A Busy, Busy Boy

I missed the July blog deliberately for all sorts of reasons, which is why I was determined not to let August go without at least writing something. A lot has happened in the last eight weeks: medical consultations, lengthy emails, books, family visit, wedding (not mine), having a friend stay with me for a couple of weeks, and eventually agreeing to sign up with a book marketer through Reedsy. Oh, and getting into step with the modern world by buying an Alexa and an Amazon TV Fire stick.

At the beginning of August, my ‘International’ family arrived for my grandson Adam’s marriage to his fiancée, Agata. What can I say? It was a really great few days. I did no work on my advertising campaigns, which was to be expected. After the wedding was over and the family had departed, I went up to Lincolnshire and brought my friend, Pauline, down here for a ten day holiday. We do this every year. The only fly in the ointment was the heatwave, which prevented us from doing much touring around. But we managed to meet family and friends, have an evening out, meet my son, Terry and his wife, Claire, at Petworth for lunch, so all in all it turned out okay for us. I took Pauline home, which more or less brought me to the end of the month.

I’ve been communicating with two authors: Lindsay Buroker in Seattle, and Marian Keyes in Ireland. The talk has been about me, my books, my life and one or two other things. The chats have come to an end now, but they have been worthwhile.

Another connection I made, deliberately, was with Leslie Sainty, a book marketer who works through Reedsy. Leslie will be taking over the Facebook campaigns for my WW2 series. This will begin at the end of September. Lesley sent me a book marketing audit, which was very comprehensive, pointing out ways in which I could improve one or two things. One thing she said about my books is that with all the back titles I have, it was a book marketer’s dream. Who knows? One day I may be a lot higher up the rankings than I am now.

And curiously, I have been steered towards a non-fiction literary agent in the oddest way. I received an email from a woman (Mary Colgan) wanting to know if I would like my non-fiction work published in Chronicle Books. I ignored the email because I get several of these every day, and none of them ever mention which book they are talking about.

Anyway, some days later I received the email again, but as a reminder. I replied, politely, and said I wasn’t interested. Mary got back to me and suggested I send her the links to my non-fiction books.  I had nothing to lose, and the only two books I would offer probably wouldn’t sell anyway. I told her that it would be a waste of time, but I gave her the links. She replied and suggested I get in touch with a particular literary agent, telling this agent I had been referred by her. This I did and the consequence is that this agency now have two non-fiction books of mine, which they would almost certainly have rejected out of hand. I never intended these for mass publication anyway. I’m not expecting anything to come of this, so I have nothing to lose.

Another avenue I’m exploring is writing a sequel to The Eagle’s Covenant (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LZRKJ4O), something I half planned a few years ago but gave up on the idea. It came about because I was checking my book sales over the last ten years (for another reason), and found out, quite to my surprise, that The Eagle’s Covenant had sold 22,000 books. It happens to be the highest of all my books. Whether I’ll get round to doing it of course, is a different matter. One day, maybe.

I’ve no campaigns running now. My WW2 books are trickling along, notching up a couple of sales every day and adding to the page reads number. If I had the time and the money, I would probably invest both those things to capitalise on the attention I’m getting. But I’m still down there among the bottom feeders on Amazon, but hopefully that could change. It will be a few months before I’m likely to see anything significant, so I’ll just soldier on keeping bodynd soul together and hoping for the best. Wish me luck!

                                                                                                                   Michael Parker

Coping and Hoping

Coping and Hoping. My July blog post

After a reasonably successful run of sales and page reads, I find myself back down among the bottom feeders thinking about launching another Facebook campaign, but this time in the United States. I made the mistake of reading Kristin Hannah’s book, The Nightingale. It is set in Occupied Paris, same as my book, Shadow Over Paris. Wow, what a blisteringly good writer she is, and I’m up against that kind of talent? I did manage to get to No 7 in the top ten, Historical French Fiction category. Kristin Hannah was at No.1, so I was only six places behind her (for a while).

I finished writing the third book in the Shadow Over Paris series, so the Trilogy is complete. The Word file is with my son, John, who will be reading it for me and checking for typos and errors. No doubt he’ll find a few. Once that’s done, I can ask my cover designer to come up with a jacket as good as all the others he’s done for me.

Now that I’ve finished writing, I find myself with precious little to occupy my mind. It’s been two months now since I had Tuppence put down. I do miss the little sod and often feel guilty because I made the decision to have her put to sleep; something I struggle to get my head round.

I spent a few days away; went up to Norfolk for a long weekend at my eldest son, Vincent and his wife, Jackie’s place. After leaving them, I popped in to see my brother, Jim. While I was there, his son, Colin brought a young, Italian woman to the house. She was called Ludovici (Ludi), and Colin had known her for a number of years after driving a Medical Wagon around Italy.

Ludi, probably in her late twenties, wanted to know how to get a book published. She has written a Contemporary Literature novel, which she wants traditionally published. Naturally, I was able to give her a lot of pointers and useful information. It made a pleasant hour for me because I love talking about writing. When I left my brother’s, I went up to Sleaford to spend a couple of nights with my friend, Pauline.

