Ouch! I stepped on stage and I got booed.

I've wrangled with the thought about writing this. Should I, or should I not? Well, I decided if I write about positive reviews, I'm allowed to write about negative reviews, too, right?
Particularly if it smells extraordinarily strong of 'let's see if she can take it'. Please don't get me wrong, it's not a complaint; I knew that with my constant bashing of the self-published books that failed to make me sit up, I was ripe for some payback. And it happened. Finally.
I'm aware there is some sabotaging of self-published books going on, and I've been 'victim' of that beforehand when my books were tagged inappropriately, but I confronted the culprit and he apologised, saying something got on his nerves that day, then removed the tag. Never had any beef with that guy, but he obviously didn't know how else to get rid of his frustration and targeted me.
This time, someone has left a review on one of my books. Something I said would happen. And since I mention No Wings Attached in the recently released rant, it was the one that got picked. Despite it looking like an honest review, it ticks quite a few boxes for me to suspect payback.
1. It's not a verified purchase and I haven't sold any on Smashwords, and very few on Amazon.
2. It uses the same wordings I use in Rage against the Indie
3. The person hasn't reviewed any books, bar one, then quickly wrote a few on the same day as my review came in.
4. The person claims to have turned the pages (presumably until the end), but complaints about no paranormal/supernatural happenings. (The wish consultant is not the supernatural human being I refer to in the pitch.)
5. The review was immediately voted as helpful, despite my not promoting the book a lot. All other reviews have suddenly been marked as unhelpful. Nobody had ever bothered with them beforehand. At least not the newer ones.

Here's the review:

I dicovered this title through the 'customers who viewed this item, also viewed..' sector on a novel I was interested in, and I foolishly chose this one. The only reason I'm giving this novel two stars and not one is because I was drawn in by a comfortable writing style and interesting premise. This, however, was a lie. The storyline went downhill so fast that I was tearing my hair out and begging the characters to stop cooking and talking and just start doing something. *Anything*. But I was sorely disappointed when the main two characters did little more than um and ah about their feelings. Okay, that's fine. I can expect little else from a romance, after all. Too bad about the use of the words 'supernatural powers' in the description. Highly misleading, considering there is nothing super about a guy who grants the odd wish, but there you go.
I can overlook a terrible plot. This novel was crafted in an interesting way, following Celia and Tom as narrators by giving them both a voice every few pages or so. But wait, who am I reading about? Yes, it says the narrator at the start of their narration, but what if a reader leaves partway through a chapter? Are we to go back to the start? You'd think that the characters would be easy to tell apart. That their voices would be different. No chance. They might as well be the same person, which shows a serious lack of perspective from this author.
Moving on. I could write about every flaw of this novel, bit that would most probably take longer than the production of No Wings Attached. Instead, I'll move onto the most infuriating aspect; punctuation. There is a massive overuse of commas, and they were so extreme that I actually threw my kindle down in frustration multiple times, unable to read on. It made me read in a very disconnected way and, coupled with poor sentence structure, I was made to feel as though I was reading in an unfamiliar language. Words had been dumped out of order, commas littered each sentence, and typos would crop up unexpectedly.
Please heed my warning. My rating really is too kind, as I have never before read something as terrible as this. I feel cheated. The premise promised something that was never delivered. The only reason I kept turning pages was to ensure my money wasn't wasted, but I can say now that it was. More importantly, my time was wasted, and a small chunk of sanity was lost along the way.

To be honest it raised merely a grin, but shows that how the Indie scene really is. Readers complain (rightly so) about fake praise, and this is the other end to the debacle: fake slagging off books. It can do massive harm. Even though readers say they can tell a fake negative review, I'm not sure one can always distinguish. In the case of No Wings Attached, you just need to read the other reviews to get your clues and write something up. I also have an idea who this person might be, because the voice sounds familiar.

Just to be clear: I'm not offended. I am bold with my view on self-published books and I've made some enemies along the way. You've got to bleed if you want to win a battle.

A quick plea: DO NOT act on the review. Don't go and attack the person, don't vote unhelpful, don't do anything, please. I'm not complaining, it's not a whiny post, it's just a matter-of-fact-post. I blog about self-publishing and the Indie scene behind the scenes, and this is just an example. I'm sure there will be more coming my way, at least I know my writing's not the reason.

On days when you need a smile ...

... a reader comes along and helps you make it happen.

