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Author Interview: Part One

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

Here’s the first part of the interview we filmed between myself and Theanon Wonder, filmed in the Manchester branch of Travelling Man.

It’s taken a while to finish (hence the lack of posting recently) but it was our first attempt at making a video, so we were learning along the way. In fact, we had such a good time working on this, we’re sifting through ideas for a short film to make over the summer (using better camera and equipment and mics next time, though…).

Credits

  • Cameras, video editing and audio mixing – Chris Collins
  • Audio recording and editing – Julie Cunningham
  • Music – Theanon Wonder

 

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Posted in Paris, Video, Writing | No Comments »

Making a Move: Finding the Tone

Friday, June 11th, 2010

Today’s post was made possible by orange Lucozade and Sky Player.

Tone’s a difficult quality to define when talking about fiction. It’s not voice – that’s how a writer says things; it’s more about what you do and don’t say. What you’re prepared to show. Whether you go all-out, or tone it down. As it were.

The tone of Make a Move evolved as I wrote, but there were rules from the start, and they shaped the feel of the situations in the book. They set expectations. Before I started writing, I had to decide what age group I was going to pitch the book at, and what I could and couldn’t get away with based on that decision. It seems naive now, but at the time it seemed reasonable to ensure that my story of killers and strippers would be suitable for young adults to access the largest readership. I hadn’t considered the artistic implications of that decision, but it made commercial sense.

The decision to avoid any sexual expletives started off as a challenge: was it even possible writing in this genre? Turns out it is, kind of. Most people swear when they’re under stress or immediate threat of conflict – it’s a way of venting the pressure – but by avoiding that behaviour I found my characters talking in a way that was confident, casual and humorous when faced with impending violence. It wasn’t being glib, it was just a lack of fear. I liked how that style of dialogue flowed, so I stuck with it. Later in the book, as Freddy struggles to deal with his new life, a theme emerged -whether it’s possible to live in a debased situation without yourself becoming debased. I realised that my goal of avoiding sexual swearing (let’s call it “the big four”) mirrored the theme of philosophical conflict in the story. Now I had to stick with it, and I did for the most part, only resorting to potty mouth on two occasions, and learning that there’s no replacement term for “shitty”.

But language isn’t the only way to cause offence; some situations or realities are fundamentally damaging to young minds, and most parents won’t want their children exposed to those concepts until they’re old enough to understand the complexities themselves. Hell – I don’t understand the complexities of the sex industry – and how people find themselves with so few choices that prostitution looks like a valid career choice – myself, and I have a kid of my own. Wait – maybe it’s wrong to say I don’t understand it, but I’m definitely not qualified to write about it with any authority. Yet here I was, setting my story in a world of prostitutes, strippers and dirty pimps…

I could be accused of ignoring the harsh realities of the lives of some of my supporting characters, of not taking their plight seriously, but Make a Move is a positive book, and my artistic choices reflected what I wanted to write about, rather than what I didn’t. Take the character of Corentin, for example – the little boy with a prostitute mother, both of whom Jay befriends in Episode Two. His situation is less than appealing to most readers, but at his age what his mother does for a living isn’t important, not when compared to seeing his first Disney film, or being treated to ice cream, or making a new friend. And that’s where my focus, as the narrator, lies.

How a character feels is so much more important to me than the facts of the plot, and not just in Corentin’s case. It doesn’t matter how complex the world I create, or how sordid the environment, those core relationships are my primary focus, no matter how freaky things get. And that’s the basis for Make a Move’s tone – that’s what makes it different. Because it’s a thriller, with nothing too thrilling happening. Because it’s set in a world of sex for sale, but it’s not lascivious. Because when people die, the emotional implications are more important than how far the blood spatters.

Because even though all hell is kicking off, it just comes down to three friends, trying to build a life and have some fun.

And that’s why it works.

Hey – I just started six sentences in a row with a conjunction. Told you I was ill.

 

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Making a Move: 1, 2, 3, Go

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

Too many years ago, I was at a reading by Michael Marshall Smith, and he said it takes at least three ideas to sustain a novel-length narrative. It made sense when I heard that, and I’ve yet to see it disproved. What that meant for Make a Move, was that there was never a point where I thought ”that’s it – I have the idea for a novel”. It just doesn’t work that way for me. There was, however, a point where a number of other ideas bumped into each other and became more than the sum of their parts. That too didn’t happen instantly – it took a month or two to find a way to fit the separate ideas together into something that felt like it would work – but it was a shorter process than the collection of ideas/images/questions that I eventually fused into the book.

I Know Kung Fu

I was about five films into a Jet Li jag when I saw Kiss of the Dragon – a Luc Besson-produced film featuring a lot of people getting kicked in the head on and around famous Parisian landmarks. It was cool, if forgettable, but there was something in it that stuck with me. When Li’s Chinese intelligence operative arrives in Paris, he stays with a sleeper agent – an old man who’s been living in the city for most of his adult life, running a shop that makes and sells prawn crackers to local Chinese restaurants, whose real purpose is to provide a place to stay for agents passing through on Chinese government business. Spoiler Alert! He gets killed, and Jet Li takes his body to the steps of the Sacre Coeur and lights some incense, before running off to kick more people in the head. Nice scene, but it left me wondering who this guy was? What was his story? How many agents has he helped? I thought about a book based on the life of a sleeper agent, his excitement derived from the various operatives that land on his doorstep looking for a meal and a clean bed, but it felt flat. Without his own story, the episodic nature of the other operatives’ adventures would lack a narrative core upon which to hang, and it’d be a mess. I filed the idea away.

Sex Tourists

The first time I went to Paris, I didn’t know about Pigalle, and I ended up walking down the Boulevard de Clichy by accident. Honest. My then-girlfriend (now wife) and I had visited Montmarte, and decided to walk back down the hill toward the centre of the city instead of descending the 200-odd steps into the Abbesses metro station. I figured we’d taken one turn too far when I saw the first adult video stores, but we kept on, and it wasn’t long before we were invited, by a nice lady and her three big men-friends, if we wanted to go and see a live sex show. It probably helped that it was the middle of the day, but the situation just didn’t seem threatening, even when we politely declined the offer and headed on. It’s a strange place: filthy and sordid in all of the oldest ways, but friendly, and open, and very Parisian. I filed the idea away.

