The Word Cloud

Taking a moment over coffee I wandered, not on the cloud, but to the BBC. There I noticed a brief article debunking historical myths that, on reading turned out to be nothing more or less than a plug for Sir Simon Jenkin's populist history book. That's pretty good publicity in my view.

How do you get to do that?

Hello my favourite writer peeps!
I've missed you all lots.

It took me a little while (post jetlag) to get back into the swing of things but i'm finally getting there...

As many of you know, I have my own blog which took hours of hard work to set up and more hours to keep running.  
Well, a couple of months ago my hard work finally paid off and a couple of agents, publicity staff and publishers began to pay attention. I now review books for them which is so exciting for a bibliophile like myself (FREE BOOKS GALORE).
My first Novel Publicity blog tour review was for a book called The King Whisperers by Kerwin Swint. I'm so glad I did this!
The book was amazing and the author is pleased with my review; so pleased in fact that he sent me a personal email to say thank you :)

For those of you that blog or book review, I would really appreciate it if you would take a peek and offer any advice or suggestions for future reviews / changes. In return, I will gladly offer the same kind of support. Even those of you that don't blog, I value your thoughts and opinions.

Your opinions mean a lot to me and have helped me so much over the past few months of being on the cloud.

http://persistentwriter.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/the-king-whisperers-by-kerwin-swint/

Thanks dudes & dudettes and i'm now back up and running so will get some critiques done for you again in the Forum :)
 

What Would You be Willing To Do To Publicise Your Book?

You know the feeling of seeing a beggar ahead of you in the street – sitting on a blanket perhaps, head slumped, mongrel curled beside him? What do you do – cross the road, get fascinated with the nearest shop, fix your eyes on the distance and get marching, stop for a nodding gangling chat, worry about what he’d do with any money, go and buy him a sandwich?

I had a feeling like that about a writer in Borders. There he sat, at his lonely little desk, pile of books ready to sign, wearing his I-don’t-do-a-proper-job jumper, and all the shoppers were skirting round him. I sidled close, trying to read his poster with peripheral vision, hoping someone would step in before me. And someone did! Great – I was absolved. Could walk past without guilt. Could glimpse his book and name – never heard of either – without stopping for a nodding gangling chat (or worrying about what he’d do with any money, or buying him a sandwich).

I doubt if he was the sole reason for Borders closing. Maybe Tesco was. That’s where I saw the next author-in-baggy-jumper. I think perhaps Tesco was having a charm-the-community weekend, because they didn’t just have a baggy-author in their foyer, they had a singer-songwriter complete with moderately amplified guitar and voice worth hearing. There was a difference, and it wasn’t just that Mr Singer-Songwriter was of a good breeding age with looks to match, it was a matter of – let’s say – their existential verb.  Singer-Songwriter was doing; Baggy-Jumper was being.

Could you just sit there and exist? Could you endure the agonising wait for someone to confuse pity with interest and pretend your book meant anything to them? Or would you rather do something. Really? What? What would you be willing to do to publicise your book?

I’ve just got EmmaD’s recommended read through the post, Wannabe a Writer We’ve Heard of? (Jane Wenham-Jones) and have flipped through a few pages. How about this one? Die your hair the colour of your book jacket. (She would also straighten and whiten her teeth, plus replace dark fillings with white ones.) Not ready for that yet? Okay, how would you word your press release? (Nope, the editor’s already binned it ; try again.) Okay, how would you word your short, punchy press release? (Almost there, but he still binned it.) Okay, how would you word the first two lines of your short, punchy press release?

And so on. Here’s a few words and phrases from the front cover of the above book: launch party, photograph, local papers, radio, magazine features, talks, societies, website, facebook, twitter. Can you bear it? Can you do it?

Following on from my previous blog post, I'd like to report that I've found someone who is quite good at self-pub in the digital age.

Pamela Redmond Satran - one of those Americans whose name sounds suspiciously like a rather forced anagram of a real name - started a blog called How Not To Act Old. She built it up rapidly in two months, then sold a book proposal to HarperCollins in the US. Her tips will work much more for non-fiction writers than those of us writing novels - but still, her thoughts are worth following.

You can find them here. Personally, I think I've always tried to jump straight to her step 10, and tried to avoid all the bother of the first 9. A mistake, just possibly.

