Tag: Author

In the world of ebooks, there is a magic number

Five!

I have spent the last few years studying the art of marketing books, and whilst it seems that in most of the accounts I’ve read, tips, hinds, and everything in between, it seems it works for the writer, but very few if any, others.

And this advice doesn’t come cheap.

But one unequivocal fact seems to be, once an author has five reviews a whole new world opens up.

So…

Out of all this reading, and failing, and watching the slow, if any, sales of my books, one relevant fact remains undeniable.

Reviews sell books.  And five seems to be the number that starts the ball rolling.

And, I have no reviews.

Of course, there is a plethora of writer’s advisors out there that will tell you, for a price, where to look for people who will do reviews, free, if you’re willing to wait a few years (as I still am) or quickly if you are prepared to pay, sometimes upwards of $50 or more.

And it costs more to have these uploaded to Amazon as ‘authentic’ reviews.

So, the issue is, on Amazon you have to be a registered customer, buy a book, and then you can leave a review.  Once upon a time, you could have a review without this requirement, and people were using Fiverr to add reviews at $5 a pop.

I’m not sure how relevant these reviews were, but $5 seemed to equal 5 stars.

Amazon not only stopped that by aforementioned rules, but also took down all the reviews it seemed were written by Fiverr people, and it seems relatives or ghosts of the author (using the same IP address to post reviews of their own books under a different name) as well.

Glad I didn’t spend my money on that.

But there could be the answer to those authors out there with sluggish sales, imminent closure of their author page on Amazon, a means by which they can get authentic reviews and just a small boost to their sales.

REviews, as we all know, means sales.

None of us authors who have books on Amazon with sluggish sales are by any stretch of the imagination rich enough to buy reviews (some of which can be better depending on how much they’re willing to part with).

Me?

I’m willing to pay the price of your book, read it, and post an honest review.

An author who critiques a fellow author’s book carries a lot of weight, and like pushing a manual car with a dead battery, it only takes a small push to get things started.

To get those 5 or more reviews, it might only cost between $30 to $50, the price of one from a ‘professional’ reviewer.

But…

There is a catch.  If I buy your book, you have to buy mine, and leave an honest review.

This has probably been suggested a hundred times before, but I haven’t seen it recently.  It doesn’t mean it hasn’t been around for a while, and by no means is it meant to cut across any other means you may have of getting reviews.

For me, though, this seems a simple and elegant solution to an age-old problem in the indie authors world of marketing.

Nor am I saying that I’m a really good writer, that’s for my contemporaries to decide.

You can, of course, make your book free for a period on Amazon and try to get reviews that way.  I’m not saying that doesn’t work, but it seems to me you’ve put in a lot of effort to write the book, don’t you deserve something out of it?

From what I’ve read by a lot of authors who have gone down this route, it hasn’t exactly provided an adequate response.

I don’t price my books expensively, just $2.99.  I’m one of those ‘you sell more if it’s $3 than you would if it was $24.

Therefore…

This won’t work without others jumping in, even if only to add some comments on how this perhaps unoriginal idea might work for all of us.

By the way…

I write thrillers and mysteries, and have a large library of books in the genre, and will be willing to read your book.  My to be read list is rather lean at the moment, and new books cost more than I can afford at the moment.

Your book, if reasonably priced like mine, would be ideal for both of us.

Does it sound like we are ‘buying’ book reviews?  No.  I believe it is a valuable part of the publishing industry that authors review their fellow author’s books.  After all, so many of those reviews on Goodreads, are from people who have bought books.

And the best part…

We get to meet new authors who have a similar interest in a genre.  This could build into something else, but, of course, that sometimes means a lot of work.  Perhaps that might come later.

As you can see I’m excited about the prospect.

If you’re interested, send me an email at cwheath555@gmail.com.

 

 

A story inspired by Castello di Brolio – Episode 5

Another story inspired from a visit to an old castle in Italy.  It was, of course, written while traveling on a plane, though I’m not sure if it was from Calgary to Toronto, or New York to Vancouver.

But, there’s more to come.  Those were long flights…

 

I knelt down to Jack’s level and whispered in his ear, “Time to go, mate.  Things are about to get a little sticky here, and one of us should get away.”

I’m not sure he understood what I was saying.

