Acer Sansom is ‘rubbish’ :-(

Posted on May 2, 2014 by olivertidy

Writer’s diary: stardate: 02.05.2014 😦

This week I broke through the 70,000 word barrier of my first draft for Acer #3, which I might call Smoke and Mirrors. It’s been slow going compared with other books I’ve written, but it’s coming together nicely, in my opinion. I had a couple of good sessions this week and have started to feel quite positive about it.

And so it was with some dismay that I was given to understand that I’m wasting my time on this series. I received a couple of negative comments on Amazon.co.uk just yesterday – one for each of the Acer books: Dirty Business and Loose Ends. They are both from the same reader. For Dirty Business he said: Paul needs to scrap this Acer Sansom killer and go back to Dover and his good books, at least they were readable. (Paul?)

For Loose Ends he left this comment under the title ‘Rubbish’: Just like his other Sansom book rubbish and not worth the money, his books with Dover as the back ground were readable this lot are not.

(Some of my detractors I’d like to run over with ‘de tractor’.)

It’s not often I am left baffled by a reader’s feedback. (I know these book aren’t going to win any prizes but equally I know they’re not ‘rubbish’ because I’ve had too many favourable comments on them from impartial reviewers whom I respect. I accept that they might not be everyone’s cup of tea but that’s different to ‘rubbish’.)

I’ve experienced my fair share of negative comments and almost always I can find a way to understand them. I’ve invited him to enlighten me regarding what it was in these books that so displeased him. I’d really like to know. (There must be a quote from some old sage out there somewhere about understanding alleviating anguish but I can’t be arsed to look for it. Besides, I feel my time is better spent trying to find out where this bloke lives. He only went and used his real name 🙂 )

There are many things I’ve learned through self-publishing. One of the most important to remember, if one wishes to remain sane, is that you really cannot please all the readers all the time. So I try to be philosophical about negative comments. I try not to let them ruin my day. But the truth is: I can deal with them a lot better when whoever leaves them is not so unnecessarily unpleasant. It’s so rude. Rudeness makes my blood boil. Rudeness and stupidity.

The reviewer in question is entitled to have his say over my book. He paid for that privilege. But why is it that some people feel the need to be so horrible? I mean, ‘Rubbish’. That’s not nice is it? Who is he? Who is anyone to say anyone’s book is ‘Rubbish’? It’s such a rotten, spiteful, nasty, lazy thing to plaster as a comment title.

And it’s not just him. It’s endemic on Amazon. Some of the things some people write for comment titles and comment content should make them ashamed of themselves. Passing judgement on a book you’ve read is a subjective thing. You might hate it, but maybe that’s just you. Express that privately if you have to, but why must people be so nasty on public forums?

Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for constructive criticism. I’ve learned a lot from decent readers who’ve taken the time and trouble to feedback to me constructively. Not everyone loves my books and that’s fine with me when readers comment using language that isn’t inflammatory and hostile. But I ask you, comments like those I’ve copied and pasted above, how do they help anyone? Readers or writers.

People like that remind me of people like this:

and I don’t like it. And it’s not about passion; it’s about being civilised. Ah, what’s the point?

He’s not my first and, of course, he won’t be my last. I just wonder how long I will be prepared to bite my tongue and remain affable in the face of such nastiness.

Mind you even smiling nicely and responding philosophically can upset a comment prowler. Example: A little while ago on Amazon.com a woman gave this comment for Rope Enough under the title of Rather boring: Couldn’t get into this book – even though it is an English crime novel. Not sure what the problem was, but it didn’t hold my interest and I didn’t finish it.

Fair enough, I thought. Because of my policy of commenting on every comment I had to write something. And it had to be fittingly philosophical. I replied: Hello Miriam, Just goes to show, I suppose – you can’t please all the people all the time.
Regards.

That seemed harmless enough to me and to the point and honest in an ‘oh well’ kind of way. There was certainly no sub-text of unpleasantness intended.

So imagine my surprise when this week I got this comment from a reader who’d seen my response to Miriam: You are not going to win readers with that kind of attitude. I was about to give this book a shot because I love anything set in England. Most of my favorite authors are English. Your comment is off-putting and I will now pass on this one.

Still, one good thing to come out of all this: I was struggling to find a name for the hunchback kiddy-fiddler in my latest R&M File. Not any longer. Talking of which, oh look, his address came through – now where did I put de tractor keys?

(Please, just in case, I don’t want anyone springing to Acer’s defence on Amazon. I know I have some splendidly loyal readers who might do that, but it’s not what I’m fishing for. This is my writer’s diary and I’m simply sharing something to do with my writing journey that happened this week. That’s all folks.)

The Moyes Effect. (Think butterflies without wings.)

Posted on April 25, 2014 by olivertidy

Writer’s diary: stardate: 25.04.2014

Perhaps, a bit like voting Labour in the last couple of elections expecting change – scratch away the thin veneer of sun-blistered, faded red, they’re just a lighter shade of blue – my hope is false, but I like to think of the Kindle Top 100 Free chart as the promised land for an author, like me, to wake up in.

I like to think that everyone who owns an ereader, whether it’s new or they’ve had it for years, still trawls the Kindle Top 100 Free chart from time to time for something for nothing. I like to think that it’s basic human nature. (It should be noted, for the record, that I also like to think that there are fairies at the bottom of my garden, that Elvis runs a simit stall in Istanbul and that one day Ronnie Corbett will call to enquire after the film rights to my Acer Sansom novels – think TC & JR.)

I have prayed and promoted and blogged and tweeted and accosted people on public transport and sacrificed chickens and been nice to children (probably the hardest of the lot) in my quest to see the first R&M File, Rope Enough, make Amazon’s Top 100 Free chart. This week after months of yo-yoing around the cusp the book made it. And all I had to do was follow some good advice, click a few buttons on my laptop and send Amazon a message.