My short story collection 5-Minute Tea Break Stories is the only book I haven't sent out for reviews. I had it free for three days, though, and one person who downloaded it left me the following review:

This is a collection of short stories written with great wit and style. Ms Deleuze is often irreverent and campy, but also can be very deep and thoughtful. Her stories run the gamut from loss to triumph, and frequently leave you wondering at the outcome. She has a beautiful poetic voice that makes you look at everyday occurrences in a new light.

I think it is a wonderful review and I'm still marvelling at the 'poetic voice'. Thank you, Shirley (mountainmana). I'm happy to have made you happy.

In the spirit of sharing: here's a small excerpt of my upcoming novel. The rewriting is taking a little longer than expected as the educational rant sidetracked me, but I hope to have this book done by end of this year.

Contraryto yourexpectationsyoudon'tmanagetosleep.Afteryou'vesentthee-mail, youhadanotherlookather interactions with others on Novelsite.Someguyssenthercompliments,wereflirtatious.Heranswerswere ascharmingasusual.You are unsurewhereitallcamefrom,but havingreadthoseexchangestriggers yourdesiretogooutandhavesomecompany.Thoughit'slate,youknowaplacethatisopentill early in the morning.Youshutdownthecomputeranddepart.

Fifteenminuteslater,youarriveatthebar.Whenyouenter,theownerlooksupfromthenewspaperhe'sreading.Younodintohisdirectionandtakeaseatatthebar.Hepoursyouascotch.Evenifyoudon'tcomeoften,heknowsyourdrink.Youneverspeaktoeachother; sincethatoneeveningyoudrankfartoomany,it'snotnecessary.Hewouldn'tstartaconversation,neitherwouldyou.Thatparticulareventshowedyouhavenocommongroundandyouendedupfrustratedaboutexplainingeverystatement. It'squietinhere,youthink.Unusualfortoday.Aglancearoundcountsninepeople,includingyouandthebarman.Agirlsitsbyherselfinthecorner,reading.Herredbobframeshercountenance,makingherstrongfeatureslooklikeapieceofart.Asifshefeelsyourstare,sheliftsherhead.Inthedimmedlightyoucan'tmakeoutwhatshe'sreading,butthefactthatshesitsherealoneonaFridaynight,holdingabook,makesherinterestingenough. Shesmilesatyou.Herfartooperfectlipsrevealasetofwhiteteeth.Youknowit'srude,butyoucan'tholdhergaze.Ashamed,youlookaway and into yourglass. Whenyoutakeasip,yousensehereyesscanningeachinchofyourbody. Anothersip.Itfeelswarm,comfortablywarm.Slow,butconfidentfootstepsonthewoodenfloor.Youlistencarefully,yourgriptightens.Five,six,seven,eight.Then,theystop.Thescentofflowery,expensiveperfumepenetratesyournostrils.

'Could I have another Chardonnay, please.'sheaddresses the owner.Hervoicesurprises.It'snothinglikeyouthoughtitwouldbe.Muchdeeper�notdispleasing,though.Afaintaccentgivesawayshe'snotanative.Itsoundsinviting.She then turns to you.

'You'rewaitingforsomeone?'

'I wish,' you reply with a smile.

'Wouldyoumindmesittinghere?'Withoutwaitingforananswershelaysdownherbookandtakesaseat.Itsauthorisno-oneforeigntoyou.Awell-knownphilosopher�yourfavourite.Youtrytohideyourexcitement.Thiswillbeinteresting.

Up, up, up

After the radical drop in sales two months ago, things are beginning to move in the right direction again. Up, that is. I'm talking about the short stories, not the novels here. For the past few days, I've sold at least one book per day, today as many as three (!) so far, and Excuse me, where is the exit? has even had a moment of dipping into the top 100 humour charts. Two or three days ago, I stumbled over a book which had my book in the 'Customer who bought this book, also bought' recommendation underneath, which, I assume, is a good sign. Those are the cross-references authors need. Someone asked me if I can't promote my book in another way, to which I replied that I'm tired of the constant promotion. Twitter and Facebook, I learned, don't work. I put a link on there every so often, but I'm not after other authors, I want readers. Plus, I guess, that if I'm annoyed with the spam overload, others probably will be, too.
That baby has to make it on its own again. And so it does, even if slowly, it seems to recover from the sudden drop after entering the KPD select programme. Maybe the newest 5-star review contributed to it:
Nice collection of the authors thoughts on all sorts of situations we ve all faced.. I loved the changing/ shopping episode.. how true to life that was !! I enjoyed this book,,, well worth seeking out . Can we have more ?? 