Skip To The End…

Spaced was an awesome TV show – original, funny, and intermittently moving. I bought both series on DVD on a bit of a nostalgia trip and watched the whole lot practically back-to-back. When I was done, I wanted more (they only made 14 half-hour episodes) and was feeling inspired, so toyed with the idea of trying to write a sitcom. Thinking through some ideas, though, I realised that Spaced had left me a bit flat – as the format hadn’t allowed me to get to know the characters to any great depth. They were great people, but compared to the depth of character you can mine in a novel, I just didn’t know that much about them.

That was the first time I thought of writing a book in a sit-com format, or rather, writing a sit-com in a book. I played with a number of ideas, one of which was that the setting should be aspirational in some way, which lead me to Paris as a location. That triggered a memory of Kiss of the Dragon, and how I’d wanted to explore the sleeper’s story; this idea of writing a sit-com could solve the problem of the narrative for him being too episodic, as I’d be purposefully embracing the episodic nature of the format. In the film, the sleeper’s shop is in a red-light district, but it was a nasty, cruel place with no room for humour; I ditched that, but other settings I thought about felt too cosy and sterile to produce any real drama. I think the idea of disguising the safe house as an adult cinema started as a joke, but one that had some truth to it. Those memories of Pigalle and it’s cartoony brand of naughtiness were still fresh, and as I dropped my scenario into that place – trying it out – a number of background characters arrived, and they brought friends, and scenarios, and conflicts, and humour, and cake.

Make a Move had found its home.

 

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Making a Move: It’s Good To Talk

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

I think I’m a fair writer – I can plot and manoeuvre a reader with some degree of skill – but what I’m really proud of is my dialogue. It’s Make a Move’s major selling point. I know that sounds vain, but I’m okay with that, as I know how hard I’ve worked to get to the point that I can say I’m proud of it. I’ve spent years watching films, TV, reading books and comics, and most importantly, listening to people talking, and I’ve filtered all of that information into a list of what I do and don’t like to hear. Then I took that list and crafted it into a style that’s all mine.

A few people have said my dialogue reads like a comic, which is cool. Comic dialogue has to be lean and efficient to fit in the speech bubbles, and I try to emulate that sparsity.

The way I found an ear for dialogue, and used it to create my own style, was to listen to people talking and break down what they say into two containers: what they want to say, and what they think they should say. Next, I threw away everything in the second container.

Sound Smarter By Talking Less!

Have you listened closely when a witness to an event is interviewed on TV?

  • “I was leaving the pub when I heard a scream and the car crashed into the actual wall”. The actual wall? As opposed to what? A virtual wall?
  • “Personally, I think it was the wrong thing to do.” Is it possible to have an impersonal thought?
  • “The man himself dived in to save the kid.” Good job he didn’t dive in as someone else.

I know these are picky things, but they illustrate my point. All language is peppered with useless, often nonesensical, words (really, kind of, you know) that people use because they think that’s how people talk. It’s a belief that the more you say, the more what you say matters. I think there’s a better way: by all means talk a lot, but say a lot too.

You can see the same thing in book dialogue. A lot of writers need the security blanket of an opening “well” or “so” before they let someone speak. It’s the written equivalent of “um”. It’s almost become an accepted standard – that that’s how people talk in books. Fair enough, but it’s not how my characters talk. My characters convey the information they need to with as many words as they need and no more. The content can be trivial, or apocalyptic; high art or low art. Regardless, it’s delivered in the same economical way. It’s one way in which I created the tone of the book – people talking about epic events in minimalist, almost dismissive dialogue. Yes, it’s stylised, but it has style.

This economy of words is the key to keeping dialogue flowing. By parsing ideas down to their core concept, you can create dialogue that is portable, and once it’s portable, you can mix it up to find beats that bring your characters’ words to life.

An Example

“Freddy stared at her for a second, frustrated. He kept his voice calm. ‘That was a question,’ he said. ‘I now have no more idea of what is going on, and you’ve annoyed me’ – her eyes narrowed, so he eased off – ‘a bit.’”

I love that construction – the strong parenthetic break hiding the end of the sentence, turning it into a punchline. I try to use that technique sparingly as any stylistic tool can become tiresome if overplayed. Identifying tags and actions can be mixed into dialogue to pace the rhythm to perfection, but the spoken content has to be lean and portable. Long, multi-clause sentences just don’t arrange well.

How Much is Too Much?

I’m not sure what percentage of Make a Move is dialogue, but I know it’s a lot – more than the third of the wordcount recommended by some how-to-write books (I learned that rule quickly, and broke it twice as fast). I’ve experimented with a variety of writing styles in working towards something I’m happy with, and dialogue-heavy prose just works for me. I’ve written extended sections of action-description, really digging into the details of a situation, but I don’t find them fun to write, so I’d be a hypocrite if I expected them to be fun to read.

But it’s not just a question of taste – that kind of writing just isn’t giving me what I want, which is something that dialogue can: relationships. All of the stories have been told, and creating an intriguing character is almost impossible, but human relationships can still provide a compelling experience within an unoriginal narrative. How do the characters feel about what is happening to them? Without lines of tired exposition, the only way to find out is when they share their thoughts with each other, and allow us to listen in. Those interactions are the life of the story, the way-in for readers, and suppressing the vitality of those relationships with tired, bloated dialogue will rot a story from the inside out.

Ironically, I’ve said enough.

 

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Posted in Character, Dialogue, Story, Writing | 2 Comments »

Making a Move: Names and Faces

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Make a Move is all about the people. Plot’s important, but everybody’s just reusing the same plots – it’s how my characters react to those plot developments that gives Make a Move it’s unique tone. Originally there were going to be four main players: Freddy, Jay, Holly and “French Guy”, but I new there wasn’t enough room for four, and I didn’t have enough material to sustain the Gallic addition, so he was kicked out, only to return as Jean-Baptiste in Episode Four. Waste not, want not…

Once I had my three leads, and knew how they related to each other, Make a Move was born.

Freddy Mossman

“Not one part of me caring about you right now.”

