February 24, 2012

Despite never speaking to anyone at the paper, I am featured in a piece in today’s Daily Mail written by Liz Thomas.

I’ll make the obvious point that, if they wanted to write about me, I am one of the easiest authors to contact. If you Google “Kerry Wilkinson”, this site appears first. That “email me” tab directly above this is a very simple way of doing so.

Anyway, I wouldn’t mind, of course, except for the fact they have lifted quotes from a different interview and then taken them very much out of context.

Their intro is: “It’s one thing writing a book. But as any aspiring author will tell you, the real work is in finding a publisher.

“Now thousands of fed-up Britons – who have tried and failed to find someone to print their work – are turning to self-publishing in the hope of being discovered.”

So far, that is fine. That’s not my story but OK.

The problem is when it comes to “my” quotes. They allege that I say: “After a couple of rejection letters I just decided, “What the hell”, and self-published through Kindle and Lulu (for iTunes).”

Those quotes are actually lifted directly from a piece on the Lancashire Writing Hub which was written last August – long before I had sold 250,000 copies and reached No.1.

My problem is that they have been lifted with a naughty piece of editing. The quote actually reads: “And so, after a couple of rejection letters from agents (while I was busy writing a sequel I should add), I just decided, “What the hell”…”

The key part about AGENTS has been edited out of the Daily Mail piece to fit with their intro about publishers.

To re-iterate I was never, at any point, rejected by a publisher because I never went to them. I may as well clarify the agent point too. At that time, I had no idea what I was doing. I did the whole three chapter print-out thing and mailed it to two agents while I wrote Vigilante. I got the standard “thanks but no thanks” around a month later, which was what I expected. It was never a big deal. As I have said before, I never wrote these books to be published as such, I wrote them to show myself that I could. Basically, for something to do.

Their caption (see the screengrab) reads: “Debut: Kerry Wilkinson’s first novel sold 250,000 copies after she self-published. Now a number of publishers are vying for the sequels”.

I can see at least one major error in that too…

Afternoon note: The Mail have now fixed their caption. Still no contact though.

February 11, 2012

It’s been a busy few days, not least because I still work full-time.

Futurebook, the online off-shoot of the publishing industry’s Bookseller magazine, asked me to write a blog for them. You can read that here. It reveals that little-known fact which shouldn’t surprise anyone who atually knows me that I grew up reading Doctor Who books.

A fellow journalist I know has written this about me on his already very popular blog. I should point out that no money changed hands between us in return for the write-up. Just sexual favours*.

Lastly, on the back of the Daily Telegraph article from yesterday, which was syndicated around to a few places, some guy in Australia wrote this rather sweary article. I don’t know him but the description of my photo is one of the funniest things I’ve read. It is certainly the best thing about me on the internet. Well, aside from that leaked video* but the less said about that the better.

As ever, you can find me on Twitter or email me.

*Neither of these two things are true.

February 9, 2012

After Amazon’s press release yesterday, things got pretty hectic. I have received some very interesting emails which I should probably keep to myself for now. I’ll post more here when it’s sensible.

I was in today’s Guardian here and today’s Telegraph here. Two pretty good write-ups really.

February 8, 2012

It’s fair to say I have had an interesting day…

This morning, Amazon UK sent this press release out to all sorts of media organisations.

It explains that I was the number one author on Amazon UK for the final quarter of 2011, while Locked In was the number one book for the same period. I’ve known this for about a week and had to sit on it.

The press release was picked up on internet sites such as Techradar as well as by The Bookseller – which is the UK publishing industry’s trade magazine.

Essentially, after that, things went a bit crazy. This website has had three times as many visitors as it has ever had – even on its busiest day. I have been fielding emails all day from newspapers, agents, readers, writers, trade conferences, festivals and so on.

It has taken me hours to get through it all.

If I had submitted my stuff to agents nine months ago, I’m pretty sure I would have had to wait six weeks to get a rejection letter, now they come to me. It’s pretty surreal.

After all that, I’ve also had publishers come to me directly.

It’s been quite the day. I have now replied to everyone.

I will endeavour to post again tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

February 7, 2012

As of this morning, I’m delighted to tell you all that the three-book Jessica Daniel series has now sold over a quarter of a million copies.

Almost all of these have been sold in the United Kingdom with, as you would imagine, Locked In selling the bulk of that amount. That said, both Vigilante and The Woman In Black have also shifted a fair few copies too.

The strangest thing is that I hadn’t even begun writing Locked In this time last year. I started around 10 to 11 months ago – and have sold 250,000 copies in just six months since the first title was released. It’s fair to say that almost all of those have been sold through Amazon’s Kindle Store – although the combined iTunes and Waterstones sales are substantial too.

There is a lot I could write about sales figures and I get the feeling the actual publishing industry don’t have much of an idea how many copies it takes to top each of the respective charts, let alone the size of Kindle compared to everything else. Maybe I’ll keep that knowledge to myself for now…?

