NaNoWrMo 2013 - Some (hopefully) Helpful Tips!

This is my third year taking part in NaNoWriMo. The first year was hard, with lots of complaining on my part and vows never to do this thing again. The result was a woman's fiction novel with a difference, which is still sitting unedited and untouched on my laptop. Year two was much better. I wrote the vast majority of the third book in my Serenity series, Captured. That book was finished, edited and published by March the following year and has now sold several thousand copies! Happy days!

This year, I've been looking forward to getting started since the summer! I've had my novel planned (at least the first few chapters - I don't plan out whole storylines as I don't like the ruin the surprise). It's the start of what I hope will be another five book series and is coming along great. I have to be honest though, if I didn't have the writing experience I have, I would probably still be in the swearing, cursing, vows to never do this again, early days.

So here are some of my tips to keep that word count going:

• Set aside time each day. If you normally watch tv in the evening, switch off the box and spend that hour writing instead. Working a day job? Take a notepad to work and scribble in your lunch hour.
• Plan at least a chapter ahead so you know where you need to go when you sit down for your writing time.
• Don't think too far ahead or you will get overwhelmed. Break the challenge down into measurable chunks. Remember this is not a race. The people who have written 20K in the first three days may end up blocked and struggling by the end. Slow and steady will get you to the end!
• Break down the words you need to get. 500 words during the day, and just over a 1000 in the evening will mean you'll hit your goal.
• Get involved in some word wars. Focus, uninterrupted, for twenty minutes at a time.and see how many words you can write. I can generally manage around 500 in that twenty minute period which means I can pretty much get my word count in an hour.
• If you start to get stuck, jump ahead and write a scene which is playing in your head, or that you really want to write -- a great conversation between your characters, a revelation in your plot, or a seriously spicy sex scene!
• Again, if you're blocked, switch mediums or locations. If I loose track of where I'm going with a story, a piece of paper and a pen will often see me through. I create spider charts with all the different characters and elements and try to see where the story is heading.
• And if you're REALLY stuck, kill off a character. That will always give you something to write about, even if it doesn't happen until later in the book!

I hope that helps somewhat. And remember that it doesn't matter if you fall behind early on. There is plenty of time to catch up!

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Dominion, Book Four in the Serenity Series is Out Now!

Whoo-hoo! Today is my official release for Serenity's book four, Dominion! Though the book went live on Amazon over the weekend, today is the day I had planned for my release. With that in mind, I have lots of giveaways planned over on my facebook page today, starting a little later today when people across the pond are out of bed. I'm going to giveaway signed copies of my books - including paperbacks of Alone, Buried, and The Dark Road, personalised jewellery, and even a C.D. of the music I write to.

On top of that, to celebrate my new release, the rest of the Serenity series is on sale! Alone is free, Buried is down from $4.99 to $1.99, and Captured is down from $4.99 to $3.99! So if you've not already started the series, now would be a good time to stock up on the books at a low price.

So head on over to Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk to grab your copy of Dominion! In a few weeks, Dominion will also be available on Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and Sony, but in the meantime you can purchase various formats which you can load up onto which ever e-reader you have from Smashwords.

In other news, it's NaNoWriMo next month! I will be taking part and this is my third year, though I'm still undecided about what I'm going to work on! Though I had planned on writing the first book in a new series, Serenity's book five, Endless, keeps calling to me. The characters keep having conversations in my head, so I'm wondering if I may end up having to write that one instead.

Are you planning to do NaNo this year?

***To stay updated about my new releases, make sure you fill in the new release form at the top of my blog!***

Low Priced Indie Books... Did they Ruin Things for the Rest of Us?

The other night, I managed to get into a debate over the same thing twice - the price of ebooks!

In the early indie days, the $0.99 price tag was a jumping point for several now indie publishing rock stars, most of which have now signed up with one of the New York big boy publishing houses. But while they've all jumped off the indie bandwagon, they've left the rest of us floundering around in a market place saturated with low price (and often low quality) indie books. That in itself is fine - everyone has an equal right to publish in this day and age - but the affect it has had on the readers is more important. Readers now expect to pay no more than a couple of dollars for an indie novel, yet will happily compare that indie novel to one of the New York published novels which would set them back $10 and more!

