Last week, Rachel and I exchanged the following emails and thought it might be illuminating and interesting to share our conversation with other writers and readers.

RA:      I just wanted to drop you a quick note to congratulate you on the amazing success of The Magpies. I’m really pleased for you. You’re having such a terrific run at the top, how are you managing to sleep?

ME:      Thanks Rachel! It has been very exciting – but, to be honest, my one-year-old son stops me sleeping more than the adrenalin. Although I must confess to checking my Amazon ranking when he gets me up at 3am… Huge congrats to you too on The Back Road being such a huge hit, and on Only the Innocent re-entering the top ten. Having two books in the top ten is a fantastic achievement. From experience I’ve found that when you have two or more books out, even if they are not strictly part of a series, they help sell each other. I guess you’ve found that too?

RA:      I actually had no idea that there would be such a knock on effect. It’s been a major surprise and I continue to be astonished daily. I have to say that I am in awe of you writers who have day jobs, small children and you STILL manage to write books. I couldn’t do it. It takes me a long time to plan a book – I’m a bit of a detail freak. The Back Road has so many interconnecting stories and twists to it that detailed planning was essential. I’m onto the next book now, and I spent an hour yesterday looking for images of flats in Manchester that work for the first part of the story. Having a photo that matches the idea in my head really helps to firm up the details – such as where the watcher in the grounds might be hiding. When I was writing The Back Road I had interior layouts – even a seating plan for the dinner party.

When you write, do you start with an idea and run with it to see where it takes you, or do you have a detailed plan? Is The Magpies the book you thought it was going to be when you sat down to write?

ME:      I used to start books with no plan apart from a vague ending in my head, and would make it up as I went along. These days I plan more, working out at least the first third of the book. I also try to write a character sketch so I know something about their back story before starting – but it changes a lot as I write. I like to be able to surprise myself, which also makes it easier to surprise the reader. But with The Magpies, I knew exactly what kind of story I was trying to tell – one where the sense of dread keeps building with no let up or escape for the characters. Every time you think it can’t get worse…it does. I like to make my characters really suffer!

How about you? In The Back Road you have a rich ensemble of characters, each with their own history. I often find that the temptation is to start the novel too early. How did you work out where to start?

RA:      In The Back Road it was quite easy. I needed to start at a point just before the tragic accident that acts as a catalyst to blow everything apart and expose all the secrets and lies that pervade the whole story. But I wanted a prologue that was dark – something that would make sense of what was to happen, and also cause some confusion. The prologue takes place several years in the past – but in The Magpies, I initially thought that the prologue was in the future – and the rest of the book told the story of how the protagonists had reached that point. But that wasn’t the case, was it?

ME:      No, with The Magpies the prologue is actually in the past, but you don’t find out who it is and what happened until much later in the book. The prologue is in there partly to let readers know that something awful is going to happen because the beginning of the book is quite a slow burner. I want the reader to feel that trickle of dread – like when you watch the start of a horror movie, when the family moves in to the haunted house, or the gang of teens goes into the woods.

RA:      It’s interesting what you say about character sketches. I do incredibly detailed character profiles – but what changes it all for me is when you put each of these characters in a room together –the way they interact with each other helps their characters to develop. I love the way that, as I write, the conversations – the lies and half-truths – just appear as if out of nowhere on the page. It feels as if I don’t think of them myself – they just happen.

Do you like to carry characters forward from one book to another – or once their story is told, have you done with them?

ME:      I think readers like it when a writer carries characters forward – Louise Voss and I did this with Kate Maddox in our medical thriller series. But some books work better as standalones. Once you’ve told the story, it’s time to say goodbye to those characters. How about you?  And do you have a favourite character in your books?

RA:      I never intended to carry characters forward. My plan was standalone books – but so many people commented on policeman Tom Douglas in Only the Innocent that I felt compelled to bring him back in The Back Road. And now there is a hint of attraction between him and Leo (short for Leonora)  – my favourite character because of her complex and conflicted nature – so they will both be back in the next book. Tom might never be the protagonist in one of my novels – but he is always there in the background, almost as if his role is to give readers the reassurance that somebody wants the truth to be out. My books don’t focus on the ‘who’ in terms of crime. They are much more about the ‘why’ – so the principal characters are the victims and the perpetrators, not the police.

Actually I think that you and I both put ordinary people in horrendous situations in our novels – and I wonder if the thing that attracts readers is the fact that they can imagine something similar happening to them, or to people they know? In The Back Road, nearly everybody has some conflict to resolve or secret to hide, let alone trying to find out who would leave a young girl to die on the side of the road. I can imagine people identifying with the characters in both The Back Road and The Magpies – driven to make the wrong decisions because the stress and pressure mounts.

ME:      I’m sure you’re right about the attraction being ‘it could happen to you’. Any one of us could find ourselves living next door to neighbours from hell. Thrillers about spies and assassins are exciting but they are pure escapism. It’s much more chilling to imagine that you could be undergoing this experience.

RA:      What are you up to next? Another book with Louise Voss, or another in your own name?

ME:      I’m halfway through the next Voss and Edwards book, which is a slight departure for us as it’s more of a police procedural but mixed with a psychological thriller. We’re hoping it will be the start of a new series. And then I plan to write another Magpies-style psychological thriller. But I intend to make this one a lot scarier… What’s your next one?

RA:      A completely new story – like you another psychological thriller. There will be police elements in it because of the crimes that are committed – all of which means that there is space of Tom Douglas again. There are fewer characters than in The Back Road, but I’m really hoping that the story resonates with readers. Another nightmare scenario that readers can relate to.

It’s been great having a catch up – good luck with the continued success of The Magpies, and it’s been good to have your company on this particular part of the journey!

The Back Road and Only The Innocent are both currently on sale for just 99p and are highly recommended.

