Lots going on this week and most of it exciting.

First of all watch this space on 1 June, especially if you haven't already bought George and the Dragon. I'm hoping a I'll be able to persuade you to do so.

As you may have noticed my second piece of published writing will soon be available.  I've discussed this before in this very blog;  it's a story about the harsh lives of wolves called The Last Pack.

The book is called Lupus Animus and should be available for purchase as an eBook and paperback soon.  All of the profits from the book are going to charity so it's a win win all round.  You get to read plenty of different writing including my own and give money to charity as well.

As I've stretched my wings from the realms of writing about dragons to writing about wolves I've joined a couple of wolf orientated communities on Google+ and started to swap images of wolves. Just like this one.



I'm still deliberating about the audio book version of George and the Dragon.  I've had two auditions but neither were quite right.  There's always a question of what if I don't find the right voice so I need to make a decision on that this week.

I have been writing more of Nicholas North this week and did a little more work on my guide to Twitter.  I've also started to jot down a few more notes with a view to my musketeer/steampunk style novel I have plans for.

That's about it from me this week.

I hope the words flow onto the page for you.

Phil

...Amazon that is.

You have to had it to them they've managed to go a step further and offer even greater integration with Twitter.

Anyone who still thinks you should tweet about your book is, lets be honest, fooling themselves.


This is how my tweets now look that include a link to Amazon.  Note that's not even a direct Amazon link it's a Georiot link that aims to match the person that clicks on the link with their correct Amazon website based on their geographical location.  Amazon.com for the US, Amazon.co.uk for the UK etc.

So not only do I get to link to the book, my book blurb gets partially tweetted, an image of the book and several more links to the book as well.

This truly is free integrated advertising for indie authors and you can't really afford not to use it.

I've now changed quite a few of my ghost tweets to include my Amazon Georiot link because it doesn't make sense not to; unless I am promoting the book on another retailers site like iTunes for example.

You may disagree with me. I'd love to here your thoughts either way.

Phil

So here it is in all it's glory the cover for Lupus Animus


Lupus Animus is a collection of short stories, all created around the theme of Wolves, and is being sold to raise money for the Artisan Rarebreads Charity.

Quite excited to read this myself when it finally comes out as I have not read any of the other stories contained within its covers.

You can find the book already listed on Goodreads here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22351432-lupus-animus

I've been neglecting my blog again I know.  It's been one of those weeks where I've found myself doing everything other than writing.  Although I have managed to put in some serious work with the guide to Twitter I am writing for Indie Authors.  I figure there's plenty I can pass on to others in a free, downloadable booklet I just have to finish it first.

Other than that I ended up working this weekend when it wasn't in my plans, the money is always useful but working late on Saturday means going to bed in the early hours of Sunday morning which inevitably messes with my body clock.  I'm used to it to a degree but it doesn't help when you do sit down at the PC and you find yourself falling asleep.   I also attended a talent show for my daughter and a tea party at my son's nursery.  Today we packed them off to their grand-parents for the week as it's half term here in the UK.  So I am hoping to get a lot more writing completed this week.

A second audition for the audio version of George and the Dragon has been submitted.  I liked it but, having discussed it with my sister, I think I have decided neither of the two auditions I have received are what I am looking for.   I'm still slightly concerned that maybe I can't afford to be picky but on the other hand I feel if I wait the right audition could be just around the corner.

Finally after a month of waiting George and the Dragon was listed on Kobo this last week.  I've updated the website with the link now.  I have to say I am really pleased with the way the buttons have come out on the website.  Feel free to copy them if you like them they were just something I put together in Pixlr.

I'm also applying a lot more focus to Nicholas North: Schoolboy Detective as I really want a first draft finished by the end of June to give plenty of time for editing and proofing priory to it's scheduled November release date.

That's all from me today.

Phil

If you've read some of my blog you may recall my announcement that I have written a short story to be included in a Wolf anthology that is going to be sold for charity.

I confess I don't wear every hat that some indie authors do.

For example I seek help with editing and proofing my work and I paid for my cover design with: ebook-designs.co.uk/ and very happy I am with it too.