I pointed towards the trees that ran along the wall.  “Go, now.”

He walked slowing in the pointed direction, then turned to look at me.

“Go.”

Another hesitation, then he headed towards and then disappeared into, the trees.

Behind me, I could hear the sound of boots on the rock floor of the tunnel.  The men had broken through and cut off my escape.  I didn’t believe for a minute that Jackerby was there to help me.

Well, out of the frying pan, I thought.

I walked through the gap between the trees, getting a scrape on the side of my face from a prickly branch, then burst into the open.  Jackerby had taken about twenty steps down from where he had called to me, and hearing the trees, turned and took a few steps back towards me.

Seconds later the two men from the tunnel came through the same gap and took up positions so I couldn’t escape.  Guns not drawn but ready in case they were needed.

“Where’s the dog?” Jackerby asked.

“Rats desert a sinking ship, why should dogs be any different.  Guess he knew I was for the high jump.”

“Didn’t have to be that way.”

I don’t remember getting an offer to betray my country and decline.  Significantly, he had made no more mention of his offer to help.  But, I had to ask, “Which side are you on?”

“The right side, of course.”

It was hard to tell what version of the truth that was.  He had one of those faces I associated with a professional poker player.

A nod of his head and we headed back towards the castle.  Jackerby walked beside me, the two guards about three yards behind.  Running wasn’t an option, I’d get two bullets in the back before I got ten yards.   There was very little cover to hide in, so that was out as well.

I wondered what fate awaited me back at the castle.

 

© Charles Heath 2019

So, I’m sitting down and having a Scotch and Soda when…

There’s nothing more I like to do at the end of a day than sit down and have a drink, usually Scotch and Soda or Bacardi and Coke.

But that’s the problem.

What is your definition of the end of the day?

No doubt for most it is probably that time when they get home from work, and take some time between then and dinner.  From my memories of American sitcoms of the 1950s, it was over Sherry and included a summary from every one of their day.

It was a time when women, apparently, preferred to stay home than go to work.  Odd, for some reason, that Hollywood would ignore the hard-won rights of women to have jobs, though some might argue out of necessity because of the war.

There was no computer games, contrary children, and that period, for the children was between coming home from school (doing homework) and going outside to play.

Yes, none of this disappearing into dark rooms for secret conversations on mobile phones or playing games on computers, or, dare I say it, being stuck in front of a television, pigging out on snack foods.

Any man these days who thought the 1950s sitcom scenario might be a social norm would be vilified by all and sundry.  His children would be in a permanent battle to be left alone, his wife would divorce him if he even remotely suggested she stay home or have dinner on the table when he got home, and that peaceful hour or so before the expected dinner, well, that disappeared a long time ago.

If it ever existed in any era.

So much for American sitcom stereotypes.

Now, in similar sitcoms these days, the children are obnoxious to their parent, yes, every family it seems in the USA is broken, and the mother is the long-suffering one stuck with the children and having to work, whilst the ex is out having a great time with his new girlfriend/trophy wife.

Hollywood is still stereotyping, but it’s much more dark and gloomy.

This is added to the continual threat of online predators, online pornography further reducing women’s hard-won right to be seen as more than just a sex object, bullying, not only at school and online but in the workplace, and above all that it seems men still treat women as second class citizens, not the least of which are corporate entities, and government.

Oh, and the mention of having a drink before dinner in this day and age would be associated with alcoholism, or a drinking problem, caused by excessive stress, and almost always added to an apparent addiction to painkillers or antidepressants.

What might also be worse is the alarming statistics of the number of women now drinking wine by the gallon rather than a few drinks in that period between picking up the children from school and dinner, driven by, take your choice of, obnoxious children or absent-minded or chauvinistic husband.

Damn, have I stirred up a hornet’s nest?

Sorry, I think I’d better cancel the notion of having after work drinks, and since I do the cooking, so there’s no expectation for someone else getting dinner on the table.

At least we are still married, and the children never had to deal with a broken marriage and two warring parents, but if any of the reports on why children are the way they are, I guess mine missed out on playing one parent off against the other, or get to live in different houses, or tolerate parents other boy or girlfriends, and live on junk food, well not all of the time.

Are they normal?

Perhaps when someone defines normal I will probably tell you.

