Early Summer eBook Promos #99p / #99c - Part 1

The sun is shining yellow, the apple blossom is tinting pink, and the first of the early summer ebook promotions are waving their flags on Kindle. Each listed carries one of my titles. Do you enjoy quizzes? Match the book to the promo!

First up is Magic Book Deals with the Romance Book Fair. From Regency to Contemporary, Fantasy to  PNR, there's even a boxed set! The titles are listed from chaste to steamy. Hover over a book cover and it will spin to its mini-blurb, which is a nice professional touch.

For a complete change of gear, if you use Facebook and live in the UK, you can enter a competition from Val Wood, bestselling author of Historical Sagas set in and around the East Riding of Yorkshire. Three lucky winners will gain a group of paperbacks from writers who live in and write about the region: Noir Crime, Chicklit, PI Crime, Fantasy Romance, and Val Wood's latest. No gold stars for realising which of my books is on offer. The competition is open until 12th June. Read all about it on her Facebook Page.

And another change of gear to Science Fiction and Fantasy hosted by renowned curator SFF Book Bonanza. From Space Opera to Steampunk, Epic Fantasy to Fables and Mythology, Young Adult and Humour - even a very good trilogy (I know, because I've read it!) there is at least one title to whet your appetite. Although the promo launches on the 21st, the titles are up and most of the prices have already fallen. Just check them before you hit buy.

Phew! If you can bear it, Part 2 will follow next week. Enjoy your reading!

#BookADayUK #Crime: Fiction v Reality

The Beverley Literature Festival is in full swing, and at the weekend I attended a Crime panel discussing Fiction v Reality. 

Anya Lipska’s novels give insights into the London Polish community where she lives; Mari Hannah writes fiction set in her native Northumbria with research help from Mo Dowdy, a former DI on the Serious Incident Squad; David Mark, hosting the event, was fifteen years a journalist, seven as a crime reporter with the Yorkshire Post and sets his novels in Hull. 

Their discussion was lively and informative, veering from the emotionally serious to the light-hearted as aspects of their writing were unpicked. Each had faced opposition from mainstream publishing for their settings, though none could imagine conjuring a fictional town or city – it would be far too much work – and they agreed that TV programmes not only glossed over much police procedure but escaped with anachronisms that would be hounded as fantasy in novels. 

I understand their, and their readers’, need for reality. It’s something I take pains to imbue in the Torc of Moonlight  trilogy, even having a handy ex officer reading the police sections to ensure authenticity. Crime, Mythic Fantasy... both are about people set in a contemporary world. Writers should always be faithful to their subject and readership, and to be honest I’ve never met one who wasn’t.  

The East Riding of Yorkshire's Beverley Literature Festival continues until 11 October. If you're in the area, don't miss it.

Guest-blogging #4 The Bull At The Gate - Crime

I'm waving the flag again, this time with crime-writer Shirley Wells. I'm chatting about using crime elements, in particular the police, in non-crime novels. Though how I can say that when The Bull At The Gate is sitting in the Amazon UK Crime>Suspense>Occult chart I'm not sure. As I explain, I think genre is all a matter of emphasis in the writing.

Do join me for chance to win free copies.

Fame - A Double-Edged Blade

Which writer doesn’t occasionally dream of acclaim - or at least fantastic sales? Of sitting at a book signing running out of ink for your pen, or taking eager questions for an hour after a half hour talk?

Fame, however, is not all it’s cracked up to be.

It’s been quite a week. In a scene that could have come from one of her own Crime novels, writer Val McDermid saw her ink-attacker convicted of assault. The person had harboured a grudge for years due to a line in one of her novels.

She’s not the only well-known writer to fall foul of a reader. Peter James, another Crime writer, seems to collect them, as does JK Rowling.

JK Rowling recently had published her first Crime novel (ahem… I notice a dangerous pattern developing) under the name of Robert Galbraith. Despite puffs from some of the illustrious names in British Crime, it sold somewhat meagrely, ie in figures normal for most debut writers – until the author was unmasked, when sales soared.

Amid howls of ‘conspiracy’ and ‘publisher marketing ploys’ it would now seem that the lawyer did it, m’lud. Her lawyer in fact, or at least one from the firm she uses. Or perhaps, did use.

So why the subterfuge, the anger at being unmasked?

Writers write, period. Yes, they prefer to eat as well, hence the need for good sales, but the bottom line is that writers want their work to receive acclaim, not themselves personally. JK Rowling seems to have few true writer friends, or one of them would have told her in words of one syllable that it ain’t gonna happen, love.

