Bill Ward's Blog - Posts Tagged "bill-ward"
New thriller Encryption now available!
In a small software engineering company in England, a game changing algorithm for encrypting data has been invented, which will have far reaching consequences for the fight against terrorism. The Security Services of the UK, USA and China all want to control the new software.
The Financial Director has been murdered and his widow turns to her brother-in-law to help discover the truth. But he soon finds himself framed for his brother’s murder.
When the full force of government is brought to bear on one family, they seem to face impossible odds. Is it an abuse of power or does the end justify the means?
Only one man can find the answers but he is being hunted by the same people he once called friends and colleagues.
Perseverance is everything!
What do the following authors all have in common? Apart of course from all in their own way being quite brilliant and hugely successful!
John Grisham, Frank Herbert, Joseph Heller, John Le Carre, J.K. Rowling, Stephen King
Well they all suffered massive rejection, multiple times from Publishers and Agents. It hardly seems credible but I assure you it is true. Obviously, they persisted and eventually, sometimes after fifteen or twenty rejections, they finally saw their book in print.
Had they been publishing today, would they have given up sending their manuscripts to traditional publishers after a few rejections and self-published? I’d love to be able to ask them but my guess is at least some of them would have gone down the Indie route.
The fact they did finally get published shows the self-belief they each had to continue sending off their manuscript despite the increasing pile of rejections.
I would make two points based on the story of these authors.
Firstly, as with many things in life, we need to believe in ourselves. I advise you to grow a thick skin if you want to be a writer. Yes there will be rejections and some bad reviews but if you never give up then you can’t be defeated!
Secondly, I am sure there are a good number of brilliant books written by great Indie authors, which just need to be shown the light of day to receive the recognition they deserve. In fact I have read at least a couple such books.
Perseverance and attitude is everything. I was uncomfortable calling myself an author after I published my first book, somehow thinking I wasn’t deserving of the title with my limited sales success. Then I thought further and realised a footballer calls himself a footballer whether he plays in the Premiership or the lowest leagues. Like any footballer we want to improve our skills and hopefully climb up the leagues.
I am proud to call myself an author. I hope one day to have a best seller. I realise the realities of publishing and I am not delusional but I will not let any inner doubts hold me back and like the famous publishers above, I won’t give up!
John Grisham, Frank Herbert, Joseph Heller, John Le Carre, J.K. Rowling, Stephen King
Well they all suffered massive rejection, multiple times from Publishers and Agents. It hardly seems credible but I assure you it is true. Obviously, they persisted and eventually, sometimes after fifteen or twenty rejections, they finally saw their book in print.
Had they been publishing today, would they have given up sending their manuscripts to traditional publishers after a few rejections and self-published? I’d love to be able to ask them but my guess is at least some of them would have gone down the Indie route.
The fact they did finally get published shows the self-belief they each had to continue sending off their manuscript despite the increasing pile of rejections.
I would make two points based on the story of these authors.
Firstly, as with many things in life, we need to believe in ourselves. I advise you to grow a thick skin if you want to be a writer. Yes there will be rejections and some bad reviews but if you never give up then you can’t be defeated!
Secondly, I am sure there are a good number of brilliant books written by great Indie authors, which just need to be shown the light of day to receive the recognition they deserve. In fact I have read at least a couple such books.
Perseverance and attitude is everything. I was uncomfortable calling myself an author after I published my first book, somehow thinking I wasn’t deserving of the title with my limited sales success. Then I thought further and realised a footballer calls himself a footballer whether he plays in the Premiership or the lowest leagues. Like any footballer we want to improve our skills and hopefully climb up the leagues.
I am proud to call myself an author. I hope one day to have a best seller. I realise the realities of publishing and I am not delusional but I will not let any inner doubts hold me back and like the famous publishers above, I won’t give up!
The importance of focus!
All through my corporate career I was taught the importance of focus. The need to focus on goals and what is important not just urgent.
I am writing a new thriller, which will be my third and frankly I am impatient to finish it and move on to my fourth and fifth books, since I recently read that for most authors it is the fifth book you write, which is most likely to become a best seller!
After my second book was published in March 2014 I became buried in marketing for six months, in particular trying to build my social media footprint and though I appreciate its importance I can’t say it’s much fun, so I am now very focused on writing and everything else will have to fit around my writing rather than the other way around.
At the beginning of this year I rather ambitiously set 100 books as my reading challenge for the year. I am currently at 78 books read and likely to fall about 10 books short by the end of the year but I still think I have done well. We all know the quote by Stephen King, “If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write…”
Looking forwards towards next year my focus for the first six months is going to be on publishing my third and fourth books. I will also continue to read a great deal as it inspires me in my writing and improves my writing skills. My social media footprint can shrink a size or two because while quite important it is not as important as writing.