My message was only slightly more complicated than: ‘Dear Amazon, please put my book in the Top 100 Free chart.’ But only just. The good advice came from a gentleman called: David Gaughran. See it regurgitated on another website here:

How to Use Categories to Drive Book Sales

So I followed that good advice. Amazon responded quickly, sending me a message that they would implement my category change request and it would be live within seventy-two hours. Sit back and wait. As is my usual experience with Amazon the reality of the changes was a lot sooner. On Amazon.co.uk all was well and overnight Rope Enough found itself at #2 in the chart Kindle Store > Books > Crime, Thriller & Mystery > Crime Fiction > British & Irish > English This leap-frogged it up the slush pile (surely, ranks of overlooked, talented authors in waiting? Ed.) to #49 in the Top 100 Free chart. I managed half a cartwheel in the lounge before colliding with the dining table, knocking my future-ex-wife’s floral display over and smashing that ‘collectors’ vase she bought from Disneyland. (When I say cartwheel I must confess to catching a glimpse of myself in the floor-to-ceiling living room mirror as I got halfway through my impromptu acrobatics. Granted, I was upside down but I could have been looking at a crippled, midget hunchback falling out of a low tree in a dressing gown. Poetry in motion it wasn’t.)

I thought that surely the floodgates would be thrown open and a flock of free downloads would explode out of my portal (?) like last night’s chicken vindaloo comes out of my…curiosity to experiment with spicy food. Maybe one out of ten of those who grabbed a copy would actually read the book. Maybe one out of that ten would actually enjoy it. Maybe one out of that ten would be persuaded to download the second in the series. Maths never was my strong point, but the possibilities of that equation made me want cake and quickly. I was having a blood sugar episode.

Within two days the book had slipped into the late eighties, a bit like how my haircut invariably ends up looking when I go to that cheap barber next to the vets in Kadikoy.

TIME OUT:

Istanbul anecdote alert. (I’ll try to tell it quickly.)

Two weeks ago I went to the cut-rate barbers next to the vets in Kadikoy. It costs 9TL (@£2.50) for a SB&S. (I love a bargain. Mind you, what I save there I usually end up spending on cream, antiseptic and plasters afterwards at the pharmacy next door. That haircut could be a false economy.) There I was in the reclaimed dentist’s chair, smock draped round my top half, smelling faintly of mildew and cat piss (the smock not me, although after only five minutes in that converted parachute the stink tends to stay with one.) The senior partner of the franchise, the one with the chronic shakes and the incredible spectacles (I thought it was a practical joke first time I saw him in them. I reckon a normal-sighted person could probably make out craters on the moon on a clear night through them – was lining up for another run through my barnet with the grade four trimmer. (I do wish they’d change the blades once in a while. It feels like he drags out more hair by the roots than he cuts. If there’s any pain like that anywhere else, I don’t want to find it. I wouldn’t mind inflicting it on a few people but that’s for another blog-post.) And the door was flung open making everyone jump. (I still have the plaster on my ear to prove it wasn’t just me.)

In rushes a rather hirsute gentleman dressed in the uniform of the professional veterinarian and cradling a mangy, aged looking Alsatian. His enormous tongue was lolling out of the corner of his mouth like a yard of red flannel and his eyes were rolling around like marbles on a saucer. (This is the vet not the dog. The dog looked dead to me.) There was a frantic exchange in guttural Turkish of which I caught only three words: quick, arsehole and shit. (It occurs to me now that it is not so odd these are the only words I managed to decipher from the vet’s outburst as these are words I hear on almost a daily basis in my adopted country.)

Without apparent thought for what we in the UK take for standard hygiene practices the dog was positioned upside down in the chair next to mine. The vet lifted the tail. The barber took one pace right and to my horror began to run the electronic trimmer around the dog’s rather swollen, weeping and infected looking backside. Great tufts of matted and soiled hair ended up on the floor releasing a rather noxious scent that had me thinking about…well…dog-shit, if I’m perfectly honest. (It must have been potent to overwhelm the smell of that smock and I had a bit of a cold.)

When it was done the vet gathered up the inert beast and rushed out, presumably back to his practice to perform what looked like a life saving operation. The barber and I exchanged a look in the big mirror. He raised his eyebrows and through his plate-glass spectacles the effect on his magnified eyes was something quite startling. He mumbled something, which I took to be his apologies for the interruption. I etched an understanding smile, although in truth I was greatly disturbed by what I had witnessed.

The barber then turned his attention left and raised his free hand to someone passing his shop window. I automatically followed his gaze and before I realised what was happening he had run that electric trimmer right across the top of my head. He managed another three strokes before I could even think about finding my voice let alone forming a suitable Turkish phrase to express my outrage. But by then it seemed pointless to make a fuss. The damage was done. Better to get it over with as quickly as possible and get home – he doesn’t wash your hair for 9TL.

About the only good thing to come out of this sorry episode of life in Istanbul is that I had two seats to myself on the bus home. Come to think of it, it was more like four. And there were lots of people standing.

Where was I? Oh yes. Amazon.co.uk and one foot in the ‘promised land’. Within three days Rope Enough had disappeared without trace after a disappointing performance. I call it The Moyes Effect.

Quick peek at Amazon.com by way of procrastination before hammering on with Acer #3. Rope Enough’s second category now listed as NON-FICTION. Fucking hell! FUCKING HELL! This was potentially far worse than sharing the hairdresser’s clippers with a dog’s arsehole. To their credit, again, Amazon sorted it out quite quickly. And then the really good news. Rope Enough leapt the charts Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > British Detectives and Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Police Procedurals to the number one spot in each which also put me in the Amazon.com Free Top 100 charts (for about twelve hours).

Cue The Moyes Effect. Sigh.

My future-ex-wife is still treating me to her ‘north’ face. I call it her ‘Eiger Sanction’…to her ‘north’ face…she doesn’t get it…hahahaha

Fetch!

Posted on March 31, 2014 by olivertidy

Here it is.

Writer’s diary: stardate: 01.04.2014

(Amazon were supposed to take twelve hours to process the book. That would have been tomorrow morning. It took an hour. So I might as well get cracking now and then I can go to bed. It’s nearly April 1st in my time zone.)

As Roy Wood might be tempted to sing, were he into self-publishing novels these days (although why would he be? With the abundance of seasonal gravy he spoons up every year off that Christmas turkey of a song he probably spends most of his time fishing. Git!)

Well here it is merry release day everybody’s grabbing one! Look to the future now it’s only just begu…u…uuu…uuuun.

Just before you rush off to download your copy of A Dog’s Life (The Fourth Romney and Marsh File) to give it its full and proper title (links to Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com at the end of this post) allow me to share something with you.