And not just to her; it doesn’t happen to any of us. Take a look on Amazon at any novel carrying a lot of reviews. Along with the 4 and 5 star there will be smattering of 2 and 1 star, and if the writer is particularly unlucky a vitriolic attack on the writer about wasting the reader’s time.

Moral 1: you cannot please all of the people all of the time, so it’s better to please yourself.

Moral 2: never trust a lawyer.

How do you like your Crime?

Weeks pass when it is head-down at the keyboard and not enough happens to link to a blog - then out of left field...

Last week I received a call from Fantastic Books Publishing: would I be interested in..? Today there's a video of me in the bowels of their HQ answering questions on the elements of Crime I slot into my novels. It's part of their first Crime Spotlight event.

Don't be taken in by the cosy setting - the fireplace, the chintzy lamp, the warm mug of tea - out of shot there are chains hanging on the walls and some stains I daren't investigate. Oh-er... I was just pleased when my blindfold was removed and my car keys handed back to me.

I wonder how the others fared... I'm sharing billing with Penny Grubb, Nick Quantrill, Danuta Reah and David P. Perlmutter. Off to watch their videos now.

Being interviewed for Radio - by Video!

I know it's already 6th, but it seems hardly two minutes since I was watching London's fireworks on the television and saluting in the New Year. My work life has been busy right across the festive period. People seemed to clear their desks in my direction before they broke up for Christmas.

As a result there are various things in the pipeline, to be revealed as they mature. The first was a joint invitation for me and Crime Writer Penny Grubb to be interviewed by Paula Coomber from Seaside Radio, which is based in the Holderness area where we live.

So yesterday we pulled up at Penny's place to indulge in a big pot of tea and lots of biscuits for what I took for granted was to be an audio interview, to be augmented by a couple of snaps for Seaside Radio's website. Imagine my horror when out of a medium-sized camera bag came a very small video camera. It's a good job it held an enormous memory card because once we started...

As readers of this blog will realise I prefer to hide behind my bookcovers, but I'm offering a straight pic of what we look like as a warning in advance of the YouTube video, which I'm told is going to be in two (long) parts. If you think this is bad enough, wait until you see me animated!

To Name is to Imbue with Life

Do you want rent rooms at Burtonleigh House or Bleak House? Take a picnic to Springfield Crest or Danklow Pits? Drive there in a beat-up Honda or a beat-up Ferrari?
     Why?
     Knowing why we, as people, make instant choices helps us, as writers, choose with care. Of course, our choices only seem instant to us. Our brains have been taking information, collating it, comparing elements of it to previous experience, before giving us… a reasonable guess.
     Readers of our writing are doing this all the time, so quickly they hardly notice, taking from the page a word or phrase or entire paragraph and comparing it to their experiences so as to help build pictures in their minds. But coming across a name adds importance, it adds associations:

          ‘Do you want to go for a picnic today?’
          ‘Don’t mind. Not bothered.’
          ‘We could go to Danklow Pits.’
          ‘Oh, wow! Yeah! Last time we went…’

     Perhaps that made you blink, perhaps it didn’t. It depends how you felt about Danklow Pits when you first came across it as a bare name at the top of this post, your own associations, your emotional baggage. The fictional speaker’s emotional baggage is positive based on previous experiences there, but are you, as a reader, convinced? Do you remain wary of picnicking at Danklow Pits? Are you willing to go along to see if your first impression, based on a feeling, a hunch due to its name alone, was justified?
     This sort of juxtapositioning of characters’ and readers’ experiences is used a lot in the Horror genre, used in Thrillers and some Crime, depending on the sub-genre, and used sparingly and with subtlety in most other genres. Carried along by the pace, readers hardly notice, but the writers have made specific choices with a pay-off in mind, not set such in the text on a whim. They are fuelling atmosphere and readers’ anticipation, setting it down as a fine layer to be added to later, often via choices in description.
      In genres such as Romance, the naming of places and things is chosen to reinforce readers’ expectations of the sub-genre they have selected, but atmosphere and anticipation remain the writer’s goal. Danklow would ring alarms on a subliminal level no matter what it was used in conjunction with, because D-k are sharp sounding consonants, and the way a word ripples across the tongue, or across the reader’s mind, is always taken into consideration.
     Naming does imbue with life, so when making a choice decide first what pay-off you, the writer, want in return.

Also read post: Description: Signposts in the Text