An Amazon Adventure (Part 4)

The Price of Success

Well, here goes - I'm about to conduct a little experiment. Any of you who has looked will know that The Testing of Archie Rathbone has been available on the Amazon Kindle store for nearly two weeks now, but what you can't see, other than by deduction from the extremely low ranking attributed to it on the store, is that it's not exactly flying out the door!

The book started out (briefly) at £2.99 (about $4.50 I think), but I rapidly reduced that to the minimum permitted under the standard Ts & Cs - £0.75 or $0.99 (plus Amazon's delivery fee). Interestingly (perhaps) this drastic price cut had absolutely no discernable impact on sales performance.

Now before I go on, if you've read any of the posts that precede this on you will be aware that I'm exploring strategies for making my newly published book 'visible' on the Amazon listings. The principle I'm working on is that most people who explore Amazon's offerings will do a search based on some appropriate search criteria, and still faced with pages and pages of books that meet those criteria will probably scan through no more than perhaps ten of those pages (maximum) before either giving up completely or at least trying a new search. The result of this is that if your book is plumbing the ranking depths then Amazon't default sort criterion will mean that your book will never even be seen, let alone evaluated for possible purchase.

So, leaving aside any other strategies for now, starting tomorrow (Midnight PST Thursday 28th June, or 7 am Friday morning here in the UK) for 48 hours my book will be available on Amazon at a promotional price of £0 ($0). Now whether Amazon still adds a delivery fee to this I'm not sure, but either way this is the closest it can get to being free of charge. Now given that there are (allegedly) a large number of Kindle owners out there who only download free books (or at least strongly favour them) then assuming there aren't another ten thousand other books in the same category as mine, all also free at the same time, then there's a fighting chance that The Testing of Archie Rathbone will be seen, and (hopefully) downloaded. The net effect of this (the theory continues) is that when the promotional period ends, if there have been sufficient downloads then the improved Amazon ranking may be enough to make it appear much higher up in people's searches.

If the theory proves valid then the book will still have to fend for itself in competition with all the other books on offer. It will still be evaluated and judged either as being worth a try, or not. This can't overcome the deficiencies and failings of a sub-standard book, or one that is not presented to best effect.

So there we are - the gauntlet has been thrown down - the challenge accepted. I won't know the outcome until the end of the weekend, but I'll share my findings with you when I do!

The Trenchfoote Legacy

Oh, by the way, and before I sign off - in case you haven't noticed I have added a link (to the right of this page (under the LINKS heading) called The Trenchfoote Legacy. Trenchfoote is a character from my book, and the link takes you to a separate blog based on the premise that he has somehow escaped from the book's pages...

An Amazon Adventure (Part 3)

Uneven Odds

My investigations into, and grappling with the psychology and technology of self-publicity is on-going, and likely to take a while. I'll post more about this as and when I have something to report.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share my musings on another related subject. One source of frustration for me is that both writing, and thinking about writing requires usable tracts of good quality time, and these are in short supply. Even though I am currently out of work (unless you count being a writer of course) I still struggle to find those moments when I can think and be creative without distraction, or the nagging feeling that I should be doing something else. So, whilst I try not to make a habit of whiling away the small hours deep in thought, when I do find myself wide awake at two in the morning I tend to grasp the opportunity it presents.

I'm sure that those of us who write would all like to believe that there is some correlation between the stories we tell, how well we tell them, and whether or not they achieve any commercial success. Leaving aside my on-going attempts to make The Testing of Archie Rathbone appear somewhere within the portion of Amazon's listings that is visible to the human eye, last night I kept thinking about an observation made recently by a friend. When discussing whether or not TTOAR had what it takes she observed that she had read many books (that had obviously been considered good enough to make it into print) that were, in her opinion less worthy of publication than my own.

If like me your reaction to such well-intentioned observations is (privately) to question the impartiality of the observer, then you may also be familiar with the attendant sense of mild frustration at not being able to confirm your suspicions, either way. In my case this isn't false humility. The truth is that the effort required to publicise your own book is significant, and therefore not something you can undertake unless you're committed. Perhaps like a lot of writers my emotions are a mix of total self-belief, and abject self-doubt. I can't begin to explain how those two states of mind can coexist, but in my mind they just do! The point is that if I could trust my friend's evaluation of TTOAR then I would know that it is worth expending every effort to publicise my book, secure in the knowledge that her opinion is likely to be shared by a significant number of others.

There is another doubt that was nagging me at two this morning though. Going back to my friend's observation (and my nocturnal cogitations), there are a number of strands that can be picked from this:

Changing tastes

The types of story, styles of writing, pace, use of language, amount of description and countless other characteristics of a work of fiction all change over time - whether in response to changes in society or perhaps even (in some cases) leading those changes. I would hesitate to suggest that today's readership is necessarily more sophisticated in their tastes, but there is sometimes a slightly naive quality in the way some books were written in say the 19th Century.