I read a post on Amanda Hocking's blog that one of the reasons she took a big publishing contract was because she knew, however hard she worked, the editing would never be good enough unless she had someone who was at the top of their game working on her books. I can understand this thinking, especially when readers pick up an indie book and read it expecting the same sort of editing that the book would have received if published by a big house.

I am a big believer (now) that a book shouldn't be published unless it's been edited professionally. An author should try to save every penny to pay for the editing. However, I didn't always have this opinion. When I first got on the indie train I thought just having another author edit my work would be perfectly fine. It wasn't.

So what is the right price to charge for an ebook? Let's look at the costs. (The following are an approximation and obviously do vary!)

Editing - $300 - $500
Proofreading $75- $150
Cover design $120
Isbns $30 (for two - one for ebook, another for paperback)
Paperback upload (Lightning Source) - $60
Advertising/email subs/website/hootsuite etc. (optional, but neccessary!) $100 per month approx.

Before the book is even published an author is looking at an outlay of up to $760, and then another $100 a month going forward. If an author prices their book at $0.99, they would need to sell well over 2000 copies just to break even. In the indie world, with so much competition, most indie authors don't even earn $500 a month!

So what is the right price for an indie novel and did those early pricing strategies set the rest of us up for failure?

Yes, and no. Unfortunately pricing is still the biggest tool indies have against the mighty power of the big six. I price my novels at $4.99, but I don't think I would put them much higher, even though traditionally published indie books charge more. Is this because I think my books are worth less? In a word, yes, I do. I'm not saying that my story or writing is worth less, but I'm not dividing my profit between a number of people. Once my costs have been paid off, the profit goes in my pocket, unlike a traditional publisher who have on-going costs including paying staff and royalties to the author.

So do I think $0.99 is too low a price for a novel? Yes, definitely. $0.99 should be a price reserved for short stories. I even think $2.99 is too little, but I can understand authors using that pricing in the hope people might try out the novel of an author they've never heard of.

Pricing will continue to be an issue, with some readers steering clear of low priced ebooks because they automatically think the books will be poor quality, and some readers even refusing to pay for an ebook because there are so many free ones out there. (This actually happened to me - someone read one of my books, loved it, and then actually laughed at the idea of paying for another one... like authors don't deserve to be paid for their work, unlike any other industry out there!).

What do you think is a reasonable price for an ebook? If you're a reader, do you tend to try out the cheaper books, or try to steer clear?

The Hardest Part about Writing a Series...

I'm now about two-thirds of the way through my final edits for the fourth book in the Serenity series, 'Dominion'. My editor already has the first half of the book and is working away on it, so I'm well on track to have the book out for the 30th October, as promised.

With the end approaching, I have to admit that I'm nervous about the publication of this book. I was nervous about 'Captured' but 'Dominion' is even worse, nerve-wise. The reason for my nerves? Well I just don't want to let the readers down! There are so many readers who have been waiting  months for this book and I want them to love it just as much as the others.

All too often the ratings for series books tend to go like this: first book has slightly lower ratings because the first book has weeded out all those people who didn't like the style or the storyline, or perhaps they found the main character annoying. That's fine, they just go on to read something different. Now the second and third books should have higher ratings. All those people who loved the first book have gone on to buy the next in the series and (hopefully) they love the books as much as they first.

But, what tends to happen in a series, is, as the series goes on the average ratings start to go down. People end up disappointed in the books. The characters start to get annoying, the storyline stale. THIS is what I'm most worried about.

As with each of my books, I've pushed the boundaries of paranormal romance in 'Dominion'. I've always had graphic violence, and yes, even horror in my books, and 'Dominion' is no different. I wanted to push the reader out of their comfort zone and I'm hoping they'll thank me for that in the end, leaving them with a story that will keep them thinking long after they finish.

Even so, I have to admit that the tradition of lower ratings the further on a series goes does leave me worrying. It's partly for this reason that only plan one more book in the series after 'Dominion' (though never-say-never!). I want people to finish the series wanting more, not wondering when the hell it will end.