A virtual acquaintance of mine recently related to me something the late and great Truman Capote claimed about writing. (I have since confirmed his words with my own Internet research, so there is no need for you to doubt me…this time.)

Mr Capote is reported to have said: Finishing a book is like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.

Let me tell you this is not true. It is my experience that shooting a child in the back yard involves a lot more police and media attention. It was also a lot messier than uploading a simple ebook, although I’d have to admit to similar levels of anguish when both tasks were completed.

Anyway, here’s hoping that the newsworthiness of my little experiment encourages a healthy impact on sales figures. Who knows, it might even catch on as a form of self-promotion, something all us aspiring wanna-bes are constantly trying to be innovative regarding. I’m just pushing the boundaries. It’s what innovators do.

Please buy my book because my legal fees look like being quite high for this one and I’m already getting a strong sense that my defence is not going to be as sympathetically received as I might have expected. Let’s just hope that the jury has at least seven people on it who’ve self-published a book on Amazon. Actually, looking at the number of self-published books on Amazon these days I’d be surprised if there weren’t…at least.

Here’s to a speedy acquittal.

Dear reader,

The R&M Files now number four. They don’t have to be read in order. They do all work as stand-alone novels. However, to get the most out of each it is recommended that they are consumed in the sequence in which they were prepared, a bit like the courses of a good meal. (Who wants to eat ice-cream before a bowl of soup?)

The first Romney and Marsh File Rope Enough is perma-free to download here on Amazon and other major ebook outlets across the globe as a try before you buy.

So, to the blurb for this one:

He’s alive! Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!

Contrary to vicious Internet rumours, DI Romney is not dead. He returns in this, the fourth Romney and Marsh File, to lead his team of Dover detectives in the hunt for doers of dirty deeds. He’s also looking for answers to more personal mysteries.

The wind of change is blowing through this town. Whether we like it or not, this growth of local crime is a complete fiction.

Broken homes, broken dreams and broken bodies are just some of the cheerier aspects of the R&M Files that goes to show sometimes it’s a dog’s life.

Full money back guarantee if you don’t enjoy this book. (T&C apply)

A Dog’s Life (part 4…enough already)

Posted on March 28, 2014 by olivertidy

Out April 1st (maybe).

Writer’s diary: stardate: 28.03.2014

I figure that everyone who needs to know/cares that A Dog’s Life (R&M#4) will be out on (hopefully) April 1st is aware of that by now. Probably sick of me saying it. So, lets talk about something else.

Last week I wrote about my ongoing struggle with alcoholism.

Sorry, I mean, last week I wrote about my ongoing struggle with writing the third Acer Sansom novel. (It just felt like that kind of battle.) This week I feel a great deal better about it.

I was thirty thousand words in and not loving it as much as I should have been. I thought that the biggest problem I had to contend with was my ignorance regarding the geographical issues of the corner of the world I’d painted myself into. I have since realised that this was not my biggest problem. My biggest problem was that thirty thousand words in and I still wasn’t thinking like Acer. I wasn’t inside his head. He was doing stuff that wasn’t typical of him. He’s a different character. And I’d forgotten that.

I write three series and I like to think that they are all written differently to each other. Not just the characters but the style of my writing. I enjoy this challenge but it means that I have to adjust my thinking for the characters involved.

So at the weekend I printed off a copy of how far I’d got, bought myself a new red pen and went to town on it. The result is I’m much, much happier about things. I hacked three thousand words out of it, which is about as painful for a writer who is constantly monitoring the word count as removing one’s own appendix…with a spoon.

But because of how much better I then felt about things, more comfortable and familiar, I rattled off another five thousand words in pretty quick time.

I suppose that if I had any friends, I would liken writing another book in a series that I hadn’t been near for a good while to meeting up with one of them after having not seen them for a couple of years. It’s a bit awkward to start with while you’re trying to remember how you once were with each other, and then memories are prompted, you start to relax, and you’re reminded of why you’ve avoided them for so long (surely, back in your relationship groove? ed).

Something I’ve learned recently about writing out of one’s geographical comfort zone is this: the Internet is flipping amazing. Well, I didn’t learn that. We all know it already. All the Google options (satellite, maps, web, images) are particularly amazing resources for a lazy bastard author (surely, struggling self-publisher with work and family commitments and no money? ed.) But what I’ve also found to be a rich source of information to draw upon has been ordinary peoples’ travel blogs. Wherever you want to learn about in the world, ten people have been there, done that and written a blog-post on it. Digest a few of these and you can really begin to get a feel for a place, warts an’ all. Much better than official websites. You learn stuff too.

I hate writers like Dan Brownstain because when they set themselves a book to write they just get someone to book them a ‘holiday’ there. They pack themselves off with a notebook or digital voice recorder, stay in some fancy hotel and have a fine old time of it for a couple of weeks wandering around the streets soaking up the ambience and the cultures of Europe’s more interesting capitals, taking notes and sipping regional drinks on pavements. Gits.

As a struggling self-publisher with work and family commitments and no money (didn’t we just have that sob story? ed) scribbling about far flung places, you have to be able to fool most of the readers most of the time into believing that how you tell it is how it is. If you don’t have the time, money or opportunity to go there yourself because you are a struggling self-publisher with work and family commitments and no money (time to stop that. ed) you have to make it up. One final thought on that subject: no wonder Dan Brownstain always sets his books in ‘safe’, ‘comfortable’ locations. I bet he doesn’t fancy a fortnight in Iran researching Da’Ayatollah Code, for example. Lightweight.

There is one good thing to be said for writing about Iran: I’m willing to bet that not too many of my readers will have been there. So as long as I can paint a believable picture of the place, something that people can buy into then does it matter whether it’s entirely accurate or not? I realise that this is going to be a potentially sticky issue with readers, but I reckon there has to be a compromise. Struggling self-publishers with work and family commitments and no money (!!!) should do their best to find out everything they can if they can’t visit, and readers must be prepared to cut the writer a bit of slack.

With that in mind I’m hoping that faithful readers of the Acer Sansom novels are going to be able to suspend just a little bit of disbelief when Acer has to visit Disneyland Tehran during the Islam-world-wide Easter celebrations in search of Father Christmas who is rumoured to be plotting a terrorist outrage. Ahem.

A Dog’s Life (part 2)

Posted on March 14, 2014 by olivertidy

Yes, it’s the same image as last week’s blog, but I am trying sell a book here.