I suppose what I'm suggesting is that sometimes a book will be published because it is 'right' at that point in time, but ten years earlier or later it would never have made it into print.

The established name

We must all be aware of books that have been published, written by an established author, but which have left us feeling disappointed. It's tempting to speculate whether or not those books would have been published if they'd been submitted by an unknown writer, but in some cases I'm sure they wouldn't. Whilst this is galling to the unknown writers amongst us who are struggling to achieve some sort of recognition (and fondly imagine that their work has the merit to justify it), it's hard to fault the commercial logic of a risk-averse publishing house, safe in the knowledge that a weaker book from an established author will probably still at least cover the publishing costs.

Greater competition

As you will probably have discerned for yourself, I am no expert, but particularly with the advent of ebooks and e-publishing the number of books available for purchase/download seems to have increased astronomically. Why is this? As always I suspect, for a number of reasons, but here are a couple for starters...

• perhaps there are more literate people (not to mention a lot more people) than there used to be, and therefore a larger pool from which would-be writers will inevitably emerge
• in the 'good old days' when the vast majority of books were published through an established publishing house, both literary agents and the publishers themselves filtered out the work that (in their sometimes demonstrably flawed opinions) weren't good enough. With the advent of self-publishing of ebooks, these filters have been removed resulting in a tidal wave of books hitting the e-bookshelves - many excellent, some inevitably not

So where does that leave me? My friend may be right - The Testing of Archie Rathbone may yet find itself onto people's Kindles in large numbers, but to assess its credentials by comparing it to other books (even printed ones) is probably not a particularly sound approach.

An Amazon Adventure (Part 2)

So... what's the answer? That, as they say, is the sixty-four thousand dollar question.

If I'm honest (with myself as well as anyone sufficiently interested to read this) then I'd have to say that although I went into self-publishing with my eyes open (i.e. not expecting to become a best-selling author overnight), and would be the first to confess that I may well fall foul of some of the items in the list with which I closed my last post (Part 1), I don't think I had fully grasped quite how hard it is to get your books noticed.

I don't know how the search engines work that Amazon uses, but I know (from watching) that selling one download can move a book up the listings by tens of thousands of places, but that advantage is short-lived unless it's followed by further sales. In reality though, I'm sure that single digit sales aren't going to be sufficient to make a book visible to anyone other than the most determined bookworm. It's the classic catch-22 situation - your book isn't going to be visible unless you get a significant number of sales, but you aren't going to get a significant number of sales unless your book is sufficiently visible.

Anyway, I've no doubt many of you will be all too familiar with this conundrum. Some will have found a solution, whilst others will have remained frustrated. Let's face it; for your precious novel to fail to sell because it's (frankly) not very good, whilst painful, is still ultimately something you can learn to live with. For it to fail because no one can find it (leaving you wondering whether it might have been a success if only enough people got to open the cover) is much harder to swallow.

There are plently of people out there (mostly those who have triumphed in the self-publicity stakes) who have shared their thoughts on this subject, and some of the theory at least is 'out there'. For what it's worth, if my own contribution to that is of any interest then I shall share it here in due course.

In the meantime, I am battling with the technology - more of this anon...

An Amazon Adventure (part 1)

Poisonous frogs? Lost tribes? Mosquitoes the size of helicopters?

Well, no. Publishing a book through Amazon's KDP facility is really very easy and not nearly as scary or daunting as exploring our dwindling rainforests (I imagine).

No, it's not the mechanics of self-publishing an ebook that present the problems but the business of marketing your offering once it's available for download. So, this post (and perhaps parts 2, 3, 4,..) is about my experiences of the 'dark side' of getting your book out there.

A few months ago here in the UK, one of our best known TV personalities did a short item on a teatime magazine programme about the challenges of writing a book and getting it published. Now I should say up front that this is someone I respect and even admire - in fact I'm currently reading his published diaries - but his summary of the prospects of any budding first time novelist getting published was utterly bleak and damning.

It may have been a coincidence that the following evening a second article was aired that put 'the other side' of the debate (citing examples of those who have been successful), but I can't help wondering how publishing companies would have reacted to the first night's broadcast, dependent as they are upon a constant stream of hopefuls for the handful of promising new writers to assure their future economic security.

The truth is though (as common sense would suggest, even if you haven't had first hand experience), that publishers have to make money, and they aren't going to take a chance on your book if in their considerable experience and judgement it's not going to set the cash registers ringing (or the ebook equivalent). But thankfully, there are other reasons why publishers don't pounce on your creative output - perhaps their business model only allows them to publish a certain number of new books each year, and they've filled their quota, or perhaps they've just got it wrong! It does happen...

So it seems that an ever increasing number of us are by-passing the mainstream publishers (if that term can still be used in this context) and instead choosing to self-publish our literary pride and joy as ebooks.

That's what I've just done.

