When Someone Refunds Your Book on Kindle

 A paper cut to that flap of skin between thumb and forefinger. An errant hair plucked from your nostril. A blunt stake driven through your heart. None is as painful as checking your KDP reports and finding someone who bought your book has asked for a refund.

The first time it happened to me was for a book that was free. Yes, someone had downloaded a non-fiction book. by me, for free, and disliked it so much, they demanded a refund of all the money they hadn’t spent on it. That is dislike, writ large.

The second refund happened just last week, hours after the purchase, it seems.

Why, why, why? are the thoughts that run through your mind. They hated it and hate me. They think I can’t write or my plotting’s crap, my characters cardboard and they’re going to tell everyone they know not to touch my stuff.

After this vicious paranoia came a spell where I tried to reassure myself. They only had the book a few hours, maybe they downloaded it by mistake, they were looking for a similar title and got it all wrong. Fair enough, no problem.

Then the paranoia returned. They read the first chapter and laughingly threw the book aside. (Bit difficult, when it’s digital, but that sort of thing) They disliked it so much, they couldn’t get their money back quickly enough.

That attack eventually died down, and now I’ve come to accept that I’ll never know who downloaded it and why they asked for a refund. It’s just part of the process. But I’ll be waiting for that paranoia to return when the next refund gets processed…

How do you handle your book getting refunded?

REVIEW: Immortal by Dean Crawford

First up, this book wins an accolade that no subsequent work can ever take away from it, (cue drumroll):

Immortal, by Dean Crawford is the first digital book I've finished.

There you go. Now onto the review.

As a writer of thrillers, I feel the need to see what's being picked up by publishers out there (and, in this case, being given away free at Starbucks).

And this was OK. Three stars.

Biggest plus points: the quality of the writing, the smooth flow, the varied vocab, the attention to detail.

On the downside, I wasn't really feeling every blow with the lead characters (Ethan and Lopez). I got that Lopez was sexy, sassy, a bit of a loose cannon, and that Ethan was carrying some baggage concerning his missing girlfriend. But it wasn't until Ethan got in touch with his father at the end that he started to become a fully-rounded character.

I also found there was way too much exposition delivered in rambling character monologues that were overflowing with technical details.

But, the concept was strong, the start beguiling, and the whole story a little far-fetched for some tastes maybe, though not mine. I also think the author captured the tone of voice and vocab of the civil war vets brilliantly,  somewhat pouring scorn on my belief that not all characters in literature speak with a different voice.

Biggest surprise? That the author is English and lives in Surrey (the story is totally set in the USA, and the author knows plenty of details about the landscapes there).

Since my screenwriting days, I've always known that for the best chance of anything getting picked up by Hollywood, it's best to set some or all of your story in the US, or at least to have a key character who's American. It's a lesson Mr Crawford has certainly learnt.

Billed as the Michael Crichton for the next generation, he's got a lot to live up to.

Advertising on Goodreads

 Boxing Day, 2012, and still full of mince pie, turkey and Christmas TV specials, I was feeling a little flush, having received a small amount of cash from a generous, and generously white-bearded chap with a penchant for red suits and scaling chimneys.

Anyway, with two novels selling sluggishly, I decided to invest some in a Goodreads advertising campaign. Just $40 to begin with. Not a vast amount. Childs, Rowling, King et al probably get a marketing budget that’s a bit bigger.

First task – write some ads. I’m a copywriter. Do it every day. Should be easy, right? Hmmm. The word limit was tricky. What do you say? How do you distill tens of thousands of words, several twists and turns, and dozens of characters into just 140. Do you need to get the name of the book in somewhere, even though it’s on the image beside it?

What about the call to action? If I send people to my Goodreads page (as recommended) they might not buy it. If I put a link straight to Amazon, they might not even bother clicking it. Then there’s the targeting, blah blah blah.

To abridge a post that could easily turn into an epic, a month on, I haven’t sold any extra books (and yes, that may be down to their quality, or lack thereof).

Out of 120,000 views of my ads (I wrote 5 variants), there’s an average clickthrough rate of 0.05%. Working in advertising, I know this is pretty much par for the course. People don’t often click web ads, I know I don’t.