Even then there are still many hats I do have to wear:

Author, Salesmen, Marketing, Web-design, SEO, Accounts - yes I have budgets and tax returns to consider, Content producer (you are reading this blog after all) and Public Relations are just some of the different hats I can think of that I, like man other indie authors, have to wear.


On top of this you have various IT skills, just being more than competent with Word is consider a skill in most work places.  But on top of that I use Scrivener, various programs designed to help me manage my twitter accounts, website design software, etc.  But on top of all that I now get to add programmer.

Okay so I'm not about to write the next Angry Birds and I must confess I already have basic program skills from my day job but still today I found myself editing ePub errors generated by the latest edition of George and the Dragon.

I've tried several times lately to upload this new document to the Google Play website and every time I have been seeing the following error:

Error: Unable to sanitize epub

Not the most helpful of errors - but then I don't think I've ever seen a software error that is.  In fact I spend my life trying to devise ways to remove them completely from the software I provide support for in my day job.

Google as always is your friend in these matters and I soon found out I had errors in the file that need to be fixed.

At first I tried to fix them in Sigil, I've not used Sigil before but it has a built in ePub checked that highlighted a couple of errors.  After a little head scratching I worked out how to resolve them.  But this still lead me to a file that could not be sanitized.

I then referred back to Google and did a search for an ePub checker.  I settled on using this site:

http://www.ebookit.com/epub-validator3.

This highlighted new errors - it returns something that looks like this (although I removed some of the errors to stop them driving you insane):

---

Even to someone who has a clue, albeit a small one, that's pretty intimidating.  Still I worked my way through them.  Fixed them, create new errors in the process and finally had a document that came up Green in the checker.  Not only that but it has uploaded to Google Play without complaint.

As an aside but slightly related I have pet peeve as they are called.  If you click on any of the links I provide in my blogs they should always open in a new window.  That way you don't close my blog and can come back to it should you wish.  This is not hard to do when I create the link there's a little check box that reads:


'Open this link in a new window'

In word press you have to set the link to _blank.

Neither are difficult and  I think it's a much better way of setting your links up if you don't want to loose someone when they click on a link and leave your site for pastures new.

That's the question I've been asking my Twitter followers of late.

Regular readers of my blog will be aware that rather than hard sell my book or blog or personal website to my new Twitter followers I try to engage them in conversation.

I don't suffer from self doubt.  That's a true enough statement.

While not eternally confident  I'm not far off it.  However, on Friday night I did find myself wallowing in a malaise of tiredness and never ending social network updates and wondering to myself am I cut out to be a writer?

I already have two jobs, surely that's enough, do I really need the extra burden of writing and promoting novels.

If you look at it as a burden then I guess that's the beginning of the end.  The moment you start thinking the glass is half full is the moment you may as well throw in the towel and retire from the game altogether.

Like I said before I'm not that sort of person but I'm only human and as susceptible to moments when I sit at my keyboard with my eyes heavy and completely lack inspiration and all I can do then is like pictures of dragons on Google+ or retweet particularly nice tweets of waterfalls on Twitter.  Even an insightful blog post was unwilling.  So there ended up being no "That Friday Feeling."  This week.

However, I did get a Friday Feeling moment a little bit later on that evening.  Almost into Saturday morning I checked my email to find I had an audition to turn George And the Dragon  into an audio book.  It's an amazing sensation listening to someone  else narrate your work and put voice to your characters.  I guess it's not that far removed from it becoming a film or TV series.

I'm not sure I am going to go with this audition, although I can't help wondering if they'll be another one, so I might. It's very hard to know what to do in this situation.  If you haven't yet considered ACX it is definitely worth a look.

If do go with it.  That's digital, physical and audio covered before the end of June.

But I digress the real crux to this post was don't try and write while tired.  It doesn't help with your creativity and just leaves you feeling down.

Phil

...okay so I am back with the music references but just this once.

When I refer to Magic I capitalised it for a reason.  I'm talking about Magic the Gathering, certainly the largest if not the best Customisable Trading Card Game ever.

For those that don't know I am a massive MTG fan.  I started playing before the Legends set was released way back in 1994.  That's twenty years ago....doesn't seem that long to be honest.

For those that have been following this blog or who have read George and the Dragon you will know that there are three named dragons that feature in the book.  There are references to others but they will have to wait for their turn in the spotlight.