I honestly can’t remember where the idea for Freddy’s character came from. I know where Jay came from – he was the foil for the potential mundanity that sat around Freddy’s Parisian exile, but Freddy’s origin is a mystery to me. Obviously, his background dictates his type to a large extent – MI6 recruit men and women with no distinguishing features that can be used to identify them, and his subsequent training provided his physique and demeanour. I knew I needed to break that type to an extent though, as this isn’t a military book, and I needed to inject more humanity into him. Once I had the idea for how to do that (big plot reveal from Episode Six – I’ll say no more) Freddy was… ready. Thing is, I didn’t want to detail him too much, as the more readers learn about a character (specifically, the more they learn that differs from their personality), the harder it is for them to project themselves into the story. He’s a cypher for the reader’s reaction to the situations the story presents, and I want people 100% along for the ride. I’m not a big fan of first-person perspectives right now, so Freddy, even as the star, had to take a back seat and let the reader use him as a gateway into the story. There’s a reason he’s just a silhouette on the book cover…

Jay McFarlane

“Take your mind off things with some random acts of social disorder.”

As I said before, Jay’s the opposite of Freddy. He also the person we all want to be: free, fearless, creative, vibrant, and living by his own rules. Jay walks a fine line between being an adventurer/agitator and just being an idiot, but I was careful to keep him safely within his moral framework – no matter how loose that might be. One strange occurrence I hadn’t expected when designing my characters is that all the girls love some Jay. I never tried to paint him as handsome, or even cute, but something about his personality struck a chord with my female readers. I should be put out; if anything, I’d say that Freddy is closest to my personality. Jay’s my other side though – the person I want to be, and I occasionally find when I’m at my most confidently creative. It’s no wonder that I found the interplay between Freddy and Jay so easy to write – they’re both major parts of my psyche. And, no, that’s not cheating; “write what you know.”

I’m still surprised no one noticed that my two male leads are named after the two biggest horror icons of the eighties, but it wasn’t planned that way; it really was a coincidence. Once I spotted it, I thought about it, decided it was cool, and ran with it.

Names

Speaking of which, I think I have an original way of coming up with names for characters. Most character names in books are determined by the genre of the fiction, hence the number of action adventures peopled with characters named Jack. Even if you try to steer clear of the obvious types, it’s hard to break a pattern; people just aren’t wired that way, and truly random thinking is almost impossible. I gave up trying to think of names a long time ago, so when I introduce a new character, I step from my desk to my CD collection and leaf through the credits of a random album. You’d be surprised at the variety of interesting names you can find involved in music production. A first name from one album, a surname from another, and you have a new character. Easy.

French names aren’t so easy, though. Aside from the fact that I have only two French-language albums in my collection, I don’t know enough about French naming conventions and etymology to be confident in using one at random. Luckily, there are a number of websites listing French names and detailing their origin, so I can be confident I haven’t used a name that is either archaic or regionally improbable. It’s not as random, but I’m happy with the balance.

Holly Henderson

“I’m not sure what’s worse – that you’d be comfortable asking me to do that, or that you’d think I had the contacts to arrange it.”

I left Holly until last as, out of the three, she’s the one who represents my biggest success as a writer. Freddy and Jay are two sides of my personality, so writing them is easy; I just think, “if I was in a Freddy mood, what would I do?”. Holly’s different though – guys writing about girls is hard. At thirty-five, I’d hope I’ve learned a lot about women, but I know there’s infinitely more to discover, and that gender – both your own programming and that bestowed upon you by society – is at the core of every decision you make. I was worried from the beginning that Holly just wouldn’t be believable for my female readers – something would give it away, not matter how small.

I overcame this hurdle by first accepting that I wasn’t qualified to write a female character. I’m not being proud – that’s just a fact. That done, I fell back on the adage of “fake it ‘til you make it”. I lifted stories and scenarios from the women I know well – my wife, sister and female friends – and riffed on those situations. That was working well until about midway through the book, where Holly is becoming closer with Freddy and Jay and adopting more of their mindset, at which point I did feel confident enough to write her; she was playing by my rules now, and I felt I knew her well enough to make some suggestions. There’s no feeling like having a female reader tell you they identified with Holly, and enjoyed her journey, especially as I purposefully placed obstacles and decisions before her that aren’t the normal fare of mainstream women’s fiction. Holly took a different path, and people were happy to join her for the ride.

The Best of the Rest

The episodic structure of Make a Move gave me the opportunity to introduce and remove characters exactly how and when I wanted, and that freedom gave me room to have fun. Monsieur Vasseur – the aggressively self-aware clichéd French baker. The Beautiful Spy – the adolescents’ wet dream with a bitter streak that makes your eyes water. Inspector Guischard – the Parisian policeman who would rather Freddy and his friends keep their crimes off his radar. Hector, Dunnes and Abbott – the trio of British agents delivering bad attitude, disease and high-velocity rifles to the party.

The accepted wisdom states that you shouldn’t introduce a character to a story unless they’re going to advance the plot in some way. That belief assumes that dialogue, character and tone are irrelevant, and that plot is king.

As I’ll discuss in a post covering dialogue, I honestly believe that to be the best way to write a boring book.

 

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Posted in Character, Dialogue, Story, Writing | 2 Comments »

Making a Move: The Basics

Monday, June 7th, 2010

The Old Way

I wrote the first draft of Make a Move in Microsoft Word for Mac. It wasn’t the best way to work, but it did the job and got the first draft done. I’m a big fan of not messing about when something’s working for me, so I had no reason to look elsewhere, but when I delivered the draft of Episode Six to my first readers, knowing something was wrong with it (an issue they confirmed) I was tempted to look around for a better way to write, or specifically to edit. I hate scrolling through page after page of text; I prefer to deal with individual scenes – really focus on the details and how the scene fits together – and only at the end assess the completed work. So I looked around for some writing software that would let me work the way I wanted, and I found Scrivener, and I never looked back.

Research

Thank God for the internet.

Seriously – why spend days in libraries, or researching locations, when you can look up facts and figures as you write? It’s amazing. I still like to visit locations, but thats more for inspiration and high-res photography for book jacket designs; why jump on a plane to find the ideal location for a scene when you can walk the streets of almost any major city using Google Maps Streetview, and then check out interiors via a business’ website? It’s so much easier. More importantly, it’s quicker, which frees up more time for writing. And if you care about carbon footprints, you’ll be happier.

My research method is to gather bookmarks into my “Research” folder of whatever browser I’m using (currently Google Chrome) or, if it’s an image, text/Word/PDF file or whole webpage I want to read offline, I drag it into Scrivener.

The Plan

Make a Move was easy to plan; six episodes, each requiring three main ideas. Originally it was all planned in Word files, but now I can just create 6 folders in Scriv, one for each episode, and add files for key scenes, as I’m doing now for the sequel. I try not to restrict myself by planning in too much detail as I get bored writing the story; I need to find out what happens as much as the reader, so I only put down key plot points, such as “In this scene, Freddy needs to discover this, and get from here to there”. I have files of ideas for scenes, gags, action beats, and I lift those into the scene as I go. It’s not jazz (shudder) but it’s as freeform as I can keep it while still being structured enough to get me to the end.