But one ad outperformed all the others, with a stratospheric 0.12% clickthrough rate. If I were a marketing guru I’d probably say ‘PayPal me $10 and I’ll tell you the secret of my success’ or somesuch crap.’ But I’m not.

The ad simply had the name of the book as the title, then a couple of quotes pulled from (good) reviews it’s had, together with 5 stars and a link to my Goodreads page. That’s all.

It hasn’t generated loads of new sales, but the number of people who have the book ‘to-read’ on Goodreads has shot up. Although a lot of them have thousands on their to-read list. Maybe they’ll get round to mine before the next century.

In conclusion, I don’t see advertising on Goodreads as a quick way to boost sales. And I’m not going to get a return on my investment. But some advertising is always better than none at all. And at least a few more people know my books are out there.

So thanks for that cash, Santa. Now come back and clear up that mess you left around my fireplace.

Happy New Year of Delusion

As the regular reader of this blog will know, I believe self-publishers like myself have to be seriously deluded to think their novel can be the next million seller.

Every single person who uploads their book to Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble etc believes what they've written is worthy of a place on a bestseller's list.

It's going to take a professional editor to tell them their intro is dull, their character's cardboard, their concept unbelievable, their ending just plain shit. But, like me, most can't afford the £500 / $1000 it takes to hire someone who knows what they're looking for to look for it. So they'll just re-read their book and run another spellcheck to make sure there's no glaring errors.

BUT, enough of this negativity. Because, some self-published novelist will rise out of the pack this year, making waves, headlines and a useful income. Someone will be branded 'This year's E.L. James,' their book "2013's Fifty Shades Of... whatever."

It could be me, it could be you. And that's why, like the lottery, we keep doing what we're doing. Because someone's got to win. And even though it's a million to one shot, we'd give everything to be that one.

Here's to a successful 2013 for someone out there.

No January Mails This Year.

Usually, January is spent thumbing through the thick pages of the latest edition of The Writers And Artists' Yearbook, looking for agents to whom I've yet to send an upbeat, slightly grovelly covering letter together with a synopsis, and the first five chapters of my surefire bestselling thriller.

Can't be arsed this year.

And that's not me giving up. It's me giving the whole situation a much needed reality check.

How many other authors as deluded as me spent their Christmas telling themselves next year will be my breakthrough year?

How many have then gone on to mail out their manuscripts in betwixt Christmas and New Year, bemoaning the price of stamps, yet hoping their delusions turn into reality?

I reckon slush piles will be at their peak this time of year, giving whoever has the onerous task of wading through the piles of paper even less time to give each submission their divided attention.

Given most agents try to get back to you with a rejection, I mean a reply, within three months, surely that makes Easter the best time of year to start the mass mailing?

I might give it a try, only if I'm not a multi-million bestselling author by then, of course.

The pub in The Money Star

The early drafts of the Money Star were written while I lived in a flat above a pub on Leather Lane, the next road west from Hatton Garden.
And it's on Hatton Garden, down an alleyway that you could easily walk past if you didn't know it was there, that this gem of a pub can be found if you look closely enough.

Here's the view from the street.

You can see why this place is easily missed.
It's the last place on Earth that The Money Star hero Sye Remnant enjoys a pint.
Does he ever make it back and reunite with landlord Gordon and best mate Edgar?
Don't ask me. I only wrote the thing.

The 'A Different Voice For Each Character' Myth

I've been spoonfed to the point of sickness the advice to make each character sound distinctive in terms of what they say, and how they say it.

But wait a minute. Of all the novels and screenplays I've ever read, there's been very little to distinguish one character's dialogue from the next, unless they have a stutter, a really foul mouth or an absinthe-strong dialect.

And is it really that important that each character speaks in a noticeably different way? Is a book really spoiled by having characters speak in a similar way?

The more I think about it, the more this sounds like another of those myths that theorists trot out to fill space in their 'how to' books, and one that pro writers just plain ignore.



(There's another myth of writing here, in case you mythed it.)