The Magpies is still just 99p too!

The Magpies

1. As I’ve stated before, getting and staying in the top ten is much harder than it was two years ago – especially because of all the Daily Deals and bargain books that are price-matched from other sites (because some books are offered at 59p on other sites, Amazon price matches them; this is also what happened with the 20p books). But the volumes of sales are much higher. When Catch Your Death was No.1 for a month it ‘only’ sold around 25,000 copies during that period. I imagine the current No.1 book has sold 3 times that this month – at least.

If you look at the print book bestseller list, and compare it to the Kindle chart, you can also see something very interesting happening. The No.1 print book last week was Marian Keyes, who sold 25,000 copies of her new one. My guess would be that the No.1 ebook had similar sales to this, and that the same will follow through the top ten. So The Magpies would have been the third or fourth biggest-selling book in the UK last week. Of course, the books in the Kindle top ten are a lot cheaper, but, based purely on volume, and based just on the top ten, British readers are buying almost as many Kindle books as they are paperbacks.

2. Readers are far more likely to leave reviews than they used to be. I don’t know if this is because Amazon sends out emails asking for them, or because of some change in Kindle culture, but they come in much faster than they used to. Every time I see that the review count has gone up I feel sick with dread and scroll down the page with my eyes half-averted. Of course, I can handle bad reviews but they still hurt when they come in. Luckily, I haven’t had many. (Looks for a piece of wood to touch. Really.)

3. Sunday is the best day of the week for sales (by far) and Monday is the worst.

4. There aren’t as many big self-published books around these days. At the moment, The Martian is in the top ten, and Sealed With a Kiss by Racheal Lucas was in the top ten two weeks ago. Rachel Abbot hit No. 2 a couple of weeks ago with The Back Road. There also a few US indie titles around, mostly erotica or new adult. But in 2011 there were a lot more at the higher end of the chart.

While all this has been going on, Louise and I have started gearing up for the release of Forward Slash, which has been brought forward to 20th June. And we’re making great progress on our next book too. And the success of The Magpies has got me itching to start another solo novel, for which I have an idea that I’m mulling over. Readers seem to ever hungrier for more material. Even though Louise and I will have published 5 novels in 2 years, our readers want more…and being ‘hybrid’ authors is a great way for us to do this.

Finally, I want to say an enormous thanks to the 40,000 people who’ve bought The Magpies already, and to all those people who’ve tweeted about it, written reviews and told their friends. Hearing from readers who like your work is by far the best thing about being a writer. I’ve reported a lot of stats here – but the really important stuff is the stuff you can’t measure.

Buy The Magpies on Amazon.co.uk

Buy The Magpies on Amazon.com

I never thought I would have another bestseller. But one of the best things about the success of this book is that it shows me that what happened two years ago with Catch Your Death and Killing Cupid wasn’t a fluke. It has also dragged the Voss & Edwards books up the chart – with All Fall Down finally breaking into the top thousand yesterday five months after it was released.

Some things I’ve learned this week:

1. Seeing lone magpies in the street doesn’t affect my ranking, even if it makes my stomach clench with anxiety. Also, checking your sales figures every five minutes doesn’t do anything except drive you insane and stop you from doing anything productive.

2. It is so much harder to crack the top ten and stay in there these days. The chart was full of sub-£1 books in 2011 but readers seem to be even more price-sensitive these days. A few days ago, the very talented Rachel Abbott, another indie writer with a No.1 hit under her belt, shot into the chart at £1.99 and almost made it to the top. But now her ranking is slipping – which must be because of the ultra-cheap books The Back Road is competing with. That includes The Magpies. Even though it pained me, I had to reduce the price to 99p as part of a sale to get into the top twenty.

3. The volumes of books sold are much greater too. The Magpies is currently selling around 1400-1500 copies a day. In 2011, that was comfortably enough for Catch Your Death to be No.1 and Killing Cupid was selling half that at No.2.

4. Without fail, 25% of my book sales come in between midnight and 8am.

5. Despite all this talk of stats and rankings, the most pleasing thing about this whole experience has been the response from readers. I was extremely nervous about releasing a solo novel. What if everyone read it and said, ‘Well, we always suspected Louise was the talented one?’ Louise has already proven herself with four excellent novels but now I feel like I have proven that I’m not the Andrew Ridgeley of the partnership! We are both George Michaels. Without the dope-smoking, car-crashing and exciting toilet encounters.

So, I’d like to thank everyone who’s bought The Magpies so far. If that’s not you, what are you waiting for? It’s only 99p, for goodness sake!

Buy The Magpies on Amazon.co.uk

Buy The Magpies on Amazon.com

Two years ago – in February 2011 – my co-writer Louise Voss and I self-published our thriller Killing Cupid, following it three months later with Catch Your Death. We spent a lot of time promoting our books, very slowly pushing Killing Cupid up the charts until, in a sudden burst, both books shot into the top ten on Amazon UK, hitting the No.1 and No.2 spots.

In June 2011, we sold 40,000 ebooks. Catch Your Death sold on average 1000 copies a day (1900 on its best day) and Killing Cupid sold around 500 a day. While CYD stayed at No.1 for a month, KC bounced up and down the top ten. Shortly afterwards we landed a publishing deal and stopped doing anything to promote the books, watching them slowly slide down the charts until they were unpublished late in the year. In total we sold 60,000 CYDs and 35,000 KCs as self-publishers.

Last week, I self-published my first solo novel, The Magpies, a psychological thriller in which a young couple move into their dream home, only to find themselves targeted by neighbours who set out to ruin their lives.

When you are traditionally published it’s hard to know how many ebooks you are selling – you can watch your rank on Amazon but it’s often difficult to translate this into sales figures. Several people have asked me to offer an insight into this so here are some things I’ve learned this week about the Amazon charts in 2013. I should stress that this is all UK – my figures are too low in the US to give any meaningful insight.

