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Inside Hawley Lodge

Monthly Archives: July 2010

Book review: No Irish Need Apply by Edward C. Patterson

30 Friday Jul 2010

Posted by A. J. Braithwaite in Indie writing, Reviews

≈ 1 Comment

Sometimes I don’t get any time to read, other times I get carried away and don’t stop. This novel is by another author I came across through the Kindle Boards and is also available for free until tomorrow on Smashwords. And it’s another romance (I must be in that sort of mood at the moment).

I enjoyed it very much. It follows the growing relationship between two young men in the build-up to their High School Prom. After the story of the Mississippi prom which was cancelled earlier this year, the novel (which was published on Smashwords in 2008)  seems remarkably prescient and topical. I thought the love story was delicately handled and the responses of the boys’ mothers to the relationship were sensitively drawn.

The writing is clear and at times poetic, with excellent dialogue. The whole book is suffused with a quiet sense of humour which made for a pleasant reading experience. Even if you don’t think this is your cup of tea, I’d urge you to give it a try. I think it would appeal to a wide range of readers. Although probably not to those who really should read it!

Advantages of self-publishing: international audience

25 Sunday Jul 2010

Posted by A. J. Braithwaite in Indie writing

≈ 1 Comment

The traditional publishing world is a bit of a closed book* to me, as I’ve freely admitted here before. One thing that I am vaguely aware of is that a book isn’t just published and made available immediately to the whole world. There’s the whole ‘territorial rights’ issue, meaning that the original publisher of a book written in English will sell the right to publish it to publishers in other English-language countries, where it will be printed and possibly marketed differently, depending on how those publishers think it will best sell in their particular countries.  For the publishers’ point of view on this, a blog post on the Digital Book World blog from February by Emily Williams explains their rationale. Here’s a sample:

Those readers are also better served, in the best of cases, by having a local publisher who knows where to find them, what cover will best signal to them the book’s appeal, which media can best match the book with its audience, and which retailers are most likely to reach them and at what price. Any big online retailer is good at giving you what you know you already want, but creating that desire in the first place – getting the word out about a great new title or author – still tends to be a local specialty, and one that doesn’t scale well on the global web.

One of my favorite examples of this is Jennifer Lee Carrell’s Interred With Their Bones, published in the US by Penguin as a literary thriller in hardcover and trade paperback while in the UK, Sphere put it straight into mass market as The Shakespeare Secret by J.L. Carrell. Who was right? Both editions did well, because they were geared to the realities of their local market.

My reaction to that particular example was to think that maybe it would have sold well in both countries anyway, regardless of the cover/title, simply because it was a good book. But then I did a bit more research and noticed that the average review rating on the UK Amazon site is only 2.5, while it is 3.5 on the US site. Seems a fair number of its readers didn’t like it too much, wherever it was published and however it was marketed.

But I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, territorial rights. One of the things I love, love, love about having put my book on Smashwords and Feedbooks is that it can be downloaded anywhere in the world. I can’t tell where, with the Smashwords edition, but with Feedbooks there are some simple statistics available. Bear in mind that there have only been 300 downloads from that site, but here is the current breakdown by nation:

I find this sort of information fascinating. I can’t imagine a British publisher looking at my (really very English) book and deciding that it would be worth trying to sell the rights to an American publisher. But that’s where people are mostly downloading it from, with the UK a very poor second. Until this week, the UK was even further down the list. Of course, ereaders are probably much more popular in the US than they are anywhere else, which explains this phenomenon. But in Ghana? I am thrilled that six people in Ghana have downloaded it. There is no way of knowing if they’ve actually read it, of course, but who cares? The point is that they could if they wanted too. And that gives me enormous satisfaction.

*Sorry!

Book review: Little Miss Straight Lace by Maria Romana

24 Saturday Jul 2010

Posted by A. J. Braithwaite in Indie writing, Reviews, Writers

≈ 3 Comments

In the spirit of supporting other indie authors, I thought I would follow the lead of Maria Romana, who has been putting book reviews on her blog, Contemporary Romance Books. My own reading tastes are fairly varied (although one of my big problems right now is finding time to read!), so there won’t be much of a theme to any reviews I post. The only thing I’m not wildly keen on are ‘chick-lit’ type books. You know, the type that mention about five brand-names in the first two pages and judge people by their clothes and possessions all the time. But I’m not averse to a love story if I’m in the right mood.

Maria’s own book is a mixture of romance and pharmaceutical statistics. Which may not sound like a divinely-arranged combination, but it works really well. The main thread of the plot concerns statistician Josie Natale and her relationship with Nic Remedian. Who is a gorgeous Latino man who drives an Aston Martin and wants to settle down and have babies. If you can get over the suspension of disbelief required to accept that combination of qualities in one human being, then you can settle down and enjoy the book. The romance gets caught up in mystery/thriller territory when a pharmaceutical agency starts interfering with drug trials to discredit their competitors and promote the development of their own products. Throw in a religious cult and the trauma of teenage rape and you’ve got all the ingredients for a story that’s hard to put down.

The book is well-written and rattles along at a good pace. It would make a great beach read (if you weren’t worried about getting sand in your ereader, that is). In some ways I’d class it as escapism (all the main characters are good-looking and rich, for example), but there is more to it than that: certainly enough of a mystery to keep me reading for the last two days.

Until the 31st July it is available for free on Smashwords. After that it will revert to its usual price of $4.77.

Free ebook

The Roman and the Runaway

Ebook: $2.99

The Viking and the Vendetta

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