Had to laugh when my friend said, "Gee, it's not that those people are forced to write such nice things, why doesn't the bloody book sell?'
If I knew, I would be a hell of a lot wiser. My guess is that I didn't do myself a favour rushing in the beginning and starting to sell an error-riddled book. Though, according to Big Al, it wasn't too bad -- borderline. Everything is cleaned up now; I uploaded the latest version in March before my last promo day.

I doubt the sales trickling in are subsequent sales after reading my novel, as I could imagine people would rather want to read the first book in the series. In any case, I'm glad that a few more readers are having a giggle or even laugh-out-loud-moment and, who knows, maybe I'll be able to report that I've crossed the 10k mark (very far away, though) at some point .

Over here, doctor, this patient is dying!

Zero, zilch, nada: 0

This is how how many books I've sold in the past few days. I enrolled two of my books, Excuse me, where is the exit? and Candlelight Sinner, in the KPD select programme in hope to boost up the sales,  particularly of my two novels and maybe the short stories, but the result is disappointing. I gave away about 5k in total (both books) and believe me I'm glad for it; it would hurt me even more had I given away 40k or more, like others. In the beginning it looked all fine; the short stories climbed rapidly to the top, as high as #3 of the humour charts and #7 (if I remember correctly) in the overall free charts, which was rather exciting to watch. When the three days were over, they didn't sell any for a few days, then sold about 100 more than usual (between 150-170 a month).
This is for my short stories only. The novels still sat on the shelves like blocks of concrete.
The second time was beginning of March to use up the remaining days for the short stories. The novels got a small boost, but still not worth a mention. That month, one year after publishing them, sales were at their lowest and then stopped completely. The KPD programme and free promotion has, in fact, killed my sales. Not really what I was expecting.

I was wary, but curious. Now I'm wiser. Though I have another day left for the novel, I will not use it. My fazit is that it's not worth it. 

Of course it all can turn around again, once those, who downloaded Candlelight Sinner, read and like it, then proceed to buying Excuse me, where is the exit? and vice versa. Which may be a small percentage as people tend to download and stock up their Kindles faster than they can read, then delete most of the novels again without even reading them.

Although there are a few who are doing really well after the promotion, there are still more who, I guess, didn't benefit from it, or worse, as in my case, actually are counting dead bodies. I know that Talli Roland reported a decrease in sales, too. See her blog post here:
Have you experienced an increase or decrease in sales weeks after the promotion ended?

2600 and counting

I've always said I won't give my books away for free, unless they are for reviewers or some hand-picked people I want to give the books to.
Now I have been hearing good things about the Amazon KPD select programme -- something to get your books out there, your face and your writing known. Let me explain in short: you are exclusive with Amazon for 90 days in which you are  not allowed to sell e-copies of the enrolled book elsewhere. During that time you are allowed (you don't have to) give away your book for free for five days. You can do them all in one go or split them.
I've enrolled Excuse me, where is the exit? and also my new book Candlelight Sinner, which I both unpublished and removed from Smashwords since I never really made money there. Amazon is my main sales outlet.
Now my sales weren't too bad, but not very good either. Roughly about 150 in the past months, slowly going up again, but that's not enough to rectify the hard work I put into writing and promoting them.
With the promotion -- both books are free over the weekend -- I had over 2700 downloads since yesterday. To be honest I'm still in shock about the vast amount of downloads. It seems that my short stories do really well in the humour genre (position 3 as I type), yes even in the overall free charts (position 19). Candlelight Sinner has taken off on Amazon.com.
I wonder if that mirrors the 'buying' patterns of readers. I will admit that downloading freebies is addictive as I have downloaded about 20 books myself in the past two days. I only downloaded what I would buy in a shop, based on the pitch and I know I will give all of them a try, hopefully finding one or the other gem.

But with books on promotion for free on a daily basis, I'm a little worried that readers might rather download free books than paying for them, especially if they are by new Indie authors.
Many authors who have enrolled their books have reported an improvement on sales and it better when I think of the amounts of books given away. I expected only a couple of hundred downloads, but the actual figures make this one author dizzy. By the way, since starting this post about fifteen minutes ago, I had another 100 downloads. If only that would happen every day, with readers paying for the books. :-)

Minefield e-book pricing

Since I'm going to release a new novel soon, I'm once again faced with the decision of how to price the book. I normally start with a low introduction price for a limited period of time, then go up to $3.49 which is about �2.50 give or take. And even that is awfully low compared to the work I put in. Whatever I do, I'll win and lose readers.

