Last weekend (was that just three days ago?) I had a free book giveaway on Amazon for my time travel thriller, TimeSplash (that’s it in the left-hand column if you want to pick up a copy). As my previous post says, it was an exciting moment. A book that had spent almost two years in relative obscurity, was being grabbed up by thousands of people. In fact, in the course of two days, over 19,000 people downloaded the book. In the “Free in the Kindle Store” listings, it shot to #1 in Science Fiction, #1 in Techno-thrillers and #13 overall.

It was a wild and dizzying ride. If you’re not a struggling writer, you may not be able to imagine what it means to have so many people wanting your book all at once. Remember that moment when you first realised that the girl or guy you had fallen in love with actually loved you back? It was sort of like that but without the hope of a happy ever after. That’s because, after the free offer period, my book was going back into the “Paid in the Kindle Store” listings and all those nice high rankings would evaporate in an instant. So I steeled myself for the come down, the plunge back down to the dark and obscure depths to which it had slowing been sinking. (I don’t know how far down the Amazon Kindle ranks go. I’ve noticed books with ranks as low as 800, 000. It must be very cold and still at those depths, with soul crushing pressures.)

And then something peculiar happened. TimeSplash fell alright, but it didn’t fall very far (down to about #1000 overall) and then it started drifting back to the surface. Within a day, it had regained its #1 spot in Techno-thrillers – but this time in the “paid” ranks, of course, and was at #60-something in Science Fiction. The next day, I woke to find it at #11 in Science fiction and went to bed last night with it at #5, where it seems to have come to rest. It was still there when I woke up this morning, only now my overall rank has drifted up above #200 – the highest it has ever been.

Since the upward movement seems to have slowed, I imagine it won’t be long before the downward drift starts in earnest. Which is sad, but it was fun while it lasted – and I sold a truckload of books and actually made some real money out of writing for a change. I also managed to loan a few books through the Kindle library – which will translate to further earnings, although I have no way of calculating how much. And I got a handful of very good Amazon reviews out of it. (Well, three excellent ones, one that compared TimeSplash very favourably to Stephen King’s 11.22.63 and scared me to death,  and one in which the reader said she liked it but then went on about all the many ways she had been confused by it all. With which one can only sympathise.)

Also, I think I’ve learned a few things about how this all works.

1. Because Amazon lists the Paid and Free books side-by-side in its “Top 100″ pages, anyone looking at the best-selling books in, say, Sci-Fi, will see the most downloaded free books too. I can only assume that this is the mechanism by which the giveaway led to my book being noticed and then bought by so many people.

2. Equivalent ranks in the free and paid lists are by no means equivalent in terms of the numbers of books you have to shift to achieve them. To get a particular rank in the free lists, it seems you need to give away as many as 30 times more books than you need to sell for the same rank in the paid lists.

3. There is a vast difference between the UK and the USA when it comes to free book grabs. The Americans seem very keen on free books. They are well organised too. There are blogs and websites that track when free books appear on Amazon and spread the word to their subscribers. My guess is that there must be tens of thousands of such subscribers at the very least, perhaps hundreds of thousands. Thus, of the 19,000 I gave away last weekend, fewer than 2% of them went to the UK and Europe. As a consequence of this (and point 1) almost all the subsequent sales have been to the USA. The book just never made it onto Europe’s radar. All I can say to this is, God bless America!

4. Whatever the drawbacks of Amazon’s KDP Select programme (and their insistence on exclusivity is the biggest) it definitely worked with this particular book. As it happens, another book of mine went into the scheme and had a free book period last week with a very different outcome. The uptake was in hundreds not thousands and the after-sale bounce did not happen. Since the gaveaway, I have sold 2 copies of that book. Which just means there are all kinds of variables at play – timing, type of book, pricing, cover, blurb, etc. – and I’d need a lot more data before I could tell you definitely to go for KDP Select. All I can say is that it worked for me once, and didn’t work for me once.

