The Arid Lands

This blog has been quiet recently for a number of reasons. Firstly I never have much spare time during the summer months, life takes over and there are so many places to see and things to do. I’m very much an outdoor person and can think of nothing worse than sitting indoors at my computer when the sun is shining inviting me out to play.

But in between all this sunshine and frolics things have been happening and progress has been made. The new thriller is coming on well, and I have decided to self publish my next Sci Fi book, just because I can.

Originally I felt it was important to have a proper release schedule for my self published books in order to increase visibility, but the sorts of schedules that people advise are well beyond my reach, and even if I did save up my books to release in rapid succession, there would still be a cliff edge when I stop.

So I have decided to release them as I am ready, not worry too much about schedules and simply enjoy the process.

So I am delighted to announce that my next book, THE ARID LANDS, a Sci Fi Thriller with a dystopian feel to it, will be released on the 19th October.

I will be telling you more about it over the coming weeks, starting with a cover reveal – watch this space!

Sale of Two Drabbles

In case you are wondering, a drabble is a short story of exactly 100 words. And I'm delighted to share with you that two of my drabbles, 'Afterwards' and 'Oak and Ash' will be appearing at Wyldeblood Press in the not too distant future. I will let you know when they go live.

The Red Rock Promotion Experiment and where I go next.

The results of the Red Rock publicity and promotion experiment are in, and I’ve been analysing the results. Hmmm.

Red Rock was originally published in September 2013 through a traditional publisher and I had all the advantages of having a marketing team and a designated publicist helping me. I have spoken elsewhere on this blog about the promotional activities which we did.

For the re-release I avoided repeating those, although with future books there are definitely options I can pursue. But I did take the opportunity to try out a few other publicity activities largely geared towards the e-book, and focussing on what I could achieve online. This was mainly through the medium of social media. For example:

1. I set up an author Instagram account and make regular posts about my writing

2. I promoted Red Rock on twitter with a cover reveal and in general increased my interactions on that platform

3. I increased my activity in the various writing/author groups to which I belong and talked about Red Rock and what I was doing about re-releasing it

4. I revived my author facebook page

5. I enrolled in a Kindle countdown deal setting the price at 99p for one week

6. I timed the countdown deal to coincide with Earth Day

7. I participated actively in #IndieApril on Twitter 

Of course, there is the disadvantage that most of my immediate network have already read the book (if it is to their taste) so I was really trying here to extend my reach outwards to find new potential readers. I certainly learned what doesn’t work, (pretty much everything listed above) and I found the whole exercise an interesting if rather depressing experiment.

What is clear is that producing a quality product, editing, formatting, cover art, is the easy bit. Finding readers is a lot more difficult without the backing of a publisher. Even those who expect the author to do a lot of legwork can still make a huge difference to sales through their review networks etc.

So where do I go moving forwards?  Well I still intend to self publish my Science Fiction novels, but I’m going to keep aiming at the mainstream market with my thrillers and I will be giving them priority. I have a new novel on the go, but you will be seeing one of my SciFi novels hitting the virtual shelves in the not too distant future. But more on that later. For now I have some writing to do.

Countdown Deal for Earth Day

April the 22nd is Earth Day. A perfect opportunity to promote Red Rock. And also to test out Kindle countdown deals.

So for one week in the run up to Earth day, from the 15th - 22nd April, Red Rock will be available for the reduced price of 99p (UK) and 99c (US).

I will do my best to promote it on social media during this time. Let's see if I get an uptick in sales.

Marketing Red Rock – a plan for promotion

I don’t intend doing a great deal of marketing and promotion for Red Rock. This is a re-release and in my mind it’s already had its day. But rather than simply press publish and leave it there to gather dust, I’ve decided to do a few things to give it a boost. It will be interesting to see which, if any of these, result in an uptick in sales.

1. Author social media accounts, twitter, Instagram, other? In the end I decided to set up an author Instagram account. I then generated a set of promotional graphics using Midjourney and Canva which I will publish to this account at regular intervals.

2. Run a giveaway. (Unfortunately Goodreads only allows this for US authors so I will run it from my author IG account and try to boost on Twitter) The giveaway will be for an e-copy – that way I can run it internationally. It might be good though to have some additional swag or a prize to make it more interesting. The easiest thing for me to offer is a chapter critique.

3. Countdown deals on Kindle Unlimited. I could offer it free or at 99p  to coincide with a special event such Earth day.

4. Review copies. Offer review copies in various ‘groups’ I belong to in the hope that they will enjoy it and give it a boost.

5. Participate in indie author events eg #indieapril on twitter

I will report back on these and what effects they have, which appear to be the most useful, and which don’t appear to make any difference to sales. This will be useful for me when I come to self publish my next book, which won’t be a re-release. The next one will be something new.

Formatting for Kindle and Print: A very simple guide.

Here is a very simple checklist for formatting your book for publication using Amazon. This is for both kindle and print. Make sure that before you start this stage that your novel had been fully edited and proofed.

Formatting for Kindle:

•         Clean document:  Ctrl A to select all. Set to ‘normal’ from headings section.

•         Set up title page, copyright etc format to centre set book title to Title, other text to normal.

•         Insert hyperlinks.

•         Inset page break at end of section

•         Set chapter titles to Heading, set text to normal,

•         Put page break at end of each chapter: On the Paragraph screen, under Indentation > Special: select First Line, and indent it by 0.38”

•         Remove spacing before and after

•         Click on normal and update normal to match selection

•         Edit title and heading style in the same way so they do not indent.

•         Generate epub/MOBI files (I use Draft2Dignital for this stage but I don’t press ‘publish’ as I’m only after the files.

I find it useful at this stage to send the novel to my kindle to check it is displaying correctly and also to pick up any last minute errors that may have crept in.

Formatting for print:

•         Use your clean kindle file as your starting point.

•         Set book size 6x9 (or 15.24: 22.86)

•         Ensure that you have no clickable hyperlinks in your book.

•         Add page numbers at bottom of page in the centre.

•         Select different first page to remove the page 1 number.

•         Check page breaks are where you want them

•         Export to pdf

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.