The Deal Breakers

Something independent authors often use to  get the word out about their books is to offer a free copy. Doing this has several benefits. The main thing is that we hope it will place our work before a wider audience, and we may gain new readers who will subsequently look for and buy more of our books, tell their friends, and so on. A secondary benefit is that we may gain some reader reviews.

It's a popular technique. It's easy to do, and it's free. However, people don't always get the massive avalanche of downloads for which they were hoping. In today's blog, I'll be talking about why that is. Of course this is from my own perspective: the things that stop me from taking advantage of a free offer. 

Here, in a rough chronological order, are the things that will cause me to scroll on past a free book.

First of all, I'll say this. I am, and have always been, totally keen on free stuff. I just love anything that's free; this is partly because I'm a poverty-stricken writer, and partly because I was brought up thrifty. I hate to pay full price for anything. So you have that going for you right up front - just the fact it's free makes it worth a look.

Deal Breaker One - The Post Itself.

The actual post in which the free book is offered has major potential to put me off. I'll list the ways in which this can happen in descending order of seriousness.

1. The post contains a quote from the book that reveals it's porn, fan-fiction, or any other kind of rubbish. 

If any material from the book is quoted in the post, this is like a preliminary 'Look Inside', and it has enormous turn-off power, because one assumes the quote has been chosen because it's one of the best bits, so if it is truly horrible, or if it reveals the presence of porn, I know there's absolutely no point looking further. 

2. The post contains spelling or grammatical errors.

This is self-explanatory. 

3. The post contains any degree of begging. 

For example, pleas that you need to sell lots of copies because you're 'a autism author' - yes, I've really seen this - or to feed your 17 children, or to get treatment for your grandmother's broken legs - any kind of begging is so inappropriate in this context that it's enough to stop me in my tracks. If the book can't stand on its own merits, I'm not interested.

4. The person posting is not the author.

I'm not really sure why this is such a turn-off for me. I suspect this might be just me.

5. I've seen the post too many times.

If this book has been offered, over and over again, in a lot of groups, I feel as if I'm being badgered, and I will decline it just on general principle.

6. No buy link is provided.

If you want me to download your free book, you have to make it easy for me. I am not going to lift a finger to chase it.

If you survive all of this, I may click through on the link provided. 

Deal Breaker Two - The Cover.

Back in the days when all books were either paperback or hardcover, I'd have scoffed at the idea that the cover art might influence a buyer's choice. Now, however, when it's all ebooks, I've learned that the cover actually does tell you quite a bit. There are several ways in which the cover will dissuade me from looking any further.

1. It Looks Like Porn

If the cover of the book has a picture of a shirtless man, that's enough to raise an eyebrow, but if his head isn't even in the picture, that's it for me. I know the book is going to be porn, and I don't want to read it. 

2. They Just Haven't Tried

If the cover has obviously been generated using one of the standard templates offered by KDP - yes, Virginia, you can tell, especially if there is a big pink stripe across it - this makes me think it's Amateur City, and unless the blurb is VERY intriguing, I'm going to pass on this one.

3. Amateurish Artwork

I hesitated over whether to include this, because the bar you have to reach for me to think it's okay is very, very low, and in fact all by itself this isn't a real deal breaker for me, but it does put me in a far less positive frame of mind when I look further.

Deal Breaker Three - The Process of Obtaining It

1. The Landing Place

Hopefully, this will be a book page on Amazon or Smashwords. If it is not, it will either be to some bookseller where I probably don't have an account, or to the author's own page. 

If it's a bookseller, you have lost me. I'm not setting up an account with a merchant just to get a free book.

If it's the author's own page, you have probably lost me, especially if I have to scroll through a huge rigmarole of promotional yelling to get at it. I'm not particularly keen to get on extra mailing lists, which always happens if you download from an author's own site. 

2. The Format Offered

If the book is to be downloaded from the author's own page, and it's only available as a pdf, I am not interested. If you can't be bothered to produce a proper e-book, then I can't be bothered reading your book. 