Those three dragons are Grace, Spitfire and Blitzkrieg.   Well I couldn't resist the urge to design Magic the Gathering trading cards around all three of them.  So with the help of my magic playing friend and colleague Richard Chiesa we did just that.  So without further delay here they are:

...selling that book is hard.

 Okay you might disagree with me that writing a book isn't easy, but compared to persuading people to buy your book it's child's play. At least that's what I'm finding. People who have or are reading it are providing me with positive feedback. I've not found anyone that hates the book..yet.

 But I need to find ways to convince more people to read it. The difficulty with this is I only have so much free time and I want to be writing other work and yet constantly I find my attention turned to George and the Dragon and ways to generate more sales.

 I read a while ago that you needed to have a plan A for marketing.  Then when plan A didn't work you needed a plan B.  If plan B failed you needed a plan C and so on.

To date I have used pre-launch marketing in the form of the London Evening Herald newspaper mock-up I placed on the George and the Dragon website.  I've created a couple of images, that I think of as being digital posters, that I've shared on Facebook, Twitter and most successfully on Google+.   The idea of this was to try and get them to go Viral.  Not something I achieved but I was slightly set back by Facebook's page boosting policy.  With the 'What's your dragon name?' poster there's too much text on the image so it  fails their page boosting policy so they blocked me from boosting it.

I also created a group on Facebook called Dragons Are Not Just for Christmas.  But that hasn't taken off in the way I had hoped and I am still the prime contributor.  However, I have since discovered Google+'s communities and several similar Communities over there on which I have become more active.  It's how I achieved greater sharing of my posters on Google+ that Facebook or Twitter.

I designed this as my Facebook, Google+ and Twitter background.



Since January I've amassed 4,500 twitter followers on twitter.com/PhilipTolhurst and 2750 on the Empyreal Sun account.

I've registered on various websites that provide a permanent record of the book.  Such as the Author's Database.

I've created a publishing and promotions company, Empyreal Sun, just for the book, so far but I have plans for this new venture.

I entered the Guardian Self Published Book of the Month competition, fingers crossed with that as the entries for May end tomorrow.

All of this you have to take into context has only been in effect since I launched the book on St Gorge's Day, 23 April 2014.  I even tried to rename that George and the Dragon day.

So what's next?  Physical copies of the book.  Yes I'm finally going to go the create space route.  I know of a few people that are interested in a physical and that is enough for me.  All I have to do now is pay for the development of a full sized, rather than digital, cover and the book will be available.

So watch this space and I'll let you all know when it's available.

Phil

Dragon Dreams by Dusty Lynn Holloway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The story of Dragon Dreams centres around two young people Auri and Nachal and how their lives become intertwined in their quest to stop an evil dragon and cure a dying world.

Dusty does a great job of creating a detailed world in which the protagonists' adventures take place. She also creates a cast of believable supporting characters although the dwarf feels under used given the importance placed on his being a part of the ensemble.

As a fellow author of dragon stories I love the way Dusty handles her dragons, they are very understated until the story required otherwise.

There were a couple of points that niggled with me that meant this book didn't quite make 5stars, if I could give it 4 1/2stars I would have; there's a prop that appears out of nowhere and the final chapter discusses a a place with a name that lacks all inspiration. After the wonderfully named Elven, Dwarven and Human lands and cities it seems so out of character that it jarred with me just at the point the book was ending.





View all my reviews

Good evening dear reader.

First an apology, no not to you, but to my blog.  I am sorry, my blog, for neglecting you for this past week.

I feel like it's been a busy week but not one that feels like it has been fantastically productive.

I've started to put out feelers to find legitimate sources to review my book.  Hey I know I can pay $5 on Fiverr and get a review.  Hell I can pay $15 and they'll buy my book too.  Makes me wonder how many sales I could rack up and then claim against advertising expenses.

As part of this process I have offered to read another writers book, which I purchased, and he has purchased mine to reciprocate the review.  Only I find myself reading a book in desperate need of proof reading and editing.   Now I am wondering how do I handle this situation.  I am thinking I may offer to proof and edit the novel for them rather than give them a review but we shall see.  I don't think I'm the sort of person that can give a book like this an above average review and not say anything as well.

