Showing posts with label authors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label authors. Show all posts

Monday, 9 May 2016

Scooters Yard

Well, I’ve finally done it! Published, that is.

Scooters Yard is now out and about and hitting the internet.

It’s been quite a long haul and took far longer than I expected but I got there eventually. I’m pleased with how it turned out and I hope that you will be too.

myBook.to/Scooters
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A radical move ruffles more than a few feathers.

The introduction of female officers into the Police Force has an effect that Commander Jethro MacGillicudy wasn’t intending — someone isn’t happy.

A Watch-House mysteriously catches fire, a cart carries a strange load and there’s a neatly folded pile of clothes.

MacGillicudy joins forces with Cornwallis, Frankie and Rose to dig out the truth: a truth which has consequences, a truth which runs too close to home for comfort, a truth which must be discovered before it’s too late.

Another visit to Gornstock and its inhabitants as the crime-solving team seek out the not-so-good guys with the help of a cat and twelve very eager girls.

Friday, 24 July 2015

An update on Scooters Yard

Seeing as I’ve not been around so much recently, I thought I would give you an update on how Scooters Yard, the second Gornstock novel, is going.

 Well, it’s going through the appraisal stage. I’ve sent it out to a few people who are at this moment giving judgement on storyline, plot, general writing, to see whether it works as I meant it to. I’m certainly not going to press them to get on with it, I’m just sitting back and waiting for their opinions to come in.

I’ve also got my cover designer looking at it and he’s scratching his head to come up with some ideas for me to go through. If you’ve seen what he did with Banker’s Draft, you know that something special is in the pipeline!

What I don’t know is where all the time has gone. The problem with writing in your spare time, as I’m sure everyone knows, is trying to juggle loads of balls (i.e. projects, family, work etc) at the same time. This book is late in coming out, I regret to say, but I hope my readers will appreciate that I’ve taken my time in order to do it properly.

Watch this space because when I am finally ready to press the publish button I will be offering a few people the chance to read a pre-publication copy free of charge, gratis and for nothing - ain’t I the generous one!

Monday, 2 March 2015

Twitter twats and twots.

Now, I’m not an expert at using various social media platforms for the purposes of promoting my book. However, I’m an expert in what riles and annoys me.
When I first signed up for twitter I hadn’t a clue how it worked; it might have been an age thing, it might have been a limited knowledge of all things technical. I sat there for a while watching to see how things worked, following people who seemed to know what they were doing, until  I then tentatively started to follow suit.
What I didn’t do though was to follow people and then as soon as they followed back hit them with “a here’s my book go and buy it. It’s the best book ever and you don’t know what you’re missing” type tweet….or indeed a DM to the same effect.
What the hell do they think they are doing?
Spattered all over twitter, blogs, web-sites etc there is information regarding this practice. It universally tells you not to do this. I found this out and I know diddly-squat, so why do some cretins still do it?
All the authors on twitter have books to sell; but, be true here, who clicks on a book link from a new follower and immediately spends hard earned cash on a book that you know nothing about? Who amongst us is waiting with baited breath for that tweet to come flying into notifications so that we can find out what a total stranger has written. Of course you know it’s a bestseller and it is going to take the publishing world by storm; how do you know? Because they’ve just told you.
It gives authors a bad name. It gives the self-publishing industry a bad name. It gives book promotions a bad name. It gives YOU who do this a bad name. It is not a nice thing to do, so don’t do it!
Build your platform slowly. Interact with the people you follow. Be friendly. Let people find out a bit about you, and about your book, organically. Don’t be a pain in the arse. Above all, learn how to use social media properly.
Okay, rant over. I will now crawl back into my comfy little scribbling hole.