Wanted: AUTHOR – thick skin required

Yesterday, I discovered a one star review of my book Rough Cut which had been posted on Amazon, it went as follows:

“A plot with more holes in it than Swiss cheese. One dimensional characters I could care less about. Every so-called twist is signposted in capital letters. Poorly edited, with the presumption that five words fills more page space when one would have sufficed. Worth reading only if the only other book available is Janet and John: Book One.”

Needless to say this was from someone I don’t know, otherwise he would now be nursing a broken nose, quite appropriately given his Amazon username is Rhythmdoctor! His only other review on Amazon is for an iPhone case so he/she is clearly not a regular reviewer of books.

Now, I’m not saying people aren’t entitled to criticise a book if they really dislike it but there’s no need to be cruel. As a fellow film maker said when I asked him for feedback on my last film, 'I'll tell you truth but I won't be cruel.' So far, there have been three one star reviews in this vein posted on Amazon, the first one being:

“I'm afraid this book is almost unreadable as it is so badly written. It is full of school boy cliches. The English character lives in Darrington Hall, characters are killed for unconvincing reason - just not believable. I couldn't read beyond a few pages.”

Well, if Matthew (that’s who posted it - and his only other review is for a cook's knife!) couldn’t read beyond the first few pages, he really has no business passing comment on the book. If you’re going to have a go at someone’s creative baby, at least do them the courtesy of actually reading it!

Which brings me to another thing which I found quite depressing which was when I submitted the book to a couple of brand new publishers for consideration. One, based in the USA, read the whole book and simply said:

“While Rough Cut is certainly an interesting read, it unfortunately does not fit within the criteria that we are seeking at this time.”

Absolutely no problem with that, completely understand that it might not be what they were looking for. But compare that polite and considerate response with this one from a new UK e-book publisher:

“ We have given this long deliberation but on this occasion are declining to accept the work for publication with us. This is for two reasons. The repetitive use of nouns in close proximity, the lack of scene breaks when swapping from one viewpoint to another, and the misuse of punctuation within dialogue all point to this being the work of someone who is new to the craft of novel writing and thus we feel is not of the standard we require in a novel. As it stands at present, we were not inspired to continue reading past the first chapter.”

They didn’t read past the first chapter but felt constrained to criticise the book on technical grounds which, although they might be justified, neither I nor the professional editor I employed before publication, agree with. Come on guys, if you don’t like it, just say you don’t like it, you don’t have to find excuses, especially ones which are not justified. And what was all that about “long deliberation”?

On the plus side, along with lots of nice reviews from people I know, I have had some really lovely and encouraging reviews from people with whom I have absolutely no connection at all, such as these two:

“With his book, Owen Carey Jones has found the perfect recipe: Rough Cut is cleverly written, will grip you from the very beginning and will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end. The characters are well thought through and likeable and they all have a real dimension about them.” (Margotlily on www.blogcritics.org)

“I love reading and can easily read a book in a day and Rough cut is a prime example of this. Once I started reading I could not put it down! The characters draw you in, the twists keep you on the edge of your seat and you feel the emotions of the characters, I cried and laughed with them. Definately worth getting lost in their world!” (Mrs E J Hughes on Amazon)

So, if you want to be an author (or film maker for that matter!), make sure you've got a thick skin because, along with people who love your work and feel inclined to say so publicly, there will be people who get some sort of weird pleasure from being cruel and hurting you and who are happy to do it publicly.

One thing is for sure, there will be people who love your book and people who hate it – it’s that age-old Marmite syndrome. Authors should revel in the positive things that are said about their work and ignore the negative things, unless of course the criticism is constructive and from someone who knows what they are talking about and who doesn't feel the need to be cruel.

Right, so that’s got that off my chest! Better get back to writing another "unreadable book with more plot holes than Swiss cheese." Or maybe one that "will keep you on the edge of your seat and can easily be read in a day."!! J

A Creative Person's Week

What happens when, as a creative person rather than an experienced business person, you have a few ideas? You know, a few good ideas that you think might be worth pursuing but don't know which to put your time, and possibly money, into? Is it anything like this:

First you have a MULL DAY to think about it.
Then you have to have a CHOOSE DAY to decide which to pursue.
After that it's time for a VENTURED DAY when you put your money where your mouth is.
And that is often followed by an after THOUGHTS DAY, if you're unlucky.
Which in turn brings on a FRIGHTENED DAY, that's the worst one!
Last but one, comes SAT AROUND DAY when you wonder what you were thinking of!
And finally it's SUNK DAY and that brings you back to......

But don't worry, it isn't always like that. Sometimes on the last day the clouds and rain go away and it's a SUN DAY instead!

Here's to lots of good ideas that lead to SUN DAYS rather than SUNK DAYS!

The Writer and The Bookseller

It's weird, isn't it, how sometimes your brain just never lets up! This morning, I woke up at 5 o'clock! I went to the loo, as you do, and then got back into bed. And then this popped into my head:

The Writer and The Bookseller

"The time has come," the writer said,
"To talk of many strings:
Of freebie books -- and Amazon --
Of Rough Cut -- and Kindle things --
And why on earth you wouldy not
Go and start downloading!

I was going to add: with apologies to Ruddy Hard Kipping!
but actually I think it should be with apologies to Loos Carol.

And of course it would be emiss of me not to give you te link, now wouldn't it?!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006RBGJ88

But it won't be available free until today from 12:00 midnight Pacific Standard Time which I think is 8:00 am GMT.

And so, back to bed!

Sequel to Rough Cut in Progress

Well, it's been two months since I last blogged! But now that I am a member of Triberr, my performance will improve, I promise!