This week, I've sent out 42 (there must be a reason for the number) letters with storytelling brochures to local schools and organizations.  I've also received several bookings, and some enquiries about future bookings.  None of these came via the brochures.  In each case, they were either via a personal contact or a personal contact with a satisfied customer.  

In reality, most of the people who received brochures would have to approach budget holders before they replied, so it's too early to tell if they will produce bookings.  But it did make me think - the actual customers had to face, and climb over, that same budget hurdle - and they did so in hours.

This storyteller is going on the politician's handshake trail from now on.  I am going to become so nice to know that people can't resist making a booking.  And the reason that I have posted this?  Because I think that much the same applies in the publishing world.

So, today is officially the publication day of the paperback of my second novel, A Secret Alchemy. And bugger-all is happening, except for a lovely card from my editor and her assistant. But then I knew it wouldn't be. For a start, 'real' publication was back last November: it's the hardback which garners reviews (you hope); is waved at the book trade; given, lovingly inscribed, to your granny (the rest of the family and friends should bloomin' well shell out); sold to the libraries. But the big sales push has been for the paperback, newly garlanded with those review quotes, and just in time for the festival season.

And such are the peculiarities of the book trade that, actually, A Secret Alchemy has been available for a couple of weeks online and in the shops.  Best of all, last week it was The Times' Recommended Read, available in W H Smith for £2.99, if you bought the paper. It's the kind of promotion you hope and pray and try not to murder your stablemates at your publishers' for, because it can do magical things to sales: according to Bookscan, last week A Secret Alchemy was officially the 14th biggest selling paperback fiction in the UK.

Now that's a one-week-only appearance, obviously. I may be wedged between Katie Fforde and Val McDermid, but they'll still be there in quite a few weeks. But though the promotion costs my publisher a fortune, it means that there are now several thousand people with copies in their hands, who might buy my first novel The Mathematics of Love, or seek out my third. I'm not a total newbie in the sales charts: TMOL made no.7 in the Heatseekers chart, which is made up of the bestsellers among books by authors who haven't appeared in the main charts. But to have my second novel - "that difficult second novel" - an official bestseller, however fleetingly, is amazing. On the other hand it's also disconcerting. What you can't see is that I'm not really blogging here, I'm actually slap in the middle of writing the first draft of a new novel. It's bare, it's bony, I've just realised this chapter has no plot, and I'm not at all sure I like one of my MCs. So how the f***k am I going to get it higher than no.14? And now that ASA is out there, it's no longer - I'm no longer - private. Until now, the only people who held opinions about me and what I do were people I knew. Not any more.

So, what's A Secret Alchemy about? This is my publisher's blurb, so I'll turn away and blush in private, because is there anyone who can take standard booktrade hype without blushing? To quote Four Weddings & A Funeral, "if there is, they're not English":

"Powerful and utterly convincing.'"- Daily Mail

"There is historical fiction - and there is historical fiction... It takes real skill - and devotion - to bring characters blurred by the passage of time into focus, to breathe real life into them... Emma Darwin has managed such sorcery... Passion is the key to the success of this book... Spellbinding" - The Times

Two murdered princes; a powerful queen betrayed; a nobleman riding towards his certain death...

The story of the Princes in the Tower has been one of the most fascinating - and most brutal - murder mysteries in history for more than five hundred years. In a brilliant feat of historical daring, Emma Darwin has recreated the terrible, exhilarating world of the two youngest victims of the War of the Roses: the power struggles and passion that lay behind their birth, the danger into which they fell, the profoundly moving days before their imprisonment, and the ultimate betrayal of their innocence.

In A Secret Alchemy, three voices speak: that of Elizabeth Woodville, the beautiful widow of King Edward IV; of her brother Anthony, surrogate father to the doomed Prince Edward and his brother Dickon; and that of present-day historian Una Pryor. Orphaned, and herself brought up in a family where secrets and rivalries threaten her world, Una's experience of tragedy, betrayal and lost love help her unlock the long-buried secrets that led to the princes' deaths. Weaving their stories together, Emma Darwin brilliantly evokes how the violence and glamour of past ages live on within our present.

And if that hasn't put you off, you can buy it in all good bookshops now - really truly, they should have it - or online at The Book Depository, (miles the cheapest) Waterstones, or Amazon