Worries about people starting to dislike the books aren't my only reason for stopping the series at five books, of course. I already have another two series' planned - a Young Adult spin-off of the Serenity series, and another paranormal romance series, 'The Spirit Shifters'.

So I'm hoping everyone loves 'Dominion' as much as the first three books. I guess in a few weeks I know for sure!

My New Release - Underlife!

Today is the day, folks! 'Underlife,' the novel I started three years ago, is finally available to buy.

I got the idea for the novel during my years living in East London in my early twenties. On a journey on the London underground, I was waiting at a station for the next train. While waiting, I noticed someone had graffitied the wall with the words, ‘Help me.’ Straight away the thought of ‘what if that message was written for someone in particular’ came to me. What if people were trying to communicate with someone via these messages in order to tell them something? I’ve always found the London Underground to be a spooky, strange place and wanted to set a story in the location. There have been many nights when, after working until late at night, I’ve caught the last train home and have been inspired by the creepy atmosphere.

Not long after seeing this message on the wall, I watched a documentary about the underground homeless in New York. Right away the two different ideas blended and the storyline for ‘Underlife’ was born.

Here's the blurb...

Thomas Young has no idea where he comes from. Found living on the streets as a child and put into foster care, he always dreamed of having a family of his own. Now a grown man, he has his much longed for family, but his life is tinged with sadness. His son, David, has leukaemia. 

One night, as he's driving home from the hospital, he hits a homeless man, Mack, with his car. Mack knows Tom from his childhood and tells Tom he was once part of London's underground homeless and his son's leukaemia is not all it seems. 

In a desperate bid to save his son's life, Tom heads down into the miles of abandoned tubes lines and stations. But he quickly discovers something far more sinister waits for him than the giant rats, drug addicts and fast trains. There is also something dark and shadowy, and it wants out...

Underlife is available to buy from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, and Smashwords. The book will be available on other sites such as Apple and Barnes & Noble very soon.

And if you'd like to 'try before you buy' you can get the prequel short story, 'Go Back' together with the first few chapters of Underlife, for free from numerous ebook stores such as Smashwords, Kobo, Barnes & Noble (currently still $0.99 on Amazon).

In other news, I know the majority of you are eagerly awaiting the publication of the next ‘Serenity’ book, ‘Dominion’. I’m thrilled to tell you that the first chapters have been sent off to my editor today, so the book is well on track for its predicted release at the end of October.

Enjoy everyone! I'm off to crack open a beer to celebrate!

 

Are There Any Original Titles Left?

I'm currently doing final edits on my novel Underlife, which will be out in a couple of weeks, and then after that I'll be writing the final couple of chapters and starting edits for the fourth Serenity book, Dominion. But I've always been one to plan ahead!

I have a new series planned--a paranormal series based around spirit guides and the ability of their humans to shift into the shape of their animal. The series title will be 'The Spirit Shifters' (this met with polar responses when I first put it out there, but it fits the series best), but I'm struggling with a title for the first book.

I'm planning on writing this novel during NaNoWriMo. Because 50K in a month isn't much of a challenge to me (I write full time now and so producing 2K a day should be fairly easy if I've set my mind on something) I've decided to set myself the rough draft of the full novel (about 70K) as my NaNo goal.

I love writing, but I also like to write knowing what my book is as a whole. I'm not a huge plotter, but because I want to write this book as a series, I've found myself plotting more than normal. Of course this is not my first series. However, when I wrote Alone, it was only at the suggestion of my then publisher that I wrote book two. Book two ended in such a way that it was impossible not to write book three... and so the story continues.

This novel, however, will be a series, and I want to learn from mistakes I've made from NOT planning the Serenity series--such as certain 'world building facts' that have made certain plot lines difficult to work out. I'd like to put this planning into good use by also planning ahead to link the covers and the book titles.

The main reason for this post is that I'm struggling for a title for the first book, which ultimately makes it impossible for me to plan for any future books as well. It's not that I haven't thought of one--believe me, I have! Several in fact! But none of these titles are original and, even worse, some belong to series novels already.

So what do you think? Does a title need to be completely original, or is it okay if a couple of other books are named the same?

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