The Execution

I’m not a born writer; it’s hard for me to keep grinding out wordcount, but I’m getting more productive. I guess 1000 words is a good session, 2000 an amazing one. I won’t be mad at myself for only doing a couple of hundred though – that’s how it goes sometimes.

Of course, this all happens after I get started, and that can take a while…

I tend to write in my study (read: third bedroom with computer desk, bookcases and a variety of musical instruments), but it’s never been an inspiring place to write. Nowhere really works for me. My average writing session is two hours: one hour of getting ready to write followed by one hour of writing. I always sit down with the intent to write immediately, but I have to stare at the screen, re-read the previous section, think, walk about, play some guitar … it takes time to start flowing. Luckily, once I’m writing, I’m fast, so I claw the time back.

Make a Move took about two years to write, which isn’t great, but remember I said it was six episodes with three main ideas each? Most novels have three main ideas TOTAL; Make a Move really took a lot of inspiration and time to come up with coherent, entertaining, original ideas, and they didn’t all hit first time. Okay, so I’m exaggerating a bit, as episodes five and six are a two-parter sharing three ideas, but that’s still fifteen. You try thinking of fifteen narrative hooks using the same characters.

The End of the Beginning

So that was the first draft done. Two years. Okay, maybe two and a half, but who’s counting? I was pleased with how the first draft came out (apart from that issue with Episode Six) and was ready, after a short hiatus, to start editing. I’m not great at editing, but that’s okay, as I’m not great at “just getting it down” to finish the first draft. My writing tends to hit the page in a near-finished form, which also goes some way to explain why it takes me so long. I’m obsessed with the form and pacing of dialogue and action beats, and I can’t put anything down unless I know it’s my best work. In the edit, I’ll polish it further, but by then I’ll have learned more and feel I can do better than my raw effort.

I said before about the issues with Episode Six. Not wanting to reveal plot points, it involved a misjudged sub-plot, told as backstory, that just killed the pacing of the finale. Killed it dead. As I approached the edit, I knew I had to break the episode apart to fix it, which was when I turned to Scrivener as a writing tool. With all of the scenes separated, I began to delicately extricate the details that were causing problems. Translation: I deleted all of it. Like I said, I’m not great at editing, so I just delete what isn’t working and rewrite it. It’s just what works for me.

With that major flaw fixed, I just read and reread the book, over and over, until every sentence felt as polished as I could make it. I’m not talking about major rewrites – just pacing dialogue better and making sure my prose is as interesting to read as possible. With all of the episodes the same length – give or take a couple of hundred words, I knew I was there.

 

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Posted in Editing, Photography, Software, Story, Writing | 4 Comments »

Making a Move: Prologue

Friday, June 4th, 2010

I think I’ve lost sight of why I’m writing this blog, and why I decided to put Make a Move out myself. I wanted the blog to help people out – provide good information and suggestions/warnings for other writers looking to self publish – in the hope I’d be able to connect with people who shared my interests and goals. Thing is, I’m not that happy talking about myself – I’m not doing this to get famous – but that seems to be what I’m doing; I’m promoting myself as a product. That was never the plan. It’s also not much fun, and that was the whole point of starting this.

I love Make a Move; it’s an awesome book, and writing it pushed me to new levels of creativity and inspiration. It made me happy. I’m trying to sell copies of Make a Move, but I’m not marketing it, I’m marketing me. That probably explains why I’m not enjoying it as much as I thought I might; printing and typesetting and retailing aren’t fun; ideas and creativity and kick-ass dialogue are fun.

I need to dig words out of the book and get them into the wild. I need to find new ways to market the book using Freddy, Jay and Holly as my spokespersons. I need to play to my strengths and let my writing do the talking for me. I’ve already got some cool ideas…

I’m not giving up blogging about the process of self publishing; I’m getting some good traffic and I still feel I have a lot to offer those just starting out. I am, however, going to be looking into my writing more; I’m going to tone down the technology and focus on the ideas. After all – I want readers to enjoy the site as well as writers.

When I told my friends about this refocus, it confirmed my decision, as they immediately returned with topics they wanted me to discuss. I had three friends with me throughout the writing and editing, but more arrived after the book was done, and they want to learn more about the process that brought the book into being. I’m going to write five posts covering the subjects they asked about, and publish one a day next week (7th-11th June).

There. I’ve said it now, so I have to do it. It’s going to be a busy week.

 

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The Importance of Being Indie

Monday, May 24th, 2010

“Writers need to stop defining themselves by their publisher, or lack thereof. “Indie” is becoming a meaningless affectation.”

@glecharles, 1:00 PM May 19th

I really, really wanted to agree with this when I read it. It resonates with how I feel about my book and what I’m doing – that I’m competing with all books, and not just the independently produced ones. I’d never send my book for review by a publication dealing only with indie books; I’m putting Make a Move up for the Pepsi Challenge against every book out there, and I’m competing on story, character, dialogue and ideas, knowing that my editing and printed product are comparable with anything the mainstream can offer, and won’t let me down. The quality of my book is more important to me than any label I could attach to it, or myself.

And in a perfect world, that would be enough.

Thing is, if you don’t label yourself, someone else will. And that label is “vanity publisher”. It happened to a writer friend of mine last week; she was enquiring about whether attending a seminar on book marketing, targeted at publishers and held by a respected outfit in Manchester, would be of benefit to her. The reply she received told her that there would be little of interest to a vanity publisher. Nice.

This stereotype – the vanity publisher – was weak ten years ago, outdated five years ago, and is now just tired. Even its irony value as an inaccurate, mindless cliché sustained by a supposedly creative industry has faded. It’s time it ended.

I read Zoe Winter’s blog post over at IndieReader.com about how the term “indie author” is starting to catch on, and how indies with the skills and drive to produce a quality product need to stand up and define what it means to be an indie. I agree with her assertion of what it means – or what it should mean to be an indie author – and I’m committed to playing my part on all counts, but I’m skeptical about one thing, and that’s how far we, as indies, can push the title. I “officially” adopted the title of indie author when I changed my About page recently, but I didn’t do it because I needed to feel like part of a movement, or I was looking for validation, or I was yielding to peer pressure; I did it for the reason anyone running a business should do anything: because the customers asked.