5. Having scaled these dizzying heights for the first time ever, it has given me a new insight into the volume of sales being achieved by the big names in my genre. Wile I expect to climb up and fall back down fairly quickly, there are some who are up there selling hundreds of books every single day for months, years, even decades. It is a very humbling thought and puts one’s success into perspective.

And, as a footnote to all that, I add that in the time it took to write this post, the book climbed a little farther in the ranks. It just moved to #4 in Science Fiction, bumping Orson Scott Card’s brilliant Ender’s Game into fifth position. (Sorry, Orson. I didn’t mean it. I’m not worthy.)

I signed my novel, TimeSplash, into the KDP Select programme the other day because I was hoping it might give it a bit of a boost. It has been two years since the book was first published and sales have started flagging. Select gives you the option to promote your books by offering them for free for five days during the 90 exclusivity period. So, to dip my toe in the water, I set up two days – yesterday and today – to give TimeSplash away for free.

The result has been breathtaking.

As I write, TimeSplash is number 1 in the Kindle Store for Science Fiction, number 1 for Technothrillers, and number 28 overall. There have been thousands and thousands of downloads in the past 24 hours and the book is still climbing! What a day I’m having.

Of course, it will all be over tomorrow. The free offer will end, the book will go back into the “paid” rankings and I’ll lose the rankings I now have in the “free” section. It’s a shame (but fair). On the other hand, I got to experience, just for a little while, what it must feel like to have an actual best-seller climbing the charts. And I’ll tell you what, it feels fantastic.

And to all those thousands of people who downloaded the book (my site stats tell me that many of you are stopping by here), thank you for this great day. I hope you enjoy the book. And if you do, pop back to Amazon and leave a review for the book, why not? It will help me sell a few copies in between giveaways

As you may know, I live out in the Boondocks, the sticks, Woop Woop (or pick your own quaint phrase meaning “the middle of nowhere”). The main industries here are fruit growing and wine making.  They play country and western musak in the local supermarket and the churches outnumber the pubs about twenty to one. In this week’s local free rag – which is actually a half-way decent local paper if you can stand the unrelenting right-wing political bias – the front page story (and when I say front page, I mean it fills the whole front page, including a half-page photo) is about a local writer who has had a book published. The story wasn’t just that, of course, although the very existence of a local writer would have been newsworthy enough, it focused on the scale of the bloke’s success. His book has been published internationally, you see. Not only that but he has never had a rejection letter. The first publisher he approached snapped it up.

Of course, I was amazed, not to say a little miffed, that my own publishing success has gone completely unremarked in the local press. I read the article again, thinking I might find out who the bloke is and maybe look him up some time. It would be nice to have another writer to talk to whom I could meet in the flesh from time to time. It was then that a comment near the end of the piece caught my eye. The journo referred not to the man’s publisher but to his “investor”. In a trice I was onto the Web. The publisher of the book turned out to be a vanity press. Judging from what was said in the article, the author had bought their deluxe package at about $2,000 – no doubt this also included a carefully-worded press release to send to the local paper. And that, of course, explained why this writer had not received any rejection letters. (How would a rejection letter from a vanity press look? “Dear Mr. X, Thank you for letting us see your manuscript. We receive thousands of excellent manuscripts each year and, unfortunately, we are not able to take your $2,000 at this time. We wish you more success with giving your money to another publisher.”)

Still, I do know a few people who have used vanity publishing services over the years and in at least one case, their books are as good as any you might find from a major publisher. In fact, better than the bulk of them. And the article had said how amazingly well this particular book was doing. So I went to Amazon, to see what the fuss was about. There was no opportunity to read a sample, unfortunately, but I did notice that it had been out for six months but had only one customer review (albeit five stars) and its sales rank was around three million. (In case you’re new to the mysteries of Amazon, a sales rank of 1 is good. A sales rank of 3,000,000 means nobody is buying. I have no idea what any other number means.) So not really the success the article was making it out to be. In fact (and I have no idea whether the work deserves it, but) it seems to be languishing in obscurity. Perhaps the article in the local paper will improve its fortunes.

