Cutting losses

After much thinking I've decided to cut my losses on Viking Magic. It received one one-star review and once the review went up, sales dried up and never recovered. Amazon won't remove the review, so I am removing the book. It isn't easy to "unpublish" something, but we'll see how it goes. Onward and upward, as every writer learns to say.

Thankfully my latest wip is going well and should be ready soon. It is nothing to do with Vikings, but set in late Victorian Northumberland and London where manners count and ladies didn't dare attempt a career if they wished to marry and raise a family.

All I need now is a title, a cover and a final, final edit!

Books and the Internet

Still hammering away on edits and struggling to find a title that hasn't been used before. The trouble is almost everything has been used already! Especially if you want to use the word Queen. Too many books flooding the market these days - that's something  Amazon has done. Not single-handedly, I admit, but it certainly helped. (Just as it helped me - Yes, I know! Pot calling kettle and all that)

Viking Magic went free for two days just to see what the response was. I remember the first book I put up for free was Fair Border Bride and it rocketed up to something like 15,000 takers, mostly in the USA. That was five or six years ago,  So how did Viking Magic do over two days?

A total of 124 downloads and still the biggest freebie takers are in the US - 86. The UK = 26, Germany 7, France 1, Australia 1 and Canada 3. (It would be nice if a couple of those people wrote a nice review for me! The only one I've received for VM was written by someone who was definitely having a bad day.)

So, as a way of gathering readers, going free doesn't seem like the tool it was. Times change, and they change exceedingly fast in Internet world. Twitter and Facebook seem the most obvious alternatives, but even there, marketing persons seem to be taking over and plugging the same titles over and over again.

Domestica and writing

Drowning in domestic things with no time for blogging for the last few days.  Getting ready to go to France, and that is where my next blog will come from just as soon as I can get myself set up electronically. We've also been very social this week. Everyone seems to want to make the most of the warm evenings with the happy clink of wine glasses and conversation. Last night we enjoyed an enclosed log burner in a neighbour's garden. It provided a lovely glow, kept us warm and also kept the nasty little flies away. I recommend one for any garden.

Almost done with the washing and ironing. Now the problem is what to take and what to leave behind. Then of course there's the tennis from Roland Garros, and I'm watching every Rafa match because, as I say to my long suffering dh, you never know when it might suddenly be his last match. Not that I'm ill-wishing him - I want him to go on for years or as long as he wants to. There's Djokovich to keep an eye on, and Fed to watch when we get the chance. It all takes up a lot of time, and then there's Tim to walk. The thing that is suffering is my writing, but that will soon be rectified. The one I suppose I should watch is Murray, but he is so graceless. I know his tennis is good, but I  always want to shout at Andy - Stand up straight, get your head up, move like an athlete....why he shambles around I can't imagine. There's nothing wrong with his physique or his looks, and yet he refuses to present himself to best advantage.

Viking Magic is out and doing well on Amazon Kindle, so I'm concentrating on  Capture a Queen. That's the  one that has been going on in the background of my life for so long now that you would think there would be nothing to alter. But I'm amazed to find I'm still editing. Simplifying text, making it flow more elegantly, tightening the drama where possible, changing a few -ing endings where I spot them. Also, cutting where I think it needs it. I'm hoping to have this finished and published on Kindle this year, hopefully in the autumn when people start reading on cold winter nights.

I'm also wondering about Createspace. It would be nice to have a book in my hands again and Capture a Queen is aimed at Historical fiction rather than historical romance. If anyone has comments on Createspace, do let me know.

Let me introduce my main character...

There's a Blog Hop going the rounds and I've been tagged  by Laura Purcell to talk about my main character. 

1. What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person? The hero of my novel is Oli Ketilsson and he is totally fictitious! I see this as a dual-hero story. Oli is young, somewhere around sixteen or seventeen, no one is quite sure and although it is his story, he shares the pages with his foster-father, Flane Ketilsson, who is only ten years older and a fully fledged Viking warrior. Flane was the hero of Far After Gold, which some of you may have read. If you haven't don't worry, it's not necessary to have done so.