I run Google Analytics on this site, and I monitor what people are searching for when they find me. Know what my most frequent search term is? “indie novel”. I don’t know specifically what these browsers want when they search for indie novels, but I hope they want the same thing I did when I used to search the “contemporary” section of a bookshop: something new, inspiring, raw, alternative, edgy – exactly the kind of books that are struggling to get book deals as publishing pounds are redirected to easier sells. So these readers are searching for something, and they’re finding me, and they’re sticking around to explore the site and download my sample episode (okay, I admit it, I have a data fetish).

So there is an indie movement in books, but it’s the readers who are driving it, not the writers. We have no control over where it goes, other than to do our utmost to give the readers print books and eBooks of the quality they deserve. And as for the title of “indie author”, its your choice whether to adopt it, but given the energy, enthusiasm and acceptance of the indies I’ve met since I published Make a Move and started this blog, it’s one I’m proud to accept.

 

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Posted in Blogging, Opinion, Publishing | 2 Comments »

Short Story: DESCENT

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

I’ve got a lot of time for horror short stories; I think the genre and form suit each other. There’s something about the immediacy of horror that works in that restricted word count – it’s a race to the finish in every way. I write horror the same way: fast, freewheeling and in one sitting. It’s the only way I can get that energy onto the page. The story below is an example of one of my horror shorts I thought I’d share to provide a break from the world of Make a Move. Don’t worry – this isn’t a departure, just something I do to stay fresh.

WARNING!!!

Make a Move contains no sexual swear words, and doesn’t explore violence or adult scenarios to any great depth. It’s suitable for anyone old enough to take an interest in a full-length novel. This story isn’t; it’s scary, sweary and uses words like “liquefying”. I wrote this for me, and you might not get on with it. Consider yourself warned!!!

The Story

For offline (or more-nicely-formatted) reading, download the pdf here. Please feel free to share the file with your horror-fan friends.

 

DESCENT

 

‘Is this right, Captain?’ Constable Gottschalk handed his boss a cup of coffee, but received no thanks. ‘I know we follow orders, but this guy’s never said he was anything other than innocent. He has an appeal date.’

‘He should have waited on it,’ Captain Emerson replied. ‘He chose to run.’

‘I know, sir. I’m not disputing that. I just . . .’ Gottschalk looked past the Captain to the armoured black van squeezed onto the pavement at the foot of one of the large, abandoned tenements lining the street, the large, white “K9” identifier visible through the late-day shadows. ‘I’m going to feel bad about this one.’

Captain Emerson looked up at the strip of amber sky between the tall buildings, then at his watch.

‘He’s got fifty minutes. That’s time enough to change his mind.’

#

Trent Morgan rolled the ambulance to a stop outside the emergency entrance of Three Sisters of Sorrow hospital, the sirens silent but the blue strobes running, reflecting from the red-brick fascia of the ageing building and the smog-blackened signs that now hid directions to mothballed departments. He grabbed a high-visibility jacket from behind the driver’s seat, pulling it on over his stab vest, and holstered a sidearm alongside a bloodied nightstick. It was a struggle unloading the stretcher through the rear doors without a partner, but no one was around to see him fumble to extend the trolley’s wheels. He slammed the doors closed and then pushed the trolley, with its black-bagged cargo, to the entrance, swiping a security pass before ramming the heavy door aside.

Inside, the triage nurse looked away from her computer screen for a moment but, seeing the zipped bag on the trolley, returned to her work. Trent pushed through another set of doors.

Away from the public areas of the building, the charitable status of the hospital was more obvious – the lack of funding evident in the flickering lights, patched walls and exposed wiring. The gurney rumbled through potholes in the linoleum. Trent spotted a sign for the haematology unit, unglued, simply propped against the wall. He had no choice but to trust the arrow and keep moving.

The haemo department doors lacked security – no one would enter if they had a choice – and he wheeled inside, drawing his gun. A technician was unloading a refrigerated trolley of blood bags, moving slowly in his hazmat suit; he looked up to see Trent, and Trent’s gun.

‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ the man asked, his voice muffled by the visor of his suit. ‘You want to shoot anything in here, you’d be best shooting yourself. Quicker that way. You hit one of these bags . . .’

‘You’re going to help me,’ Trent said. ‘You’re going to make me not have to shoot you.’ He reached for the head of the body bag, pulling the zip down far enough to reveal the naked man inside, his nose and eyes dark with bruises. ‘You recognise him?’

The technician looked closer and nodded.

‘He’s alive. I just needed his clothes and transport. His partner is in the back of the ambulance out front. I’m not looking to kill anyone.’

The technician replaced the loose blood bags into the trolley and closed the lid before pulling the protective hood from his head. ‘What do you need?’

‘New blood’ – Trent holstered his gun long enough to remove his coat – ‘and you’ve got half an hour to give it to me.’

#

The sky now dark, Captain Emerson returned to his car, stepping over the cables from the mobile floodlights. He sat in the driver’s seat, pulling the door closed.

‘Control from Emerson?’ he asked into his radio. There was a pause, then his reply.

‘Go ahead, Captain.’

‘Do you have Judge Minter on the line?’

‘Connecting you now, sir.’

Another pause, then an older voice spoke.

‘Captain Emerson. Do you have him?’

‘No, Your Honour,’ Emerson replied. Only now, in privacy, did his voice reveal any trace of regret. ‘I have teams across the city, but you know as I do, we didn’t get him early, so our chances now are almost none.’

‘Agreed.’ Judge Minter paused. Emerson could hear him breathing. ‘Then it’s out of our hands. Under article one-seventy-seven of the People’s Charter, I authorise the retrieval of Trent Morgan. Bring him in, Captain.’

‘Understood.’ Emerson looked at the silver crucifix hanging from the car’s shotgun mount, dangling on a thin chain, glowing dully in the floodlights. ‘Emerson out.’ He climbed from the vehicle, striding along the street to where his men were gathered, far from the K9 truck. ‘It’s time,’ he said, his voice clear, carrying along the street ahead of him as he splashed through the puddles. ‘Get set up, and get me the padre.’

#

‘What group are you?’ the technician asked as he dug through blood stock data on the computer.

‘B negative,’ Trent replied.

‘You’re not giving me much help here, Trent.’

‘You know who I am?’ Trent asked, pausing in unbuttoning his shirt. ‘And what do you mean?’

‘Yeah, I recognised you from the trial coverage. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you did it.’

