Michael's Blog (195)

January 9^th. 2015

I’ve just about finished my book jacket and expect to be publishing the book within the next couple of weeks. I will be preparing a Facebook advert and fine tuning it until I’m happy with the result. Then it’s a case of dove-tailing the announcements and directing them to the right people and the right places to “maximise” (love that word) the book’s potential. There are many tricks to this advertising game, many of which I don’t know, but it’s…

January 17^th. 2015

I’m stepping up a gear this year. Last week I put my latest book, A Dangerous Game, on pre-order with Amazon, something I’ve never done before. The launch date is January 29^th. Looking at the way some other writers approach this point, I know I haven’t put as much in to the launch as they have. One writer on one of the forums I follow has been incredibly busy and looks like he’s achieving pretty good results. Some of you may ask…

January 4, 2015

A new year and most of us are filled with hopes and dreams for the future. I’m no different and among my hopes and dreams is the advent of another of my books. My latest, Past Imperfect, is due for release on January 30^th. Even after all these years of writing and experiencing the ups and downs of a literary life; I still can’t help but get excited at the prospect. I feel like an anachronism in today’s digital market place though, and the literary…

6 December 2015

Three weeks to go and Christmas Day will be a memory. For the majority of us a happy one, but for many around the world it will be the opposite. Hopefully those of us who can will bring some light into the dark world of the less fortunate. We are halfway through putting up the lights in our house. It’s amazing what baubles you find when dragging the decorations out of the loft or wherever else they are stowed for the year. But how do you choose a…

November 22, 2015

I’ve just typed the date in and realised it’s the day my father died in 1955. (22-11-55). I was fourteen at the time. I sometimes wonder what affect it had on me as a teenager. I do remember one night, it was late, and me and my mates were slowly making our way home from somewhere, when one of them said: “My old man will kill me when I get home.” My immediate thought was that I had no “old man” to go home to. I know my time at school was affected by his…

Nov. 14th. 2015

Looking at the last paragraph of my last blog, I mentioned the Remembrance Day service and how killing should be confined to the pages of fiction. On Friday well over a hundred, innocent people were murdered in Paris by Isis jihadists claiming their right and responsibility is ordained by god. I use the small case to spell god because my God is a God of love, and love cannot harbour violence: He abhors it.

Back to the world of fiction. Last Friday our…

Nov. 8th

It’s been ups and downs for me this week. I received my copy of Past Imperfect from Ingram Spark and was very disappointed with the result (the jacket). Unfortunately I didn’t keep a copy of the digital proof, so have to accept the final product as my responsibility. I decided I couldn’t use the book for my launch on Friday 13^th, so I ordered 25 copies from CreateSpace. It’s now six days and they haven’t e-mailed me to say the books are on their way. It’s…

Nov. 2nd. 2015

Well, I finally made it: finished the edit of my WIP and handed it to my lovely, patient wife to read through. I printed the manuscript out double spaced, which makes it easier for Pat to make her red line entries. She comes up with some remarkable insights at times, and I’m beholden to her for taking on the job. Next step will be to edit the MS again, before thinking about a book launch. But before I can do that, I need a jacket. Fortunately I have persuaded our son,…

October 25^th. 2015

An end to an eventful week in which I made some progress with Ingram Spark, my current ‘work in progress’ (WIP) and more or less being forced to buy a few copies of my latest paperback as a ‘fall back’ position. I’m trying to achieve a successful upload for my paperback with Ingram Spark, and I’m hoping I can use their print copies for my book launch in November. Without going into details, I have had technical problems, which took a long time to…

October 19th 2015

Three weeks now since I wrote my last blog entry and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Two weeks of those three we spent in Spain, visiting our old haunts and seeing a lot of our old friends. The majority of those were at Torrevieja Christian Fellowship (TCF), while others were close friends of ours outside the church. It was great to see everybody and an absolute joy to share our time with them all. I picked up a chest infection while we were…

September 29^th.

