arcs into a few hundred words.
Gulp.
So, imagine my discomfort when I wrote my first synopsis for The Money Star, and came up with some story ideas that were better than what I'd written.
Forcing yourself to explain your story in as few words as possible and in the style of the sort of thing you'd read on the back of a dustjacket is, as all writers know, a great way to focus on the crux of your story. But, as I discovered, it's also a great way of improving your story.
As long as you're prepared to get your head down and tuck into ANOTHER draft, that is.
You've written 70,000 plus words, and now's the time to distill all the twists, turns and character arcs into a few hundred words.
Gulp.
So, imagine my discomfort when I wrote my first synopsis for The Money Star, and came up with some story ideas that were better than what I'd written.
Forcing yourself to explain your story in as few words as possible and in the style of the sort of thing you'd read on the back of a dustjacket is, as all writers know, a great way to focus on the crux of your story. But, as I discovered, it's also a great way of improving your story.
As long as you're prepared to get your head down and tuck into ANOTHER draft, that is.
Give Them Something To Read In Between The Lines
'If what's happening in your scene is what's happening in your scene, you're doing something wrong.'
Somebody much cleverer and more successful than I once said or wrote words to that effect. And ever since, I've tried to heed them.
It's all about subtext, innit? Reading between the lines.
Having two people just talking about what they're talking about doesn't make for interesting reading or viewing. There's got to be, as Hitchcock suggested, something like a bomb ticking under the table, or something that the audience knows that the people in the scene don't.
Something that makes what they're saying mean more than just what they're saying means, if you know what I mean.
Somebody much cleverer and more successful than I once said or wrote words to that effect. And ever since, I've tried to heed them.
It's all about subtext, innit? Reading between the lines.
Having two people just talking about what they're talking about doesn't make for interesting reading or viewing. There's got to be, as Hitchcock suggested, something like a bomb ticking under the table, or something that the audience knows that the people in the scene don't.
Something that makes what they're saying mean more than just what they're saying means, if you know what I mean.
Have Literary Agents Become An Irrelevance?
You finish draft number eleventy or whatever. Buy the latest Writers And Artists Yearbook and trawl through the pages of Literary Agents, trying to work out which is least likely to reject your book.
Or do you?
I did it with The Money Star, but for the latest book I quite frankly couldn't be arsed.
It's not just the waiting that put me off. Three months of nothing, followed by an almost guaranteed rejection in the form of a curt, mass produced email or letter, I can handle. I'll just fill that time writing something else.
But I've heard stories lately of writers with agents who just aren't getting it done. Their books still aren't selling. Publishers aren't picking them up. They're having more luck going it alone on Kindle.
So, although agents still seem a good way to get an experienced pair of eyes to look over your manuscript, I'm going to stop bothering them. They've got enough on their plate (desk) without me adding to their slushpile.
That nothwithstanding, if any agents are interested in... blah blah blah
Or do you?
I did it with The Money Star, but for the latest book I quite frankly couldn't be arsed.
It's not just the waiting that put me off. Three months of nothing, followed by an almost guaranteed rejection in the form of a curt, mass produced email or letter, I can handle. I'll just fill that time writing something else.
But I've heard stories lately of writers with agents who just aren't getting it done. Their books still aren't selling. Publishers aren't picking them up. They're having more luck going it alone on Kindle.
So, although agents still seem a good way to get an experienced pair of eyes to look over your manuscript, I'm going to stop bothering them. They've got enough on their plate (desk) without me adding to their slushpile.
That nothwithstanding, if any agents are interested in... blah blah blah
Genre. The Best Sales Tool Since, Since, Ever.
Don't make the mistake I did with my first novel and start writing it without a genre in mind.
Seriously.
If you want to sell copies, or even give them away as freebies, make sure your book fits into a category.
Deluded old me thought sod that, I'm going to write this genre buster that's a combination of heist, sci-fi, thriller, adventure. All very well until you upload it to Smashwords or Kindle and have to pigeonhole it.
You soon see that books are sold on genre, and writing something that dips its toes into several different genres isn't the fast lane to big sales.
Sure, I've shifted a few copies (mainly freebies) but because The Money Star straddles several genres rather than slotting neatly into one, it's 'yet to find its audience', which I believe is common parlance for 'we don't know what genre this thing is'.
As a result, I've been forced to post-rationalise, during which I discovered the catch-all category of Speculative Fiction, which covers a multitude of genres. But, as yet, it hasn't boosted sales.
Which is why when I started my second novel, I made sure which category it would be filed under when it was published before a finger touched the keypad. (Horror, thanks for asking).
Seriously.
If you want to sell copies, or even give them away as freebies, make sure your book fits into a category.
Deluded old me thought sod that, I'm going to write this genre buster that's a combination of heist, sci-fi, thriller, adventure. All very well until you upload it to Smashwords or Kindle and have to pigeonhole it.
You soon see that books are sold on genre, and writing something that dips its toes into several different genres isn't the fast lane to big sales.
Sure, I've shifted a few copies (mainly freebies) but because The Money Star straddles several genres rather than slotting neatly into one, it's 'yet to find its audience', which I believe is common parlance for 'we don't know what genre this thing is'.
As a result, I've been forced to post-rationalise, during which I discovered the catch-all category of Speculative Fiction, which covers a multitude of genres. But, as yet, it hasn't boosted sales.
Which is why when I started my second novel, I made sure which category it would be filed under when it was published before a finger touched the keypad. (Horror, thanks for asking).
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