I ceased being so-called chauvinistic a long time ago, and I had to have an attitude readjustment along with it, because, I’m told, we live in a different world now.

Perhaps I will have that drink or three; it’s certainly a necessity in order to watch the increasingly bad news, the antics of our politicians, and to watch the world gradually go to hell in a handbasket.

Whilst being politely told that I drink too much!

 

Travel is part of the story; dealing with airports, the very definition of misery

Our airport experiences so far have been all relatively incident free, although from time to time the sight of police or soldiers patrolling with guns can be disconcerting.

We have also experienced the odd problem in London at Heathrow, firstly trying to get help from the designated help staff and then to find the check-in desk of an airline apparently no one available knew existed.  They were not very good ‘help’ staff.

The fact we couldn’t find the airline counter left us cursing the travel agent.  It existed in name, we found it in the phone book and on the internet, but …

The phone rang out – ugh!

The internet site could not be used to check in or manage the booking on the same day as the flight!  Double ugh!

Until a little footwork found the agents desk and the misunderstanding was sorted out.

By the way, the airline itself was a pleasure to fly on, the staff were very helpful and most of all we arrived just before the airport closed.  It was odd to discover that some airports closed, particularly Florence.  It was the second time we were the last people out and having to turn off the lights.  And, because I booked the transfer to the hotel myself, he was there waiting for us!

Holiday over, the joys of visiting relatives we hadn’t seen for a long time, and an unusual but wonderful New Year’s Eve and a wedding two days later, only a flight stands between us and getting home.  After days, sometimes weeks, it is that moment we all look forward to; sleeping on our own beds, making our own food and getting to the gym to work off those extra kilos put on by delicious hotel food or local fare where calorie counting is not part of the dining experience.

Of course, getting to the airport from the hotel can be an experience in itself whether by taxi, perhaps the taxi driver from hell who knows only two speeds fast and stop and is also, unfortunately, color blind.

Or whether you have arranged for a transfer only to discover it’s not coming because the company went out of business or someone forgot to tell them.

Or the travel agent made a mistake or forgot to confirm the booking.  Oh yes, it happens.

Sometimes we have a hire car and return it to the same place.  Leaving the airport is usually early in the morning or late at night, dark or just around dawn, and the holiday’s starting, who needs to take any notice of how to leave the airport.

Let’s hope the signage at the airport makes it easy to find the rental place when we come back.  In London we had a hell of a time trying to find it; good thing we were hours earlier than we should be.

In Chicago, the car rental depot was miles from the airport.

And just because the sign says ‘rental returns’ for the lane you’re in it doesn’t necessarily follow it’s the right lane.  Then as you miss the exit, and get stuck on the one-way road system, all of a sudden you have left the airport and you’re heading back to the city.  If you’re running late …

But if everything goes to plan, and we are now more tuned into the problems that can happen, we now usually get to the airport with time to spare.

Most of the time.

So, don’t get me started…

It was going to be a quiet and productive morning.  I had all my ducks lined up in a row, something that hadn’t happened in a long time.

And then it happened.

The phone call.

I’m not sure whether it is the same the world over, hang on, only the European speaking countries like Australia, Canada, USA Britain, as a small English speaking sample, that get incessant calls from call centers in India (or places like it)

It seems the Australian telephone listing has been sold to them, and every single number put in their rotary dialing system, and it lands on mine about four, sometimes five times a day.

It’s a little past nine in the morning, and picking up the phone to answer it., I was expecting my wife or daughter in law to ask about my granddaughter whom I was minding for the day because she was too ill to go to school.

The dead giveaway it’s either a scammer on someone on an information fishing expecdition., is the momentary silence followed by a clicking sound, a few more seconds silence and then the Indian salesman-woman/scammer, call him or her what you like.

Yesterday it was solar panels.  Got them.

Or external shutters for windows.  Got them too.

Or my house needs aluminum cladding, more than likely the same stuff that burns dangerously as it had in London.  Just got the outside done,  but not with cladding.

You ask what are they selling, They, in barely understandable singsong English that I can barely hear let alone understand, tell you ‘nothing’, but then immediately launch into the spiel about the government rebate on solar panels, and I’d better get in quick.

No, definitely not a sales call.

Pity they didn’t redirect one of their government’s satellites and check to see if I have panels first.

