This is just a test

My test novel (The Square) seems to be appearing in multiple channels now., although some are still picking up the original cover, like this German site.

 

However, some sites (like Apple) are rejecting the novel because I've embedded a link to the next novel, which inadvertantly bypasses Apple's ordering service.

They say:

"As a result, we cannot send this book to the following sales channel until you have corrected the matter:

Apple

The types of material at issue include:

Competitor Links: The content contains links to sales channels that are in direct competition with the chosen sales channels. Please check your book's content for any direct links to eBook retailers. Remove these links to ensure compatibility with all of your selected vendors. Typically, these links are found in the front matter or back matter of your book.

Sales channels not listed above continue to receive this material at this time."

Oh well.

repeat of a radio interview

Some time ago, but I thought I'd add it into the flow.

Not entirely covered

I started with Ingram for print editions of my novels. It was back in the dark age and every revision cost money. 

I used an original Ingram default size and have stuck with it all along. Even when I switched some of my printed books to Amazon I retained the same formatted size for my books. Now, it looks as if I will need to revise the covers and text layouts if I want to move platforms again.

I guess I'll need to take a few deep breaths.

Ed Adams Novels and Back Matter

As a start toward my marketing, I'm revising the Back Matter of my novels. I've never paid much attention to it, to be honest, but I guess if it tells the reader the next book in the sequence, then that can be a helpful thing. I remember being told that there needs to be three books as a minimum to create 'read-through'.

At the end of my first book ever (The Triangle), I'm now including a reference to the next book along (The Square) and even putting a picture from the cover art. Above is my original sketch, and below is the current cover art for the novel - which I now include as a page in the back of the prior novel. Then follows the 'Back Matter' which describes all my novels, and which I should be able to insert consistently into every novel, as I republish them.

I'll also consider moving some of the paperback novels to an Ed Adams storefront.

The Square

Nervous Weapons of Mass Destruction. The transport of materials across Egypt, with very unintended consequences

TRIANGLE COLLECTION

The first series. Fast paced, international thrillers featuring how Clare, Bigsy and Jake formed The Triangle.

T1 The Triangle: Dirty money? Here's how to clean it. A London crime story with international dimensions.

https://amzn.to/3c6zRMu 

T2 The Square: Nervous Weapons of Mass Destruction. The transport of materials across Egypt, with very unintended consequences

https://amzn.to/3sEiKYx 

T3 The Circle: The desert is no place to get lost. Deserts and missile ranges in Arizona.  

https://amzn.to/3qLavYZ 

T4 Cosy: Cosy Crime in Devon, Agatha and Cluedo with a modern twist. 

https://amzn.to/3wQVNED 

T5 Church: Devon crime rains down: The power from the church is not what it seems.

https://amzn.to/463vFao

T6 Dark: Control is power: A powerful woman seeks control.

https://amzn.to/4eZKPld

ARCHANGEL COLLECTION

Another asset joins the Triangle in the form of Christina Nott. We need to know a little of her back-story too.

A1 Archangel : Sometimes I am necessary. Icelandic born, Russian trained agent Christina Nott.

https://amzn.to/2Y9nB5K 

Now we have Jake, Bigsy, Clare and Christina working together. Political thrills in corridors of power. Now introducing Brant Technologie and Raven Holdings.

A2 Raven:  An eye that sees all between darkness and light. Big business gone bad. Very bad.

https://amzn.to/2MiGVe6

A3 Card Game: The power of Tarot whilst throwing oil on trouble. A story ruled by mysterious cards.

https://amzn.to/2Y8HLgs 

A5 Play On, Christina Nott : Money, Mayhem, Manipulation. Christina Nott, on Tour for the FSB. What a cover story. Moscow, Tokyo, Seattle with the band.

https://amzn.to/2MbkuHI 

A6 Corrupt : Parliamentary corruption. Trouble at the house. 

https://amzn.to/2M0Hn0w 

A7 Sleaze: More political intrigue, as electric automobiles are on the agenda. Politics and Gstaad. There is snow. 

https://amzn.to/3sE3UDt 

BIG SCIENCE

From modest science to an end for the universe

B1 Coin : Get rich quick with Cybercash-just don't get caught. Students, eh?

https://amzn.to/3082wmS 

B2 Pulse: Sci-Fi dystopian blood management with nano-bots. Want more? Just stay away  from the edge. This predicts some of the events of other novels, yet the pieces are still fragmentary knowledge shards,

https://amzn.to/3qQIBvL 

B3 An Unstable System : Creating the right kind of mind. Inventing a cyclone, with unforseen side effects.

https://amzn.to/2PRJciF 

B4 Jump:  Some kind of future. Forward in time, but with an ever increasing dilemma.

 https://amzn.to/3sCzK3h 

B5 The Watcher : We don't need no personal saviours here. A short story about the whole of time.

https://amzn.to/3kTFWjg 

B6 Rage : A madman's war: Our Watchers arrive unexpectedly in Ukraine.

 https://amzn.to/3MEuKIL 

B7 Artificial : Where is my mind? Inside the RightMind there is an Artificial Intelligence.

https://amzn.to/461LONJ

B8 Luka : Can artificial intelligences fall in love. How Luka sees he interaction with a human.

https://amzn.to/468yjMi

BLADE’S EDGE TRILOGY

The effects of Brant’s technologies far into the future.  Earth has a predicament.

