Monthly Archives January 2011

First Magazine Review

January 29, 2011 Reviews

A little while ago, I sent a copy of the book to a local magazine. Today I got my copy and, I will admit, flicked straight through to see if my book was reviewed in there. It was, along with complimentary lines such as:"...hidden twists and turns paving Folland's well-laid path of adventure all the way to a thrilling conclusion."James McAlpine, CR5 Magazine.The book got a very good review, and they even took the space to mention Arrival. It made my weekend, I can tell you.

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Local Author Adventures – Part One

January 28, 2011 Uncategorized

I've run a few unexpected events into since I took on the dread label "Local Author" and started promoting my book. The pseudonym preserves a lot of privacy, but even so there have been quite a few surprises. I might write a few more in this series - depending on how much is worthy of blogging. I hadn't actually considered that being a local author means forging a business relationship with stores you've been frequenting for years. Suddenly you are a supplier as well as a customer, but also a customer at the same time, which can lead to some very odd encounters.Walking into your local bookshop as a known author for the first time after they've ordered your book, the staff seem strangely on edge as you walk towards the counter. The thoughts are on their faces: are you going to ask about

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Arriving in second place

January 23, 2011 Arrival, Smashwords

I suppose I should be upset Arrival is currently at position #2 on a Smashwords anthology search.On the other hand, looking at number one......what chance do I stand against Justin Bieber?Arrival homepage - free e-book on Smashwords

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Yougottaread Trailer Contest Open

January 21, 2011 Uncategorized

The Fire Season Trailer was entered in this month's yougottaread contest.Voting is now open to all so, please take a look and vote (and to shamelessly drop a hint you vote in the sidebar and Fire Season is Option 19) .http://yougottareadvideos.blogspot.com

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Books on Shelves

January 15, 2011 Uncategorized

A very short update with some good news: Fire Season will be making an appearance on Waterstones shelves shortly.I did a full post about what it took to get listed on Waterstones system some time ago (see here). While the publisher and distributor are handling the main stock, I screwed up my courage and asked my local. I didn't have high hopes they would take any: Fire Season is a small press book from a new author. However as I found out, if the book is already on their ordering system stores can be very happy to help.So several copies are now making their way to Waterstones. Once they arrive in-store, I may pay a visit with a camera, just to get a shot of them on the shelves and convince myself it's real.

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Using Feedbooks for promotion

January 10, 2011 Uncategorized

Since I put arrival up on Smashwords, several people have suggested I should look at Feedbooks: http://www.feedbooks.com Similar to Smashwords, Feedbooks allows you to post short stories and novels in e-book format for download. However unlike Smashwords, all self-published books on it are free, making it useful for promotion or bonus content but less suitable for commercial use. I decided to put Arrival up, both to test out the system and to reach a wider audience. What follows are just my views.To upload the story, you first set up metadata: name, description of story, and a few more details including choosing your licence. The licence options are interesting - No licence, public domain and a full range of Creative Commons. If you are trying to use Feedbooks for promotion the Creative

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Using Smashwords for promotion

January 8, 2011 Smashwords

Since I put Arrival up, I've had a few questions about Smashwords, most asking about how easy it is to use. As I only have one story up, there are better people to ask, but this is just my opinion.It's pretty easy to use, taking a standard .doc Word file. No real technical knowledge is required. As long as you make sure that you follow the style guide, paying attention to things like paragraph formatting and breaks the results are pretty good. It took a couple of hours to get Arrival into shape, but if you aren't aiming for the Premium catalog, you can be less precise. However there are a few snags that came up which it didn't cover.Some characters don't go through the conversion process e.g. I lost my en-dash character. Also, smart quotes and apostrophes appear OK on most formats but

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