A number of thoughts occur to me about all this.

The first is that the journalist and editor who put this on the front page didn’t do even some minimal fact checking. This seems to be par for the course with journalists these days – even on newspapers you have to pay for. If they had checked the facts, they might not have printed such a breathless accolade, or described anything as surprising as a first time author who hasn’t had a rejection letter. On the other hand, the bloke might just be a relative of the paper’s owners or editor. Nearly everybody around here is related to everybody else.

The second is that the journalist, the editor, and perhaps even the author himself, simply do not understand the difference between a publisher and a vanity press. Maybe it is only people in the business who have learned to make this distinction. Maybe the rest of the world hasn’t cottoned on yet. The thing is, paying someone to publish your book is not the same as someone paying you to publish your book. Honestly, I don’t mean to be snobbish about this. I have self-published a few books (although I have not used a vanity press). Self-publishing and even vanity publishing are not bad things – as long as it is clear to the reader what they are getting. Like it or not, being published by a “traditional” commercial publisher (large or small) is the reader’s implied guarantee of a minimum level of quality. Self-publishing and vanity publishing mean there is no implied promise of a minimum quality level and the reader must take pot luck (or insist on reading a free sample before purchase).

The third is that I really ought to be more aggressive and mendacious about marketing my stuff.

Lately, four of the self-published authors I follow (on their blogs and Twitter) have said that they are giving up. Some are giving up writing altogether, some are giving up their attempts to be successful. Four is quite a rash and I wonder if it is a sign of things to come. The three that gave reasons, said it was because they are tired of putting their books out there and working so hard at marketing their work, only to be ignored by the buying public. They weren’t actually “tired” you understand, they were heartsick, they were miserable, they were defeated and broken.

Those of us who write and submit our manuscripts to the judgement of agents and publishers know the pain of rejection. Some wear the terrible number of rejections they have accumulated as a badge of pride (although that happens mostly after they’ve been published). It is gruelling and it is soul-destroying. Most writers hate it and wish it could stop. Some writers make it stop by taking their hats out of the ring.

In recent times, self-publishing has been seen as a way around the dreadful and often arbitrary judgement of the “gatekeepers”. Why should a writer go on suffering the rejection of publishers and agents, they reason, when they can simply and cheaply publish their own work and “get it out there”? While some see subjecting themselves to the judgement of the gatekeepers as “paying their dues”, others see it as an artificial barrier, erected by an old and crumbling system that no longer has the respect of the people of whom it sits in judgement.

But when you self-publish, you offer yourself to the judgement of a higher court: The Market. And don’t think for a moment that The Market is the court of public opinion. It is not. The Market is a whore, a gigolo. It has favours to offer, but only at a price. And the price is this: you must woo it, thrill it, entertain it, seduce it, plead with it, and subjugate yourself to it. If you don’t catch its fickle eye, its gaze will pass over you and find another, more willing to please it.

There are many panders who will offer the self-published author advice on how to succeed in The Market, but most of them are charlatans or fools. And, besides, so few writers are prepared to make the deals that really work, the ones that are made over buried bones at a crossroads. So the average self-published author sells a book or two a month on Amazon and keeps on writing and hoping – because the panders say you need lots of “inventory”.

But for some the awful truth hits them; The Market is ignoring them. And then they know a pain worse than rejection. A pain that squeezes at their hearts every day of their lives, for every book they publish, twenty-four seven. The Amazon KDP report mocks them. The Smashwords dashboard laughs in their pathetic faces. Self-publishing, for so many, becomes a nightmare of disillusionment and self-torment. The world just isn’t interested. They’re not being rejected because nobody even knows they’re there. They’re being ignored. Their life’s work, their hopes and dreams, they themselves, are beneath notice.

Beneath notice.

How long before this trickle of surrenders becomes a stream? How long before the stream becomes a torrent? I don’t know, but I do know I will continue to face rejection until I can face it no more. The alternative may be far worse.

That's me, near the middle, waving.