On the Amazon forum I read that many don't even bother with 'cheap' books anymore, because to them cheap=bad quality. They seem to have had some negative experiences.
Then you have readers who say they won't buy a book from a new and unknown author if it's not under a dollar or pound, which puts us self-published authors into an awkward position: we just can't win, but we want to. Readers, that is.

I'm beginning to think sites like smashwords or Project Gutenberg, where readers can download thousands of free e-books, has done the Indie market more harm than good; yes even the low pricing somehow doesn't seem right. For many authors the book took at least a year, for some even years to write, so it's not really fair to expect a low price. I know quite a few authors who have put a great deal of time and effort into their books before publishing them; they meet the standards of traditionally published books and I think these authors should be rewarded.

To be clear: I think having a book for free for a short period -- like the recent Amazon promotion -- is a great marketing tool, but handing out your book for free is like going to the office every day and not getting paid. I personally will leave the short stories on a low price, but will sell my novels for a more reasonable amount.

Since e-books seem to be the future, I think maybe it's time for us Indie authors to take action and set the prices higher, but also make sure we release good quality novels so the gap between traditionally published books and ours will close over time.

Are you self-published or a reader? What is your opinion?

Self-publishing: it's crucial to be realistic

I read it more and more on writers' websites that authors, being fed up with getting rejection after rejection, are eager to self-publish. Often accompanied by the words 'I've heard so much about all the success stories, I'm thinking about it, too.'

As much as I support self-publishing at some point, I can't help but wonder how they define 'success'. Would they call one book a week a success or maybe one book a day, perhaps ten books a day? And I wonder if they know how little they get from each sale. Unless they start with a novel at $2.99, which is what you need to have to receive 70% royalties, but readers are more reluctant to buy. If you price it lower, you might get more sales, in fact you have to make many more sales to have the same royalties you'd get from one sale with $2.99 (about �2, I think)

I had priced my novel at 99c to start with and sold 65 in the first month. I then put the price to $3.49/�2.50 and the sales dropped drastically. Might be the subject matter (paranormal romantic comedy), but it could easily be down to pricing.
Reviews from independent blogs didn't seem to boost sales either. Now don't understand this as a moan; I've always said, you never know if a book sells or not; despite good reviews readers didn't exactly queue to buy the book. It's just something one has to accept. I will release the sequel to No Wings Attached in Janurary and will see how it picks up and if it picks up, if it will push the first book's sales, too. If not, then there's not much I can do other than writing them off as 'good books, but nobody wants to read them'.
Unless you couldn't care less about sales, for most of us self-publishing is a full time job; the press release, the plugging, the guest appearances, interviews, blogging, give-aways, talks, signings (if you have paperbacks), blog tours, etc. Marketing isn't to be taken lightly, because it's crucial to selling, unless you have a highly commercial book in a popular genre, like Thriller, for instance. Then it might pick up without you doing anything, especially if it's of good quality.

My short stories have been rather consistent in sales, I had them on a low price from the beginning and they have been perceived well by readers, which I'm glad for. Still, I personally wouldn't call rougly over 3500 sales (kindle only) since March as successful -- others might disagree -- but to me success begins if I sell about 1000+ in a month, because that's when your book is visible in the Amazon charts.

I think the sales figures often sound much better than they actually are. I receive 30% of each sale for 86p. Again, I'm not complaining, it's not a whinge, I'm just trying to bring across the reality of self-publishing to those who are dreaming. Hocking, Locke, Leather and the likes are the exeptions of the rule. Certainly, there are a few inbetween who sold over 10k or more books, which is fantastic, but the majority of authors struggle in the lower ranks, competing against the vast amount of new authors who release their books daily.

My advice is to be realistic, don't expect anything and if success comes around the corner by surprise, you will be more able to enjoy it.

Note: I'm refering to amazon kindle and smashwords here, as I don't have experienced B&N yet. Smashwords, to me, has not been proven the right platform, which might be due to less promotion because I have my main sales through Amazon.

The cover for Candlelight Sinner revealed!

When I said I'm going to think about a cover for my upcoming novel Candlelight Sinner, people groaned, asking if it's going to change as many times as the cover for No Wings Attached. You can all rest assured, it's not going to change. The amazing Sessha Batto has done it again, she took my ideas on board and came up with a stunning work. And I'm in love. I mean I'm seriously in love, but see for yourself:

It mirrors the plot, has a great deal of warmth and...well, it's just perfect. For those of you who remember my sad attempts to find a good cover for No Wings Attached: you can laugh now: it looks like I'm going to change it again. Simply because the covers in a series should be themed. So I'll head off to find something pretty to match and I already have an idea. And covers are important, after all. I wasn't sure how the second book would turn out, as you know, I'm not the best plotter in the world, but I'll learn, I promise.