I launched The Magpies on 25th March, holding a Facebook event for my and Louise’s existing fans and tweeting about the book through the day. I sold 130 copies that day and, to my delight, reached No.2 on psychological thrillers and No.363 overall. The next day I sold just over 100 but climbed the chart slightly – this is because the algorithm takes into account weekly and monthly figures.

The next day, sales started to slip – I sold 46, taking me down to No. 442, and when I woke up on Friday the rank had slipped to 700.

Then things went a bit crazy for a couple of days. On Good Friday, sales came in fast and the book raced up the chart, hitting No.1 on psychological thrillers and, by the end of the day, reaching No. 35 in the overall rankings. I sold 850 books that day. The following day I sold almost 1000 and climbed to No.25.

Since then I’ve been selling between 350-500 a day and bouncing around in the 30s.

Back in 2011, 1000 copies a day was enough to take you to No.1. I know that when Life of Pi was No.1 earlier this year, priced at 20p, it was selling 10,000 copies a day. There are a lot more Kindle owners out there these days, and it’s much harder to reach the Top 10. But it also means that potential sales are much greater.

However, the upper reaches of the chart are much tougher to scale, for a number of reasons. Firstly, there are a lot more cheap books around. The 20p deal has gone, thank goodness, but there are still a lot of 59p and 65p books around. Secondly, the Kindle Daily Deal books come in and out of the chart fast – usually hitting the top spot, or at least the top three. On Easter Sunday, seven CS Lewis books stormed the chart and took up most of the top ten.

There’s also a Spring Sale on at the moment, with around a quarter of the top forty taken up by these books. In short, the chart is almost completely dominated by sale or bargain books, with few books that cost more than £3 doing anything at all, with the honourable exception of Gone Girl. There are also fewer indie books in the top 40. Just four as I write this (including mine).

Back in 2011 Louise and I decided to price our books at less than £1. This time I am being brave and pricing at £1.99. This is because I am interested in finding readers who want to read the book and who will invest time in it. In the crazy world of cheap ebooks, £1.99 is a considered purchase; far fewer books are bought on a whim at that price. And that means The Magpies is less likely to languish unread among all those cheap books everyone has on their Kindle.

It’s still early days and the chart changes fast – if I manage to make it into the top 20 or even the top 10 I will report back on how many you have to sell to achieve those dizzy heights these days!

Nick and I will be appearing on a panel together at Self-Publishing in the Digital Age, a conference aimed at writers that is being organised by the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook. It’s on Nov 3rd in London and full details can be found here.

Over to Nick, who I asked to share the secrets of his success.

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your books?

Here’s my bio: Nick Spalding is an author who, try as he might, can’t seem to write anything serious. He’s worked in the communications industry his entire life, mainly in media and marketing. As talking rubbish for a living can get tiresome (for anyone other than a politician), he thought he’d have a crack at writing comedy fiction – with an agreeable level of success so far, it has to be said. Nick lives in the South of England with his fiancée. He is approaching his forties with the kind of dread usually associated with a trip to the gallows, suffers from the occasional bout of insomnia, and still thinks Batman is cool.

How successful have you been?

In self publishing terms I’d have to say very at this point! I’m approaching 400,000 total ebook sales on Amazon, which I guess would put me in the top bracket. This has led to a great publishing deal with Hodder and Stoughton. 

How does this compare to what you expected?

Well, when I first published Life… With No Breaks I wanted to make enough money to buy me and my other half a decent meal, so you could say it’s exceeded expectations by some margin! I’ve now reached the point where I can write full-time, which is a dream come true.

Apart from write good books, can you pinpoint anything you did that helped your sales rocket?

Honestly? No! I posted on a few forums, started up a blog and started tweeting, but I don’t think any of those things contributed to my success to be honest. It really does come down to writing the right book at the right time for the right people. You also need a good cover and good blurb. See below answers!

How important is a good cover?

Very. It’s the first thing the punters see and if it doesn’t catch their attention you’re sunk, especially in the first few weeks and months of having a book online. Make it eye-catching, simple and bold. Don’t try to be too clever with it, that’s the main thing. Hit the right notes for the genre you write in and you’ll give your book the best chance.

How important is a strong description?

Also important. It’s the second bite of the cherry so to speak. If you’ve got the reader interested in your cover, then a strong blurb will probably carry your sale for you. The two things together can work wonders for your books chances of selling well.

You use ‘subtitles’ on your books, e.g. ‘a laugh-out-loud comedy’. Do you think this has made a difference?

Not a clue to be honest It certainly hasn’t hindered the book’s success, but I couldn’t tell you the subtitles were instrumental in getting sales or anything. I’d suggest a bit of experimentation for those thinking about using subtitles and see whether it works for you.

Do you use social media, and how?

I have a Facebook page, a blog and I tweet. I’m not an avid user of any, but I always like to read what the audience think of my work and social media gives me a chance to interact with them, even if it is sometimes on a superficial level due to workload. The best thing about social media is that it gives readers a chance to communicate directly with a writer, which I’ve always thought is pretty cool. I don’t think it helps with sales much though, in my experience.

Have you experienced or witnessed any unpleasant behaviour in the indie world?

There’s the odd occasional thing where one author takes exception to another, and the whole sock-puppeting thing is getting a bit silly, but to tell the truth I steer clear of getting involved in anything like that and rarely come across it. Most people are just trying to sell books and build a good reputation. There are some bad apples I guess, but that’s true of any community isn’t it? It’s just best to ignore the nasty stuff and concentrate on your work. Nothing good ever came of engaging in online arguments

Can you recommend any other good self-published books?