As I've said, the mechanics, the button pressing, isn't too difficult, and even if you get it wrong, you can change most of it until you get it right. If like me you are publishing for the first time then I expect you'll experience a mixture of anxiety and excitement - excitement that your book has grown up and is being sent out into the big wide world to seek adventure, but anxiety that you might discover it a week later, still sat on your doorstep. (Perhaps that wasn't the best analogy, but you get the idea...)

This is the point where this post started. It's the point at which it becomes clear that deciding that you can succeed without a publisher is not the easy option it might sometimes seem. It's where I am right now.

Let's assume that you've written your book, redrafted it, redrafted it again (and again, and again...), formatted it, designed your cover, and done all of the other things you have to do before you publish your ebook. Let's also assume that you've logged onto the appropriate publishing site (I've only used the Amazon KDP one, but of course there are others) and pressed all the right buttons in the right order. You've experienced the anxiety and the excitement, and a few hours later you get that emailed confirmation that your book has been published and is available for download...

Then what? Are there people who do all this and then just sit back and watch the money roll in? I doubt it - at least not first time authors.

You see, there are lots of factors that determine whether or not your ebook sells:
Is it a good idea for a book?
Is the plot structure good?
Is it well written?
Is the cover eye-catching?
Does the blurb capture the imagination?

...but none of these are going to matter if no one can actually find your book in the listings!

The chicken or the egg? (What comes first in writing?)

Have you ever wondered where stories come from? Do you sometimes read a book and ask yourself how the author came up with the idea?

I had never really given this question much thought until I started to find it directed at me. Subsequently, I scoured the web, read books on the theory of 'How to write a novel' and came to the conclusion that there are possibly as many answers to the question as there are writers.

Some people have to have a clear map of their plot before they start to write, while others may have only a sketchy outline, depending instead on the storyline leading them through the creative process. Some writers have a message or philosophy they want to communicate, and their story is wrapped around that. In some cases the character or characters come first, and by virtue of being sufficiently well developed they take over the story. Another favoured approach is to take your character and put him or her in a challenging situation to see how they react...

It seemed a simple question when I was first asked...

Where do I fit in? How do I write?

It varies. I suppose my approach is generally a mixture of these approaches, but I'm not one of those who has the plot mapped out in detail before they commit thoughts to paper (or fingers to keys). I read of one very famous (now sadly departed) author who used to set out their plot elements on index cards, and lay them out on the floor so as to show how they inter-related - all this before they started to write. My problem with this method (however much I'm in awe of someone being able to be that structured in their approach) is that for me writing has to be (and to feel like) a creative process, and to do that much preplanning would take all the joy out of the writing that would follow.

I know there is a danger of this sounding pretentious, but one of the reasons I love writing is precisely because it often feels unpredictable. I will have some of the plot planned, particularly where a plot has complex interdependencies that have to be set for the reader to uncoverover, but there's nothing quite like starting to write and suddenly becoming aware that the direction the story is leading you is as much of a surprise to you as you hope it will be for the reader.

The Testing of Archie Rathbone started out as a simple 'what if?' question - what if you woke up on the beach of a tropical island, with no idea as to how you came to be there? The book I'm currently working on is another 'what if?'. Perhaps there's a pattern developing...

In the end, I suppose that for me the approach I take depends on the type of story I'm trying to tell. In some cases the character defines the story, in others the story defines that characters. But in all cases, there is an initial seed - a germ of an idea that sets the whole process going, and because I have no control over what that germ is, or where it comes from, I don't think I have much say in my approach to writing either.

The Testing of Archie Rathbone

It's an interesting and rather sobering thought - The Testing of Archie Rathbone  (as I ultimately decided it should be called) has finally crossed that invisible barrier - the one that separates the published from the as yet unpublished. My book is now available on Amazon Kindle.

If you were to ask me if the achievement is all I expected then I have to confess I couldn't say, because I don't know what I expected.

It's sobering because after several years in the writing, an interminable period of editing, redrafting, and all the other details that are necessary before that barrier can be crossed, there's nothing more to be done - those years of work mean nothing now. It's all down to whether or not anyone wants to read it, and if they do, whether or not they like it.

Perhaps I should start by giving you an idea as to what the book is about...

The Plot

Having fallen asleep in his flat in Clapham (London), Archie Rathbone is understandably indignant when he wakes up to find himself on the beach of a tropical island. He has no idea as to how he's got there, nor how to get back home. His only company on the island is a talking seagull.

Meanwhile, back in London the price of Phoenix Tuna shares is going through the roof, and Emma, Archie's recently ex-girlfriend, suspects something fishy.

Neither of them realise that in trying to unravel the mystery, they are about to put the whole human race in danger.

Will Archie escape from his island prison and confront his captors? What is the connection between the secret organisation ALIRTS and the cafe proprietor Jakub Baranski? And what have Bolt, Upright & Clench (Tailors to the discerning since 1746) got to do with it all?

The Testing of Archie Rathbone is a tale of treachery, sorcery and the price of fish...