My blog is just a cautionary note to not be swept along by the urgency of everything but to take time to set goals and focus on them above everything else.
I am writing a new thriller, which will be my third and frankly I am impatient to finish it and move on to my fourth and fifth books, since I recently read that for most authors it is the fifth book you write, which is most likely to become a best seller!
After my second book was published in March 2014 I became buried in marketing for six months, in particular trying to build my social media footprint and though I appreciate its importance I can’t say it’s much fun, so I am now very focused on writing and everything else will have to fit around my writing rather than the other way around.
At the beginning of this year I rather ambitiously set 100 books as my reading challenge for the year. I am currently at 78 books read and likely to fall about 10 books short by the end of the year but I still think I have done well. We all know the quote by Stephen King, “If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write…”
Looking forwards towards next year my focus for the first six months is going to be on publishing my third and fourth books. I will also continue to read a great deal as it inspires me in my writing and improves my writing skills. My social media footprint can shrink a size or two because while quite important it is not as important as writing.
My blog is just a cautionary note to not be swept along by the urgency of everything but to take time to set goals and focus on them above everything else.
Reviews
Let’s face it, Reviews are scary! Especially for a brand new author publishing his first book and full of doubt whether he is completely off his head expecting strangers to pay to read his book. (Yes that was me!)
Every positive Review helps build confidence in your writing ability and in my case led me to writing two further thrillers and I am now looking to write many more.
Even more importantly, Reviews help other readers decide to buy your book. There is no getting away from the importance of Reviews for new authors in particular.
I now have about a hundred and fifty reviews spread around various sites but still feel nervous each time I receive a new one. When I published my first book, I expected my friends and family to rush out and buy my book and quickly write glowing reviews and though a few did, it didn't add up to very many! The strange thing was the number of people who said they enjoyed the book and promised a review but never quite got around to writing one. I eventually just gave up reminding them about the importance of a review as I didn't want to appear completely obsessed by the subject.
I have had some funny experiences with Reviews. One person will love something specific about my book and someone else will dislike exactly the same thing!
I have had an American tell me I had a load of spelling errors and after further investigation, had to point out certain words are spelt differently in the UK to the USA.
What this has proved is, reading is a very personal experience. Do not, as a new author, be intimidated into thinking you must make massive changes because of your first negative review. The reader may not be the right type of reader for your book so was never going to enjoy the experience.
Constructive reviews are very useful in helping us learn to improve our writing skills. I have had some excellent feedback, which continues to improve my writing. I remember an early review of Revenge where I was criticised for too much "tell" and not enough "show." I had never given any thought to the difference and the review was a revelation!
So take the occasional bad Review on the chin and realise your book just wasn’t right for that particular reader. I have recently read a couple of the most successful thrillers of the last couple of years and frankly didn’t particularly like either of them. It is all just a matter of personal taste.
Every positive Review helps build confidence in your writing ability and in my case led me to writing two further thrillers and I am now looking to write many more.
Even more importantly, Reviews help other readers decide to buy your book. There is no getting away from the importance of Reviews for new authors in particular.
I now have about a hundred and fifty reviews spread around various sites but still feel nervous each time I receive a new one. When I published my first book, I expected my friends and family to rush out and buy my book and quickly write glowing reviews and though a few did, it didn't add up to very many! The strange thing was the number of people who said they enjoyed the book and promised a review but never quite got around to writing one. I eventually just gave up reminding them about the importance of a review as I didn't want to appear completely obsessed by the subject.
I have had some funny experiences with Reviews. One person will love something specific about my book and someone else will dislike exactly the same thing!
I have had an American tell me I had a load of spelling errors and after further investigation, had to point out certain words are spelt differently in the UK to the USA.
What this has proved is, reading is a very personal experience. Do not, as a new author, be intimidated into thinking you must make massive changes because of your first negative review. The reader may not be the right type of reader for your book so was never going to enjoy the experience.
Constructive reviews are very useful in helping us learn to improve our writing skills. I have had some excellent feedback, which continues to improve my writing. I remember an early review of Revenge where I was criticised for too much "tell" and not enough "show." I had never given any thought to the difference and the review was a revelation!
So take the occasional bad Review on the chin and realise your book just wasn’t right for that particular reader. I have recently read a couple of the most successful thrillers of the last couple of years and frankly didn’t particularly like either of them. It is all just a matter of personal taste.
What responsibility does an author have to his subject?