‘No?’

‘Nah. Guy did that was a fucking animal. I never saw that much evil in you. I don’t now.’

Trent sat on a stool, reaching for his shoes, but he stopped. ‘They were my children,’ he said.

‘I know, man. I know.’ The room was quiet for a moment, the only sound the regular beeping from the refrigerators. ‘But, what I mean is, I don’t carry much blood. It goes into bodies as fast as we can get it out. And B neg is not a common type.’

Trent didn’t interrupt the technician as he tapped at the computer keyboard, searching. ‘No. I’m sorry, Trent. I don’t have any.’

‘Nothing?’

‘No, unless . . .’ The technician crossed to the blood trolley and scrolled through the touch display built into the lid. ‘I’ve got three litres in here, which would be enough to keep you going as long as you took it steady, but it’d take me an hour or so to clean it.’

‘Just give me all of it, then shoot me up with adrenaline’ — Trent continued undressing — ‘I don’t have time to rest.’

‘No, Trent, you don’t understand. This is dirty blood. There are so many viral agents in here . . . It’s not a question of what disease you’ll catch but how many. You will die.’

Trent stopped unlacing his shoes. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Bradley.’

‘Bradley. I’ve been on death row for two months, and you know what’s coming after me. Dying of some disease even a week from now is my best chance. Please help me.’

Bradley stared at Trent for a moment, then pulled his hood back on, sealing it shut. ‘Okay,’ he shouted through the visor. ‘Get that guy off the gurney and drag it over here.’

#

Captain Emerson stood clear of the truck as the handlers lowered the rear ramp. Two of the four men, all dressed in armoured suits, climbed the ramp and unlocked the security door, giving them access to the cages. The men fed long-handled snares into the first cage, working them left and right as they tried to snag the screaming, thrashing form inside. Their colleagues waited at the foot of the ramp, armed with automatic shotguns, which they kept trained on the cage.

‘You ever worked K9, sir?’ Constable Gottschalk asked.

‘No,’ Emerson replied. ‘Pay was never good enough. Never would be.’

‘I don’t know how they sleep. I couldn’t.’

‘You can get used to anything, Gottschalk, given long enough.’

A scream echoed out of the back of the truck, a bestial sound, driven through a dead throat.

Gottschalk looked at the Captain, but Emerson’s face was impassive.

Footsteps approached. ‘Captain Emerson,’ the priest said. He was also dressed in body armour, as thick and restricting as that protecting the K9 squad, but with a light-reflective cross painted onto the breastplate. His voice was distorted, relayed from a microphone in his helmet to small speakers in the fascia.

‘Padre,’ the Captain replied. ‘Do you have the prisoner’s sample?’

The padre held up a small, glass test-tube, encased in a protective metal frame.

‘Over to you then.’

The padre approached the K9 truck and climbed the ramp, escorted by the marksmen. With the snares attached, one of the handlers typed a code into the lock on the cage door, his fat, gloved fingers mashing the oversized keys. The locking bolts boomed as they were pulled down into the floor of the truck, and the door crashed open. The two men holding the creature fought to restrain it, forcing it down onto the floor, spreading its limbs.

The padre took two cautious steps, placing him within the zone marked out by the long handles of the snares. His voice issued clearly from the helmet speakers.

‘Trent Alastair Morgan, according to the will of the people, I sentence you to retrieval. May God have mercy on your soul.’ He twisted the metal frame surrounding the test-tube, breaking the glass inside and dripping the contents onto the ramp, a foot away from the beast, before stepping back.

The reaction was immediate. The low growling that had accompanied the padre’s words now rose to a shriek, and the handlers released the snares, stepping off the sides of the ramp, backing away under cover from their armed colleagues.

The beast pounced on the spilled blood, lapping it from the ramp, its long, dirty hair falling into the glistening pool. Its fingers clawed at the metal of the vehicle as it drank.

Captain Emerson could sense his men backing away further at the sight. They were sensible to fear the creature, but now it had Morgan’s scent, they were safe as long as they didn’t do anything stupid, anything to provoke it.

The K9 truck rocked as the beast leapt from the ramp, locked on its prey. Emerson watched the creature scrabbling for traction, its claws scraping at the asphalt as it worked up to speed. Meeting Gottschalk’s eyes as he turned, he had nothing to say to the young constable, nothing that could ease the guilt.

He climbed into his car and reversed slowly back down the street, ignoring the officer who waved him through the barricade.

#

Trent tried to relax on the gurney as Bradley fed two long needles into the veins of his forearms, working the thick tubes along his vessels before taping them down and moving onto the other arm. It was hard work in the restrictive suit, and he wasn’t gentle.

‘I’m really not happy doing this,’ Bradley said.

‘My heart bleeds,’ Trent replied through gritted teeth. ‘If you can’t do it without hurting me, just do it fast.’

‘Okay, okay.’ Bradley rammed the last pair of needles home and added the tape. He moved around the gurney to the transfusion unit, guiding the rubber tubes up and over Trent’s shoulder, but froze at the sound of a crash and scream from across the building.

‘Fuck,’ Trent spat, sitting up and tearing the needles from his arms. ‘Thanks anyway, Bradley.’

‘Shit, shit,’ Bradley panicked. ‘You’ve got to run, man. C’mon. Fucking run!’

Trent grabbed his shirt and shoes from the stool, and was backing away from the doors when the creature butted them open. Seeing no recognition in its pure-white eyes, Trent had no warning that it was about to leap at him, but his instincts were sharper than his mind, and he dropped his shoes, grabbed one of the diseased blood bags, and hurled it at the beast. The plastic split, showering both the creature and the wall behind it with blood, leaving it running down its face, into its mouth. Licking its lips, it reached for the torn bag where it lay on the floor, bringing the plastic to its face to suck down the remains. Both Trent and Bradley moved slowly away, trying to reach the doors on the other side of the room without distracting the beast from its gluttonous revelry.

Feeling the door behind him, Trent watched the animal closely, trying to gauge the level of its preoccupation with the dirty blood. Looking at its eyes, he saw the whiteness fade in the centre, as if something were rising to the surface of a milky pond. He dismissed it as spots of gore, but the flickering movement now visible in those eyes alerted him. He had to move.

Pushing Bradley aside, out of the creature’s path, he backed quickly out of the door, then ran, his bare feet pounding the floor. He heard the doors crash open behind him but kept running, dropping his shirt as his arms pumped.