There are others, pet insurance, death insurance, cars, holidays, house appraisals.

Yes, I definitely need to spend upwards of a hundred thousand dollars to fix my roof with is imminently going to fall, even though there’s nothing wrong with it.

Apparently, the day after I turned 65, I became a total idiot.

Hald an hour later, I was being reminded of the accident I had, don’t you remember.  Lately, I’ve taken to saying I’ve had about twenty and they have to be more specific.

I hate it when they immediately hang up and I can’t torture them some more.

Several hours after that Telstra, one of the largest communications companies in this country rings up to tell me they’re cutting me off from the rest of the world over this unpaid bill.

Since I don’t use them for anything, I tell them please do.

Then it’s the turn of the NBN to tell me that they’re cutting off my internet as if that would make a difference in this place.  I’ve got better speeds using an 1800 baud modem.

A recorded message \by a person who speaks perfect English.  Wow!  The scammers must have got sick of the verbal abuse and everyone hanging up in their ear.

Oh, did I forget the people from Microsoft who tell me my computer is reporting it is infected and they need to fix it?   I pass this call to my middle granddaughter who torments them until they realize they’ve been scammed and hang up.

But, as for today, and my first call…

I got annoyed, and asked them rather abruptly what they wanted, and then got abused for being rude.

Then don’t goddamn call me, scammers, liars, thieves, and crooks, and I won’t.

 

 

Conversations with my cat – 15

There are good days and bad days

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This is Chester, a cat looking for trouble

 

Bad days, today, trying to make the bed and the cat decides to get under the sheet and chase imaginary mice.

Peel the sheet back, toss the cat off the bed, go to remake it, and, you guessed it.

OK, we’ll come back to that.

Good days, sometimes occurring, but not often, he’s off the bed and on the prowl, though what he’s looking for is a mystery.

Perhaps there’s a gecko somewhere.

Good news, he’s out of my hair and not sitting on the keyboard trying to make a statement.

Working on the new chapter, I hear the patter of cat paws on the steps down into my office.

I turn to give him the ‘go away’ icy stare.

He returns it, in equal measure, tentatively puts his paw on the ground, ready to run if need be.

I shrug.

He goes over to the rug and flops down.

Under the fan.

Yep, they are lazy days of summer for some of us.

Saturday has come and gone

Although the main reason for its existence is to follow Friday, in some cases, it is the first day of the weekend.

Once upon a time, Saturday used to be a working day, you know, those days when we worked a 48 hour week.  Then it became a 44 hour week and we only worked in the morning.

Sd time progressed, we started working 40 hour weeks and had both Saturday and Sunday off.  Sunday, of course, was always a non-starter.  The churches made sure you were able to go to church on Sunday.

As time progressed, weekends started to begin of a Friday, with the day in question being granted by employers as a Rostered Day Off, provided you made up the time during the preceding two week period.

Now it seems the standing joke is we should work weekends, and have the week off.  Odd, it hasn’t quite caught on yet.

But, as usual, I digress…

After a week that got out of control, Saturday was supposed to pull it back into some sort of shape.

In a sense, it happened.  I looked at that list of things I had to do, picked one and got on with it.

PI Walthenson now had the intro to the plot diversion, and I’ve started putting the final edited versions of episodes 46 on, on the blog, ready to post them next week.

That done, I moved onto the helicopter story, otherwise titled ‘What happens after writing an action-packed start’, currently sitting at Episode 8, and now, with a solid few hours, had episodes written to 14.  These will be edited and transcribed to the blog for publication this or next week.

I never thought maintaining material for a blog would be so hard.

But…

Now I can say last week wasn’t a total disaster.

“The Devil You Don’t”, be careful what you wish for

John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums.  Looking for new opportunities, prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.

Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.

If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favor for him in Rome.

At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.

That ‘favor’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follows.

Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.

Purchase:

http://amzn.to/2o7ZtxZ

 

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Travel is part of the story, oh, the misery of a bad hotel!

Hotels can also be one of the major let downs of a holiday.

They can also be extensive fodder for writing material.  For the main stories I write, hotel stays feature prominently, and so each experience, no matter how insignificant, is another paragraph in my book of experiences.