Nothing last week, which was deliberate because I had little to say. This time there’s more but then no more for a while because we are off to Spain for a couple of weeks. The promotion for Roselli’s Gold with ENT went well. I sold 87 copies on the day of the promotion, and a few more after that. Not a huge amount, but at least the royalties will cover the cost of the promo. I shall be going quiet while in Spain, but when I get back, there will be…

September 12^th.

It has been a good week on both sides of the coin for me, both domestically and literally (book-wise). Medical stuff started the week off for me on Monday: dentist for a small filling in the morning, and in the afternoon my bi-monthly visit to the hospital for my cancer maintenance jab. That evening I was at my book writers group, CHINDI for a pretty full meeting. Two more new faces to remember now and at least one of them will be joining the group…

September 5^th.

I look at my diary for the past week, and the pages are blank. I sit here and wonder what exactly I did during those blank days. Well, the truth isn’t always revealed in the empty pages of a journal; my week was full and, in some way, successful. My sales continue to hold up on Amazon, and the downloads for my permafree title continue averaging around 30 per day, and my subscribers list increases daily. I finished my paperback, Past Imperfect…

Looking back over the week, I can see I’ve been busy but I can also remember how much rain there has been. Monday was torrential. Tuesday we went on a coach trip to Salisbury and it rained there as well, all day. We went into the cathedral. It was the first time for me, but this is the 800^th year of the signing of the Magna Carta (1215), and I wanted to go into the cathedral and get a sense of the history behind our heritage. While I was in there admiring the huge structure, I…

My week kicked off with another kind of project which meant a brief survey and a trip to B&Q (our major, D-I-Y outlet in UK). We are planning to change our kitchen round a bit and will have an electric cooker & hob installed in place of our gas cooker. But because we have no dedicated circuit for an electric cooker, yours truly has to put one in. It isn’t beyond my technical capability, but physically I’m getting too old for what we often referred to “house bashing” in the trade.…

August 9^th

Began the week with a Thai curry at a local Thai restaurant in Chichester. It was with the CHINDI authors. There were seven of us there, and it was great to talk about books, writing, self-publishing, ‘do’s and don’ts’ etc. A lot information flowed around the table and it meant I picked up a few tips. I thought I might have found myself a reasonably priced designer to help me with my book jacket. One of the writers there uses her for all his jackets. I…

I’m making progress this week with Photoshop. I am gradually figuring out which tool does what and the importance of working with layer masks. One of the downsides to watching help videos on You tube is that you often see a screen, or an action that you can’t replicate. I watched as one photograph was merged into another with a very simple, sliding action. I tried it and failed. I watched that section of the video repeatedly, but it didn’t happen for me. Oh, I have the latest version of…

July 25^th.

The interview on Angel radio went well. I don’t know when it will be live on air, but it will be shared around on my blog and other social media. Monday evening was a photo shoot with the CHINDI group. It was quite an event in a way. The shoot was supposed to be organised in such a way that we all knew when we were due to have our pictures taken. In the end it was a glorious kind of melee where we all had individual shots, then a cluster of group shots.…

July 19^th.

Good week last week: I’m actually making progress! Received confirmation from my publisher that I now have the UK paperback rights to my last two novels, Past Imperfect and The Boy from Berlin. I have completed the edit on the first of these, and now have to embark on the daunting task of creating a presentable book jacket. The promotion I ran for A Covert War yielded reasonable results. I managed to sell 42 books last week, which is…

July 11^th.

It looks like I missed a week, but lots have occurred which kind of diverted me. Hospital appointments get in the way. So essential of course, but they do take up a lot of time. Last Monday I went into Chichester and introduced myself to the Waterstones manager. He was very pleasant and didn’t throw me out of the shop. I was able to talk about CHINDI, the writers group I often mention now. He said he wouldn’t be averse to doing a book launch, but would…