Jack of All Trades
There’s more going on on this site than I realised, so I think it’s about time I contributed. I have no idea whether Goodreads sells books or is simply a place where readers gather. Have we any way of knowing? Let’s assume that at worst it does no harm, and at best it can give some publicity to writers, maybe sell books.
Now an offer. The first in my crime series, Jack of All Trades, is free this weekend (12/13 December). This is awfully short notice, so I wonder how many readers of this blog will take it up?
Two others in the series have been published so far: Jack of Spades and Jack o’Lantern. You will have noticed the pattern, I am sure. They are all Jack Something or Other, as will be the others as they are published. I have so far written six books and am working on the seventh. The fourth is coming out March 1st (Jack by the Hedge).
When I began to name them, I just gave them any names with Jack sayings. The first was Jack of All Trades, but the second was Jack be Nimble, the third Jack be Quick. I hadn’t got much further when I began to get confused about which book was which. I realised then that I couldn’t simply random title them. The name had to have some connection with what happens in the book or I wouldn’t know which book someone was talking about from the title.
I had a rethink. And decided to keep with the Jack pattern but the title had to relate to the incidents of the novel. So in the second, now Jack of Spades, bodies are buried in the forest. The third, Jack o’Lantern, a key scene takes place in the dead of night. The fourth (not yet published), Jack by the Hedge, is set in a park. I couldn’t have the situation where someone asks me about a book and I have to ask them what book is that. So the titles are as much for me as they are for the reader. Each is a standalone novel, though I have learnt that readers prefer to read them in order.
Official publication date was October 1st 2015, just over two months ago. Feedback has been good. The gateway novel, Jack of All Trades has 11 reviews on Amazon.com and 9 on Amazon.co.uk, averaging about 4.5 stars. Not enough reviews to make it a bestseller but I am still in the early phase of marketing, and I am hoping to double that number of reviews in the next three months.
There are 2.8 million ebooks on Amazon. A lot, you may already have found out, are not up to much, but there are good books buried under the weight of numbers. Some will never surface. It’s why Amazon reviews are so important to writers. But it’s hard to get them; I estimate about 1 in 500 readers actually leave a review of a book they’ve read on Amazon. So beyond friends and relations, that’s an awful lot of books you have to sell or give away to get say 20 reviews. This is not self pity, but a fact of life. A writer has to work with the system as it is, not the way he’d like it to be.
The main character in my series is Jack Bell. He’s a builder. I didn’t want to write a police procedural or have a private eye as my main character, so that meant having someone whose job takes them to different settings. And a builder fills the bill. So far he’s worked in a number of private houses, in a summer house, in a school, and in a park. He works where I live which is Forest Gate in London, not far from Stratford where the 2012 Olympic Games were held. The reader has to accept the fact that murders occur where Jack works. Sometimes a single murder, sometimes several. It is extremely unlikely that one man would be so unlucky, but my excuse is that it is fiction. And once immersed in a book, hopefully, you won’t care.
I have been writing for some time. All my other books, 16 of them, are under the name Derek Smith. There’s eleven children’s books, a couple of fantasies, a murder novella, a book of short stories and a poetry book. I decided to write my crime fiction under a pen name, DH Smith, to differentiate them from my other books. I did ask Goodreads to allow my pen name to be on the same page as Derek Smith, but after some correspondence and a promise they would or had, they hadn’t. And now I’m thinking it’s no bad thing to separate the works. But if you are curious, you can look at Derek Smith too.
I shall write an irregular blog and see how much interests it gathers. I might even get some readers.
Now an offer. The first in my crime series, Jack of All Trades, is free this weekend (12/13 December). This is awfully short notice, so I wonder how many readers of this blog will take it up?
Two others in the series have been published so far: Jack of Spades and Jack o’Lantern. You will have noticed the pattern, I am sure. They are all Jack Something or Other, as will be the others as they are published. I have so far written six books and am working on the seventh. The fourth is coming out March 1st (Jack by the Hedge).
When I began to name them, I just gave them any names with Jack sayings. The first was Jack of All Trades, but the second was Jack be Nimble, the third Jack be Quick. I hadn’t got much further when I began to get confused about which book was which. I realised then that I couldn’t simply random title them. The name had to have some connection with what happens in the book or I wouldn’t know which book someone was talking about from the title.
I had a rethink. And decided to keep with the Jack pattern but the title had to relate to the incidents of the novel. So in the second, now Jack of Spades, bodies are buried in the forest. The third, Jack o’Lantern, a key scene takes place in the dead of night. The fourth (not yet published), Jack by the Hedge, is set in a park. I couldn’t have the situation where someone asks me about a book and I have to ask them what book is that. So the titles are as much for me as they are for the reader. Each is a standalone novel, though I have learnt that readers prefer to read them in order.
Official publication date was October 1st 2015, just over two months ago. Feedback has been good. The gateway novel, Jack of All Trades has 11 reviews on Amazon.com and 9 on Amazon.co.uk, averaging about 4.5 stars. Not enough reviews to make it a bestseller but I am still in the early phase of marketing, and I am hoping to double that number of reviews in the next three months.
There are 2.8 million ebooks on Amazon. A lot, you may already have found out, are not up to much, but there are good books buried under the weight of numbers. Some will never surface. It’s why Amazon reviews are so important to writers. But it’s hard to get them; I estimate about 1 in 500 readers actually leave a review of a book they’ve read on Amazon. So beyond friends and relations, that’s an awful lot of books you have to sell or give away to get say 20 reviews. This is not self pity, but a fact of life. A writer has to work with the system as it is, not the way he’d like it to be.
The main character in my series is Jack Bell. He’s a builder. I didn’t want to write a police procedural or have a private eye as my main character, so that meant having someone whose job takes them to different settings. And a builder fills the bill. So far he’s worked in a number of private houses, in a summer house, in a school, and in a park. He works where I live which is Forest Gate in London, not far from Stratford where the 2012 Olympic Games were held. The reader has to accept the fact that murders occur where Jack works. Sometimes a single murder, sometimes several. It is extremely unlikely that one man would be so unlucky, but my excuse is that it is fiction. And once immersed in a book, hopefully, you won’t care.
I have been writing for some time. All my other books, 16 of them, are under the name Derek Smith. There’s eleven children’s books, a couple of fantasies, a murder novella, a book of short stories and a poetry book. I decided to write my crime fiction under a pen name, DH Smith, to differentiate them from my other books. I did ask Goodreads to allow my pen name to be on the same page as Derek Smith, but after some correspondence and a promise they would or had, they hadn’t. And now I’m thinking it’s no bad thing to separate the works. But if you are curious, you can look at Derek Smith too.
I shall write an irregular blog and see how much interests it gathers. I might even get some readers.
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