Writer’s diary: stardate: 14.03.2014

Did I mention that A Dog’s Life (The Fourth Romney and Marsh File) is on its way? I have the smell of the expectant first time father about me. The chemical cocktail of hopeful anticipation, anxiety, fretfulness, worry, concern (not much positivity is there?) is seeping out of my pores to coat me with a fragrant musky scent. People who’ve strayed into my orbit this week have been wrinkling their noses.

I’ve got the Amazon blurb ready, which I see no harm in sharing here.

He’s alive! Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!

Contrary to vicious Internet rumours, DI Romney is not dead. He returns in this, the fourth Romney and Marsh File, to lead his team of Dover detectives in the hunt for doers of dastardly deeds. He’s also looking for answers to more personal mysteries.

The wind of change is blowing through this town. Whether we like it or not, this growth of local crime is a complete fiction.

Broken homes, broken dreams and broken bodies are just some of the cheerier aspects of the R&M File that goes to show it’s a dog’s life.

Full money back guarantee if you don’t enjoy this book. (T&C Apply)

A few of you might wonder at my exceedingly generous offer to refund the purchase price in the event readers are disappointed with this offering. Lots of the big guns have done something similar over the years. It’s a sales gimmick, of course, but it just might encourage a few fence-sitters to topple my way.

I’m reminded of a despicable episode from my book-buying past. I will share it here by way of seeking absolution through my confession. I would one day like to be able to express my sincerest apologies to the author in question.

When Karin Slaughter brought out her debut novel Indelible it came with a wrap around band offering the reader that if you didn’t enjoy the book simply return the till receipt to a given address and you’ll get your money back. I reckon there was probably more than just me who did this (I did it at least three times in various family names) because the next time I saw a similar offer they wanted the book back as well. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the book. I still haven’t read it. It’s that I was then well into my book-collecting phase and the chance of getting debut crime novels (first editions, first impressions in mint condition) for nothing was just too tempting for a bibliophile with a problem and not much disposable income.

I have wondered over the years whether my cheapness had any real effect on Ms Slaughter’s writing career. I’m a bit ashamed of myself for what I did.

Anyway, stable doors and all that. I too have learned from her publisher’s rather rash (IMHO) offer. Yes, I will offer to refund the purchase price but you’ll notice I have bracketed those pesky T&Cs.

I need to formalise and finalise these, but roughly speaking they’ll be as follows:

1) Call at my home for a cash refund. (That’s my Istanbul home). There is no postal/electronic payment alternative.

2) Refunds will be given in Turkish lire calculated at that day’s rate of exchange.

3) Proof of purchase must be provided.

That’s it.

There is just one piece of advice I’ll offer those who travel here to take me up on my offer: make sure you’re wearing running shoes ‘cos my Dobermans are quite quick. (I keep them hungry). And it’s a long way from my front door to my ten foot, razor-wire topped entrance gates, which I can close remotely from the house (oh and they’re usually electrified).

A Dog’s Life – The Fourth Romney and Marsh File – is coming soon to a Kindle near you.

A Dog’s Life – Romney and Marsh File #4

Posted on March 6, 2014 by olivertidy

Writer’s diary: Stardate: 07.03.2014

There’s only one thing on my mind this week: A Dog’s Life – The Fourth Romney and Marsh File.

As you can see, I have the cover – I like it a lot. Slots right in with the rest of the series – and the emanuscript is with the gentleman who does my proofreading these days.

I am terrifically excited and excitedly terrified in equal and opposite measure.

I feel a weight of expectation for this title unlike anything I felt for my two Acer Sansom books and the Booker and Cash title. They were new directions – virgin territory for me as a writer. Romney and Marsh are semi-established, like a Russian military presence in Ukraine without the laughs.

I understand that the R&M Files have a small fan base (this knowledge makes me so proud). There are readers who are looking forward to the next in the series – they’ve told me so. It is inevitable that readers of the series are going to judge it against the others. It’s what we do when we’re into characters and a series of books. Nothing wrong with that. It’s natural. It’s the way of things.

I’m a student of Amazon charts, readers’ comments, other crime writers’ feedback. All the big guns who have a decent crime series going attract a large number of comments that often have something to say on a particular title’s merits when compared to what’s gone before. But now I’m the other side of the inkwell, I can tell you, it makes me nervous.

Even with only the three R&M Files that are out, I’ve had a fair few comments comparing them. Readers have their favourites. A few readers have voiced disappointment when comparing one title (usually the third) to others. I didn’t have a problem with those comments because I took the series in a direction that was not planned from the start and if one was reading the books in order, I can accept that one might feel the difference and not warm to it.

Let me explain. I never set out to write a series of crime books. It just happened. I wrote Rope Enough and when I finished I thought that there might be another book in those characters. I enjoyed the writing experience. It was about halfway through writing Making A Killing that I realised the direction I wanted to take the characters in. Followers of this blog will know that I think I’m funny sometimes. Halfway through Making A Killing I serendipitously arrived at an opportunity to try a bit of humour. I liked it. I enjoyed it. I tried a bit more and then I went back and looked for anywhere I could fish for a smirk from my reader. In Joint Enterprise I went looking for funny with a net. It was a large part of my thinking whenever I sat down to write. That first one, Rope Enough, was altogether more serious, although I do remember just one or two very small occurrences that cropped up and made me smile. But I kept a lid on it. It was a crime novel after all, a police procedural. They’re not supposed to be humorous.

Humour is such a personal thing. It’s dangerous to try in a crime book. Risky. But for me it’s utterly worth it if it can be pulled off. However, as a series goes on it must become more and more difficult to be originally funny with the same characters and the same locations.

And then there’s the crime and it’s solving. Crime writing has a rich and illustrious history. It must be one of the most popular reading and writing genres. There are so many great classic crime novels and contemporary ones and then there are thousands that are still very good. And what they must all have is a good crime that is well solved. If that criterion isn’t fulfilled readers are going to get tetchy. When readers of crime pick up a crime book it’s like a contract has been entered into. They have a right to their expectations regarding the writer’s ability to craft a believable criminal yarn. Everything else is secondary.

