THE RETURN OF THE UNHAPPY MEDIUM

OK I’m back. I’ve been head down in other people’s books but now I’m free to pursue, write and promote my own.

There’s nothing worse than finding something you love doing, only to see it fall beneath the wheels of the day job. But it has, it did. Still that was then, and this, dear readers, is now.

So, where are we? Ah yes. How have we done since launch? The book was delivered unto Kindle in February, but I didn’t really start promoting it seriously until mid-May, and not vigorously enough in retrospect. You have to learn on the job in this game and learned I have. I was doing it wrong. I think I’m doing it right now – there’s a wealth of great advice out there, you just have to take it. 

The big thing is reviews. If you put an e-book out there, do anything you can to get reviews (well anything legal and hygienic). Reviews suck new readers toward your book like nothing else and in this respect things are now shaping up nicely. See the reviews page for a selection of my favourites. 

As of just now, checking watch, the stats are:

Amazon.com 41 reviews average rating 4.3

Amazon.co.uk 35 reviews, average rating 4.6

Amazon.com.au 1 review, rating 4

Goodreads 10 reviews, 43 ratings, average rating 3.98

I really need to poke Goodreads with a stick; I’m not quite sure how. Note to self – find out how to poke Goodreads with a stick.

I’m not a natural with social media. I’m from a generation and national background that says you should not show off. Here I’m having to show off, shout and generally scream for attention despite having been efficiently trained not to by everyone and everything I’ve come into contact with since birth. It does work, of course, but you can sense the narrowed eyes every time you join a Facebook group, tweet a stranger, or tell someone in the queue for a typhoid/Ebola jab that you have a book out. I can’t say I blame them in all honesty. At any rate, here are my favourite two reviews, one good, one bad.

(Five stars) More fun than a barrel of monkeys. 27 July 2014

I was obliged to download this superb book on the beach in Croatia recently, despite having more than fifty unread novels on my Kindle already. (I know, I know, but I have an irrational fear of being without something to read, I hoard real books and digital ones.) I felt compelled to download this particular book after spending the first day and a half of my holiday listening to my wife shrieking with laughter and watching the tears roll down her face as she writhed about on the sunbed next to me. I simply had to read it myself, to find out if it really was that good, or if my dearly beloved was simply indulging too heavily in the 'cocktail of the day'. Download it I did, and her one word review, (GENIUS!') to me turned out to be not in the least over stated. I won't bother with a synopsis, you can read that in the book description, I will simply tell you what I thought of it. It is the funniest book I have ever read, the characters are all believable (even the dead ones), likeable (even the evil ones), and three dimensional. The story takes place in various locations, from sleepy Dorset, to the big city, rural Spain, and even Purgatory, Great writing is capable of transporting the reader to anywhere, by this standard, this is indeed great writing. If you enjoy a tremendous, imaginative, story, told with passion and affection, and if you like laughing until your face aches, your stomach hurts, and your face is wet with tears, and if you don't mind nearby people staring at you with amazement and amusement, then you must buy this book. You will not regret it. If you read this book and don't pull a muscle somewhere in your face, then you would probably qualify for a job as a lower level administrative assistant somewhere in the bowels of purgatory.

 

(One star) Did not like it. 17 July 2014

It was stupid and I did not even finish it. It kept jumping around and was very hard to follow. Lost my interest about 1/4 of the way through. Skipped ahead to see if it got better but it never di

© Tim Brown 2016