Just a quick note to mention that there are still seven days left to win one of 3 copies of the TimeSplash audiobook that are being given away at Martha’s Bookshelf. And it’s not just the book. A short story prequel I wrote and recorded myself will also be given away with each of the three audiobooks.

TimeSplash is a time travel thriller, a fast-paced story about two young people who devote their lives to hunting down the time-travelling terrorist, Sniper. Sandra, his former girlfriend, is driven by fear for her life after a time trip turns into a nightmare of destruction and murder. With no resources and no friends, she doggedly tracks the dangerous and powerful killer. But it is only when she teams up with Jay, an MI5 agent whose best friend was killed in the aftermath of Sniper’s worst and most deadly timesplash, that either of them stand any chance of bringing Sniper down. But time is their enemy. They must stop Sniper before his team pulls off its biggest timesplash ever and destroys a major European city in the process.

The audiobook is published by Iambik Audiobooks and read by the amazing Emma Newman.

The prequel is called Party Time and features the moment when time travel is first demonstrated by two unemployed physicists in a slum in the north of England, and their friend who realises the true potential of what is being demonstrated. I read it myself and Iambik Audiobooks have kindly hosted the recording for this giveaway.

Treat yourself to an extra Christmas present this year.

A special treat today! I am very pleased to present a short story by talented author Emma Newman (yes, the very one who narrated the audiobook version of TimeSplash). Emma is engaged in a mammoth project this year, to write five novels set in her Split Worlds universe along with a new Split Worlds short story every week. She asked for volunteers to host each of those stories as they come out and I am lucky enough to have that honour today. So let me stop rambling and let Emma take over.

* * *

This is the fifth in a year and a day of weekly short stories set in The Split Worlds. If you would like me to read it to you instead, you can listen here. You can find links to all the other stories, and the new ones as they are released here.

Last Fare

 “How much to drive out to Pinner?”

The taxi driver looked at the drenched girl, mascara down her cheeks, shivering. Night on the town gone wrong.

“Forty quid love.”

He waited until she was strapped in before pulling off, glancing at her in the rear view mirror.

“Filthy weather,” he said.

She’d slumped down, resting her head on the back of the seat. “Yeah.”

“I’ll turn the heater up for you.”

“Thanks.”

Early twenties he figured, she reminded him of his daughter. He’d see her home safely then call it a night. Most of the pubs were empty now and he’d made good money from the sudden storm. “Funny thing happened the other day,” he said, hoping to take her mind off whatever was making her look so upset. “I’ve been cabbin’ since 1968, and I tell ya, I never seen a movie star queuing at Paddington for a cab.” She stopped biting her nails. “So I watched him move up the line as I was waiting for a slot, and he gets into mine! It was Morgan Freeman!”

“What was he like?”

“Nicest bloke you could meet. He’d come in to Heathrow, I said ‘Would’ve thought they’d pick you up in a limo.’ And he says ‘I try to be as normal as I can be. When I come to London I get a train, then a cab, just like anyone else’ in that lovely voice of his, you know?”

“Yeah.” She was twisting round to look out the back window. He wondered if she’d been taking something, she seemed twitchy and paranoid.

“You alright love?”

After a long pause she said “You must like being a cabby then, to do it for so long.”

“There are worse ways to earn a living. ‘Course there were less muppets on the road then.” He pulled onto the North Circular and saw her twisting round again. “You sure you’re alright?”

“I think that taxi is following us.”

“That only happens in films love,” he said with a smile, but started to keep an eye on it. He indicated to pull off and then didn’t at the last minute, it did the same. “You have some trouble in town tonight?”

In the dim orange light he could see her chewing her nails again. “I split up with my boyfriend.”

“Sorry to hear that. Not treating you right was he?”

“He was too full on. I liked him to start with, but then he wanted to know where I was all the time and… well, you know.”

“Sounds like you’re better off without him.”

“My Mum’ll be upset, she loved him because he’s rich. There’s more to life than that though, isn’t there?”

“Sounds like you’ve got your head screwed on. Still live with your Mum do you?”