The Romney and Marsh Files are not great police procedural novels. I do not have the background or the knowledge or the time and energy to make them totally authentic and detailed by deep research or driving around in the back of my local police patrol car as an observer. (Wouldn’t work here anyway because Istanbul’s nothing like Dover. They drive on the wrong side of the road for a start.) So what I try to do is skate around the minutiae of the procedure. My R&M Files are about my characters. They are about how I imagine a bunch of local detectives might go about trying to solve crime. One comment that really sticks in my mind is from a lady who said Dover CID in my books is how she’d like all CIDs to be. Me too (unless I was a victim of crime. Then I wouldn’t want Dover CID anywhere near it.)

I’m hoping A Dog’s Life can be out in a month or so. But don’t hold me to it. Things happen. Price – £1.99, just like #2 & #3 after my try before you buy offer of £0.00 for Rope Enough.

The Price is Slight!

Posted on February 27, 2014 by olivertidy

Writer’s diary: stardate: 28.02.2014

In January of this year I aligned the prices of my books to £1.99 each. A brave step? An arrogant leap? A hopeful bound? A foolish jump (to be quickly followed by a plunge into oblivion)?

When I first introduced my brood to the world I went into the market place like 633 Squadron (look what happened to them: crashed and burned, shot to bits, disappeared without trace, forgotten, bright young lives cut short. Ok, perhaps, the implied comparison is a little…dramatic? But I had to wonder: would that be me? Anyone craving a shot of classic British war film, nostalgic, iconic, movie soundtrack, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRVu18h2mfA – give it twenty seconds). Where was I? Oh yeah, low and fast all guns blazing, and screaming manically (one of the neighbours called the police). In equal measure, I was brimming with confidence at my invincibility, mumbling to a god I can’t believe in, shitting in my flying pants in case I’d got my approach all wrong, it went tits up, and I was spread all over the ebook battlefield like the contents of a jar of Robertson’s finest conserve.

I am a keen observer of the charts (every morning I spring out of my basket beside the bed [the bed I have been displaced from; the bed I used to get half a good night’s sleep in before the Halfling decided he’d outgrown his crib and wanted to move up the wooden hill and Bedfordshire’s property ladder to something a little ‘roomier’] skip to the computer while the house slumbers on, and with heart thumping like a hopeful Lotto ticket holder checking last week’s numbers after having been shit on by a bird in the street [that’s supposed to be good luck. The world is full of loonies.] I check my position in the only chart that really matters – Books>Kindle Books>Fiction>Crime, Mystery, Thrillers>British>England>Kent>Romney Marsh>Police Procedural>Contemporary>Silly Detectives’ Names. In short, I like to see how the books are doing.

When my books first went onto Amazon I priced them as cheaply as I could, as cheaply as Amazon would allow. For those of you who don’t know, the cheapest that Amazon will allow one to list a book is the British pound equivalent of $0.99, which back then was £0.77. The only way I know of that one can get one’s book’s price lower than that is to have one’s books listed as cheaper to purchase through other recognised ebook outlets and then for Amazon to be informed of such and then for Amazon to feel like matching that price.

In my initial desperation to get my books read, I gave them away for free through Smashwords. All three of the R&M Files could be had for nothing. Like I said, and I do think it’s worth repeating, I was desperate just to be read, to get some reaction.

In time Amazon price matched Rope Enough to £0.00 and that was my wake-up call to form a marketing strategy. I’d had some positive feedback, some helpful criticism and some encouraging comments. I dropped the second and third books from Smashwords (living outside the UK and the US and without a credit card I was unable to set up a payment system) and as I was giving away my first I then took a leaf out of other self-publishers books (sorry) and introduced an incremental purchase price scheme – first book free, second book, £1.50, third book £2.

Next out were my two Acer Sansom novels. Again I thought that the best chance I had of getting these read, getting some feedback and getting them into those all important charts was to make them available to download for the cheapest price I could: £0.77 again. That worked. I had a good number of downloads and the books were visible in a couple of obscure charts.

Then I brought out Bad Sons and I felt it was time for change.

I’ve been self-publishing for a little over a year and my opinion on pricing has changed (I want to say matured but I’m not sure that’s quite right). When I was new and unknown, I felt I had to do something special to attract readers to my books. And it’s my belief that the best way to do that is good covers and cheap prices. If I had to choose between the two, I’d say cheap price is the single most important factor in encouraging a prospective reader to click download.

A year on and I don’t feel quite so unknown (I’m still not remotely well-known but I do have a foot [OK maybe a pointed-winkle-picker-toe-cap] in the door that opens out onto the promised land of ebook world. I don’t feel so desperate. I no longer feel the need to (yes, it’s time for something rude) offer myself to the customer like some backstreet harlot, spread on her filthy, stained mattress under a plastic awning while people line up round the block to exploit my talent. To continue the analogy, I’ve not decided to install myself in a suite of rooms in The Ritz either: there are some ebooks being touted for over a tenner (for a computer file hahahaha) and they’re in the charts. That’s high class hooking.

When I think of myself as a prostitute (not something I often do, I hasten to add, but I seem to have caught my stiletto in the fishnet stocking of this extended metaphor) I prefer to think of myself as having my own room in a quiet and respectable part of the neighbourhood. I think I’m charging a fair price for a fair service/product. I like to think I’ve gone up in the world. Gone are the days of £0.77 knee-tremblers in darkened recesses at kicking out time. I’ve made myself a little more dignified. Perhaps, I’ve also given myself a few airs and graces.

All this brings me nicely onto that time worn topic of conversation: what is a fair price for an ebook? Think of everything that goes into an ebook, the promise behind that thumbnail image stuck on the screen in front of readers like some obscure stamp in a philately catalogue. Hard work: months of time, effort, consternation, desperation, late nights, early mornings, sacrifices (I’ve gone through a number white chickens), intellectual property sharing, blood, sweat and tears. Money: the price of a good cover, editorial services, maybe the services of a publicist, a website and a website designer.

What does an ebook offer a reader? Escapism, entertainment, an opportunity to get in touch with their emotions, a laugh, a cry, some learning, some diversion, something to do.

What else will £1.99 buy you? Half a pint of lager in a pub; a cheap coffee in Starbucks, a BLT sandwich from a high street name; a pack of three own brand condoms; half a dozen free range eggs; a King of the Day Burger (T&C apply); 6 pints of semi-skimmed milk or a 200g tin of corned beef, for examples.

