Friday 22 July 2011

The Station - out very soon!

Yeah, yeah... self-promotion but I have no choice.

The novel is finished and it's just going through it's 'growing pains'; editing, review and pre-publishing... which will take a month I think. Still, it should be an e-book sometime in August, and available for you to download on Amazon and other online places.

I agree with those of you that love a proper book, I do myself - but I can't afford to print it yet and getting a publisher is nigh-on impossible in this climate, so I'm self-publishing until it dies because it's rubbish, or it succeeds and a proper publisher pays for it's printing and promotion. I can also look at download sales and consider whether they are strong enough to take a few thousand pound risk and print it myself.

It's my first ever novel and I'm proud of myself for finishing it. Whether it's good, great, average or rubbish, isn't as important right now as the fact that I actually finished it! If I never write again, at least I can say I did what a lot of people only talk about, so I'm chuffed.

I can't promote or market it hugely because of the costs involved but I can do something else... I can appeal to all my readers (that is, those of you who read what I write because you like what I write and want to read it) to download it and promote it if you like it, in other words, get your friends to download it too - don't share it, because that will spell the end of sales for me. And just so you know, this isn't about getting rich because, unless I've written the next Harry Potter and have the same luck, I will only be paid something like 30 to 50p a book - that's all author's get once the wolves have had their share. It would be nice to get paid back for the years I put in writing it though.

But only get your friends and family to buy it if you truly feel they'd like to read it, that's up to you. But what if everyone who did this spread the word to all of their Facebook and Twitter friends, and they in turn did the same? Wouldn't it become a best-seller overnight? That would be cool and I'd certainly want to write more if it was even moderately successful.

A Paramedic's Diary has done, and is still doing, very well as you know, but this is a work of fiction and so much harder to sell in a forest of other novels. It is also without a big name to promote it, so I have a weak card to play here.

Some of you have read the preview... and a few tweaks have been made, but it has become a 38 chapter, 120,000 word story with a beginning, a middle and an end... and a plot, so I hope you will sign up to this!

If you are and you think your friends and family will be too, let me know here, or on facebook... or Tweet me (although I don't do much Tweeting myself). I will let you all know how order it soon. I'll put a link here with a little ad for it.

Thanks in advance. Let's make it something from nothing!

Xf

11 comments:

Harry said...

Can't wait to buy and read it, Stuart- the preview was fantastic.

Mrs F with 4 said...

I'll be buying it!

Saphirebleu said...

I'll definitely try to buy it.

Sue said...

I will if it's a reasonable price on Kindle, say max £3. Some of the best books I've read recently have been kindle/ebook only and have been between 70p and £2. Pricing is key, kindle readers seem far happier to try a cheap book from an unknown/new author.

Jake said...

I'll be getting this - loved what I've read already. I wish you good luck for the book too, and I hope it gets the recognition it (probably - seeing as I haven't read it yet) deserves!

Anonymous said...

Do you need an ebook/ipod to be able to read it? or is able to be downloaded on a pdf file so i could print it?

James said...

Looking forward to it. The first few chapters were excellent so can't wait to read the rest.

Evan said...

Let us know when its available for pre-order :)

Xf said...

Anon

I'll be offering it for direct sale, using Paypal, as a PDF as well. Printing it out will cost you about 500 pages though!

Flossy said...

I'll be buying it, I can't wait!

Anonymous said...

Eek, I've been checking the blog every day for the past month waiting for this ^_^