Getting around

I didn’t write my blog last week because I was in Spain enjoying the sun and linking up with old friends. The week before that I travelled up to Norfolk to attend the funeral of an old work colleague of mine: another opportunity to meet and chat with old friends of mine from the workplace. It also gave me the chance to spend some time with my eldest son, Vincent, and just relax in his company.

Despite all that, my mind wasn’t too far away from the book world. I am involved in a cross-promotion, but the jury is still out as far as I’m concerned regarding the effectiveness of these tie-ups. I’ve had three so far and have yet to see any real advance in my sales. I am also beginning to doubt the point of giving away books for free. I understand the argument about giving something to get something in return, but I have given away almost 400 books over the last four weeks (two titles), and have yet to see any reviews or have any contact from the readers who have downloaded them. I have had some sign-ups though.

As a result of my involvement with the Chindi group www.chindi-authors.co.uk, I am now a director of the group and have to be a signatory on the cheques. I contacted the bank with the necessary information (so I thought), which included an official letter with my new ID. Although I had been armed with what we thought was sufficient information, I was caught out by questions that could only be answered by a mother’s daughter and had to bail out. I will eventually become a bone fide member, but it is so frustrating. I was on the phone for about half an hour.

Last Monday I picked up my car at Gatwick North terminal long stay car park. It was about two o’clock in the morning, and despite having the correct ticket with my number plate on, I couldn’t get out of the car park without paying £65. The guy on duty wasn’t interested in my plight, so I had to cough up. I did get reimbursed by the company yesterday, but what a hassle to go through because some ‘jobsworth’ wouldn’t open the barrier for me.

The Chindi group are launching their new website next month. We’re going global and are giving away £300 of books as a prize. Have a look and see what we are up to. The link is above. We are also leaving our books around the area with a sticker on asking whoever picks them up to leave them somewhere else once they’ve read them. So far I have left a paperback on a bendy bus in Gatwick, a bus stop in Chichester, a waiting room in the Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth, our local tea shop here in Pagham, and one in a D-I-Y store in Bognor Regis. Five down, five to go. All the photographs were posted on Facebook and Twitter.

Apart from a couple of cross promos next month, I am thinking of paying out for some Facebook advertising. I’m not sure yet which way I’ll go with that. Needs a lot of thought. Wish me luck!

Planning ahead, hoping for the best

Looking at the pages of my diary for the past week I see they are blank! I must have done something because I couldn’t let a week go by without doing something. I cut the grass, I remember that. I visited my sister who is 87. We often talk about the past. It reminded me that people of her age are a wonderful source of information for writers when researching those early years. She has been a fan of my writing for years, ever since she typed my first novel for me that never saw the light of day. I have thought about resurrecting it. The title was “The Perforated Edge”, and it was about a packet of extremely valuable stamps. Not so sure it would excite readers today though.

Last Monday, my author group, CHINDI, had a photoshoot for their relaunch in May. We have opened the group to anybody, rather than locally based writers. We still intend to work as a group of writers helping each other with promotions and advice about publishing. What we will not be doing is trying to sell each other our books. The website will be focussing on authors and readers as a separate group (if that makes sense). The idea is to allow author members to edit their own pages and update them, while the readers can log in and see what books are on offer and any recommendations from other readers. The website is www.chindi-authors.co.uk.

After the photoshoot, we all adjourned to a local pub for an informal meeting. The main topic of conversation was mainly about the upcoming Chichester Arts Festival in June. We are running a week of ‘workshops’ and fun stuff. The website is www.festivalofchichester.co.uk. Three of us — myself, Helen Christmas and Christine Hammacott, sat down and discussed our participation in the festival week. We are doing a crime seminar where we’ll be talking about what’s involved in writing crime novels. I am more of a cross genre writer rather than specifically crime, but most of my novels have an element of crime in them, so I can at least have some input.

I have another interview on line with Ben Jackson of the Indie Publishing Group. It’s very similar to my other interviews (naturally), but you can catch it at http://www.indiepublishinggroup.com/author-interview-michael-parker/.

My YouTube interview with Debbie Mack is at http://bit.ly/2oyRSY8.

As I look at my diminishing sales, I reminded of a conversation on line in one of my author groups about the lack of sales. One theory, which I tend to support, is that it is our own fault; we are giving away too many free books. Readers have no need to buy anymore; they can stock their own libraries with hundreds of free ebooks. If that’s true, it means we are killing the goose that lays the golden egg. The only way now, it seems, to get my books out to a wider reading public is by advertising. I could spend a fortune and ‘hope’ for success. Or I could wait for a massive dose of luck and watch all those readers beating a path to my doorstep. Wish me luck!

Back to the Future

A different week this time: no writing, but a lot of frustration with getting a book jacket image loaded up to Ingram Spark. I’m taking advantage of their free offer to have a hardback copy of my latest book, Where the Wicked Dwell, published. I have to confess that most of the problem was my own lack of experience in working with templates. I eventually worked out the best way to use the template with the image of my jacket. It meant a lot of adjustments using Photoshop, and insertion of guides to ensure I had everything right. I received the e-proofs today and found there is a missing page break after a one of the chapters. It’s ironic because I was extremely careful with the interior file (so I thought), and didn’t expect any errors. I checked the paperback from CreateSpace, and the error isn’t there. The jacket is OK, but needs a little tweaking. Not essential but because I’m going to upload a new interior file, I might as well titivate the jacket.

Yesterday, my wife and I visited the small town where I was born seventy six years ago. It’s a place called Cuckfield, and happens to be in West Sussex, the same county in which we are now living. It was a notion I had when we settled back here. I was born during World War 2. We lived in London and, because of the war, the blitz and constant bombings, pregnant mums were moved out to countryside hospitals to free up the much needed hospital beds in London. So my mother was whisked off to Cuckfield, to a hospital that was once a workhouse. It was the kind of place that, in its early years, would have been a place where “fallen women” were taken to have their offspring. No, my mother wasn’t “fallen”; she was married and had two children when I was born. The hospital has been modernised and exists as a block of flats. It is now a world heritage site. The surrounding area is beautifully landscaped and looked after by a professional company.

I had a bit of luck on my side. Our son, Terry, is a Captain with the airline, EasyJet. One of his pilot friends actually lives in the old hospital. This meant we were able to not just visit the place, but to step inside. Although the hospital is just a block of flats now (apartments for my American readers), it felt odd to think that somewhere in that building, my mother gave birth to me as Hitler was doing his best to bomb us all into submission (not in Cuckfield of course). My mother wanted me to be born on St. Patrick’s Day, and had already decided to call me Patrick in honour of my Irish grandfather. But I had other ideas and turned up a day late, so she called me Michael instead.

Now I look back and see how history has unfolded since that day, and how much, or how little, I have been a part of it. There are a million stories out there, and mine is just a single thread in a whole pattern woven over the years. I should be able to pluck that single thread and watch it vibrate into a story that would grace the pages of any book. But I can’t; I have to stick to thrillers. And that’s the rub; I’m having trouble coming up with a plot. Now, where was I? Ah yes, searching for ideas for my book. I did think of one: it was about this baby who was born….. I don’t know; no-one would believe it.

Just one other thing: my Debbie Mack interview is now available to see on YouTube and Debbie’s website. http://www.debbimack.com/blog/2017/03/29/the-crime-cafe-interview-with-michael-parker/ Wish me luck!