Spotting a door to a stairway ahead, he shouldered through it, making no effort to secure the door behind him. Instead he hit the stairs, heading upward. He made it two floors before he heard the door splinter below him, heard the resonant booming of the creature jumping from one handrail to the next, leaping up the central shaft of the stairwell. Knowing he would be brought down in seconds, he pulled open the next door he found and left the stairs, finding a long, unlit corridor ahead of him. He kept running, looking for his next opportunity to escape, but could see nothing ahead.

The door he’d just used didn’t even click closed before it was thrown from its hinges, the beast thundering after him, its claws ripping into the linoleum floor as it tore along. Eighteen months in prison – on remand and on death row – had left Trent lean and pure, but his abilities were pitiful compared to the beast’s.

Seeing his imminent death, and the large, frosted-glass window at the end of the corridor, Trent gave up. Covering his head with his hands, he dived for the glass, feeling it give way before him, tearing at his sides as he breached into the alleyway beyond, falling, bleeding, screaming.

The impact from behind felt like a bus had followed him through the window, knocking the air from his lungs. The tearing claws at his back, arms and legs snagged him tight, but the creature’s momentum pushed them both further across the alley, into the derelict mill building opposite. The windows had all been smashed, the loading bays on each floor boarded up a long time ago, the wood now rotting. The beast twisted as gravity competed with their momentum, steering them toward one of the doors on the first storey, but letting Trent’s body take the full impact as they smashed through, landing on the wooden floor. The creature’s teeth bit into Trent’s shoulder as they rolled, and the pain flashed bright in his head, focussing his fear into coherent thought.

Seeing a chain winch still clinging to the rotting joists of the floor above, Trent grabbed at the chain, bringing it up behind him, around the creature’s neck. Unconcerned, the beast kept moving, dragging the chain with it. As it pulled taut over the pulley, the chain wrenched the winch from the floor where it was moored, the assault shattering the boards around it, allowing it to fall through to the floor below. The beast was hauled, screaming, from Trent’s back, flying up to the rafters as the chain thrashed through the pulleys, only to smash the pulley mounting from the ceiling, adding more mass to the creature’s bonds as it was dragged back to the floor.

The creature came to rest straddling the shattered joists, suspended across the hole in the floor, pinned by the weight of the chains and the lifting mechanism swinging below. Trent lay bleeding, his head turned to watch the beast as it struggled. Only when he was convinced the animal couldn’t escape did he allow himself to black out.

#

Trent woke hours later. The opening into the building, surrounded by the shattered remains of their incursion, revealed grey light as the sun penetrated the alley. The floor creaked as the creature, still bound by the weight of the winch, strained to free itself.

Trent pushed himself upright, pulling his torn, battered legs beneath him. He pressed at his wounds, finding them tacky and firm, beginning to heal. Walking was still a distant hope, but he could crawl, and he approached the beast, dragging himself nearer.

He knew what to expect – had read the disclaimers during his incarceration – but it was still somehow more alien than its biology should dictate. It was a man, thin and wiry, with pallid, grey skin. Its feet and hands were drawn into tight fists, its fingers and toes armed with thick, black talons. Its face was distorted by the mass of teeth pushing from between its lips, the canines thick sabres, overhanging the bottom jaw.

Horrific as the creature was, the details added by its police masters were nauseating. The metal collar had saved it from having its neck crushed by the chain, but even unbound, the controller restricted its movement, tight up beneath its jaw. From the collar, a metal tag dangled, a single word – the creature’s name – engraved upon it: “Penance”. Trent moved closer, close enough to meet the creature’s eyes, which had now cleared, resolving to reveal maroon irises, pierced with pinpricks of black pupils. The eyes swivelled, fixing upon him.

‘Look what they have made of me!’ the creature growled. ‘I am a God, and they render me bestial.’

Trent was surprised by the eloquence of the creature’s speech. Conditioning through starvation not only turned them into singular, tormented hunters, driven through fear and rage to locate and eviscerate their marked prey, it also stole their higher functions, leaving them no more guileful than an animal. No more able to reason, or be reasoned with. The blood Trent had supplied it had been sufficient to restore its mind, though he knew its humanity was forever gone.

‘You’ll find no sympathy here,’ Trent said.

The creature rolled its eyes to the alley. ‘The sun,’ it snarled.

‘Like I said — your problem. I’ve got my own.’

Trent shuffled around, his movements slow and careful as he worked his way from the beast.

‘Please,’ the creature moaned. The sound was pitiful. ‘This was not my choice. This is what they made me. I do not want to die like this.’

Trent paused, already exhausted. ‘You’ll kill me,’ he said.

‘No. I am more than a beast. I am restored. I can converse. I can choose. I can choose to take another.’

‘Why would you?’

‘I have to. It is all I have to offer for my freedom.’

Trent watched the creature, trying to detect either truth or deceit, but it was impossible. There was so little of the human left in the creature’s face, he could no more read its intentions than a lizard. He turned his back and began moving again.

He’d covered half the distance to the stairs when the sun breached the building. The creature moaned, the noise rising to a scream, then a roar as the sunlight moved across its face and body. Smoke filled the large room, spilling across the floor. The crackle of flames was audible over the creature’s screams, the antique wood charring, the creature’s body bubbling, liquefying.

The smell of the smoke was hideous, and Trent coughed hard, trying to clear the greasy suspension from his lungs. Gasping for clean air, the smoke suddenly cleared, rushing away. He looked back, seeing the remaining length of chain disappear through the burning boards, then into the hole in the floor. He heard a metallic crash from below.

Trent tumbled down the stairs to the ground floor, landing at the doorway to the main workfloor. He looked in to check that the beast was dead. The taloned extremities were largely intact, arranged like compass points around a rose of jellied remains, in the middle of which lay the metal collar, blackened by the smoke but otherwise intact. Putting the sight from his mind, Trent dragged himself to the back of the building looking for a way out.

Having found a broken window large enough to fit through, Trent pulled himself up and over the sill, then half-tumbled out, feeling the sharp texture of the derelict ground pressing into his bare flesh. He crawled along behind the building, deep in the shadows. Reaching the end of the mill, peering out into the daylight, Trent felt an uncomfortable prickling in his eyes, as if he might pass out. He sat back against the wall, waiting for the sensation to pass, then leaned around the corner again. The unpleasant sensation returned, forcing Trent back into the shadows. Accepting that he was in no shape to keep moving, he relaxed against the wall, waiting for his strength to return.