2. When and where is the story set? The story covers a couple of weeks during the summer of 1046, when the worst of the Viking raids were over and Vikings were settling down and farming their new lands.  Oli and Flane live in Ulli's Steading on Loch Broom in north-west Scotland (aka Alba at that time), but a good deal of the story takes place in Dyflin (aka Dublin today). 

3. What should we know about him? When Oli was six or seven, his father was lost at sea and his body never found. His mother died in childbirth soon afterwards. Oli lived in the Steading, cared for by "no one and everyone," as Flane put it. When Flane took Emer to the steading, Oli became her first friend, and when they  married they adopted him as their son. He has always idolised Flane.

4. What is the main conflict? What messes up his life?  There are not many girls of Oli's age in the neighbourhood, so when Gisla leaps aboard Flane's ship as they leave Dyflin, Oli falls head over heels in love with her. She is terrified, escaping from someone or something, and instantly Oli wants to protect her. Flane isn't so sure, especially when a Viking warship follows them home to Alba and demands that the girl return to Dyflin in order to marry Karli Olafsson. From then on, Oli risks his life for her.

5. What is the personal goal of the character? To be as brave a warrior as his foster-father Flane, and to save Gisla and have her all to himself. 

6. Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it? VIKING MAGIC was published on 8th May 2014, and it is available via Amazon Kindle. 

I’ve tagged the talented Heather King continue the blog hop. She will post on 21st May 2014.

New Release - VIKING MAGIC

Yesterday I published by accident! VIKING MAGIC  is now on the market.
I had intended to download it to Kindle Previewer as a final check that everything was OK, but hit the wrong button. By this morning it was up for sale, so I bought it, hastily checked it and it looks OK. If there is anything wrong with it, I expect I'll soon hear about it!  So there we go - rush out and buy, everyone!

Now I shall give myself a well-earned rest and potter in the garden for a bit until the urge to write strikes again. These last few weeks have been a struggle to get the editing done to a high standard, and the cover gave me some tough decisions. I wanted something striking and simple, something that would stand out from all the covers that feature bare chested men and heroines with long flowing locks - but would still suggest romance as well as Viking adventures.

I could turn my attention to my other novel, the one that has been on the stocks for so long. Maybe it is time to self-publish that one as well. If I were twenty, I might persevere with the seeking-an-agent thing, but I'm not twenty and don't have time to waste. So, I think I have a plan - a few days well earned rest, and then focus on Matho and his pals.

The link to the new book: http://tinyurl.com/qayzzz7

VIKING MAGIC

Soon I shall be free! I'm on to checking the actual format of my book VIKING MAGIC.

Are all the chapter headings and Scene Breaks the same? Is the spacing correct? All that sort of thing. Boring but necessary. Once I load it up on Kindle previewer I'll see what tricks I've missed.

The woods behind us have sprouted dense patches of bluebells and the blue seems to get deeper as the days go by. Wonderful. There are butterflies zooming about and the days are warm even if the sun doesn't shine. Thanks to Tim, I get out and about every day, three times a day, so I feel deeply in tune with nature this year. We've had the delight of discovering snowdrops while crocuses bloomed in the gardens. Then the daffodils, followed by primroses, a week later the wood anemones and woodland violets. Now we have cowslips (said to be rare these days, but they've sprouted in my garden and in various places along the riverbank) speedwell, dandelions, celandines, forget-me-nots and now the buttercups are joining the daisies. All that rain has brought a riot of spring flowers. Any couch potatoes out there should get up and get themselves out into the coutnryside and enjoy it all.

Titles and covers again

I have my new cover to match the new title on my upcoming release. For better or worse, this is it!

