September 4, 2011

Locked In reached a high point of No.5 on iTunes / iBooks today – which is great. Also on iTunes, both that and Vigilante are being featured on the front page under the New & Notable section.

Vigilante is just outside of the top-100 books overall at 106 and at No.32 in the Crime & Thriller chart. It’s all very pleasing. I hope people are enjoying both books.

September 3, 2011

Personally, it’s been a busy week as I started a new job. It’s brilliant and I love it.

Where I’ve had time, I’ve been working on Think Of The Children – the fourth Jessica Daniel book. Book three, The Woman In Black, has a complete first/second draft but I’m letting it stew for a while before going back to it. I’ve written around 27,000 words of TOTC.

Meanwhile, sales of Locked In have soared again. I’m all the way up to No.7 in the iTunes charts – including No.3 in the crime chart.

On Kindle, I’m in the top-10 for police procedurals and for novels featuring female detectives. I’m also in the main overall top-100 Crime, Thriller and Mystery novels, which is a tough chart to crack (my “badge” shows I’ve had nine days in the chart).

Vigilante has also cracked the top-20 in those categories.

Meanwhile, the LEP story about me somehow got syndicated off to Abu Dhabi newspaper The National (although no one contacted me, even though my email is freely available from this site). No matter, as that story has then been resyndicated to all kinds of places.

Vigilante's Kindle chart position on Sep 2, 2011

August 29, 2011

I’ve been a bit quiet for a week or so, largely because I have been working on book four, provisionally titled, “Think Of The Children”.

Locked In is still selling fairly steadily. It drifts between 220 and 320 in the overall Amazon.co.uk charts but stays in the top-10 for Women Sleuths and top-15 for Police Procedurals. It’s also consistently in the top-100 Crime, Mystery And Thriller books.

On iTunes, it drifted out of the top-50 books and then all the way back up to No.11 again for the Bank Holiday. It’s a bit strange but I’m not complaining.

Vigilante is out on Kindle and iTunes. It’s a little more expensive than Locked In (£1.70 compared to 98p) but sales are OK. It’s in the top-100 for Police Procedurals and top-100 Women Sleuth books on Amazon and, overall, it’s in the top three per cent of books sold on Kindle in the UK too. It isn’t doing too badly as it’s only been out for five days.

Reviews have continued to be good for Locked In too, which is great. I have had one negative review on Amazon – but it is a little strange because it criticises me for using a line that isn’t in the book. There have been some legitimate comments about grammar which I have taken on board. Constructive criticism is very welcome.

Other than that, The Woman In Black needs a thorough rewrite which I will get to at some point when I have a first draft of Think Of The Children. For now, there are still two books out there for people to hopefully enjoy.

August 21, 2011

Everyone has different authors or other cultural things that influence what they write. Some might be surprised to know that I don’t really read a lot of crime fiction. I have read all of Mark Billingham’s crime books and always liked the tone and atmosphere about them. I like Thorne as a character, although after watching the Sky television show can’t picture him as anyone other than David Morrissey (that isn’t a bad thing).

Aside from that tone, though, I think I have been influenced in a far greater way by comics.

Yes, I know “comics” is a dirty word because everyone assumes that means something for children but, the fact is, a lot of today’s popular culture has origins in one way or another connected to them.

There is the obvious glut of superhero movies that have come out in the past five years or so but there is so much more than that when you look at the people behind such cultural phenomenons as the TV show Lost. One of the head writers of that show, Damon Lindelof, has spoken about reading comics as he grew up and I think you can see that with the sheer number of “what the hell?” endings various episodes of that show had. I’m also a big fan of writers such as Brian Michael Bendis and Ed Brubaker, people whose work spans genres.

What comics have taught me is pacing. Every 22 pages or so, a comic ends and the writer wants you to buy the next issue. That means each issue, or “chapter” has to have that incentive and promise of more to come. For me, that’s everything. I want people to get to the end of a chapter and want to know what happens next. It’s not for me to say if I have been successful or not but that’s what I have tried for.

I grew up watching WWF/WWE wrestling and the format of that is as close to unique as I can think of. Once every four to six weeks, there is a pay-per-view event that costs around £15 in the UK or anything from $30-$50 in the USA. Each week there is a live television broadcast where the aim is to leave enough storylines hanging to make you want to watch the next week – and then invest your hard-earned money into paying for the pay-per-view.

When it is done well, I think you can learn big lessons about pacing from something like that. The whole business is built upon storytelling where everything builds to making you want to pay to watch something after being fed the first few ‘chapters’ of the storyline for free.

That doesn’t mean what I’ve written has anything to do with either comic book characters or wrestling because my stories aren’t. But, in some ways, that storytelling process is a little similar to what readers can have through their Kindle or iPad. You can read the first ten per cent for free and my aim as a writer is to make that first part as good as possible so that you are happy to pay to read the rest.

August 15, 2011

I wrote a piece for the Lancashire Writing Hub. You can read it here.

A lot of people have been asking about “key to success” and things like that. The truth is, and I can’t reiterate this enough, that I just don’t know. I sat on my sofa and wrote a book. I’m lucky that people have been reading it – and hopefully enjoying it.

Beyond that … I’m definitely not an expert and have just gone with the flow. After everything, I just hope people like my work.

The University of Central Lancashire, where I was a student and part-time journalism lecturer, also put out a Press release about me here.

August 13, 2011

It has now been a week since I first charted on iTunes. Quite a lot has happened since then! Chart positions are drifting, not really unexpectedly, on Amazon but I’m still at No.11 on iTunes. Ultimately though, even if I didn’t sell another book, I’ve been bought – and hopefully read – by more people than I ever thought I would reach.

Thanks for all the feedback and well-wishes. I didn’t expect any of it but, regardless of what happens from now on, I can always say I’ve written a top-10 bestseller.

August 11, 2011 (PM)

Because of everything that has been going on, I have given a few interviews to various people.

There is one here with David Wisehart. I talk a bit about my writing process and also some of my influences.

Another is here with the Somerset Standard newspaper. This represents Frome – the town I come from – in, er, Somerset. This is more of a general news story.

August 11, 2011
After yesterday being so unexpected, things have calmed slightly this morning. I’m still in the top-100 books on Kindle but, from the last two days, I’m coming to the conclusion that crime books sell more in the evenings than they do in the mornings. I do have my “2 days in the top-100” tag though.

Over on iTunes, I am now at No.8 overall and No.4 in the crime chart.

Again, thank you to everyone who is buying. I’ve had a few nice notes from people which is very pleasing. I just hope people enjoy what they read.

This morning I completed what is probably the fourth or fifth full draft of Vigilante. It’s getting to the point where I’m pretty satisfied with it now. The Woman In Black is only really on the second draft and still needs some work. For people interested, I do have rumblings for a potential fourth in the series but, for now, I’m keeping the title and plot to myself.

August 10, 2011 (11.55pm)

Today has been one of the strangest of my life.

Locked In is now in the top-80 Kindle books on the whole of Amazon UK and at No.14 in the Thriller chart.

Meanwhile, over on iBooks, I have spent the entire day at No.9. I haven’t moved up or down.

I have had record traffic to this website too.

I’m just so unbelievably grateful to those who have bought it and really hope you like it.

August 10, 2011 (1pm)

I honestly thought things would start to tail off today but currently I am the No.1 Mover & Shaker on Amazon UK.

Anyone who knows me will understand the “mover & shaker” part has nothing to do with dancing.