E1 Edge World end climate collapse and sham discovered during magnetite mining from Ganymede

https://amzn.to/2KDmYOW 

E2 Edge Blue Endgame, for Earth - unless?

https://amzn.to/2Kyq9au 

E3 Edge Red  : Museum Earth an artificially intelligent 

https://amzn.to/2KzJwjz 

MASTER COLLECTIONS

All collections of the individual novels…

C1/T4 The Ox Stunner The Triangle Trilogy - thick enough to stun an ox Triangle, Circle, Square in one heavy book. all feature Jake, Bigsy, Clare, Chuck 

https://amzn.to/3sHxigh 

C2/A4 Magazine Clip First three Archangel novels

https://amzn.to/3pbBJYn 

C3/A8 Ignoble Corrupt and Sleaze omnibus

https://amzn.to/3sp6EUL 

C4/B7 The Dealer: Jump, Pulse and Rage Collection

https://amzn.to/3AIZmWg 

C5/E4 Edge of Forever Edge Trilogy

https://amzn.to/3c57Ghj

C6/T7 Secrets: Cosy, Church and Dark Collection

https://amzn.to/4639S2C

C7/B9 Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality Guide: Brant Manual of Peacekeeping Technologies- Both of Artificial and Luka in one volume - dressed as a reference manual.

https://amzn.to/4d1UVA2

And finally, my Amazon Author page:

Please take a look and I hope you enjoy my novels!

https://amzn.to/4cI4pAQ

Kindle Scribe and authors

 

One of the things I noticed at SPS was the number of note-takers using technology. I have used my iPhone for some time and usually open an Evernote page into which I tip bullet points. 

The challenges with full internet connected technology are the interruptions. Too many bleeps and bumps.

Then I realised that the Kindle way could be useful, especially for reviewing my work. I grabbed a Kindle Scribe, which has access to my entire Kindle library and can download entire PDFs of my Work In Progress. Then I can  flip through it, fast and uninterrupted, and hand annotate corrections in much the way of pencil and paper.

I spent a two-hour train ride with one of my older novels performing an 'upgrade' simply using pencil and paper, on the Scribe.

Yes, I'm repackaging many of my novels as part of my marketing push, during which I'll be attempting some new techniques.

I'll have to do a post about the software I use during editing etc.

Needing a novel approach

A couple of weeks ago I travelled via Waterloo to the South Bank for the sessions at SPS Live, which discusses writing, self-publishing and aspects of commerce. A longer train ride but so convenient for my  hotel close to the Queen Elizabeth Hall, where the sessions took place.

It's the third time I've visited and I always get new ideas and inspiration. 

The size of the sales by the various speakers seems to rise each time too. 

First time I was impressed by 800k sales, from single genre crime writing. 

Then the second time by over 2.8 million, from a couple of sisters who co-write The Zodiac Academy, originally from a shed at the bottom of the garden with sales via Tik-Tok. 

This time we had EL James and Lucy Score. 

EL James (Erika Mitchell) wrote that 50 Shades series and has sold 150 million copies worldwide. She jokes about having three houses. 

Lucy Score has sold many, but her Booktok chart is revelatory, having sold over 600k print copies.

I originally got into the whole writing thing via NaNoWriMo, but I guess it could be a useful side-line ('side hustle' to be down with the lingo nowadays) if I actually did some serious marketing. I've just about 15,000 books out there, but mainly e-books at the moment and my mailing list is about 3,000. 

Now I need to decide on ways I could raise interest and make it more obvious that some of my 35-ish books are in a sequence.

Watch this space as I take a spell away from the typewriter***

***I actually use a Mac Studio and MacBook Air to write.

Table needs a paint job

 Trip to B&Q required. And to get some JD. And some Devon Red. Jacket Potatoes finishing off.

2h10

Not a bad run Exeter to Paddington nowadays. 2 hours and 10 minutes, stopping at Tiverton, Taunton and Reading. Then cross town on the Elizabeth line. Easy.

Hook-Intrigue-Conflict-Stakes-Call to Action

What's this got to do with book marketing? A blue Ford Sierra? 

It was my commuter car when I started at the American firm. I worked out I could drive it for a few months and then it would have paid for itself. It wasn't new when I got it from one of those Trade Centre places.

I only had one cassette of music for my commute - Sheryl Crow. I used to know how I was doing on the route by the songs being played.

"No one said it would be easy
But no one said it'd be this hard
No one said it would be easy
But no one thought we'd come this far"

Sheryl Crow

Of course, that song got swamped by the lyrical copy from Coldplay.

"Nobody said it was easy
Oh, it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start"

Chris Martin - The Scientist

And I suppose I am going back to the start with the refurbishment/re-invention of my Ed Adams web-site and book blurb.

return of the adults

Some sensible people in this room.

And what happened to the ghastly blue Press Briefing Room that cost £2.6 million? 

pony-tailed font hater

The gangplank walker won.

Boo hiss. Instead of Jenny Leck, which will run and run, I'll talk about Avatar 2.

Mainly the font choices, as described in these two clips.

The setup:

   

The resolution:

 

excreble gangplank walker

I decided on my gangplank candidate. 

It's the execrable Tory candidate for my newly re-arranged constituency. I wanted to give each candidate chance - to check their spiel and so on. This person was unbelievable. Their case is spread over more individual Conservative leaflets than I have received in the preceding few years. It begins with a cheap shot at the Labour Party using a dumbed down punk poster campaign. Personally I think it should have been ruled out on the ground of misrepresentation, using slogans about Starmer and Reform with a sheepish nod to the conservatives in the second side small print. I don't have a copy, because I'm in London at the moment.

Then there is the main write-up, which continually refers to the electorate as 'People like you' a hark-back to the herd language of the COVID-era.

Oh yes and don't get me started on the bad use of grammar and spelling in his section about literacy.

A resounding 'no' from me as well as a complaint to be filed. The candidate last stood in an entirely different part of the country; defeated.

Thoughts for another post...The fact vacuum is full of lies.