“Yeah.”

Good, he thought. He was definitely going to see her to the door, and keep an eye on who came out of that other cab if it followed that far. “Plenty more fish in the soup,” he said, and winked at her via the mirror. He caught a gleam of white as she smiled through the gloom. “Nearly home, soon you’ll be warm and dry and it’ll all feel better, I’m sure.”

She kept quiet until they got to Pinner then directed him to her street. All the while he kept an eye on the cab following them, there was no doubt now.

“It’s number 20, up there on the right.”

He parked as close as he could. “Your Dad at home is he?”

“Yeah, but he’ll be in bed.”

“How about you call him? Don’t want to worry you love, but that cab has followed us, and if that ex of yours sees your Dad at the door, he’ll think twice about making any trouble.”

“My Dad’ll freak if I phone at this time in the morning.”

“Let me walk you to the door then,” he said. “I’ll give him what for if he starts anything.”

“Thank you,” she paid him with a generous tip.

He grabbed his jacket from the front passenger seat and got out, making a point of giving the other cab a hard stare as he shrugged it on. Its engine was idling, the windscreen wipers working hard. He escorted her down the street, both of them glancing back at the taxi frequently, but nobody had got out. They passed the high hedges, all neatly clipped, many of the houses with large gates. It was a nice area, they weren’t short of a bob or two.

“I really do appreciate this,” she said.

“It’s nothin’ love. I got a daughter about your age, I’d like to think a cabby’d do the same for her if she needed it.”

She fished in her bag for keys, he checked back on the taxi. Still there. Her gasp made him snap around, a figure had stepped out from round the corner of her parent’s hedge.

“Christ! How did he get here before me?” she said, clutching the cabby’s arm.

“We didn’t finish our conversation,” the ex-boyfriend said.

“She don’t want to talk to you,” the cabby cupped his hand over the top of hers protectively.

The man peered at him. “This is none of your business.”

“It’s late, she’s wet through and she don’t need this right now,” the cabby persisted, feeling her trembling.

The ex-boyfriend came closer, prodded him in the chest. “You, be quiet.” His breath smelt sweet, like he’d been eating Parma Violets. “Rebecca, come back to London with me now.”

The cabby felt her arm slip from his and she stepped towards her ex, when he tried to ask her what she was doing, he just couldn’t work his tongue.

The ex stroked the girl’s wet hair. “Why run out into the rain? Silly girl.” He was definitely a weirdo; the cabby resolved to go and get her parents, no way he could go home after leaving her with him.

A car door slammed, he turned to see a man in a long rain-coat approaching, collar turned up and shoulders hunched against the rain. His eyes were close-set, it looked like someone had smashed his nose into putty and he’d let it set in a malformed lump.

“Mr Viola!” the ugly man called out and the ex swore under his breath, noticing him for the first time. “Step away from the girl and state your business here.”

“Arbiter,” the ex’s voice was trembling. “I was simply… returning a pair of gloves.”

“Which implies previous fraternisation with an innocent, that’s a poor defence.” The man came closer and peered at the cabby. “Are you alright sir?”

He tried to speak again, but nothing emerged.

The putty nose wrinkled as he sniffed. “You need to come with me, Mr Viola. I’ve seen and smelt enough.”

“Is that really necessary? Couldn’t-“

“Don’t bother. There’s a taxi waiting over there, the one with a driver. Get in it. And don’t try anything, I’ve already informed my superiors of your movements this evening. I’m not the only one watching you right now.”

The ex left in silence. “Sorry about that,” he said to the shivering girl. “He won’t bother you again. Stay away from him and his family, they’re dangerous.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Police,” he replied, and handed her a card. “Any more problems with him, call that number right away.” He looked at the cabby. “You should get home now, you need some rest.”

“I need to see her to her door,” he said, delighted to find he could speak again. The policeman nodded and went back to the waiting cab.