If the book on offer has passed all of these tests, I will now have a look at the blurb.

Deal Breaker Four - The Blurb

1. Poor English

If the blurb contains any failure of correct English, that's a total deal breaker. I've put this first because it is the first thing I will notice. 

2. Porn

If the blurb contains any indication of porn, that is a total deal breaker. Such words as 'hot', 'steamy', 'alpha' have over the years become top porn-indicators for me.

3. Not Original

If I find on reading the blurb that the book is fan-fiction, which I take to be, inter alia, anything that is about characters from another writer's work, this is a deal breaker.

4. Boring

If the blurb fails to catch my interest, that's a deal breaker. Once upon a time it wasn't, but that was in my early days of kindle use, when I had failed to grasp just how many free books are out there. These days, I require to be at least moderately intrigued to proceed to the next step.

Deal Breaker Five - The Look Inside

Finally, if a book has made it this far, I will be opening up the Look Inside feature on Amazon, or the Preview on Smashwords. If I have reached this point, I will probably download the book. However, there are still rocks on which it may founder.

Once upon a time, we browsed in bookstores and opened the book to read a few paragraphs at random. This would still be my preference, but alas! these preview features force one to start at the beginning.

1. Layout

If the first thing I see after the title page is pages and pages of Table of Contents, with nothing more than 'Chapter One, Chapter Two, etc', I will be put off. This in itself is not a deal breaker, but if I have been displeased by anything at all before reaching this point, it has the capacity to become one. This is because it's a really stupid place to put the Table of Contents in an ebook; they should go at the back, and also because if the person knows what he is doing, it's easy enough to set the 'Start' of the Look Inside to the beginning of the actual book, which is all one wishes to see at this point.

2. Language

Once I'm at the start of the book, you have one screen only to impress me. I am not going to turn the page at all, unless I read that first page and see perfect spelling and perfect grammar. There are no exceptions to this.

3. Content

I still won't turn the page unless I'm caught up enough in the story by the end of the first page to care what happens. It's the writer's job to do this. If there is clumsy use of dialogue, if there is a female character looking in the mirror and describing herself, if there's any hint that the book is poorly written, that of course is an absolute deal breaker. Remember, although I've written a long article about this process, in real life it has probably only taken thirty seconds from the point at which I first saw the post.

If I turn the page, and if I still feel the same way after reading another page, that's the point at which you have won, and I'll download the book. I still might not read it, but that's another story for another day.

Any Time Could Be the Last

 I've an inveterate habit of looking at my Facebook Memories. Almost every day I do it - I go through all the posts from this date in previous years, and I relive my joys and sorrows. Sometimes I see a comment from someone who is no longer in the world, and that's a bittersweet moment.

Today I came across a short video of my dog, Beau. It was the last video I ever took of him. He'd been ill for a long time, and he was recovering, and the video is of him happily playing with his squeaky stuffed pelican, and although the ravages of his long illness can be seen in his face, it's a happy time and it made me smile. 

It was sad, too, though, because this was the very last video I ever took of Beau. And six months later, he was dead. I wasn't expecting it; he'd fully recovered, and I'd just spent weeks carefully building up his fitness again, and that day he seemed to be completely back to normal, and a few hours later, he was gone. 

It makes me think about last times. We almost never know when we are doing something for the last time. It could be anything - the last time you hug your friend before the accident. The last time you film your dog. I wish I'd taken more videos. But however many I took, one of them was going to be the last.

Many years ago, I had another friend die suddenly. I was washing the dishes after dinner, and my cat Samson leaped up to the very top of the kitchen cupboard (a jump of about eight feet from the floor, which he executed with effortless grace.) He knocked down a whole lot of cardboard boxes which I had stored up there. It was very naughty of him, but for some reason I was feeling mellow and instead of shouting at him, I just laughed and made some little joke about it. Shortly afterwards he disappeared up the hall. I finished the dishes and decided to walk to the post box to post a letter I had written, but first, of course, a trip to the lavatory. And I found him lying on the bathroom floor, quite dead. I have always been so, so glad I didn't shout at him about those boxes, because those were my last words to him, and I would have hated them to have been angry ones.