Then there are snobbish articles like this rather offensive and patronising one in yesterday’s Observer which seems to think authors like myself shouldn’t exist and that readers like you should be dictated to over what you should and shouldn’t like. Luckily, if you read the comments below the article, you will see that most people disagree with the writer. The piece seemed to ignore the Guardian’s Kindle app – and their numerous ebook spin-offs too. I guess innovation and creativity is fine as long as you have the seal of approval from a national newspaper?

Anyway… this is just to say thank you very much to everyone who has read and enjoyed the books. I’ve had some wonderful emails and some great tweets. I know there are hundreds, if not thousands, of you wanting news on the next book in the series. I should hopefully have something for you in the next few weeks. I have been working hard on it as my red pen would attest to. It is in pretty good shape now. I also have a complete draft of book five. I have been busy.

As ever, you can find me on Twitter or email me.

January 15, 2012

There was an interview with me in yesterday’s Guardian where I ramble on about a few things.

I’m never that sure about releasing sales figures. I did write that Locked In sold its 100,000th copy on Christmas Eve – but that is only a part of the overall story because there are three books out. That’s also not to mention that the Christmas and new year week was a quite extraordinary one for ebook sales. I spent most of that week second only to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in terms of Kindle sales.

For me, the most-impressive thing is not necesarily how many copies Locked In has sold – it’s how many copies the sequels have shifted. I fully realise most people will have bought Locked In because it costs a pound and, even if they don’t like it, they haven’t lost much. But Vigilante and The Woman In Black cost more and people only return to buy those if they felt enough of a connection to Jessica.

January 13, 2012

Earlier this week, Locked In received its 100th five-star review on Amazon. I’m pretty chuffed to say the least. The reviews and ratings for Vigilante and The Woman In Black continue to be, on the whole, positive as well which is really pleasing.

I get asked about upcoming books an awful lot. I don’t have any exact release dates right now – but hope to have more concrete news for you all by the start of February.

As ever, you can find me on Twitter or email me.

January 3, 2012

It’s going to take me weeks to remember which year it is…

The Christmas and new year period was a pretty busy time for me, with lots of new readers picking up Locked In and the subsequent titles.

Nikki Walker from the Judging Covers website has reviewed Locked In here.

In addition, I did a Q&A for the futurebook website. It is an offshoot of the Bookseller magazine, which is the professional publication for the UK book industry.

As ever, you can find me on Twitter or email me.

December 28, 2011

It has been a very interesting few days over Christmas for the Jessica Daniel series.

On Christmas Eve, Locked In broke the 100,000 sales mark – a feat I’m still pretty stunned by. It managed those numbers in just five months.

The follow-up titles are also going well.

I have spoken to some fellow authors over the past few days and can say with as much surety as I can that Locked In is the fastest-selling indie book of 2011 in the UK. It isn’t the highest-selling – that belongs to Stephen Leather‘s The Basement – which sold more copies over the full 12 months – but I’m pretty certain it’s the quickest-selling.

After that, Locked In spent most of Christmas Day and Boxing Day at number two in the Kindle chart and number three in the Waterstones chart. It had a record sales day on Christmas Day itself, selling around a week’s worth of copies in 12 hours.

What was most interesting for me is how the sequels performed.

On 25 December, Vigilante was outsold by Locked In by a margin of nearly 10:1. This was perhaps to be expected because people with their brand-new Kindles were looking to try something different and because Locked In only costs 98p.

As you would expect after the Christmas Day high, Locked In sold fewer copies on 26 December – but sales of Vigilante and The Woman In Black actually increased.

On 26 December, Vigilante sold a third more copies than it did on Christmas Day itself, while The Woman In Black was up by 20 per cent.

I think that’s a pretty decent indication that people who bought the first book on 25 December were happy enough to buy the sequel(s) the following day.

On 27 December, Locked In sold fewer again – but Vigilante and The Woman In Black remained steady.

In all, it has been a pretty astonishing 2011. This time last year, I was in a different job than I am now (I’m not a full-time author) and trying to figure out what I might want to do with myself having turned 30. Now… well I guess I still don’t really know but things have certainly changed.

You can find me on Twitter or email me.

Thanks for all of your support.
Kerry

December 16, 2011

Locked In is about to spend its 100th day in the Amazon Kindle UK top-100 and, with a day to go, has returned to being the number one book for the fifth time.

The Deal of the Day makes everything a bit yo-yo in terms of the chart, so I’m not sure how many other non-deal books will get to the top spot as it’s pretty hard.

Of those 100 days, almost 13 weeks have been spent in the top-10 – with around 25 days at number one.

Vigilante isn’t doing too shabbily. It has been in the top-100 for 12 weeks, with all-but around a week in the top-20.

The Woman In Black is still in the top-20 too – as it has been practially since launch day in November.

I get asked a lot about a release date for book four – Think Of The Children. All I can say, unfortunately, is that I don’t have anything concrete yet. My original aim was approximately Easter 2012.

I will say there are complete first drafts of both book four and book five, so there will definitely be more Jessica in 2012.