Mary fails at modern life
Good morning, I am feeling monster lethargic this week. I have two book reviews to write, and haven’t and I have to do this and we’re going out tomorrow to some friends. That bit is good, in fact I’m really looking forward to seeing them. But I always have to drive which will be less good. It’s just over 50 miles and 45 minutes, a lot of which is crappy speed cameras and pointless speed limits round Cambridge – lots of points potential for the semi-somnambulant driver late at night. And because the McOthers always fall asleep after the late ones it’s even harder to keep awake because it’s like being the driver for a mobile dormitory. A mobile dormitory that is my husband’s car, too, which always adds that little frisson.
This meh I feel is the famous lockdown fatigue. I’m pretty sure of that. I feel like it all the time, and for the exact same reasons so it’s just an extra dose. I’m just … properly knackered all of a sudden. I have no more capacity to deal with idiots abroad and I’ve had the worst month of book sales since October last year. I’ve also had some lovely correspondence from folks on my mailing list but it’s been slightly clouded by one really pissy one. Because I’m an artsy numpty and the dark side weighs heavy … fork sketch brain.
Re the sales … having managed to increase them I really hoped it might be going to stick for a bit but … no. Sighs. And I really have to release some more stuff that’s not K’Barthan. K’Barthan is marmite. People love it or hate it. But the hardest thing about K’Barthan is that despite many people liking it when they finally read it, I swear that persuading them to open the book in the first place is the actual thirteenth Herculean task.
That said, I need to refresh my facebook ads and I’m going to try some BookBub ads for audio and for a freebie I’m running. The first in Hamgeean Misfit series will be zero pence all next week. I think the sales situation is a part of the meh, too, because they haven’t just tanked, they’ve imploded. Without the new release I’d be back to $35 a month, and that’s with the advertising. This is where I point out that all my books, audio, paperback and ebooks are available from any library. Check your app and if it’s not there, just ask.
Also, despite feeling a bit meh, I know I’m not alone and if you’re with me, neither are you. It seems to have hit us creatives like the plague … oh no wait, that’s the Rona. Gareth and I are in the throes of doing another audiobook and he confessed to feeling totally lethargic, himself. So that’s two of us. I bet there are more. Lock down fatigue is a thing though. So much a thing that I’ve found this link about it. It’s all about the limbic system, which is actually the same thing that makes us suddenly think that cleaning the grout in the bathroom is the most important thing in the world rather than that urgent project we have to finish by this afternoon.
Anyway here’s the gen on why lockdown makes us feel totally meh…
I’ll be fine again tomorrow. I think part of it was because I had a very lengthy and vivid dream that I was taking part in a quiz game with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and my husband at a golf club somewhere. It went on for a sod of a long time and at one point Dudley went off to the loo and his suitcase burst and we were trying to stuff all his things back into it but they were just coming out of the tears in the fabric.
The whole ridiculous escapade ended up with me following my parents and uncle along a river with McMini until it went underground. It was hard to keep up because they were moving faster than us and when it forked I wasn’t sure which tunnel they’d taken and took the wrong one. Then we ended up confronted with a cave wall and I turned round to discover that the walls had closed in and we were stuck in a bubble in the rock that was about the size of a small car. That was the point at which I thought, ‘this dream is fucking stupid,’ and woke up. But after concentrating so hard on the quiz first and then on not losing sight of my parents and Uncle, and keeping McMini with me, I woke up absolutely fucking knackered. Mwahahahargh!
In case anyone was going to attempt dream interpretation, yes, I know that dream is about feeling trapped and that I have no control of my life. Every single dream I have is about that because yes, even now, I haven’t quite grasped that the only thing we have any control over is how we react to what happens to us.
And as for travel. What I need is a giro copter … or the fucking transporter off the Enterprise. Where the hell is science though? Seriously. I know I ask this often but, ‘where the fuck’s my flying car?’ Instead we can invent packaging for meat that is so strongly glued together that I’m beginning to suspect it’s held together with the same stuff they use to glue the wings on Jumbo Jets or put McLaren’s together. MTM rolls eyes. I spent five minutes releasing a rib eye stake from it’s plastic carbonite, yesterday. It was so bad I made a film of my attempt to release the second one. You can enjoy that, if you’re so inclined, by clicking on the thing below. Most of you already have I think.
Publishing Industry news: the storm in a teacup award goes to …
This week one of the big boys of the indie book industry, Mark Dawson, has caused a stir by allegedly gaming the bestseller list. I signed up for his Facebook Ads course back in 2014 … or possibly 2015, I think I was in the second or third round of students anyway. I liked his dry sense of humour and he had a different approach. Didn’t seem to be bothered by the trappings, which made this whole incident come as a bit of a surprise to me. That said, it could equally have been a case of curiosity more than anything. He is always trying new stuff.
The story is, he did a UK only hardback edition for one of his books and his readers in the states wanted it. He realised there was an opportunity to experiment and bought the books from one of the shops where sales count towards bestseller status. He needed 400 books and it got him into the top 10. This it didn’t go down well. He has since had the ‘ranking’ removed but only on the grounds that the books were for sale to people abroad. And people have done this before and the listing stood but was marked with a dagger, which would suggest this sort of stuff goes on and is viewed by the establishment with ambivalence.