So, what to say? Well, I'm happy to report that my new novel, a follow up to Rough Cut called CUTTING EDGE, is well under way with more than 15,000 words having been written so far.

My target is to get this book finished and out there by Christmas, which may be possible for the Kindle version but probably not for the paperback. 

I did wonder wether it was worth bothering with the paperback this time given that with Rough Cut, I've only managed to make a small profit after costs with the paperback, and that has involved doing over 30 book signings with Waterstones! Don't get me wrong, I have thoroughly enjoyed doing the book signings so I will probably go down the same route again with Cutting Edge, assuming Waterstones are up for it, but it's the Kindle version which has delivered a significant return on the time and effort I put into writing Rough Cut. Not that it's all about money, far from it, but you do like to know that your book is being well received and as widely read as possible. After all, if no one is going to read it, why bother to write it? And so far, including paperbacks and both free and paid for Kindles, nearly 14,000 readers now have a copy of Rough Cut. 

OK, time to get back to Cutting Edge! :-)

OK, so I went for a walk round the dam as usual today and when I got home, this chicken followed me into the house! I held the door open and waited for it to leave but it just stood there and looked up at me pathetically. "What do you want?" I asked as I looked into it's pleading eyes. "I need to lay some eggs, urgently!" it said and I weakened. "OK," said I, "but you'll have to lay them in the fridge because that's where we keep our eggs." The chicken nodded and smiled as I led it through the hall and into the kitchen. As it sat on the fridge shelf laying one egg after another and sighing with relief after each one, I asked "What's your name?" The smile came back. "Creme," it said, "Cadbury's Creme". As it got off the shelf and headed for the still open front door, waving a wing at me, I looked into the fridge and smiled. When my wife got home and asked my why there were six Cadbury's Creme eggs in the fridge, I told her the story! :-)

Social Media – to use or not to use, that is the question. But what is the answer?

     As a new member of loveahappyending.com, I have been using Facebook and Twitter much more than hitherto and whilst I have been quite enjoying doing so, the thought has occurred to me as to whether or not using social media to promote myself and my book is a legitimate activity. When I say legitimate, I don’t mean is it legal, i.e. am I breaking any laws, but perhaps more: is it an appropriate use of social media?

     Asking this question leads inevitably to another question which is: what is the purpose or function of social media? Is it simply meant to be a facility for friends (perhaps acquaintances would be a more appropriate term) to keep in touch with each other? Is it also meant to be an enjoyable activity, something that is fun to do, regardless of whether or not it shares information between friends, like playing a game? I think that might well be applicable in the case of Twitter but maybe less so for Facebook.

     If social media is primarily a means of keeping in touch with people, then it seems to me that it is perfectly legitimate to use it to tell your friends (or acquaintances) what you are up to, i.e. what you are spending your time on and what’s happening in your life.

     But what about when what's happening in your life revolves around activities you are undertaking to promote yourself and your creations to the general public? Is it still legitimate? The thing is, you could now be perceived (particularly by your acquaintances, as opposed to your friends) as abusing the facility by trying to sell your creations to them, and perhaps even worse, by trying to get them to sell your creations to their friends and acquaintances.

     The fact of the matter is that by using social media, it is possible to spread word of mouth (or, more accurately, word of keyboard) much faster and much more extensively than ever before, as long as you don’t alienate those whose support you are seeking. When using social media as a means of promotion, the aim is for word of mouth about your creation to spread rapidly as your followers re-tweet your tweets to their followers and your friends share your Facebook postings with their friends, and so on and so on, ad-infinitum. This can then lead to word about your creation going viral and reaching tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, some of whom hopefully will buy it, or view it, or whatever.

     I was reminded of the whole going viral thing this week when I received an email telling me someone had subscribed to my video channel on YouTube. This caused me to go to my channel where I discovered that a short film of mine which  I had put on YouTube six months ago had been viewed by 38,763 people in 174 countries and that it is currently being viewed by an average of 600 people a day! I have done absolutely nothing to promote this film and I didn’t tell anyone I had put it up there, although I did put a link to it from my book’s website.

     So, in conclusion, I think it is legitimate to use social media to promote your creations as long as you do it sensitively and with intent to inform rather than to browbeat. Excessive postings or tweets of the same information over and over again will just get you unfollowed or unfriended and will, therefore be counter productive. I think we have to remember that most people use social media for fun and to stay in touch with people they know and that is what they expect everyone else to use it for. Social media is not seen by most users as a sales channel but as an information channel. It is, therefore, perfectly acceptable to use it to promulgate information but it is not acceptable to use it to sell - there's a difference. 

Well, it’s been a good week for a budding author like me! A week or two ago, I heard about loveahappyending.com (LAHE for short). LAHE is an internet community of authors and avid readers which seeks to promote the work of an invited group of 30 authors, uniting them with each other so that they can share experiences and opportunities and also uniting them with keen readers who like their work and want to help them to get noticed.

     So, me being me, I wrote to LAHE and asked: what do I have to do to be invited to become a featured author? Imagine my surprise when I heard back from the people who run the site within a day or two asking me about myself and my writing. And then, after a few exchanges of emails, I was told they would be happy to have me as a featured author! I was over the moon, I hadn’t expected that. And now I’m there on the website as a featured author and already in touch with several fellow authors, getting to know a bit about them through Facebook, Twitter, etc.

     Definitely a good week for a struggling author who now has hope of seeing his book, which is called Rough Cut in case you’ve forgotten, reaching a wider readership than would have been possible without the lovely people at loveahappyending.com – so go and have a look at the website – NOW! J