We never know when something like this is going to happen. So now, while we are bracing ourselves for Christmas, while we're stressed and tired and overwhelmed with the huge list of things that still have to be done, let's take a moment to be sure that our last words to anyone won't be angry ones. Let's reach out to anyone with whom we've been quarrelling, or having a coldness, or anything of that nature. Let's decide just to let it go, even if - especially if - we feel we are in the right and they are in the wrong. Just let it go.

Because you never know if you'll have another chance.

 

TOP CAT'S ALLEY WRITERS' AWARDS 2020

The moment a very, very few people may have been waiting for - my 2020 awards presentation.

I wish, how I wish, that I were as rich as Stephen King. Then there would be massive cash prizes to go with these awards. As it is, there is only the glory.

Note that not all of the winning books were first published this year. That's because these are MY awards, and therefore it is about when I read the book, not when it was first published. So without further ado, these are the works I feel deserve special mention, from what I've read and seen in 2020.

BEST NOVEL PUBLISHED IN 2020

Charlotte Wood, for The Weekend

Get it at Amazon

BEST ACTION NOVEL

Andy Peloquin, for Lethal Extraction

Preorder at Amazon

BEST ANTHOLOGY
BEST POLITICAL FICTION

Benjamin Gorman and Jack Dye, for Shout!

Get it at Amazon:

BEST CHRISTIAN FICTION

Ray Anselmo, for Flight to Freedom

Get it at Amazon

BEST SERIOUS NON-FICTION

Vladislav Matrenitsky, for Carcinogenic Mind

Get it at Amazon

BEST HUMOROUS NON-FICTION

Biju Vasudevan, for The Ultimate, Complete and Comprehensive Self-Help Book on How to Avoid Being Conned by Self-Help Books, and Also Why To Avoid Them

Get it at Amazon

BEST SHORT STORY

Michael J Sullivan, for The Ashmoore Affair

Jennifer Lee Rossman, for No Collision

BEST MAGAZINE

Marcia Pinskier, for Gesher

BEST FANTASY SERIES

John Kang, for Scions of the Black Lotus

Get the complete series at Amazon

BEST ACTION SERIES

Andy Peloquin, for Cerberus

Get book 1 at Amazon

BEST CHILDREN'S SERIES

Carrie Cross, for Skylar Robbins

Get them at Amazon

BEST DETECTIVE SERIES

Simon Brett, for Mrs Pargeter

Get book 1 at Amazon

MOST LIKABLE CHARACTER

Charlaine Harris, for Sookie Stackhouse

MOST HORRIBLE VILLAIN

James Patterson, for The Mastermind

BEST INSULT

Andy Peloquin, for "pencil-dicked asshole" in Paragon Slayer

FUNNIEST MISUNDERSTANDING OF A GRAMMATICAL RULE

Christina Kaye, for the following:

"Lay (people do this) and lie (objects do this)... people lay in the bed, objects lie on the counter."

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL WINNERS! 

K is for King's Ransom - The Saga

I note that this blog has languished since January. Well, a lot of things went by the wayside what with practically the whole world going into quarantine. One of the things I've been nibbling away at in background has been the hardcover edition of King's Ransom. 

This book seems to have been with me forever. I started writing it more years ago than I care to think about; I'm not sure now exactly what year it was, but it may have been 1994 or 1995. Certainly it was before 1998. I started the research for it a full year before that. It was a kind of hobby. Besides reading everything I could get my hands on, I tried to be as immersive as possible. At that time I had an hour's drive to and from work, and I spent it listening to reproduction music from the period. When Lent started, I tried to keep the rules of the Lenten fast as they were kept in those days. That was a horrible time. I don't think of myself as much of a foodie, but trust me, I never want to go there again.