So…

If you are going to use a travel agent to pick a hotel for you, make sure you check as much as you can before you see them, because no matter how it is described, seeing it, in reality, is always completely different than the pictures in a brochure and sometimes on the Internet.  It requires research and a good look at TripAdvisor.

Or word of mouth by someone you know and trust who have stayed there.

Take, for instance, staying in a five-star hotel, the usual stomping ground of the rich and famous.  It is always interesting to see how the less privileged fare.  Where hotel staff is supposed to treat each guest equally, it’s not always the case.  Certainly, if you’re flashing money around, the staff will be happy to take it, though you may not necessarily get what you’re expecting.

We were once lucky enough to be in the highest hotel loyalty level and this gives us a number of privileges; at times working in our favor, but it is not always the case.

Privilege can sometimes count for nothing.  It often depends on the humor of the front desk clerk and woe betide you if you get the receptionist from hell.

Been there, done that, more than once.

Then there is the room.

There is such a wide variety of rooms available, even if the hotel site or brochure has representative pictures, the odds are you can still get a room that is nothing like you’re expecting or were promised.

Believe me, there are rooms with a view, overlooking pigeon coops or air-conditioning vents.  And if you’re lucky, at Niagara Falls, it might be that six inches of window space that allows a very limited view of the falls.

Still, why should I complain, you can see the Falls … can you not?

A bone of contention often can be the location of the hotel and sometimes parking facilities, not the least of which is the cost Valet parking; given the extortionate cost sometimes it’s better to just forget a car.

It is nothing like the movies, you just do not drive up to the front entrance, get out, hand the keys to the concierge, and expect everything else to happen by magic.

It doesn’t.

One time we waited for over an hour for our luggage to be delivered, and that was after three phone calls to the concierge desk.

Sometimes you can be reasonably near transport, yes, if you could walk the distance (which feels like the length of a marathon) to the nearest bus or tram stop.

The problem is we both have trouble with knees and ankles and walking distances are difficult at the best of times, and for us, it is a long, long way when you can’t walk and that’s when the hotel starts to feel like a prison.  Taxis may be cheap but when you have to use them three or four times a day it all adds up.

Also, be wary when a hotel says it is close to public transport.  While that may be true in London, anywhere else and especially in Europe, you could find yourself in the middle of nowhere.

It’s when you discover your travel agent didn’t exactly lie but it is why that weekly rate was so cheap.  In the end, the sum of the taxi fares and the accommodation turns out to be dearer that if you stayed at the Savoy.

So, those front line experiences are fodder for the travel blogger, and people who are also known as road warriors, the true frequent flyers.

There is a very large gulf between five stars and three and sometimes three can be very generous.  And of course, l now have a list of hotels l would never stay in again, the names of which might surprise you.

 

Memories blur over time, differ from person to person

I was reading an article about the bible the other day, and what I gathered to be the writers intent was that the end result was an accumulation of many times retold and translated stories.  Of course, it’s not quite as simple as that, but…

It sort of relates to another story I read years ago and re-enacted with a few friends to check its veracity.  What happens is the first person is given the correct story, then having memorized it, relates it to the second and then along a chain of ten people.

The story related by the tenth person, when compared to the original, had only part’s of the original story and for some reason new elements that somehow were misinterpretations of original story elements.

This perhaps could be put down to the individuals upbringing and background, which always gets used in the interpretation of what they are told.  We all use different methods to remember things and this will always impact how we interpret and relate information.

It’s also the same when three different eyewitnesses to an accident will rarely agree on the details.  Certain elements will be the same, but others will not.

A case in point, when individual family members recall events involving all of them, each will remember seminal events differently, and usually, from their perspective, it will revolve around where they perceive they fit in the family hierarchy.  A stronger brother or sister will always see it differently to a weaker one.

My childhood memories are basically different to my brothers, and I suspect those events that he fails to recall are deliberately cast away because either they didn’t affect him, or there were so horrible, he deliberately cast them out.

We all tend to do that.  Some memories he has of the so-called old days I have no recollection of.

So it seems to me memories are a choice.  We choose to remember the good ones and cast out the bad.  Was that the case of when it came to putting the biblical story down on paper (or in stone as the case may be).

However we look at it, remember it, or relate it, the old days, the days of yesteryear will always be different.  For me, the ’60s and ’70s were horrible, for everyone else, well that’s another story.