I’m afraid I’ve been terrible and not had time to read many books at all recently, self pubbed or otherwise, but off the top of my head I’d say that Hugh Howey’s Wool was a great read. My partner read and really enjoyed Lexi Revellian’s Replica. Dan Arenson’s fantasy novels are cracking – he does a very professional job with all of them. Carl Ashmore’s Time Hunters is a good children’s fantasy and I liked Stephen Leather’s self-pubbed stuff at lot too.

What’s next?

Well, I’ll probably go make a cup of coffee in a minute and go for a dump, but I don’t see how that’s any business of yours sir – oh, you mean with the writing? Well, there are brand new versions of Love… From Both Sides and Love… And Sleepless Nights being released by Coronet Books in the next couple of weeks so I’ll be promoting those. I’m also in the middle of writing the third book in the trilogy called Love… Under Different Skies, which will be out in 2013. All three are also out in paperback next year.

Thanks Nick!

]]> http://indieiq.com/2012/10/23/meet-nick-spalding-400000-ebook-sales-and-counting/feed/ 0 http://indieiq.com/2012/10/14/11-ways-to-write-a-sizzling-book-description/ http://indieiq.com/2012/10/14/11-ways-to-write-a-sizzling-book-description/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2012 17:45:37 +0000 indieiq http://indieiq.com/?p=504

Sell the sizzle, not the sausage!

There are only three things you need to do to become a multi-platinum, world-conquering ebook tycoon with a fleet of yachts and sales figures that would make James Patterson spit with envy:

1. Get people to look at your book page
2. Convert them into a paying customer
3. Keep them coming back for more

Yep, that’s all you have to do!

There is no magic formula for making this happen. But you can give yourself a much better chance of breaking into the upper reaches of the Kindle chart by making sure you get the important things right. One of the most vital of these is your book description – which comes under the conversion point above. When you have that potential reader on your page, their mouse hovering tantalizingly-close to that ‘Buy’ button, they will be looking at a few elements: the cover, the reviews, the sample…and the description.

If your book description doesn’t grab them and make them feel ‘the need – the need to read’ then you’ve just lost a customer. When my co-written book, Killing Cupid, was stuck just outside the top 100 last year, I couldn’t work out why it was selling fewer than some of the books above it. At that time, Amazon used to handily give you the percentage of page viewers who bought the book. Killing Cupid’s conversion rate was relatively weak. The reviews were good, the cover was strong – so was it the description?

I spent days studying and analyzing the books with higher conversion rates. What was it about their descriptions that made them sell more? Once I’d come up with some theories I put them to the test, re-writing the description.

Sales doubled within an hour.

A couple of weeks later, the book was No.2 on Amazon.  The conversion rate from visitor to sale was much higher. All was right with the world.

I’ve spent a long time studying descriptions, and am also a trained marketing copywriter. I am now available for hire to write or critique book descriptions. But if you want to do it yourself, here are my 11 ingredients that will make that blurb sizzle.

1. Make it clear. Your potential reader needs to know with a quick skim read what kind of book this is, what it’s about and what the story is. The story is the most important element here – if you’ve written an erotic romance that will give Fifty Shades a run for its money, make sure people know that.  Though remember, it’s the relationship at the heart of Fifty Shades that made it such a smash. You need to get that across in a very lucid way.
2. Write in your genre.  There are certain rules that apply to every genre. Find some popular books in your genre and study the description. The backs of paperbacks can be better to study than self-published books, and first novels that were big hits are the best of all.
3. Don’t be afraid to reference other books or writers. Your potential readers are looking for hooks that will tell them quickly what kind of book this is. If you’ve written a grown-up vampire novel you could do a lot worse than say that it’s for fans of Anne Rice.
4. The book is more important than you. There can be a temptation to boast about your own achievements or credentials. Unless you’re an Olympic coach and you’ve written a guide to strength training, readers won’t care. Most of them won’t even notice or remember who wrote it.
5. The first line is the most important. If you don’t get the first line right, they won’t read on (this applies to the book itself too). Your first line needs to encapsulate the whole book. It needs to draw people in, hit them where it feels good and make the hairs on the back of their neck stand up. Not easy – but worth spending time on.
6. It should be as long as it needs to be. There is no hard-and-fast rule about length. Maybe you can summarise your mieisterwerk in a few sentences. Maybe you need to write four paragraphs to really draw people in and get them involved. Size doesn’t matter. That’s what my girlfriend tells me anyway.
7. Don’t be boring. The moment your potential reader feels bored, they’re gone, clicking on to the next book on the also-bought bar. Every line has to be compelling and move the story on. Just like your book, in fact.
8. Make them laugh, cry, cower. It’s all about emotions. How is your book going to make people feel? Is it heartbreaking or hilarious? Chilling or hotter than Angelina Jolie sunbathing in Death Valley? Again, look at the words most used in your genre. They are clichés for a reason. They work.
9. Use testimonials. If you have some quotes from well-known writers or experts, use them. These are generally best in a block rather than scattered through the text. If you’ve got a quote from your Auntie Maureen, you might as well use that too. Just don’t reference her as your auntie.
10. Make your characters live. As well as the story, it’s vital to get a good sense of your characters across – and, most importantly, their big problem. What terrible dilemma do they have to resolve? What personal demon do they need to conquer? You need characters and problems people will identify with – but they have to be big problems. Having a broken dishwasher just isn’t exciting enough.
11. Make the reader desperate to know what happens. You have to end your description with a cliffhanger. You need to lead the reader to the point where they are so curious that, were they a cat, it would kill them. Make sure you don’t give too much away. Be intriguing. Make them feel like Anastasia when Christian tells her he’s about to show her something really new and exciting.  Make them go ‘Holy crap!’

Want help with your book description? I can critique it or write a new one for you. Simply contact me for full details.