Anyway, I started writing and it went quite quickly and smoothly at first. It was all good until I wrote myself into a corner about half way through the book. Back in those days I was an unmitigated pantser, and had almost no skills apart from the actual writing of the words. So when I found my story was stuck and I had no idea how to go on, the book went in the Too Hard Basket. For something like eight years. I only used to work on one book at a time back then; my day job was important to me and it was more in the nature of a hobby. So everything ground to a halt.

In 2014 I got more serious about things. I'd more or less given up the day job, and I started to take the work seriously. I've written and published a lot since then, but this one thing remains unfinished, the book available in paperback and all formats of e-book, but not in hardcover.

A lot of independent authors don't bother with hardcover. They say it doesn't pay for the effort involved, they get no sales and it isn't worth it. I think they're probably right too, in commercial terms. And yet, I'm old-fashioned enough that it has enormous value for me. Hardover to me says credibility, and a book that's only available in paperback feels to me like a film that goes straight to DVD.

Anyway, because the whole saga has gone on and on, I thought it might be amusing to, as it were, tell its story. Here goes:

JANUARY 2014

I discovered the files on my computer had become corrupted, and I had no manuscript except for the hardcopy printout. Fortunately for me, back when I was first writing this book Word, or my machine with its small amount of RAM, I'm not sure which, didn't handle large files well, so each chapter was in a separate file, and I used to print off each chapter as soon as I finished it. I had it all in a loose-leaf binder. 

FEBRUARY 2014

So the first task was to type it all in. This took me some time.

MARCH 2014 

I finished typing in everything I had and constructed an outline for finishing it. I made a very loose outline for the rest of the book and a detailed one for the rest of the chapter I was in.

APRIL 2014

I signed up for Camp NaNo. I really credit this with saving the whole book. If I'd stuck to my goal I could have finished the first draft that month, but of course I didn't, because Easter, when I used to have to host a huge family gathering for the entire four days at my husband's country block. That got me derailed enough that I didn't come anywhere near achieving the goal I'd set. And yet. The thing about it was that forcing myself to produce a daily word count, even though I didn't do it for long, got me unstuck. I wrote past the problem spot, and it unstuck my confidence, too.Writing before had always been more of a hobby than a job, so I had had the typical limp-wristed hobbyist's attitude to it. Now, I realised one could force oneself to write, just the way one forces oneself to do any work activity. This was probably the most important thing I ever learned about writing.

JULY 2014

I signed up for the second Camp Nano feeling much more confident. No Easter to throw me off course. And I finished the book! Just like that, bang, in a month. Really, the Nano concept is an utterly brilliant one.

OCTOBER 2014

After a decent rotdown period, I started in on editing and revisions. The revisions had to be extensive, moving chunks of story back and forward in time and all sorts. I had a great big timeline up on my whiteboard, with about a thousand sticky notes. I had spreadsheets galore. 

SEPTEMBER 2015

The editing and revisions took a long, long time. For one thing, in November 2014 I started writing a new book and that became my focus, so this one went on the back burner again. I did get it done, and in September of the following year I got it off to beta readers - one for reader feedback and one experienced writer of historical fiction. The historical writer got back to me after four months, but it took a long time for the other chap.

JULY 2016 

Finally with feedback from both beta readers, I was able to undertake second revisions. I got those done, formatted an e-book and sent advance copies to a whole lot of people for advance review. I set up the book in preorder at both Amazon and Smashwords, and started on the formats of the paperback and hardcover.

AUGUST 2016

Published the paperback.

SEPTEMBER 2016

Published in e-book, all formats. Attempted to produce a dustjacket myself. That did not work out. I was depressed about it and unsure how to proceed, and let the project slide onto the back burner again.

JULY 2017

Got my act together and hired a cover person to do the dustjacket. Loaded it all up and ordered a proof copy, which took a long, long time to come - Lulu take months to send out a proof.

DECEMBER 2017

When I got the proof copy I discovered a lot of formatting errors in the interior. There were several iterations of this.

DECEMBER 2018

Let it slide again because I had two other books out with beta readers and was writing another one.

