Self Publishing Red Rock

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts I now have my rights back for Red Rock and I intend to self publish it. I hope it will be the first of many, and I will be sharing the process with you as I go.

I will be republishing Red Rock under the name Kate Kelly which is how it first appeared. But I also have a second author pen name, KM Kelly under which The Sleepers was published. I intend to keep both these going. Children’s books will join Red Rock under Kate Kelly and my adult fiction will join The Sleepers under KM Kelly.

I did vacillate about whether my thrillers and adult SF should also be separate, but since my thrillers tend towards speculative anyway and my SF tends to be thrillers, I think they will work well together, and having them together under one name will make the marketing and promotion easier.

There are a number of stages to self publishing a book and I will be exploring these in detail and sharing what I learn along the way on this blog. But broadly they are as follows:

1. The Written Word

2. Editing

3. Cover Design

4. Formatting for Kindle and print

5. A Marketing Plan

6. The launch

7. Managing Expectations

For Red Rock steps 1 and 2 are already covered. The book is written and has been professionally edited. So I will join the process at stage 3.

And if anyone is reading this who is also starting on a journey of self publishing, or has already self published and would like to share some tips, then do reach out. I would love to hear from you.

Midjourney

I recently discovered the Midjourney bot and have been having much fun playing around with it and using it to try to come up with covers for my books!

If you haven’t already come across it, Midjourney runs on Discord. You give it a text prompt and the bot generates AI artwork based on your prompt. There are a few tricks you can use – setting the aspect ratio or different types of lighting or render to help generate a better and more specific image. And of course lots of self-published authors are using it to generate artwork for use in their book covers.

Self-publishing is something I was always wary of. I’ve read too many poor quality poorly edited self-published books. But as more people are following this route they are putting in more effort to make sure their books are of professional quality, and I can now safely say that I’m finding far more good than bad.

With the rights to Red Rock returned that is one book that will definitely be taking this route, followed, in time by others. And so I came to Midjourney with a great deal of interest.

I’m really pleased with the results I’m getting. So much so that I’ve nearly run out of free credits! So I reckon I’m going to have to take out a subscription so that I can play some more!

The Lifecycle of a Book

Today I received my rights back for Red Rock, almost nine years to the week since it was published. For now it is still available on Amazon, but it probably won’t be long before it is taken down. And then it will go back to being unpublished once again.

But this isn’t the end. I have a clean edited copy so at some point in the not too distant future I will self publish it on to Amazon, possibly along with a couple of other titles that I wrote but never sold – books that I believe in, even though I wasn’t able to persuade the publishing industry to take a punt on them.

For Red Rock all I will need is a new cover and to format it for kindle. The latter will be easy. The former less so as I’m not a graphic artist. I may be able to buy a cover off the shelf though – there are quite a few available.

So this isn’t the end for Red Rock. It’s only a pause before the next phase of its lifecycle begins.

Interview at The Mystery of Writing

Today I have been interviewed over at The Mystery of Writing. This is through the International Thriller Writers which I signed up for about a month ago. I should really have done so sooner. They feature all new releases in their magazine The Big Thrill which has a huge reach. They also conduct author interviews such as this one. So if you are writing thrillers or suspense and have a publishing deal do check them out! It costs nothing to join but the benefits are huge.

Anyway. Here is my interview: The Mystery of Writing

The Sleepers - Publication Day is here!

Today is launch day - The Sleepers is out in the world and has already been gathering some great reviews. It is still only 99p so grab yourself a copy before the price goes up!

As you can probably tell I've been having a lot of fun playing around in Canva to create some promotional graphics. This one tells you a bit more about what you can expect to find within those pages!

And now - off to celebrate with some bubbly! It's never too early - not on launch day!

Amazon UK

Amazon US

The Sleepers - Cover Reveal and Pre-order Links

 I'm delighted to be able to share the cover for The Sleepers and the pre-order links:

A time bomb is ticking—but what if that time bomb is you? A chilling novel of intrigue, terror, and one man and woman in a race against the clock . . .

Sylvie is running. Running from the memories of a terror attack in London she experienced as a child, an catastrophic event in which her brother died. Running from her abusive boyfriend. And running from a warning, given to her on a station platform in Nantes: Someone is trying to kill her.

Corran isn’t really Corran. He’s working deep undercover to infiltrate the political organisation that looks set to win the upcoming British election—a group that doesn’t appear to have existed a few years ago. Corran has been sent to find out who’s behind them and what their true agenda might be.

But he messes up. All he has is a list of names, Sylvie’s included. Only with time does he begin to see the connections. Are those on the list, who were caught up in the London terror attack ten years ago, now being systematically taken out? The hit list will force Corran and Sylvie into a reluctant partnership, and into the center of a looming threat that could explode at any moment . . .

Pre-order Links:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

A teaser

Not long now until The Sleepers is let loose upon the world. Not long to go until I can share the cover with you. Not long until the 26th April - launch day!