This description can be the difference between success and failure.

When Louise Voss and I published Killing Cupid and Catch Your Death ourselves, we spent a lot of time tweaking and testing the descriptions – with great results.

The first few months Killing Cupid was live, we did little bits of tweaking, but didn’t put a huge amount of effort into it. In May 2011, the book had climbed so it was just outside the top 100 on Amazon, and it appeared to be stuck there. At that point, Amazon showed on screen what percentage of people who viewed your item bought it, and our rating was lower than a lot of books that were higher than us on the list.

So I studied what those books did better. It wasn’t the reviews – we had a solid 4.5 star rating. And I didn’t think it was the cover, which had, after all, drawn people to the page. Maybe it was the extract of the first couple of chapters – but there wasn’t much I could do about that quickly (I’ll be writing more on this topic at a later date).

It must be the product description, I guessed. And I spent the next few days analysing what the books towards the top of the chart were doing differently to us and, using what I’d learned, re-wrote the description of Killing Cupid.

Sales doubled within an hour.

And a day later we entered the top 100. Then the top 50. Climbed all the way to No.2…

Changing the description gave us the boost we needed to shoot up the charts. There is a science to it – and an art – and so many writers who spend a year on their book totally neglect their description.

This is the description that sent Killing Cupid up the charts:

Alex Parkinson is obsessed with his writing tutor, Siobhan. He will do anything to be with her. He stalks her on Facebook and finds out where she lives, buys her presents using her own credit card and sends her messages telling her what he wants to do to her. He breaks into her house and hides in her wardrobe, reads her diary and listens to her while she takes a bath…

Soon, he believes, she will realise they are meant to be together. But when a ‘love rival’ comes on to the scene, Alex has to take drastic action. Soon, a young woman lies dead on the concrete after tumbling from the roof of her house. Now there is no-one standing in the way of him and his unwitting true love…

But after Alex is scared off, Siobhan decides to take revenge.  How dare he lose interest?  She turns the tables on her stalker and his new girlfriend. At the same time, an old friend of the dead woman starts to investigate what really happened… As their lives unravel and the past closes in, Alex and Siobhan embark on a collision course that threatens to destroy both them and everyone around them.

Filled with suspense and dark comedy, and with a unique twist at the end that you will never guess, KILLING CUPID is written in alternating chapters, showing the male and female viewpoints.

I used those lessons when I wrote the description for our second book, Catch Your Death:

A secret conspiracy. A killer virus. A race to save the world.

Imagine if Dan Brown, Steig Larsson and Michael Crichton sat down together to write a fast-paced medical conspiracy thriller set in the English countryside, featuring evil scientists, stone-cold killers, a deadly virus and a beautiful but vulnerable Harvard professor.

That’s CATCH YOUR DEATH, the No.1 UK Bestseller from Louise Voss and Mark Edwards, the writing team behind the smash hit thriller KILLING CUPID.

Esteemed virologist Kate Maddox thought she was escaping to a new life.  But before she can face the future she must deal with the ghosts of the past.20 years ago, Kate was a volunteer at a research unit in the English countryside where scientists experimented to find a cure for the common cold.

That summer, Kate fell in love with a handsome young doctor, Stephen. But her stay at the unit ended in Stephen’s tragic death and Kate fled to Boston and a new life at Harvard.

Now, Kate is back in England and on the run again – this time, from her cruel husband – and trying to find a fresh start for her and her young son.  But a chance encounter with Stephen’s twin brother, Paul, sets her on a terrifying path of discovery. What really happened at the Cold Research Unit two decades ago?

As Kate and Paul travel across England in search of the answers, they are unaware they are being hunted. Pursued by both her estranged husband and a psychopathic killer who has an unhealthy obsession with his quarry, Kate must fight to solve the puzzles of the past – uncovering a sickening betrayal and a truth she never dreamed possible.

CATCH YOUR DEATH is a fun, page-turning thriller that also asks serious questions about how much we can rely on the people we entrust with our lives.

I am certain this description helped us get to No.1.

Want me to write your book description for you? Click here for more details.

I asked Roz Davison, a book blogger who runs a very entertaining blog called Don’t Read That, Read This, to write about what it’s like being a reviewer – and her words are pretty eye-opening for writers. Roz can be very scathing in her reviews – and I’m very happy never to have been on the end of one of her negative write-ups – but she is unflinchingly honest. Here, Roz explains what makes her, as a book blogger, tick and offers some advice to writes, especially self-published authors. You can find her on Twitter at @RozD.

My name’s Roz and I’m a blogger/reviewer. I became a reviewer a bit by accident. For a variety of reasons, 2010 was pretty difficult for me, and the effects  lingered into the following year when, to escape my problems, I immersed myself in books. When March came, I suddenly realised that I had read 10 books, I thought this was pretty good, even for an avid reader like myself. Almost directly after this someone asked me to recommend them a book, knowing they could value my opinion.

So then I challenged myself to read 100 over the course of a year and created a blog, recording my thoughts about each book as I went. I called it Don’t Read That, Read This, recommending books to people or warning them off as I went along. It gave me a focus and a task which was something I really needed at the time.

I’ve been on Twitter since 2008, and have amassed over 900 followers since then, some of whom, though we’ve never met, I consider real friends. As I completed a review I would post a link on Twitter, and to my surprise my blog got hits and decent amounts of them too. Friends would RT my links and then I’d get more hits, people favourited me, people recommended me, people linked to me off their own sites. The blog has had 12,000 hits in 18 months and I think thats pretty good seeing as it was really just for me and then snowballed

As far as the 100 books went, in 2011 I managed 99 (so close!) and have restarted the challenge for 2012. (Currently 80.) My plan for 2013 is to lose the challenge aspect of the site and to turn it into a more professional entity, but that’s for the new year.