And then there’s the lasting effect dynamic of whatever one is spending one’s hard-earned two quid on to factor in to the equation. The memory of a good book will stay with a reader long after he or she has pissed out the beverage, pooped out the sarny, beaten the eggs or choked on the bully beef. Granted a pack of three can also provide escapism, entertainment, an opportunity to get in touch with one’s emotions, a laugh, a cry, some learning, some diversion, something to do, but you’ve got to put some effort in, you can’t just lie back and enjoy it like you can an ebook…actually…anyway, where was I? And in my experience it costs a lot more than the price of a condom to get to the position in a relationship where it can fulfil its intended purpose and then there’s often a hell of a price to pay afterwards: hidden costs. Those cut price condoms have cost me two houses already! I should have just bought a couple of ebooks. (Sorry. It is a bit funny.)

An ebook that sells for £0.77 on Amazon nets the author @ £0.27 – four downloads to make a pound. That no longer seems right to me. I think we’re all entitled to look for something a bit ‘fairer’ than that for what we do, for what we’ve put in. Time will tell whether that decision has been the right one for my books. Initial evidence shows that what shoving the price up has done is push me to the arse end of those all important download charts. Still at least I only have to sell one book to make a pound these days instead of four. Swings and roundabouts.

So, what do you think? Will you come on down(load) ‘cos the price is right! (Did anyone groan at that?)

Delusions of author.

Posted on February 13, 2014 by olivertidy

Writer’s diary: stardate: 14.02.2014ish.

I meant to say in my last blog-post that I’d be missing in inaction for the following two Fridays – my usual day of the week for flogging the blog. We’ve just had the fortnight’s holiday that falls between the two semesters which make up the Turkish school year. I went home. To England. On my own. For ten days. My dear Turkish wife didn’t fancy the kind of weather that Blighty was drowning in and she wasn’t going to entrust the care of the Halfling to me for the duration. But I wasn’t going home for the weather. I had things to do and family to see.

I must confess to feeling a little like David Booker as TK1965 accelerated up the pitted and rutted concrete strip that passes for a runway at Sebiha Gocken, (Istanbul’s second airport) dodging discarded wheelbarrows and stray dogs in pursuit of airborne status. (If you haven’t read Bad Sons, I’ve just lost you.) But it wasn’t all doom and gloom that I had to look forward to on my return to Turkey. Unlike DB, life’s pretty good for me out here. Didn’t stop me hailing the complementary drinks trolley to a stop as soon as it started rattling up the aisle, though. I love Turkish Airlines.

It wasn’t a busy flight and I had three seats to myself. I pretended I was flying business class. You can do that when you’ve got three seats to yourself and unlimited drinks. After the first couple of large ones have hit your empty stomach you can pretty much pretend anything you want so long as it doesn’t involve the words ‘hijacker’ or ‘terrorist’.

For company I’d taken along my first hardcopy draft of the fourth Romney and Marsh File and a red pen. I’d been itching to get stuck into the first ‘proper’ edit. With hindsight it probably wasn’t too professional of me to start the very important task of editing with a free drinks trolley doing shuttle runs on a half-empty four hour flight. With hindsight it’s also a good job I didn’t rent a car from the airport. That couldn’t have gone well.

Oddly, I really felt like an author on the flight. I made believe I was paying a quick visit to the UK to see my ‘agent’ about something to do with the bidding war that wasn’t going on for my back catalogue or maybe it was something to do with the option to Acer’s film rights that Ronnie Corbett hadn’t got in touch over. (I blame that particularly good French red they were serving rather liberally.) I read and scribbled and laughed a lot. (Again, possibly the wine and my sense of temporary liberation and freedom – think demob sponsored by Merlot.) I imagined another passenger maybe looking over and asking me what was so funny and I’d have had to tell them something like, ‘Oh, nothing. It’s just my latest book. Maybe you’ve heard of me? Oliver Tidy? No? The Romney and Marsh Files? No? Acer Sansom? No? Booker and Cash, perhaps? No? Do you own an ereader? An E…READER. Never mind. (Presses red button to attract attention of cabin crew.) All that happened was that a man who looked suspiciously like the Turkish equivalent of a US sky marshal came to occupy a seat in the empty three adjacent to me. He kept talking into his sleeve (another nut-case) and he looked in my direction a lot. I don’t think he was interested in what I was reading.

As soon as I touched down in UK I felt like somebody. Really, I did. I’ve never felt it before. Normally I just feel completely anonymous. And it was all to do with my books. I know that quite a good number of people have downloaded at least one of my books. I seriously wondered whether I was sharing space with any of them as I fought to retrieve my clothes from my broken suitcase as they made their way around the baggage carrousel in the airport; as I was shoved and elbowed on the escalator; as I stood squashed in with all the other tinned commuters on the overcrowded train (one on which I believed I’d paid for a seat). I felt something and it felt good.

James Oswald has recently recalled how he felt seeing one of his books being read opposite him on a train journey (seeing one in the wild as he so humorously put it). Sensibly, he says he was cautiously optimistic – no point revealing yourself if there is a chance the reader is hating every page. But he must have felt effing brilliant about himself. I was looking around expecting at least every other passenger on the slow train from Gatwick to Ashford International to be reading on a Kindle. Maybe I could have struck up a conversation, although remembering my one and only other attempt at such shameless self-promotion maybe it’s just as well absolutely no one was. Where are they all? I was under the impression that everyone in the UK owned an ereader and read voraciously on them.

I so wanted to be stopped in customs (I’ve never been stopped in customs in my life) and I wanted the pompous, bespectacled, tubby official to ask me if I had anything to declare. Thanks to Oscar Wilde I had my line ready. (Probably a good job there was absolutely no one official-looking in the customs hall. Doubtless all on a tea break while the world’s smugglers were hard at it. I imagine they hear Oscar’s line all the time from drunk twats suffering with delusions of grandeur and they probably have a good time exercising their body-search rights as some form of mocking retribution. Maybe that’s where they all were – some other pretentious self-publisher high on self-delusion and free spirits got in there just before me.)

For the record, it was four days later that anyone mentioned any of my books. That includes family. My eldest son was after a loan for a car. It occurred to him that if I was selling books he might be able to touch me for a few quid. I have the measure of him. I told him that if he’d care to read one, just one, and let me know what he thought, we could discuss the matter further. He pulled a face, got up off his knees and told me how bad things would have to be in his life for something like that to be likely before wheeling away and muttering under his breath. I can read him like the back of my strong hand.