And more great news: one of my Beta-readers got back to me with five pages of comments, giving me the feedback I needed to see if the book works as a stand-alone novel. The talented (I'm just saying that because she loved the book. -- Just kidding.) short story writer Winn Smith has volunteered to read the first draft since she hasn't read the first book and boy, are her comments helpful.
I've started to edit/rewrite with great enthusiasm and am falling in love with the book again. It makes me smile, it makes me laugh it makes me feel all fuzzy and guess what? Next month, you'll be able to read it, too, because I plan to have it out in January. So you better warm up your Kindles, Nooks, iPads, Sonys or even your PC's, because I'm planning a special surprise.

Here's the blurb:
Being madly in love with Tom, a rather good looking, immortal wish-consultant and working in her dream job, life seems to be perfect for 32-year-old Celia. If it wasn't for the dark side still being after her or Sam, a charismatic man asking for her help, causing dilemma. When Tom gets another demanding case, and Celia takes her friend on a trip to Lanzarote, everything's about to change. The question is: for the better or for the worse?

Make your book as good as possible

Writing is hard work. Did someone tell you it's easy? Well, that someone lied. Big time. The transformation from the very first draft to the actual book published is enormous, especially when you're just starting out with your first book. If you are lucky and happy to learn, it will get easier once you've been through the process of rewriting, editing, proofing, etc.

I've read a few self-published books that weren't ready by a long shot and I've stopped reading most of them. Not saying there aren't good self-published books out there, but it looks like I didn't find them yet. I'm self-published myself and I know how hard it is to go through the book over and over and over again until you're sick and tired of the book you once loved, but it's worth it. It's my reputation, my author's name out there and I want the book to be the best it can get. Though, I've learned that I've sold over 1000 copies of the short stories with words missing, stray words and typos I didn't see. I've sort of rushed to publish it, not doing another round of proofing. Luckily, a friend was kind enough to point them out and it's fixed now. He also found quite a few in my novel, even AFTER proofing twice. That said, I can live with typos and missing words, but I can't live with poor character development, continuously use wrong dialogue attributes, plot holes and illogical story lines. Those are things that drive me mad as a reader.

Now, how to avoid things like that, you wonder.

Well, first off, learn the craft. Talent is one thing, but you need the skills to actually enhance your talent. That's what beautiful writing is. See it as a paining with a perfect frame, it will accentuate the painting, if you have a shabby frame it will look odd, drawing your eyes to the ugly frame rather than the painting itself. It's the same with writing, a great story can be disturbed by bad use of grammar or dialogue attributes or plot holes.

I'll take the painting again: imagine you have a person in it and he has an arm where the ear should be, now wouldn't that irritate you? Same goes with writing, when you have plot holes, it disturbs the flow, lets you pause and drags you out of the story, you stop to think where that character came from, where it went and what purpose it might have when it doesn't add to the plot.

Learn as much about writing as you can, try to secure yourself some beta readers, those who are confident in giving feedback. Try not to ask family and friends, unless they know a thing or two about writing and are honest with you. Compare your dialogue with traditionally published books and correct yours. Google is your best friend when it comes to read about 'rules'. Depending on how self-critical you are, you might need three rounds or more of editing and beta-reading. (I went 16 times through my first novel.) Don't ask the ones you've had before, they're now biased. Fresh eyes is what you need.

Be patient, don't rush into it. When you put a book out which isn't ready, you're likely to lose potential readers for your second or third book.

Make your book as perfect as you can. The end customers, your readers, will thank you by not only recommending a book they enjoyed, but also with loyalty.

If you'd like to know more about the journey of my novel No Wings Attached, please read an interview with me here:

And no, it's not about angels

Just kidding!

If you're an indie author, exposure is everything. There are pretty brilliant and dedicated bloggers out there, who don't get tired promoting others. One of them is the wonderful, also published author, Catherine Chisnall, who has thrown some interview questions into my direction. About me, about my writing, about No Wings Attached, the charity and she even tickled some surprising facts out of me.
Please stop by her blog, take a look around and if you have time, you might want to read the interview with me :-)
I'm quite over the moon, No Wings Attached is doing all right. It's certainly a far cry from the success of Excuse me, where is the exit?, but it's getting there. I was a bit worried to throw the first book of the series out when the second isn't even finished yet, but I plan to publish the next one by October this year, readers have asked when it will come out, which makes me feeling all fussy again. My baby's loved :-)