What surprised me was not so much that he did it, I mean, a lot of people do. Brian Epstein went round all the chart shops buying Love Me Do to get it into the charts. What surprised me was that a) anyone cared and b) that Mark Dawson gave a hoot about bestsellerdom since he’s incredibly successful in his own right. Did he really need that stamp of approval? Personally I avoid bestsellers, if something hits the bestseller lists, it’s odds on I won’t enjoy it, you know, like the film Titanic, which was utterly shit and made worse by the fact the ending wasn’t even going to be a surprise.
He does seem to have recovered his sense of humour over it though. After a jokey facebook post, by another author wondering if he could get into the top 25 by buying some of his books and sending them overseas, I was amused to discover that Mark’s reply was, apparently, ‘What could possibly go wrong?’
To read the article that kicked it all off, click here
Do bestseller lists mean anything?
You know what, from my own personal point of view, I genuinely think the answer to that is no. Then again, that may just be me. The whole NYT bestseller or Times Bestseller thing strikes me as a load of piss and wind. I wouldn’t game them like that, and I wouldn’t say no to the label but … am I That bovvered? Ner.
As a dyed in the wool indie music lover, I don’t discount chart bands out of hand, some are great but the chart is not the place I turn to automatically. With books it’s pretty much the same. If you read all sorts of books you’re not necessarily going to be searching the best seller list for new reads. Then again if it finds new fans, I suppose it’s a thing and I should take some notice. Can’t be arsed though. One of my crimes is enjoying mashed genres, especially when they can’t help themselves. The fact that thrillers about real science are beginning to wander into the sci-fi zone is not just brilliant, it’s a whole blog post on its own.
Thinking about this writing gig, though, the big thing is still to share the story. It’s something I am completely driven to do. The title of this blog is the truth as well as a joke. I am an authorholic and it is like a bad crack habit. So earning enough money to not have to do anything else is my real aim I guess. I would be over the moon with say £20k per annum. That would be nice. If I work it out I probably earn about three pence per hour for my creative endeavours. But I keep hoping that if I carry on publishing books, eventually there will be enough cash coming in to draw a salary. Pretty much all the books I sell are the result of my own personal attempts at marketing. Also, the more books there are, in theory, the more people will read because there will be a wider choice, more books different series … win win.
But do I want to be a big hitter, mover and shaker? Nah, not really. Too much like hard work. Even so, the aim is lots of mailing list sign and giving people free books … MTM hobbles on stage in black child catcher outfit with a sack barrow full of books. ‘Try my K’Barthan crack people. Yesssssss. Soon you will be hooked and you will be mine all mine! Mwahahahargh!’ Etc.
A while back, you could do keywords to make your books more visible and I know Amazon used to recommend them to people (case in point Gareth). However, I doubt keywords work that well anymore or that sites like Amazon recommend books the way they used to. As I understand it, those spaces are given to trad, or in the case of Amazon, you now pay for them. As a result, because I still sell more books there than anywhere else, they’re kind of on the back burner as I would like to grow sales elsewhere. And also when I do free runs on other sites, Amazon often price matches so I get readers there that way.
Likewise, I’m not sure that anyone just happens upon my books anymore, except during a free run – but obvs, you have to limit those or they lose their effectiveness. The telling thing, for me, is other authors talking about how many folks have signed up to their mailing through the back of books. In my case, it’s hardly anyone, but judging from the feedback I get, this is not because my books, or list, is unpopular. I suspect it’s simply that most people who read my books are already on my mailing list. Which is good because it does, at least, mean that my efforts at marketing in that direction are reasonably effective.
Events! Woot.
Next week, I am hoping to do a podcast which should be fun. I’m going to be doing the, Biblio Files podcast with Bonnie K.T. Dillabough. The topic we will be discussing is jemmying writing into the kind of life where there isn’t really room! So if you’re interested that’s on Tuesday 4th August at 6pm British Summer Time, I think. Or possibly 5.00 … I’m going to be on standby from then because I don’t know if British Standard Time means British Summer Time or Greenwich Mean Time because I’m so smart.
Feel free to join me a week on Tuesday, or if you’d like to see some of the other podcasts you can find them here
It’s quite new but there are some interesting things discussed. I particularly liked the one about the process of cover design.
Today! At Home Yalc!
Yep, this afternoon, Saturday 25th, at about the time I publish this post – 1.00pm GB time – an author of Young Adult books, Rachel Churcher, is putting on an on line version of the Young Adult Literary Convention. Mainly because the real live one is cancelled. This is basically a whole bunch of authors posting readings back to back. There are giveaways and all sorts of other smashing stuff. The authors are all using twitter and making live broadcasts so if you want to have a look, you can find all the details here.
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Also, if that little lot isn’t enough to get your teeth into, starting on American Sunday – so that’s about 1 o’clock our time and sometime in the evening for my readers in Oceania. I am giving the first in series of the shorts away for zero pence. Hamgeean Misfit number one is going to be free from 27th July until 17th August.
If you are interested you can find more information on this page here.