In one of those short intervals where it stopped raining I took myself out for a walk around the village to which I am no stranger. We’re talking Booker and Cash country. I allowed myself to be seen. I waited for some kind of recognition, just a pointed finger, a bit of whispering or a quizzical look would have been nice. An autograph hunter could have made my holiday. Bugger all. Still, it’s only been out a couple of weeks and my trip home did happen to coincide (unwittingly, I can assure all) with the Romney Marsh Sheep Winter Olympics (a festival in which specially trained ewes and rams of the locality are encouraged to ape (!) the sporting endeavours of their more famous human Olympian counterparts currently disgracing themselves through their participation in and thereby support of the shenanigans of an oppressive, homophobic, intolerant and bigoted regime somewhere very cold and dangerous) so locals were understandably distracted. (Talking of cold and dangerous, I stayed out of Dungeness. I came home seeking accolade, admiration, appreciation, not to get my head kicked in. Think The Hills Have Eyes with shingle.)

On the one fine and dry day of my stay, I visited Dover cliffs with some immediate family (I was ever vigilant that son-number-one was between me and the cliff edge at all times.) We walked from Dover to St Margarets Bay in the brilliant sunshine and a gusting wind. We had a good dinner and a good couple of pints in the pub on the front there.

Dover cliffs are the setting for the denouement of the first of the Romney and Marsh Files, Rope Enough. I haven’t been up there in years. It was wonderful to visit and relive some fond real memories as well as some virtual ones. It was something of a relief to discover that I’d got the geography and features of the area about right. The old war time anti-aircraft installation is a bit further on than I remembered and now fenced off because it is teetering precariously on the crumbling cliff edge – didn’t stop me getting in though. I had to. It was that important to me. The whole day was and it was all because of that book. I felt proprietorial. I felt I had rights. I’d have looked pretty stupid if the relic from the last war had decided to plunge into the English Channel on that particular day. (At least I would have been remembered for something and perhaps books sales might have seen a spike.)

Thanks to family I had a good time in the UK. I missed my writing and I missed my two year old son with a weighty longing that cast a pall over my time away. (It would have greatly helped alleviate my anguished mental state had my dear Turkish wife remembered to inform me before I left Istanbul that she was moving flats while I was away and would have no Internet or phone for a while. I’m sure she didn’t do it on purpose. It must have just slipped her mind in all the confusion and feverish activity involved in moving lock, stock and barrel at short notice. It’s a good job the new people in our old flat could tell me where she’d moved too when they caught me fumbling with a key that no longer fitted the lock to my old front door at two o’clock in the morning. That was after we’d cleared up the understandable confusion that arose. Thanks to the Pidgin English speaker in the building’s armed security response team for that. No hard feelings. Those jeans were due to be thrown out anyway.)

I couldn’t write while I was away; I didn’t take my laptop. But I was mentally productive. From nowhere I came up with storylines for both the third and the fourth Acer Sansom. I’m glad of it. I’m pretty keen to get back in touch with Acer but I just hadn’t worked out a way in. I feel that if someone paid me to stay home for six months I could finish the next two in his life. (Offers by email.) And they’d be worth it. I also had a good idea for something to incorporate into a future Booker and Cash – thanks to the Dymchurch Art Appreciation Society for that. (I went along to the village hall with mum on a very wet Wednesday afternoon and really enjoyed the talk on Vermeer. He could paint. One wonders where he found the time what with all that work providing pretty shiny surfaces for antique furniture.)

I got through the fourth R&M and like it a lot. I think I’ll title it, A Dog’s Life.

I want to say a big thank you to all who have downloaded, read and then commented on Bad Sons here, on Amazon, by email and on Goodreads. It wasn’t a condition of downloading it for free that you had to say something nice about it, but many of you have and I’m very grateful. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

So, I’m back in Istanbul. Back in the bosom of my Turkish family (the wife’s unaccountably frosty, like someone who sees a great plan unaccountably fall apart [think anyone who has tried to invade Russia in winter] but the Halfling seems pleased to see me). Back to my laptop (think The Simpsons and their television set). Back to R&M 4 (where did all those red wine stains come from?). Back to my day job (brave face). Back to job hunting for next year’s day job (hopeful/pleading face). Back, as they say, to (crushing) reality.

Bad Sons: free for all…Sunday.

Posted on January 24, 2014 by olivertidy

Booker and Cash #1

Writer’s diary: stardate: 24.01.2014

After a year and a bit of weekly blog posts I sometimes struggle to find things to write about. (My mum thinks that’s been evident for a good while.) So it is a relief to have something special to blog about this week. Special to me, anyway. I’m releasing my sixth novel. It’s called Bad Sons and it is the first of my Booker & Cash stories.

I finished the first draft a year ago. Something I find quite incredible. The fact that it’s taken this long for me to get around to getting it out there bears testimony to how busy I’ve been with my author-publishing in the last twelve months. Still, I always think that newborn stories and authors should spend time apart – a bit like authors and newborn babies, although for different reasons.

I was inspired to write Bad Sons after reading a Raymond Chandler, which I was pretty smitten with. I remember being bowled over by his style and turn of phrase. I remember thinking, I can do that. I’ll have a go. Actually, I can’t do it. Not yet. About the closest I’ve come to any of Chandler’s books with Bad Sons is that the chapters are short. It’s a start. (Look at me being all positive for a second.) Regardless of me failing to emulate Chandler’s style, wit, turn of phrase, characterisation, plotting and sense of drama, I honestly think that Bad Sons isn’t a bad read.

When I self-published my Acer Sansoms, I blogged about whether I should have written them under a pseudonym. I’m glad I didn’t. Now, I’m wondering/worrying whether I should publish Bad Sons under a pseudonym. (Raymond Chandelier sounds good to me.) But for different reasons. Maybe I’ll be sorry that I didn’t this time. And here’s why.

The book is based in my ‘home’ village: Dymchurch – a small seaside settlement on Romney Marsh, Kent. That’s in England. (I just can’t stop writing about Romney Marsh, Romney & Marsh. Next book is an alien invasion novel called Romney Martians.) In fact the ‘bookshop’ that is the main location in the story is a property I own. (I’m taking write-about-what-you-know to the limit with this one.) It’s not a bookshop at the moment, but I can dream.

