A Little Research

With two books coming out this year, I have a lot of work to do for promotion. As you've seen, I have my new Facebook pages all set up, but I figured I'd do some market research and find out what kind of things people like to see when an author is promoting a book. What will grab your interest for a new series? As an existing reader, what extras and snippets do you like to see?

These are some of the options I'm considering as part of my promotion work this year:

• Soundtracks (posting songs that inspired me, etc)
• Excerpts (these would be mostly brief, 1-2 line snippets, possibly with longer previews closer to the launch)
• Previews of future books (obviously this only relates to Lady Raven, and would be after the release of the first book)
• Cast lists (as if I were casting a movie adaptation of Lady Raven, and a cast list competition for readers of the Locked Within Trilogy)
• Goodreads giveaways
• Discount bundles
• Twitter accounts for Lady Raven and Locked Within
• Street teams (groups of people who share links and info about the books to help promote them)

Let me know what you think, and feel free to make suggestions!

Facebook Pages

For the last while, I've had several Facebook pages sitting mostly unused. I've generally relied on my own personal profile for all my social media promotion, along with Twitter and Google+.

This year sees me take on the challenge of becoming a hybrid author. I'll be self-publishing books while still submitting others for traditional publication. My new series, Lady Raven, will be quite different from my urban fantasy work, and it'll be important to steer my marketing in different ways for each.

To that end, I have created two new Facebook pages:

The Locked Within Trilogy replaces the previous pages I made for Locked Within and Silent Oath, and will from now on be the primary place for all promotional information about the series. In particular, as the year goes on more information will be posted about Final Hope, including details of the launch, blog tour links, and short excerpts to give readers a hint at what's in store for Nathan and his friends.

Lady Raven is the all-new page for, you guess it, the Lady Raven series of books. Similar to the above, there's going to be lots of info and updates about the new books, and plenty of news about various promotions happening.

The Figures Are In

And I have a lot of work to do.

I got my royalty statement for the second half of 2013.

As far as Locked Within goes, ebook sales are up on the first half of the year, which is good. Hard copy sales through Amazon/bookshops are the same (literally, exactly the same - weird). I still made the vast bulk of my sales though, both directly and through Amazon/bookshops, in late 2012, just after the book was released. That said, earnings are down, suggesting that these sales took place during price promotions.

Silent Oath, taking into account both direct sales, Amazon/bookshop sales, and ebook sales, has performed worse in the same post-launch time period than Locked Within. Sales on Kindle are higher than they were for Locked Within at the time, but at a lower average price (due to price promotions), judging by the money earned.. And hard copy sales were about two-thirds that of Locked Within's sales.

I did a lot more work to promote Silent Oath than I did for Locked Within. I had an existing platform and knew who to go to for reviews, not to mention arranging a much larger blog tour. So between lower prices, and the extra promotion, for my sales to still be down, even taking into account that Silent Oath came out a month later in the year than Locked Within, is concerning.

In terms of overall sales between both books and the short story, I've sold more in the latter half of 2013 than I did in the latter half of 2012. But not by very much. And in terms of the money the books are earning, I'm looking at just over half what Locked Within earned on its own after it was released.

While tracking sales figures continually is an easy way to drive yourself crazy, it's important for an author to take a look at figures over regular periods like this. I won't be able to judge completely how I've done until my next royalty statement in a few months, but for now, I think I need to work out what I'm doing wrong, and fix it.

Superheroes Who Should Have Their Own Movies

I read this article yesterday, and thought I'd share it here.

I'm not one to shy away from a good superhero movie, and I'll never be sorry to see more Superman and Batman on the screen (even if I'm not a fan of more recent versions), but yeah, seriously.

That last entry says it all. Fact is, whether the Ant Man in the upcoming movie is Hank Pym or not, we're apparently more willing to see a movie about a character known for hitting women, than for being one.

It's tragic that Wonder Woman's first appearance on the big screen was in the Lego Movie.

Book Updates

I figured it was high time for an update to let people know how 2014 is going, writing-wise.

Carver and McCain
This book, working title Candlelight, is proving a fun project. I enjoy world-building and it feels good to be working on an investigative story again. Actual wordcount is slow going, but that's because I've not been getting much sleep, and it's difficult to keep up momentum when you'd rather take a nap ;-)

Overall, though, I'm feeling good about this new series. The more I work on it, the more I want to do.

Lady Raven
I haven't yet polished up the manuscript to get it ready for my editor, but it's getting a lot of interest locally. I don't have a firm release date yet, but I really need to start looking into venues for the launch...

Final Hope
The big one. :-D

My editor is moving into line edits, having been quite pleased with what I've done so far. There's still the possibility that a lot could change, but it's a fantastic boost to hear my editor say such positive things so early in the process.

As part of the promotion for Final Hope, WiDo will also be releasing another short story as a mini-prequel. Where the previous short story focused on Cynthia, and how she was dealing with the events of Locked Within, this story will focus on Nathan and Elena, and how they cope in the cold, potentially lonely Christmas between Silent Oath and Final Hope.

I hope everyone's as excited for these as I am!