Along the way something happened, like many people I have writing aspirations, but when I pick up a book I tend to be looking at the title and the blurb, and the writer is just a name on the cover, a person I don’t know and probably never will. When I wrote about the book, hand on heart I didn’t really think about the writer, just whether I liked the book.

So when suddenly I found myself getting tweets from various authors including Jonathan Trigell, Patrick Ness, Harriet Lane, Elizabeth Knox and Madeline Miller thanking me for my review, and RTing my review it felt great, it felt all warm and fuzzy. But then, I started to think about poor John Niven, whose novel ‘The Second Coming’ I had heavily criticised or Ali Smith whose novel ‘There But For The’ I described as “insufferable people talking insufferable twaddle” I remembered how Ben Aaronovitch never tweeted me back when I said Moon Over Soho had room for improvement. I started to feel bad, guilty even.

My most recent review is of a Chris Cleave book (The Other Hand). I didn’t like it and I said so and I didn’t shy away of saying why, but I can’t help but place myself in the position of Chris should he ever read it, and sort of cringe that he might be upset.

A writer pours a lot of themselves into their work it’s not like another job if someone criticised for example your filing methods, you aren’t going to be devastated, but if someone pours scorn on your “baby” as writers often see their projects – then the human response is anger, dislike and frustration that whoever this person is, they just haven’t “got it”  and just who the hell are they anyway?

I’m just me, a lifelong reader, but the difference between now and as recently as 15 years ago or less, is that I am a reader with a keyboard, and an audience and there are lots of us out there. Which is one opinion, amplified. My audience may be comparatively small, but I am the classic example of the ripple effect. Friends go into a Waterstones, one of them reads my blog and says “Hey, I’m going to get this, Roz said it’s amazing, and, oh god, don’t get that Roz TRASHED IT on her blog”.  My best friend’s husband phones me every June to see what books he should buy his wife this birthday. Essentially it’s “word of mouth”, the difference being I’ve got a BIG mouth.

I’ve also taken, after advice, to reprinting my reviews on Amazon. This is really helpful to authors when the review is praiseworthy as it effects the star rating, less so when the review is critical. I know that my buying choices have been effected by star ratings in the past, but reviews on Amazon come with the territory, and part of the life of a writer along with rejection is knowing that the whole world isn’t going to love what you wrote. I’ve been searching for a quote by Virginia Woolf, which I can’t find, which says something along the lines of ‘Your book is yours until it goes out into the world, and then it belongs to the world,’ rather like your child, I suppose.

The advice for published writers who want their book to gain a bit more notice is simple. Track down bloggers online, either bloggers such as myself who read a variety of genres or bloggers who specialise in your genre. Find bloggers who you think may actually love your stuff and have your PR send them a courtesy copy. There’s no guarantee of a good review, but there’s usually a guarantee it’ll be read. If it doesn’t work out, so what? There’s plenty of other opinions out there.

The fact is that readers, obsessive lifelong readers such as myself, don’t buy a book and think “I know, this book looks crap, brilliant, I’ll have an ace time slagging off this book and its writer, it’ll be SUCH fun” We’re on your side, we want your book to be AMAZING, we want your book to make us laugh, make us cry, make us identify. We want to finish your book and be able to say “That’s a definite Top 10” and have the anxiety of deciding what we can possibly push into spot 11 to make room. We don’t want to spend time on your book fervently wishing we were reading something else.

For self published authors, the advice is somewhat different. If self publishers want to know the truth….we’re scared of you. The publishing industry is scared of you, bloggers are scared of you, but for different reasons. The publishing industry is scared of you because you’re changing the face of the business but for bloggers it’s a different thing. It used to be that a self publisher was a person who paid a disreputable firm an extortionate sum of money for a vanity print run and were left with 100s of books in a box.

You could more or less guarantee it was awful. But as more and more writers find it next to  impossible to get that moment of luck, speak to the right person, put their foot in the right door, and all the publishers you wish would notice you refuse unsolicited work, writers are turning their backs and some would say rightly on a closed industry that won’t even give them the chance at a chance, and doing it for themselves.

The awkwardness that I feel as a blogger towards self published work isn’t snobbery, it’s kindness. I totally get where your coming from and where your ambitions lie. Published authors have a whole mechanism behind them, there’s the editor, the agent, the PR person, press reviews, the designer, the Christmas party, the book launch, awards, suddenly meeting some of your literary idols. It shouldn’t matter to Chris Cleave, in the great scheme of things, that I didn’t rate his book, he has an abundance of people telling him how fantastic he is and he got nominated for the Costa, so does he give a damn what I have to say? I should really hope not.

But with that mechanism comes something of a remove, if an author has a publishing house and they behave badly towards a member of the public over a bad review, then there’s some recourse there. With a blogger and a self publisher, that’s a person to person relationship.  I’m sure I’m not alone as an aspiring writer and voracious reader in having been asked to read some creative writing that someone has written. There is often no way to refuse this request without sounding like a pompous jerk. And the last time this happened to me, when I was asked to read early chapters, my worst misgivings were there on the page, I won’t describe the story out of fairness, but it had zero redeemable features, finding something to praise wasn’t clutching at straws, there were no straws. Finding words to respond to this eager would-be writer was just hellish.

It could be that up til now they had only had positive reviews off their family and their friends but lets face it, it’s really hard to criticise the creative work of the man/woman you have sex with or gave birth to. A few well-meaning relations helping out by posting up 5* reviews on Amazon is all well and good but unless you can get word-of-mouth going, you aren’t going to hit the kinds of success you’re looking for. And that’s where we, the bloggers, come in. We can give you that bump, we can tweet about you, we can blog about you, we can give you your first “real” review. If we loved your novel, great, but the downside is we might not like what you wrote.