The girl thanked him on the doorstep, when the front door was shut and locked, he went back to his taxi. As he flopped into his seat, he realised he hadn’t asked the policeman for any ID, and the arrest was far from normal. “Leave it,” he muttered to himself and set off for home.

—

Thanks for hosting Graham! I hope you enjoyed the story. If you would like to find out more about the Split Worlds project, it’s all here: www.splitworlds.com. If you would like to host a story over the coming year, either let me know in the comments or contact me through the Split Worlds site. Em x

Sunshine is inimical to writing. The grass grows and has to be cut. The weeds grow and have to be killed. The fruit grows and has to be coddled like a baby. The dog staggers to the shadows, and drops. That seat among the tress beckons like a favourite vice. You take your laptop but the flashing rosellas and the spiralling eagles, the fidgeting thornbirds and flitting fairy wrens, the tumbling butterflies and swooping dragonflies, all take their toll. The horseflies and mud wasps zip around your head and snatch ideas as they struggle to find their way down to the screen. Like the lizards and the red-bellied blacks, your proper place is lying prone, letting sunlight seep through you. Like the wild orchids and the granite bluebells, your proper job is to nod in appreciation. This is why you came. This is why you found this place in the forest. Writing must wait for the rain.

A profound change has come upon me. No, it’s not the male menopause, although I’m long overdue for a red sports car and a dab of Rogaine. No, this change is based on the realisation that from this week onward, whatever I’m doing, wherever I am, I will never be without a book to read.

What happened to me is this: I bought a smartphone.

I got the phone about a week ago. It took me a few days to footle around with it, setting settings and playing with its various bells and whistles. Then, while I was in a vet’s waiting room, waiting, I downloaded the Kindle app and fired it up. If you don’t know how the Kindle works, let me explain. There is a central repository “in the cloud” where books that you buy from Amazon are held – they call it the Archive. You can download books from your archive into your device and then read them. You can also download books from other sources into your device, but they don’t end up in the archive. So, when I looked at my new Kindle app, there was every book I had ever bought from Amazon, just waiting for me. I picked “Welcome to the Monkey House” by Kurt Vonnegut – something my wife had bought recently, meaning to re-read, and I started re-reading it myself.

The display on my new phone is small (about 10 cm – that’s 4 inches in old money) but the text is clear and steady and I was quite pleased with the readability. The touch screen makes turning the page simple – a single touch with the finger (or thumb) to left or right turns the page that way (you can “swipe” to turn pages too if you’re feeling flamboyant). After ten minutes or so, the vet called us in and I popped the phone in my pocket and thought nothing more about it.

Until today.

I was in a coffee shop. I ordered my usual large cappuccino to go and settled in for the usual fifteen minute wait. To while away the time, I took out my new phone – and remembered I had a book I was reading. So I clicked through to the app and carried on with it. The coffee came. I put the phone away. A couple of hours later, I was waiting again – this time while my wife went to the library (oh, irony). So I whipped out my phone and started reading again.

And that’s when it struck me. I carry my phone with me whenever I go out. Even as I write, it is within hand’s reach of me. And now my phone is an ereader, connected to the largest online bookshop in the world. I will never, ever, have to spend another idle moment without a book to read. Old favourites, new adventures, are just a couple of clicks away. A collection far larger than my local library’s is there in my pocket whenever I want to dip into it.

I find this idea profoundly moving. It is a quantum leap improvement in my quality of life. I still can’t get my head around how significant this is.

I’ve been reading ebooks for years. I have a Kindle which is in constant use around the house, or in hotels on overnight trips. I’ve had a smartphone for years too – just not one with a large enough screen to make reading feasible. But, somehow, the combination of big screen phone and Kindle app has given me access to a capability far more significant than the sum of its parts.

Just for the record, I still prefer reading on the Kindle to on the phone (a Samsung Galaxy S, by the way, running Android). The Kindle was literally made for reading books. When I have them side by side, I will always pick up the Kindle. However, the awesomeness of having a not-quite-Kindle there in my pocket, wherever I go, has changed everything. I no longer go to where the books are, or where my ereader is; now the books come to me.