REVIEW: ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! ACAPULCALYPSE NOW Alison Littlewood (created by Stephen Jones)

I'm writing about zombies in my latest.
So wanted to see how other authors describe these dead folk.
Saw this on the shelf in the bookshop. Looked like it was about zombies.
And so it proved.

This was entertaining enough, even if the title was a little confusing, much like the authorship.
Got a bit samey though, when it came to the incessant slaughtering of the undead.
They all deserved it of course, but you need to be rooting for the surviving humans for a book to engage you on an emotional level and, aside for the little kid Ethan who witnesses the zombificaton of his mother and father, I wasn't really.

But I made it to the end in swift time, and it delivers what the cover promises, plenty of blood, exposed guts, sunken eyes, skulls and swords.

**

Writing A Book Blurb

Blubbering into your laptop.

That’s how having to write your book blurb can leave you.

After slaving away over your work for months/years/decades, you’re finally finished. Except you’re not.

Unless you’re lucky enough to have someone else to do it for you, you’re going to have to sum it all up in a few snappy, salesy sentences.

Good luck.

No, sorry, actually the point of this post was to say that the task can be made easier by writing a blurb after each draft.

Even if you haven’t finished your story, a blurb after each draft can help you write the next draft, giving you more focus and a better (or even a new) idea of where your story needs to go.

I started doing this after finishing an earlier novel and writing a blurb that outlined a story that was tighter, better structured and more exciting than the one I’d just finished.

Naturally, I had to rewrite the whole thing to fit the blurb, but the book was better for it.

I’ve also found that blurbs are easier to write months after you’ve finished a book. A bit of distance clears the air, brings things into sharper focus. Though I have to say, more than a year after finishing it, I still haven’t written a blurb I’m happy with for A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks.

Publishing Platform Of The Year 2015

White shirts starched. Shoes shined. Bow ties fiddled with and fixed. Free wine on the table.

It's the night of the year that's second only to the Oscars when it comes to eager anticipation and fake smiles from the losers.

Hush. Pray silence. The ceremony is about to begin. Which self-publishing platform will win the gong will soon no longer be hidden within a golden envelope.

A quick recap of the judging criteria. Simple really. Which platform best flogged the most of my books. Innovation and publicity also have a bearing. But it's mainly about cold, hard sales.

Just five contenders for the crown. In no particular order (other than alphabetical), they are Amazon, CreateSpace, Draft2Digital, Kobo and Smashwords.

And so, enough of the preamble. Time for the drumroll to start quietly and build to a crescendo. Here are the results in a particular order - reverse.

5th CREATESPACE
The judges (me and er... me) almost forgot their/his books were available in print via this channel. There was no Breakthrough Novel Award for 2015. Sales have been as sluggish as a slug stuck in his own slime. Mainly down to the ridiculously high price I have to tag onto my books just to make a small profit.

4th KOBO
It's another NO GO for KOBO. Next to no one seems to go to the platform to buy my books. Sure, there have been sales, but not enough to retire on. It seems a very low profile place. I get a monthly email which harks on about someone else's success story, and that's about it.

3rd DRAFT TO DIGITAL
A terse letter about sorting out my tax details aside, I've been pleased with the performance of this platform. A good few sales, and regular updates about how they are expanding by teaming up with other worldwide distributors. If only they'd made that tax letter a little friendlier.

2nd SMASHWORDS
Last year's winner was cruising, about to retain their title, until sometime in September the truth came out. Many of the downloads I had previously thought were genuine, turned out to be dastardly machines at work. Since Smashwords stopped counting the activities of the Bots, my stats have frozen as hard as a giant cryptic crossword fashioned from marble and cement. Sales through Smashwords' partner channels are still ticking over nicely, but it's not what it was, even though it's more accurate. Sometimes it is better to lie. These bots obviously know a good book when they see one.

1st AMAZON
Yes, oh mighty one. The title is yours. For the downloads you gave me when I shifted many of my books back into KDP Select. For the regular sales you've given me throughout the year. For breaking me into new territories (this year saw my first sale in Germany, the first downloads in Brazil). For the additional revenue stream provided by Kindle Edition Normalized Pages. For ideas like #AmazonGiveaway, which I really must try. Yes, you are the biggest and, in 2015, for my money you have been the best.

The wine is downed, the losers' fake smiles wiped away, the winner clutches the trophy. All over for another year. Carriages from 2am after a bit of dancing. Good night.