This week also my attention has turned to competitions.  I have entered George and the Dragon into the Guardian Self Published book of the month competition and I have also found a US short story competition I am particularly interested in.   So my thoughts have turned towards writing an 8000 word fantasy story before the end of June.  I've got a couple of ideas for that so now I just have to get on a write the story.  Shouldn't be too hard.  Perfecting it, however, maybe.

I'm slowly closing in on 4,500 Twitter followers and continue to use several different third party pieces of software to do everything from find my un-followers to ghost tweeting for me.  Like Justunfollow and Pluggio.

I have also started to really make a good go of expanding my presence on Google+  hopefully that will pay dividends. I've also been trying, slowly, to increase my Facebook page likes but as I say it is very slow.   However, I will keep on trying

Looking forward to the week ahead I'm hoping to start studying, writing my short story and maybe even creating a new author photo for myself.

I hope you have a great weekend.

Phil

Even though I want to be writing and working on new projects I really can't help thinking about marketing George and the Dragon.

So there are three ways that my book could be made available to prospective readers;

1. Digital
2. Physical
3. Audible

George and the Dragon is already available on Kindle, B&N (Nook), iTunes, Smashwords and the Play store.  I chose this option first because the benefits are obvious.  As the author and rights holder I get to keep the lions share of the money raised from the sale of the book across any of these formats.  There are also other added advantages.  I have just uploaded slightly new versions of the book to both Smashwords and Kindle and will be doing so shortly to the copy uploaded to the Play store.    So I have the digital aspect covered.  I'm ignoring Kobo they are taking a ridiculous amount of time to upload my book from Smashwords.

Then we have physical.  I've been playing around with Createspace today and the book seems to work nicely in their designer.  I just need to go back to my cover designer and get him to create me a cover for the book and George will be all set for physical copies.  However, physical copies are not cheep and the royalties returned are not great.  I've been playing with the pricing and a £7.49 copies yields a royalty of £1.03.  The one benefit of this is that bookshops can then stock the book or at least order it in and I know of a few people that prefer physical copies.   So it will happen it's just a matter of paying the extra for the new cover.

Finally we have the audio version of the book.  I found out today about ACX.  ACX allows you to put your book up for tender to audio production companies who then create the audio version of the book and you can split the royalties 50/50.

I couldn't resist and have listed George and the Dragon.  Hopefully someone will like the idea of the book and I can enlist a production company to help me create the audio version.    The whole process takes 3-8 weeks it says so it'll be a while before you can listen to the book while travelling to work.

So hopefully before the school summer holidays George and the Dragon will be available in all three versions.

Phil

George and the dragon was written from scratch without any plans, character details etc.  I did the sum total of zero work before I started writing the book and just let it lead me where it may.

Along the way much as been lost; characters have been sacrificed and chapters have been deleted or smashed together.   Much work was done to turn it into the book it has become today.

Now with George available for anyone to buy I can start thinking about my next writing projects.  There two of them;  an untitled cyberpunk novella and Nicholas North: Schoolboy Detective.

Both of them have had a little more work and attention given to them before I started writing.  I've got a better grip on the characters and locations for both works.

What I am really lacking is a coherent plot for Nicholas North.  I know small parts of it but I don't yet know enough.  So again I find myself writing whatever comes into my head.  What I hope is that I'll write enough that something like a coherent plot will start to form.  This can then be moulded into a finished work.

We shall see what happens over the next few months.

This week I have learnt that the Kindle Direct Publishing software does not handle Word docs particularly well.

Am now in the process of replacing the uploaded doc file of my book with a .mobi created with Calibre.

I've been having some fun playing with a couple of marketing 'images' I've created:

Blitzkrieg; just the name should send a chill down your spine.

This red, mutated monster has two heads, a split personality and can breath both fire and lightning.  Half as big again as Spitfire and full of cruelty and menace Blitzkrieg as he is now known is not to be underestimated.

It is his relationship, or lack thereof, with his rider the evil Nazi Colonel von Vogler that if anything makes him less powerful than he would be on his own.

If you want to know what evil he gets up to you can buy the book on Kindle, iTunes, Play Store, B&N and Smashwords.