I choose topical subjects for my thrillers and as a result it isn’t really surprising that people will have a view on my subject matter. With regard to my novel – Trafficking, which has received generally excellent reviews, there have been a couple of negative comments accusing me of sensationalising and trivialising a human tragedy.
There is no doubt that human sex trafficking is one of today’s most abhorrent crimes and sadly is a growing problem throughout the world. So by choosing to write a fictional thriller have I tried to make money out of other people’s suffering?
I was keen to write about this subject for the very reason it is a terrible crime and I hoped that in some small way, shedding further light on the subject helps grow awareness. My book could have been darker and I have chosen a girl as the central character, who deals far better with her circumstances than would ninety nine per cent of girls faced with the same terrible circumstances. She ultimately escapes being trafficked, which very few girls will do in real life so perhaps the story is not a realistic representation of the grim reality most girls face. I certainly wouldn’t want to trivialise something grave but I believe I have license to portray the character who may only represent one per cent of girls if I so choose.
I do feel authors have a responsibility to our subject and that is to be generally factually correct so as not to mislead our readers but it is a fine line as we are by definition writing fiction! Personally, I see my main responsibility as to entertain my readers and perhaps educate a little.
I have given quite a bit of thought to the critical reviews and whether I am guilty of taking advantage of other people’s suffering. On reflection, I believe most of us who write crime thrillers are inevitably constructing stories around terrible crimes, which for some people will have a very personal resonance. A story about a family murder; a chilling story about terrorism or drugs; a story about abuse; are I believe no different to my story about sex trafficking but I do have a biased view!
In the end, reading is for most people a very subjective experience and what one person loves another will hate. Even with the same subject matter, it will often be a case of how the author handles a sensitive subject as to whether the reader has an enjoyable experience or not.
I wondered if anyone else has faced the dilemma of how to cover a controversial subject matter? Are there subjects we should stay away from because they are simply too raw? I would be interested in your views.
There is no doubt that human sex trafficking is one of today’s most abhorrent crimes and sadly is a growing problem throughout the world. So by choosing to write a fictional thriller have I tried to make money out of other people’s suffering?
I was keen to write about this subject for the very reason it is a terrible crime and I hoped that in some small way, shedding further light on the subject helps grow awareness. My book could have been darker and I have chosen a girl as the central character, who deals far better with her circumstances than would ninety nine per cent of girls faced with the same terrible circumstances. She ultimately escapes being trafficked, which very few girls will do in real life so perhaps the story is not a realistic representation of the grim reality most girls face. I certainly wouldn’t want to trivialise something grave but I believe I have license to portray the character who may only represent one per cent of girls if I so choose.
I do feel authors have a responsibility to our subject and that is to be generally factually correct so as not to mislead our readers but it is a fine line as we are by definition writing fiction! Personally, I see my main responsibility as to entertain my readers and perhaps educate a little.
I have given quite a bit of thought to the critical reviews and whether I am guilty of taking advantage of other people’s suffering. On reflection, I believe most of us who write crime thrillers are inevitably constructing stories around terrible crimes, which for some people will have a very personal resonance. A story about a family murder; a chilling story about terrorism or drugs; a story about abuse; are I believe no different to my story about sex trafficking but I do have a biased view!
In the end, reading is for most people a very subjective experience and what one person loves another will hate. Even with the same subject matter, it will often be a case of how the author handles a sensitive subject as to whether the reader has an enjoyable experience or not.
I wondered if anyone else has faced the dilemma of how to cover a controversial subject matter? Are there subjects we should stay away from because they are simply too raw? I would be interested in your views.
The Cabal - New Release!
The latest action packed Powell book is now available.
Powell stumbles across a sinister and clandestine group intent on changing the world order. The mysterious Chairman of this group, has brought together some of the wealthiest and most powerful men on the planet.
But Powell’s focus is on saving one abused woman and her children.
Rose Carter has discovered evidence of the group’s existence and must be silenced. Ruthless assassins are hunting down the family and Powell must keep one step ahead if he’s to keep them alive.
In a gripping thriller, the book races to a shocking climax before Powell receives help from an unexpected quarter.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073ZNXKF5
Powell stumbles across a sinister and clandestine group intent on changing the world order. The mysterious Chairman of this group, has brought together some of the wealthiest and most powerful men on the planet.
But Powell’s focus is on saving one abused woman and her children.
Rose Carter has discovered evidence of the group’s existence and must be silenced. Ruthless assassins are hunting down the family and Powell must keep one step ahead if he’s to keep them alive.
In a gripping thriller, the book races to a shocking climax before Powell receives help from an unexpected quarter.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073ZNXKF5