DECEMBER 2019

Revived my flagging enthusiasm and attacked it again. Fixed all the formatting errors and ordered a new proof copy.

JUNE 2020

Fixed it all up and uploaded files again. There was some kind of problem and it didn't advance to the point where I could order a proof copy. Had to thrash this out with Lulu technical support.

JULY 2020

Finally got to order another proof copy.

AUGUST 2020

Got that proof copy, discovered a few more formatting glitches and uploaded a revised version. Ordered yet another proof copy.

SEPTEMBER 2020

And that brings us to today, when I am still waiting for that proof copy, which I fervently hope will be the last, to arrive. I ordered it on 15 August and it is now 20 September.

WHAT I TAKE AWAY FROM THIS

If there's one thing that springs to my mind about this unedifying saga, it is that projects that are 'in background' don't get done. As with anything in life, if you seriously want to get something done, you give it a priority.

THINGS I ACTUALLY RELEASED THIS YEAR

Don't miss my new releases. Where The Heart Is, the book I started writing in November 2014, is now available in its final edition - hardcover.

New books out are With Coffee Spoons and Bloodsucking Bogans, both in paperback, and Reality Ever After, just released in hardcover.

Broke and unemployed, Fiona moves to the country. She imagines everything will be pretty much as normal, but with scenery. But what she finds there will change her life. 

Get it here

This one only just released, in hardcover only. It hasn't come up on Amazon yet, but should be available shortly.

Dingo Flats hasn't been the same since the Murphy family moved back to town. The boys are delinquents, the daughter's a disgrace, and old Granny Murphy is constantly causing trouble. Even the dogs are delinquents. The crime rate's doubled since they arrived.

And what's with all the dead rats that have started appearing on the doorsteps of local businesses? The tabloid thinks it's a plague, but Sam's dad is convinced it's warnings from the Mafia.

Meanwhile, Sam's friends are determined to make her over and marry her off, and she's staring down the barrel of having to give up her police dog pup. What's a cop to do? Get it here.

A woman with a toxic mother-in-law, a man who crosses a social barrier and finds there is no way back, a man who loves his wife and reaps terrible trouble because of it, a homeless man, a dance teacher who just wants a few more students for his introductory Salsa class, an old woman confined in a nursing home, a big blue parrot, a young married couple, a dog who loves his man beyond the boundaries of death, a Christmas kitten, a scientist with a device of unimaginable power, a young graduate who goes looking for a thrill and finds more than he bargained for.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, and perhaps you'll even think about your life.

Get it here.

Book Review - Shout: An Anthology of Resistance Poetry and Short Fictiom

I seldom post book reviews on this blog any more; it became tedious, and there are plenty of review sites around. But this anthology, soon to be released, is one I'd like to talk about.

I received an advance copy from the publisher of this anthology for the purpose of review, and I feel privileged to have done so. Over recent years I've become accustomed to a slight cringe when opening the work of lesser-known writers, and so the sheer professionalism of this book was the first thing to appeal. Ah, but the content!

I'm not really qualified to review poetry, so all I can say about the poems is that I enjoyed them, they spoke to the heart. The stories, though! Despite the uniformly dystopian visions presented, every single one of these stories was an absolute pleasure to read. Personal favourites of mine were No Collision, by Jennifer Lee Rossman, and Emma's Knives by Karen Eisenbrey, the former for its sharp and humorous wit, which is served unerringly with a light and precise hand, and never overdone, a thing not easy, and the latter for its endearing portrayal of one person's lone fight, and for the charming contrast of the traditional recipes.

There is far less protest fiction being published in today's America than there ought to be; in recent years we have seen the world's view of this country degenerating from slightly patronising friendliness to appalled horror, loathing and terror. This fine piece of work will, I hope, form a spearhead to a new literary movement.

If you're American, read it because you need it. If you're not, read it because it's excellent short fiction.

Shout will be released on 2 February, and can be pre-ordered HERE.