Late With All The Things

Whether it's blog posts, preparing to run a tabletop RPG again, or working on one of my new books, it feels like I'm working several days behind on everything.

I should probably have expected this, given that the first couple of months after a new baby arrives are always the toughest on your routine. Also this time there are a whole load of other distractions, like marveling at the sheer ignorance of people who find it offensive that a song celebrating America would be sung in any language other than English, or how the Irish state broadcaster decided to protect the rights of people to have dissenting views... by censoring someone for having an opposing view and paying damages to members of the organisation he (extremely mildly) criticised.

Thankfully there have been good reasons to be distracted as well, like getting started on Arkham: Origins and watching my older daughters happily laugh their little heads off whenever they see their new little sister.

Normal service will resume... sometime. I promise.

Prejudice

Bit of background on this.

Recently, a guest on a show on RTE referred to members of the Iona Institute as homophobic. You can find details on the story here:

http://www.thejournal.ie/rte-no-comment-damages-saturday-night-show-1287287-Jan2014/

Here's the thing. Homophobia is defined as aversion and prejudice towards gay people. To believe that non-cissexual people are inherently less capable of being good parents, or don't deserve to have their unions recognised under law, is prejudice.

Some people claim that a child needs a mother and a father to grow up in a healthy, loving environment.

Some people claim that the only definition of marriage, often citing the Bible or another religious source, is between a man and a woman, and back this claim up by stating that marriage is to allow for the creation of children, in the "ideal" family arrangement as described above.

I find it funny, and not in the good way, that these arguments only come out when someone wants to argue against marriage and adoption rights for gay people. These groups never argue that a single parent shouldn't be left to care for a child. They never insist that married couples should be forced to have children, or that people who can't have children, or simply don't want to, should be prevented from marrying.

These arguments are all readily produced when it comes to denying rights to gay people, but quickly tucked away before they can be followed to their logical conclusion. To say nothing of the fact that there is no evidence that children raised by same-sex parents have any disadvantages to those raised by a man and a woman. And without even going near the fact that the definition of marriage in the Bible, so vehemently defended, has changed over time based on the demands of society.

There is no other way to regard the views of the Iona Institute as anything but prejudice against homosexuals. Therefore, by definition, the organisation's views and goals are homophobic.

Did we really need our state broadcaster to shatter any concept of being an unbiased source of information, and hand over taxpayers' money to an organisation dedicated to ideals that run counter to those of a significant portion of the populace?

Writing Without Sleep

As wonderful as my kids are, I will never miss the lack of sleep that comes with the first weeks of parenthood.

The hardest part isn't getting up for work (though that's no picnic...) or having the energy to take care of my children, because they energise me like nothing else. No, the hard part is managing my writing time.

It's a holdover from when writing was a hobby, just another way to spend my free time. It can be tough to think of it seriously, as an important priority.

My usual writing time is during my lunch in work, supplemented with a couple of hours on weekend mornings. At the moment I've been indulging in a shiny new computer I treated myself to, and playing some video games on weekend mornings.

And I've been trying really hard not to nod off on my lunch hours in work.

Things will have the kick into a higher gear soon, as I start my edits on Final Hope and Lady Raven.

Of course, I've learned my lessons from last year, and as much as I want to be able to write all day, every day, I know my body and mind need time to rest. I can't spend all my waking hours writing if I'm only getting maybe 4 hours of sleep a night, total. So I relax, I enjoy my chillout time watching tv with my wife, or playing video games while the rest of the house is asleep. Importantly, I do it guilt-free, because I know all too well that I need to take whatever rest I can get when I can get it.

Over the next few weeks I'll be solidifying my plans for the release of Lady Raven, letting you all know how I find the self-publishing process. What'll be really interesting is seeing how I juggle this with my traditional-publishing work. Of course, anything I'm on a contract for has to take priority over things I'm only working on myself, and I won't let my Nathan Shepherd fans down. I promise this is going to be a great year for my stories, seeing the end of one, and the start of so many more!

Beneath The Black Flag

Today, I thought I'd share a song by Miracle of Sound, which became the main inspirational theme for Lady Raven while I was writing it.

Since Cora becomes a pirate, I listened to a lot of sea shanty-style songs and considered how pirate culture would work in the series.

I'll be revisiting the song closer to Lady Raven's release, but for now sit back and enjoy!

Lady Raven

I've started receiving feedback from my Lady Raven beta readers. It's coming in slow, but it's giving me a lot to think about before sending the book to my editor.

I'm still self-publishing this one, and it's scary as all hell, so I'm taking my time and making sure I know exactly what I'm doing. I've found out about some great low-cost options for internal formatting, and I'll be working with a photographer friend on cover art.

With this, Final Hope on the way later in the year, and starting work on the first Carver and McCain novel, I'm really excited and looking forward to what this year will bring to my career. Of course, I have to prioritise things based on how soon they're due. While I don't have a release date for Lady Raven yet, I'm hoping to have it out in late spring or summer.

I'm coming up with promotional ideas, including my usual soundtrack lists and some character bios. If there's anything you guys would like me to do in the run-up to the release, or details you'd like to know about the book or how I've found this process, let me know!