The reason I’m slightly anxious about putting out Bad Sons under my own name is that I have not been gushingly complimentary about the area in which I spent over forty years of my life – and still visit a couple of times a year. In places I may come across as a tad…unenthusiastic. Some local people might take offence. Some might take the gate, if it’s still there. Some people might take it upon themselves to put the odd brick through my front window. (That wouldn’t hurt me, by the way. I don’t run the business that operates out of the ground floor and you’d have to have a bloody good arm to reach up to my bedroom window with a house-brick.) I feel some of what I’ve written about the area, but I’ve also exaggerated a bit. It’s a work of fiction. Every location I’ve referred to, bar one, exists and I have described them as I see them, as I know them. Every character in the book is made up. (Should I put that bit in block caps?)

For the record, my personal feelings for Romney Marsh, as I get older and wiser and more appreciative, are overwhelmingly positive. More on that in book two. But you’ve got to start somewhere.

Bad Sons should be on Amazon tomorrow, Saturday, all things being equal. It will be £1.99. (This week I aligned all my books’ prices at £1.99. More on that in another post.) But I don’t want any of the followers of my blog, you good people who have been so supportive of my writing, to pay for the book. I’m enrolling it in Amazon’s KDP Select programme so that I can give it away for free on Sunday. This will probably be the only day I do give it away, so get it while it’s hot. It’s something of a thank you, a token of my sincere gratitude for your continued support.

I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

Cold Turkey.

Posted on January 10, 2014 by olivertidy

Writers’ diary: stardate: 10.01.2014

My author-publisher start to the New Year feels similar in mood and results to how the kinder (that’s kinder as in more charitable not as in egg) broadsheets have been moved to remark regarding David Moyes’ first season in charge at Man Utd – it’s not been the best of starts. And after all that positive looking back last week on such fond memories of 2013. That’ll teach me. If I haven’t made it plain thus far, I’m feeling a bit miserable. (Pity-post alert – DEFCON 5: that’s blue).

What is the source of my wretchedness? Apart from my weakly (?) blog-posts, I haven’t written anything new since…Twas the week before Christmas…(No, I’m not claiming to have written that poem. That was Clement Clarke Moore, of course.)

For as long as I can remember since this writing life got going, I get crotchety if I don’t write regularly. At times it feels like my authorial urges border on, if not an addiction (that’s a bit melodramatic but arguably in keeping with this post), then obsessive – a compulsive habit – which I find easier to give into than to ignore. A bit like an open bottle of wine.

Like doing a line of the white stuff, writing takes me into a fantasy world; it gives me a high and makes me feel good about my day. But the more I do the more I want to do. (It is sounding a bit like an addiction, now.) However, unlike the white stuff, it costs nothing more than time and effort and the price of a happy marriage and I don’t sniff as much as I used to (unless I’m crying because I’m not writing as much as I want to.) (Pity-post alert – DEFCON 4: that’s green.)

I haven’t written anything because I’ve been doing those pesky edits of the R&M books. I finished my corrections of all three books last week. I had to read them each again on my laptop to do it. It was the best way. I remember writing on this blog something about not wanting to go too much to town on them because of what they represented regarding my authorial journey. (Why didn’t anyone tell me how stupid that viewpoint is?)

Anyway, all done and it was a great relief to have them out of the way (for about fifteen minutes). (Pity-post alert – DEFCON 3: that’s yellow.)

I thought I’d better check them before I uploaded them to Amazon – make sure the formatting was still good. So, I pinged them to Kindle, got them back and opened Rope Enough to skim read. What a mistake? Within two pages (that’s Kindle pages not A4 pages, so about twenty four words in total) I’d spotted four things I wanted to change – again. I kept going and there were more…and more…and more. In the end I threw in the towel, got the laptop fired up, opened the file and started reading Rope Enough again. I’ve nearly finished it. I’ve changed a lot this time. I had to. It’s still called Rope Enough, but only because I can’t afford a new cover.

Martin (he of the proofreading variety) will tell you of my love affair with the word ‘that’, which I seemed to insert into my early texts like a fruit machine addict inserts pound coins into…fruit machines. I’ve lost count of the number I have culled in this second run through. And I haven’t stopped there. Vocabulary that didn’t quite hit the spot or was just plain wrong, dialogue a bit wooden, punctuation, punctuation, punctuation!!! (as Tony Blair might say if he were my editor). I’m still never going to spot everything, but I’ve got to make it the best I can before I can be happy. (Epiphany alert: Maybe that’s my problem – I simply can’t be happy. Shit that explains a lot. It’s like someone’s just given me a pair of spectacles to correct my hindsight. I am able to view my past with a stark clarity. It makes me uncomfortable. Puts glasses back in case and throws case into a drawer.) (Pity-post alert – DEFCON 2: that’s red.)

It’s taking a long time because I’m trying to do it properly. (Like I never have before!) And because I haven’t got any bloody free time for anything at the moment! Almost one book down. Two books to go. I’ve got at least another month on this with the way the rest of my life is at present. (I’ve got two job interviews next week, and not only did I discover last night that my ‘interview suit’ no longer fits me, but also something has been nesting in my ‘interview shoes’. I have no idea how to get across Istanbul to these schools. I’ve got a trip back home at the end of January and my sister tells me the winter weather has taken its toll on the roof ie it’s leaking like a sieve. I can’t afford roofers, so I’ll be up there in the pissing rain and wind, no doubt, with numbed fingers and a frozen back trying to patch it up. I don’t have a supportive spouse – not like all these other authors I read about who make me want to puke with their good fortune at marrying someone who gladly reads their books and offers suggestions; is happy to discuss plot issues over coffee and toast in the mornings; look after the kids, maybe, to give their writing partner time and peace to sit down and fucking write.) (Pity-post alert – DEFCON 1: that’s white, and goodbye cruel world.)

I got an email from a teacher recruitment agency this week advertising jobs in Hong Kong with an annual salary of £55,000 plus benefits. I mentioned this to my Turkish wife. She said if I go, I go alone. What did I say about temptation? I don’t want to end up like Gene in a couple of months. (What a great actor BTW – Hackman not me.)

Oliver Tidy

Crime and Thriller Fiction

Tag Archives: self-publishing writing