He was in no rush; for the first time since his escape, he thought, he could afford to wait a while.

 

THE END

 

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I Am Not For Sale

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

As the currents of power and money circulate in the sea of publishing, and authors and publishers from traditional shores wait for an arm to raise from the water, clutching a profitable, sustainable business model, sparkling Excalibur-like in the sun, one word constantly lurks just beneath the surface: Platform. Joanna Penn (at The Creative Penn http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2009/06/26/author-platform/) defines the term pretty well, but to summarise, your platform as an author is the things you do to engage with the book-buying public. This includes blogging, social media (Twitter, Facebook, et al), podcasting, or any regular event where you contribute as an “expert” (such as writing workshops).
Exploring Social Media
When I first created a Twitter account (www.twitter.com/cinemanche), I didn’t know what my goal was. It was pitched to me as a great way to reach customers and sell books, but after six months of active participation, I’ve decided that it isn’t. It’s a great way to connect with people who can help, advise and inspire you, and to return the favour where you can, but these are your peers/friends/contacts; they’re not potential customers. Aside from celebrities, you do see people with thousands of followers, who are clearly marketing a product, but the value of these relationships (mostly generated by spam-like follow/auto-reply behaviour) is negligible.
My Facebook profile is for my real-life friends to stay in touch and let me know, passively in many cases, what they’re up to. Some friends have bought my book, but they were all connected with the project outside of Facebook. I put the odd post about the book on there if I feel it’s a noteworthy achievement, but otherwise, I don’t try to sell to my Facebook friends. If they wanted a copy, they’d have bought one; they’re not potential customers. I do see people on Facebook who are simply using it as a marketing tool, spamming my feed with link after link, but they get their asses hidden, if not blocked, pretty fast.
I set up a Facebook fan page for Make a Move, and again I didn’t know what my goal was. Now it’s a great way for people to follow my progress and get updates first when they’re not on Twitter. In almost every case, my fans have bought the book; they’re not potential customers.
So if these tools aren’t a source of potential customers, what value are they to my platform? None. Because, contrary to what most people will tell you, they’re not Platform; they’re Presence.
Connections
I wrote Make a Move for me. I published it to connect with people. I know that sounds trite, but I sure as hell ain’t doing it for the money. I want real connections – not the one-way street of supplier > customer. I want to have a conversation, to learn something, to be entertained, and my Presence provides the conduit for that. I hope people see my blogging/tweeting/posting as adding value to the Make a Move experience, and that it will keep people with me as I write more books, but I’m not selling anything. It’s just me, online, having fun.
A Time and a Place
Some of the more aggressive marketers out there would say I’m lazy and ineffectual in not exploiting every available avenue to sell books, but like I said, it’s not a sales channel; it’s just me, online, having fun. When I do want to sell books, I go to places that have a uniquely important resource: book buyers who haven’t read Make a Move yet. You can check out the list of online and offline places comprising my Platform here, but note the common factor; in every case, people go to those places primarily to buy books.
I’m smart that way…
I try not to give advice on my blog, just examples of what I’ve tried and what the outcome was, good or bad. So consider this an insight into my psyche rather than a piece of advice: I’m more than happy to talk, to listen, to collaborate, to drink and dance until the sun comes up, but nothing turns me off faster than the rancid odour of a sales pitch. And I’m not the only one…

As the currents of power and money circulate in the sea of publishing, and authors and publishers from traditional shores wait for an arm to raise from the water, clutching a profitable, sustainable business model, sparkling Excalibur-like in the sun, one word constantly lurks just beneath the surface: Platform. Joanna Penn (at The Creative Penn) defines the term pretty well, but to summarise, your platform as an author is the things you do to engage with the book-buying public. This includes blogging, social media (Twitter, Facebook, et al), podcasting, or any regular event where you contribute as an “expert” (such as writing workshops).

Exploring Social Media

When I first created a Twitter account (@cinemanche), I didn’t know what my goal was. It was pitched to me as a great way to reach customers and sell books, but after six months of active participation, I’ve decided that it isn’t. It’s a great way to connect with people who can help, advise and inspire you, and to return the favour where you can, but these are your peers/friends/contacts; they’re not potential customers. Aside from celebrities, you do see people with thousands of followers, who are clearly marketing a product, but the value of these relationships (mostly generated by spam-like follow/auto-reply behaviour) is negligible.

My Facebook profile is for my real-life friends to stay in touch and let me know, passively in many cases, what they’re up to. Some friends have bought my book, but they were all connected with the project outside of Facebook. I put the odd post about the book on there if I feel it’s a noteworthy achievement, but otherwise, I don’t try to sell to my Facebook friends. If they wanted a copy, they’d have bought one; they’re not potential customers. I do see people on Facebook who are simply using it as a marketing tool, spamming my feed with link after link, but they get their asses hidden, if not blocked, pretty fast.

I set up a Facebook fan page for Make a Move, and again I didn’t know what my goal was. Now it’s a great way for people to follow my progress and get updates first when they’re not on Twitter. In almost every case, my fans have bought the book; they’re not potential customers.

So if these tools aren’t a source of potential customers, what value are they to my platform? None. Because, contrary to what most people will tell you, they’re not Platform; they’re Presence.

Connections

I wrote Make a Move for me. I published it to connect with people. I know that sounds trite, but I sure as hell ain’t doing it for the money. I want real connections – not the one-way street of supplier > customer. I want to have a conversation, to learn something, to be entertained, and my Presence provides the conduit for that. I hope people see my blogging/tweeting/posting as adding value to the Make a Move experience, and that it will keep people with me as I write more books, but I’m not selling anything. It’s just me, online, having fun.

A Time and a Place for Everything

Some of the more aggressive marketers out there would say I’m lazy and ineffectual in not exploiting every available avenue to sell books, but like I said, it’s not a sales channel; it’s just me, online, having fun. When I do want to sell books, I go to places that have a uniquely important resource: book buyers who haven’t read Make a Move yet. You can check out the list of online and offline places comprising my Platform here, but note the common factor; in every case, people go to those places primarily to buy books.

I’m smart that way…

I try not to give advice on my blog, just examples of what I’ve tried and what the outcome was, good or bad. So consider this an insight into my psyche rather than a piece of advice: I’m more than happy to talk, to listen, to collaborate, to drink and dance until the sun comes up, but nothing turns me off faster than the rancid odour of an underhand sales pitch. And I’m not the only one…

 

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