Previous Winners:
2014  Smashwords

Book promoters and book promotion services emails

Book Gargantuans.  Book Promoters Extraordinaire. Book Blimmin' Big Balls Agents.

There are plenty of people (companies, entrepreneurs) out there, willing to promote your book on their site and across their social channels, aren't there? So many in fact, they are running out of names for their businesses that haven't already been taken - the one's above are still available as far as I'm aware.

But how useful are these promoters? I've limited experience, myself. I did something with Ask David a couple of years back and don't remember much of a sales spike as a result.

But an email I got from one such 'business' earlier today irked a little. Here's what it said (I've removed the company details)

Dear Jon Lymon,

I just saw your book "The Diamond Rush". I would love to write a post about it and list it on my website [WEB ADDRESS]

One more thing, if you are running a promotion for "The Diamond Rush" then you can use our service called - Book of the Day to promote "The Diamond Rush" to more than 400,000 readers across the globe. 

Check it out here [WEB ADDRESS]

Thank you & all the best 

My problems with it: First up, there was no name at the bottom. Equals not very personal.

Then the opening line, or is it more of an opening gambit? My reaction to reading 'I would love to write a post about it' is, well, go on then. You don't need my permission. Go ahead, write away. Slate the book if necessary. And while you're at it, yes, you can list it on your own website too. No need to ask me. Go list crazy. Look, you've even included a link to your own web address... ah wait a minute, you want me to click on your website to take a look. So that's what this email's really about.

The next paragraph confirms my suspicions. By 'one more thing' what you really mean is here's the crux of the message, here's the real reason I'm sending this email, but I'll try and disguise it, downplay it, introduce it as an aside. You want to tell me about your Book Of The Day feature, which I have to pay for. Gotcha. Thanks. Next...

Am I just being cynical? I work as a copywriter, so I know a few tricks of the advertising trade, but there is a thing called Passing Off, where you pretend not to be selling when that's really exactly what you're doing. 

Maybe this email just arrived in my inbox when I was a bit grumpy, dunno. But if anyone's ever replied to one of these, and got their book listed and gone on to sell a million, let me know!

Amazon Giveaway

A sparkling gem with The Diamond Rush? A clubbing compilation CD with Last Night At The Stairways? A dead chicken with A Dead Chick And Some Dirty Tricks?

In case you haven't heard yet, Amazon is giving everyone the chance to run their own promotions as a way to attract (bribe) new customers.  It's called Amazon Giveaway.

So if you've got a book to sell, choose a prize, pay for it, then decide how people can win it (i.e. when they buy your book.)

Sounds simple, and interesting, and a good way to attract new readers to your book. I'm going to try it, as long as I can find good prizes that relate to the story I'm trying to sell.

There's millions of Amazon products to choose from as prizes. Which one will go best with your book?

You can find out more details here.

Amazon may have its detractors, but I'm liking their thinking on this one.

American English vs English English V

Round 5

Pacifier vs Dummy

Pray silence for a battle that's bound to end in tears and sleepless nights.

A tried, tested and frankly absolutely marvellous way of keeping a child quiet, is to give it the above.

In the United States, it's a PACIFIER. The word does exactly what it says on the tit. Tin! Tin! It turns a wailing, screaming, yelling child into a quiet, becalmed and delightful little darling.

In the United Kingdom, such a device is referred to as a DUMMY. A dummy nipple/tit if you please. Bit clunky, but you can see where it's come from. But dummy also means fake and a fool, which these wailing kids certainly aren't, for they are getting what they want by screaming their tiny lungs out.

So, by saying what it is without any subsidiary negativity, this round is going to American English.

USA 3.5
UK 1.5

Top Of The Bots - reinstate book downloads carried out by Bots.

Forget official best seller lists.

I wanna know which books are favourites with the web crawling Bots.

This follows on from my previous post, which dealt with Smashwords' decision not count downloads and sample downloads of books requested by Bots.

Crazy, or what? Maybe even a little racist. These Bots know a good book when they see it. It's obvious. Because ever since Smashwords started disregarding the actions of Bots, my downloads have hit the proverbial brick wall.

It's like these poor Bots don't count. How can that be right? These Bots must be scanning millions of books a day. They know how to sort the wheat from the chaff. The Lymons from the lemons.

So let's get their opinions back on the sales radars. Humans and Bots can happily co-exist, with everyone's opinion counting. Surely?

I'm backing the Bots.