The Dust of History

The dust of history

By John Passant

I have seen the future
Today, outside
As the bush burns
Destroys and kills

Homes and lives
Up in smoke
Climate change remains unspoken
By the broken government
And the almost quiet Opposition

Lying words and minor actions
Do not stop climate change
Or fix the current disasters
Across my country
Or what is left of it

Too late to see it
Before it goes to shit
It has gone already
Down that route
All gone, gone for years

I have only tears,
And fears we will repeat this shit
Now, tomorrow
And next year
If we let them

Revolution must be our solution
Our class united can rid us of the deniers
And those who equivocate
Today is not too late
Tomorrow is

Will we come together
To defeat them and their weather?
Or breath their smoke for what seems forever?

We can, we must
Send their profit system and climate change
To the dust of history
And end this misery

John Passant, 7 January 2020

John reading one of his poems on the CD, accompanied by Mileyna Cifali of The Awesome

John Passant is a lawyer, activist and poet. He has published two books of his poetry, which you can find HERE.
A CD of his poetry set to music is HERE. You can buy the music, or listen free online.

Why I Am Racist - the taint we can't scrub out.

If you have even read past the title, you're probably shocked AF. And that's okay. Shock is an appropriate response.

What I want to talk about today is the invisible, unconscious racism we all - well most of us, there may be some perfect individuals - are still tainted with, despite our best efforts. It's an uncomfortable subject, for sure. 

It's a kind of contra bias, a sort of balance to the oversensitivity some people of colour have, where any conflict is deemed to be for racist reasons. I still remember a huge quarrel I had with another student at college, back when I was only seventeen. That's a LONG time ago. You hate me because I'm black, he said. No I don't, I told him. I hate you because you're a prick.

Of course it's better not to quarrel with our fellow students, especially when we're both living on campus and have to share the laundry facilities. But quarrels happen and this kind of thing still happens too. People who are attached to their bigotry and want to preserve it often sneeringly call my fellow student's accusation (his name was Onga, I still remember him because I just disliked him so much) 'playing the race card', a dismissive, patronising phrase which makes my fur stand up whenever I hear it. But this kind of response, combined with an honest person's natural desire to weed out all racism from himself, has given rise to a kind of contra bias, where there's a presumption that we have to like a person just because he is dark skinned. What crap this is! An arsehole is an arsehole in any colour. Nevertheless, our responses tend to be modified even when we don't give way to this.

Let me give you an example. A kind of thought experiment. Suppose I am working in an office, working for a firm (thankfully those days are behind me, but I spent most of my adult life this way so I know all about it.) In my department is a man who is much younger than I am. He is not my boss. He presumptuously gives me some instructions, which he has no right to do, and he does so in a patronising way that really gets my back up. With me so far? I'm sure any female has had this kind of experience.

Now suppose that man is a European, like me. I might well say to him, 'Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs, boy.' I say 'boy' to denigrate him and put him in his place. Of course it's rude. It's meant to be. It also reminds him of the fact I'm older and more experienced than he is.

Suppose, on the other hand, that this young man is a brown-skinned man. Now there is no way, no way in the world, I'm going to use the term 'boy' when I speak to him. No matter how offensive he's been. Because for him, the connotations are quite different. There's too much history of brown men being called 'boy', you can't avoid the association. So whatever I say to him, and I might still be very rude, it is never going to contain that word.

Do you see the inherent racism in this? I've modified my response as a direct result of my perception of the person's skin colour. I say perception, because I'm not American, and I can never really get my head around which nationalities count as 'black'. There are so many. What about Maltese people, for example? Are they black or white? Who knows. Only the Americans with their mental colour charts. 

Things like this are impossible to get rid of, I think, at least in our current society where racism is still a thing, and I suspect that one day when it isn't, these things will just not be a thing either. But it makes a complete nonsense out of anyone's claim not to be racist, just supposing anyone other than out-and-out deliberate racists ever made this claim.

Food for thought. We all have this kind of thing, but I think it's important still to be aware of it, lest it expand into areas where it isn't justifiable and righteous.