During last month I got involved with a book publicist in America who helped improve the way my work appears on search engines like Amazon and Google. It cost me money and I can’t honestly say I got the bang for my buck I wanted, but maybe that will be a kind of underlying improvement when it comes to my campaigns on Facebook.

I was approached by email from a woman representing Authors Manuscriptia. (No, me neither). She produced an incredibly detailed history of my career as a writer, even to the fact that I gave up writing to nurse my terminally ill wife. After an exchange of emails, I said thanks, but no thanks. I used Google’s Gemini AI to ask who these people were. They were genuine but lacked results and charged a fee for a pointless document, professionally edited, that would enhance my reputation, not just as a writer, but as a person as well.

Looking ahead, I have two separate medical conditions that are being looked at, either of which could mean me having to make decisions I’ve no wish to. I’m due to walk my grandson, Adam’s fiancée, Agata, down the aisle on August 4^th, and after that I’ll be going up to Sleaford to bring Pauline and her little Chihuahua, Daisy, down here for a spell . And the (almost) entire family from Australia, America, Canada and Scotland (England too!), will be here for the wedding. They say they will be popping in to see me as well, even though we’ll be together at the wedding. Should be fun.

And my current reading? The Women by Kristin Hannah. I’m a glutton for punishment. Wish me luck!

The Long and Lonely Road

Writing can be a lonely, soul destroying business, or it can be fun and uplifting, depending on what kind of writer you are. I know of some writers (not personally) who can knock out a prodigious number of books in a month, and I suspect they are always in a good place, overwhelmed with ideas and probably writing the next book in their heads as they write down the words of their current project. I am like the tortoise in the fable, except I always cross the finish line, but a proverbial country mile behind the hare. But that’s my lot; I am antediluvian, old school, and it usually takes me about a year to complete a book.

For my current project I am over halfway down the road, about 60.000 words into the third book of the Shadow Over Paris series. There’s an old saying, Irish I think, that says “May the road rise up to meet you”. I love that, and I see it in the way I have struggled to come up with a plausible tale for the third book. I reached, not just a road block, but a proverbial mountain as I struggled to find a way to interlock all the pieces of the jigsaw I’d scattered along the way and wasn’t sure I would get to bring them altogether to complete the picture. Well, I think I’m on the other side of the road block and I can see daylight.

At my current rate of progress, I expect to have the first draft complete, but unedited, by the end of this month (June). But there’s a ‘but’. Isn’t there always? I’ve had two medical appointments for two different things in the last seven days, and each of those means a referral. Just when the sun is beginning to shine, the clouds come over to darken the day. I will still be writing, but I’m not in control now; that will be in the hands of others. However, I still expect to publish the book, hopefully, in November. I’ve chosen that particular month because Shadow Over Paris and the sequel were both published in November (2024 and 2025). It does kind of round it off nicely, and perfect for the build up to Christmas.

I have entered the first book into a Goodreads Giveaway. These are supposed to be an excellent way of attracting readers, and there is a prolific amount on Goodreads. The current giveaway begins today (June 1^st) and runs for 14 days. I will be giving away 20 copies. This may not seem a lot, but I am going on the advice of a professional book publicist. If the giveaway is successful, I could do another, but it costs money. Doesn’t everything? That’s the rub; there’s no such thing as a free lunch, so they say. If you want to try your luck, go on to my website, facing page, and you will see the ‘Widget’ that will take you to the Goodreads Giveaway.

I’m currently running a campaign on Amazon for the book, but I’ve never had any success running campaigns on Amazon. I suck at it to be honest, but so do a great deal of authors. We can write books, but we cannot as hell, advertise. To do that successfully, you need the help of a professional with the usual costs. But Amazon promoted my book in April (for nothing), and I enjoyed healthy sales during that month. And the upshot is, readers are beginning to buy the sequel. It has actually sold more than the first book this month, because readers want to read it (natch). That’s another good reason for me to get the third book of the trilogy out by the end of the year,

On the domestic front, sadly, I had to have my lovely cockapoo, Tuppence, put to sleep. She was terminally ill and had been under treatment for several weeks. It was so sad. Tuppence was the centre of my universe. Now she’s gone and my house is empty. Sometimes my soul feels like that because I no longer have the two girls of my life: my lovely Pat and my lovely Tuppence.

But life goes on. I’m having a stall at a car boot sale here on our site this coming Saturday. I’ll have some of my books plus a lot of stuff that I’ve had in my Room 101, wondering what I’m going to do with it all. About ten days after that, I’ll be travelling up to Norfolk for a weekend with our eldest boy, Vincent and his wife, Jackie. Our No.3 son, John, will be there for a day. Then it’s off to Lincolnshire to spend a couple of nights with my long-standing friend, Pauline. While I’m there, I plan to call on my granddaughter, Sarah and her family at RAF Cranwell. Oh, and on my way to Lincolnshire, I will be popping in to see my big brother, Jim who, unfortunately cannot do much, so it will be nice to have a chat with him and put the world to rights.

So you see, there’s life in the old dog yet, and all the time I’m healthy and fit enough, I will try to maintain that journey as the road rises up to meet me. Wish me luck!

                                                                                                       Michael Parker