As a woman living alone, typing on my keyboard, with a fag in my hand and my cup of tea going cold, the last thing I want is to be scared by angry emails, and general internet trolling from somebody who I have hurt dreadfully by posting a negative review of the novel they asked if I would read. Some might say I’ve read too many novels like  Killing Cupid about the online stalker phenomenon, but even recent events show that I have a point.

I’m sure many of you have heard the story of RJ Ellory who created fake “Sockpuppet” accounts to praise his own novels whilst damning the work of fellow authors like Mark Billingham and Stuart MacBride who he saw as rivals. It was a desperately silly thing to do, the point being that people do crazy things online. Because. They. Can. And nobody would have suspected it of Ellory, he was a success, he didn’t need to do it! He’d even had the publicity Holy Grail of the Richard & Judy Club, heights that the lowly self published writer can only dream of!

So if one man who doesn’t need to do it does….that’s why bloggers are a bit scared.

We don’t want to be personally approached by an author to read their self published work only to discover we’re dealing with a scary person. And perhaps it’s even worse when we’re dealing with a nice one, we don’t want to hurt their feelings.

For a while, I thought there was no solution to this – and then I thought of what happened when I downloaded a novel last year which sounded amazing and was lauded with multiple 5*, but was decidedly not amazing and turned out to have been self published. I blogged it, honestly, but I was kind and didn’t reprint the review on Amazon.

What I think personally in this climate where everybody just wants to succeed and I want you to succeed, is that I would do a deal with self published authors whereby, if I love it I’ll tell people but if I don’t I’ll give you private “honest reader feedback” about it, thereby sparing you any public embarrassment. You haven’t got all the tools at your disposal that the privileged published writer has and you deserve a shot at least. But that’s an arrangement I think would have to be done on an individual basis with each blogger, and some may refuse.

But the rule is as simple as it is for published writers, if I don’t like it, it doesn’t mean nobody will ever like what you ever write, so try not, even though I know how tough it is, to take it completely personally and be a good sport, be as fair with me as I am with you.

I would give two other pointers of advice – the first is that if you find you’ve become friendly with a blogger stop asking them to review your work. It’s difficult for them if they’ve entered “the friend zone” what if they loved your first novel but hate your third? It’s a really awkward place to be.

The last piece of advice is really for self publishers and it’s due to a tweet I saw, don’t give your ebooks away for free try and competitively price them, because “if you don’t value your own work, why should anybody else?”

Thanks for reading, hope this helps.

Roz

What is the biggest challenge faced by writers who want to find an audience?

Getting published if you wish to reach publication the traditional way. And then, whichever route you choose, getting the name of your book out there. It can be on Amazon, but until people know it’s there sales will be limited.

Do you think that cream always rises?  Will good books always find an audience?

No, sadly not. If you don’t put in the time using social media, you’re missing a golden opportunity and I fear your reach will be limited. In the ideal world, it wouldn’t be this way, but with so much choice available to readers you really have to find out a way to stick out from the crowd.

Can you share some things you’ve done to help you sell books?

Twitter has been central to my approach. Fortunately, I had contact with a number of authors because of my work at school, and have been in contact with many of them for several years, so I asked them to tweet about The Missing. Several did. Some other authors also mentioned The Missing on Twitter. They were exceptionally kind to me and I know how fortunate I was to have received their help. I approached some other authors and some of them obliged. Some authors are happy to retweet about books, but some are not because they are asked such a lot. Following book fans, book reviewers and book clubs is also a helpful way to share information about your book; sometimes they follow back and they can then find out about your book. There are quite a few book clubs on Twitter and, combined, they have a vast number of followers; some of these are willing to retweet about a book. I also used Facebook and Goodreads (here you have to remember your friend network can be the building blocks of countless other friend networks, so if messages about your book are shared they can spread very quickly). But I’ve found Twitter to be the ultimate wide-reacher.

Is there one single thing you did that you think made a big difference?

I’d have to say the author support I’ve received for The Missing. The blurbs offered from authors who read it have not only been incredibly helpful, but humbling. In addition, the authors (and a handful of other celebrities) who retweeted about it provided me with an amazing start for which I’m very thankful.

The Missing was also released for free for one weekend (it was downloaded 12,000 times over three days). This is an effective technique because the result is the book appears on many pages as ‘Customers who bought this also bought this’. It makes the book visible. The Missing reached number one in the free chart that weekend, so its visibility became widespread after that.

How much time have you spent marketing your books?

A lot when The Missing was initially released. For the first month, I used social media daily. Less so far for Full of Sin because the new school year limits the time I have for book promotion.

How important are the following – with examples, if possible:

a. Cover design

You have to attract potential readers. Poorly designed covers put me off personally, which I’m sure is the response of many people.

b. Book description

You have to hook your readers, so they have to be catchy and well written. In addition, having blurbs written by authors supporting my writing has helped no end. Readers trust their opinions. And as a writer it’s most gratifying to receive their compliments.

c. Blogging

I tried it when Full of Sin was first released four years ago, but I struggled to reach people, so I haven’t attempted blogging since. However, I’m impressed by how well it’s used by so many writers.

d. Social networking

Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. I can’t say it enough.

e. Reviews

From authors, they’re invaluable. Positive reader reviews are also really helpful in convincing people to give a book a go. The negative reviews are hard to take, partly because they’re sometimes personally attacking. Those that constructively criticise are useful for writers, however, because they can provide you with focus areas for the next book.

Have you had any success outside of Amazon?

Both books are currently available as eBooks on Amazon only. They will soon be available as paperbacks exclusively through Amazon.

What do you think the advantages of being a self-published writer are over being a traditionally-published writer, if there are any?