The worst of the double edit is behind me now. There are about six chapters printed out and waiting my attention. I've edited them on screen, but tomorrow I shall edit the print-out and make necessary adjustments. (There always are!) I think by tomorrow night I shall be finished. What a relief!

One thing I've discovered with covers is to get the size right for Amazon Kindle first of all. They recommend 1563x2071, and getting that right after you've worked on illustration can be soul destroying. To get the right size you sometimes need to be able to free up proportion constraints and that, as you can imagine, sends your illustration through the wringer. Dragons come out looking like swans and vice versa.

Colours are important. I want the cover to stand out among all the others, and somehow Black and Red just didn't do it for me this time. It looks fine close up, but viewed among many others, it just faded away, whereas the orange cover still drew the eye.
Well, OK, it drew my eye. 

I hope the dragon head says Viking to everyone who looks at it. The story is a romance, but I didn't want to put a bare-chested man in a fur tunic on the cover. Tell me I'm wrong or old-fashioned if you must, but that sort of cover says to me that there is only romance in the story. My stories have romance, sure, but they also have adventure, death and disaster. The villain certainly gets what he deserves in this one! The hero is Oli, a sixteen-year-old who falls head-over-heels in love with a girl who has rather a lot of problems to solve. Oli was nine years old in my book Far After Gold and his life with Flane and Emer has been fairy easy up until this point. If he wants to win the girl,he has to rise to the challenge and Karli Olafsson is no normal Viking.....
Look out for Viking Magic on Amazon Kindle in the next couple of weeks.

Snippets and Jamaica Inn

Today I'm thinking Viking Magic  might be a good title, but I haven't checked to see how many books - if any - have already used it. I thought of it just before I fell asleep and it has stayed with me overnight. Most good ideas disappear into thin air while you sleep. Viking Magic can refer to so many things in the story, not least the plain old magic practiced by Karli Olafsson.

Today is a good day for getting on with some work as the clouds are so  low they're just about sitting on the lawn and Tim and I made trails in the dew as we walked across the field. We met Dan the lurcher this morning, and he seems to accept us now. Initially he chased poor Tim and wouldn't come to me in greeting. He was a rescue dog and no one knew his history, but he was scared of other dogs. We first met him at puppy school last year when no other dog could get near him. So, great strides are being made there.

DH is busy making sourdough bread. Paul told us about it when he came at Christmas, and since then we have been eating it instead of "ordinary" bread. The big Kilner starter jar stands on the bench above the radiator, and every couple of days dh takes some of the yeastless dough and makes bread with it. Then he feeds the dough left in the jar and it grows and expands until there's enough to make another loaf. Suits us perfectly. Tastes good, and is so much more filling than bought bread. He's also promised to make some Florentines. We both adore those. Yum.

I am one of those people who sat down ready to watch Jamaica Inn, episode 1, and gave up 3/4 of the way through. I'm not surprised it attracted 2,182 complaints about mumbled dialogue by the end of the third episode. I'm amazed that 4.1 million people tuned in to watch the third and final episode.Two million decided they had something better to do.

The sound engineers came in for some stick, but really, there was nothing wrong with the sound levels. I could even hear the wind blowing around the house. Perhaps they relied on microphones within cameras? Perhaps actors think that turning aside and speaking into someone's pocket is real life - it may be so, but in real life we get the chance to  say What Did you Say?? In drama, actors should speak to be heard. The actors mumbled - that was the problem. Especially the vile uncle Joss.

Ben Stephenson of the BBC, later said the problem was partly down to the actors.
"Actors not being clear is obviously one part of it but my understanding about the complaints about Jamaica Inn was more complex than that," he said. "I think it's probably not right to just single out that, but clearly we want actors to speak clearly. Of course we want them to give brilliant performances and you've got to respect that but if no-one can understand what they're saying then there is a problem."

The pic? The Hebridean Princess turning up outside the Crinan Hotel. Possibly the ship the Queen hired for her 80th birthday trip.