If a writer selects the self-published route, they have a lot of freedom to use reader feedback to improve their product. There also isn’t the pressure that’s there when you’re traditionally published. However, I’m aware that there’s a lot of discussion in the industry about how much ‘unpublishable’ self-published material is in the marketplace – books that haven’t been checked carefully and haven’t been given the time they need – and I think this makes it difficult for all writers, whether self-published or traditionally published, to get exposure for their novels. I’m fully supportive of self-publishing and think amazing things can be achieved through it, but I don’t think every person has the skills to write a novel.

Have you had any bad experiences?

The most difficult experience I’ve had has been learning to deal with negative reviews. I’m lucky that most of the reviews of The Missing and Full of Sin are positive, but the negative ones do bite a lot.

Have you done anything that you’ve regretted?

This isn’t related to recent experiences, but I regret allowing Full of Sin to be published so speedily four years ago. Books need more time to ensure errors aren’t there. They need care and attention (although I think it’s impossible to achieve perfection if you’re not working with a team of editors, and even then it’s not necessarily possible).

Have you witnessed any unpleasant or dishonest behaviour and what is your opinion of this?

There’s been a lot about this in the press recently (and I think it’s gone way too far), so instead I’m pleased to say that the authors I’ve made contact with have been encouraging, incredibly kind and helpful.

What one lesson (good or bad) would you like to pass on to new self-publishers?

When you think your book is ready for release, redraft it. And when you’re sure it’s ready for release, redraft it again. And then again.

The Missing and Full of Sin are available on Amazon now. Visit Karl’s Amazon page for more details.

Read on for inspiration.

Hi Karl – can you tell us how successful you’ve been?

The Missing was released as an eBook through my agent’s e-publishing company, Peach Publishing, and became a top ten bestseller on Kindle in the UK after about ten days on release. It peaked at number six. So far, in three months, it’s sold over 35,000 copies. Reader reviews have on the whole been overwhelmingly positive and a number of bestselling authors have praised it, offering blurbs to support its release. These are Glenn Cooper, Matt Hilton, James Becker, Elly Griffiths, Patrick Lennon, CM Palov, Thomas Perry, Scott Phillips and Quentin Bates.

We’ve recently started a drive to increase the sales of Full of Sin. Due to the success of The Missing, Full of Sin was selected by Amazon to be part of its September eBook promotion. Sales are slower than they were for The Missing, but they are picking up gradually. I’m really proud of the reviews Full of Sin has received from readers and authors including Sophie Hannah, Matt Hilton, Karen Campbell, James Becker, Robert Ellis, Cathy Kelly, Patrick Lennon and Thomas Perry.

The Missing was written over the course of about a year. Then I submitted it to a number of agents. I got positive feedback from several, but they highlighted the same flaw: the improbability of the latter stages of it and the twist. It had a very different plot then, with a completely different ending and even a different villain. After receiving this feedback, I rewrote the last third of the novel and then submitted it again.

I had a false hope when one well-known agent asked me for a meeting (at BAFTA in London – a very exciting time), but he wanted me to change the style of my writing so that it would become more like James Patterson (The Missing is inspired by Sophie Hannah’s Little Face and aspires to follow her style of writing, which is nothing like Patterson’s). When he realised this would result in a massive overhaul of the novel, he changed his mind. Shortly after this, I approached Sonia Land of Sheil Land Associates. She read The Missing, liked it, asked me to make some changes (this resulted in three redrafts) and then she offered to represent me.

Full of Sin, which was my debut novel, took four years to reach publication. It was a story I’d originally written when I was sixteen. It lived for several years in a wardrobe and, one summer several years later, I decided to rewrite it. After I completed the rewrite, I submitted it to almost every agent in the country and, while I received some positive feedback and made a lot of contacts in agencies, the result was always the same: it was too dark for the publishing climate at the time. Eventually, just as I was about to put it back in the wardrobe, a new independent publisher offered to release it.

The release happened very quickly – only two months, which was really the result of our combined lack of experience. In hindsight, it was a bad choice to rush it. The copy-editing wasn’t done properly and the publisher had little experience in getting books into shops. As a result, it didn’t sell well and when the contract came up for renewal two years later I took back the rights. I’ve since rewritten Full of Sin and it’s been re-released by Peach Publishing. And I’m thrilled that my agent loves it.

Have you had anyone help you or have you completely gone it alone?

Sophie Hannah has been like a mentor to me. I met her through my work at school and have read all her books. She inspired me to write crime fiction. She read early drafts of both books and provided me with invaluable feedback. With The Missing, Sonia Land’s advice helped develop the plot and characters and really helped me take it to the next level.

What impact has your writing success had on your life and career?

I’ve always wanted strangers to read my writing and now they do. Knowing that this is happening makes all the effort worthwhile.

About Karl 

After studying literature, linguistics and Spanish at university, I trained as an English teacher and actor. I have edited magazines, taught English as a foreign language in Poland and taught English, Media Studies and Drama in secondary schools in England.

I currently juggle my teaching responsibilities as a Head of English with work as a freelance journalist. My articles regularly appear in ten industry-leading magazines that cover the automotive, aerospace, technology and travel sectors. My articles are read by over 12,000 subscribers in print, and more online.

Karl’s books

The Missing: a fast-paced crime thriller. John Simmons’ girlfriend disappears, but the police doubt she ever existed. Is she a hallucination, or the next victim of a serial killer?

Full of Sin: a dark human drama. Sean is taken from his drug-addicted prostitute mother at the age of eight. Foster families can’t handle him, but he meets his match when he is taken in by the Andersons. When a passionate tryst with his foster sister ends in violence, the comfortable life Sean has come to see as his own is over and he must learn to fend for himself.

In part 2 of this interview, Karl reveals what he did to send his books soaring up the Amazon chart. Follow me on Twitter to make sure you don’t miss it.