Category: Short Stories

Amazon Bitch – Part 1 of 2

On By TomIn Achievement, General, Insight, Novel, Poetry, Short Stories7 Comments

Yes, I’m coming out as an Amazon Bitch.

Ten Days in Panama - the cover 2904

Apart from reading conventional books, as a Kindle user it was logical for me to self-publish on Amazon when I eventually took the plunge.

I published Ten Days in Panama in November 2012, happy to leave it and get on with other projects. Sales were occasional and single figures inside any given month.

I published Beyond The Law in October 2013 and it made sales quite fast, comparatively speaking. It also reached double figures in one month before I made any effort to ‘promote’ it on social media. Beyond The Law - the cover 2904

In both cases I enrolled in the KDP Select (KDPS), and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL). I figured that a little bit of extra publicity would be good, even if it meant that some folk might borrow my hard work, instead of buying it.

My sales increased a little – for three reasons.
1.  I had more than one book on the system. The more titles you have out there, the better.
2.  I was making an occasional sale to far off lands like Japan and India, and I saw my books being sold, and occasionally borrowed.
3.  I increased my social platform, which in my case meant going on Twitter and Facebook more often than twice per month – and I joined a couple of Facebook groups.

I tend to work on more than one project on an ongoing basis, so May and June of 2014 saw publication of my two short story anthologies, which were rapidly followed by my third novel, Amsterdam Calling in July 2014. I didn’t enrol any of these on the KDPS or KOLL schemes.
Amsterdam Calling - the cover 260714

In July 2014, I allowed my 90 days to expire on my first two novels, so I was free to publish elsewhere. I published all of my work on Kobo and also on Smashwords. During 2013 – 2014 I published my five-book series of poetry anthologies and they increased my profile.

Bang up to date and by mid-October 2014, I had not sold a single copy of anything on Kobo. The books sold on Smashwords only just made it to double figures. Neither of those sites has worked for me. Over the same period I’ve watched sales of my novels increase steadily on Amazon, but the reasons I will relate in the second part of this tale.

With effect from 21st October 2014, I have unpublished from both Kobo and Smashwords. As soon as I had confirmation, I went to my Amazon bookshelf and enrolled my full collection on both KDPS and KOLL.
In the next post I’ll talk about how to increase sales, in my humble opinion.
Thank you for reading and any comments.

See you at the weekend for Part 2.

Thinking, “Talking”, and ‘Quoting’

On By TomIn Achievement, Competitions, General, Insight, Novel, Review, Short Stories12 Comments

How and when to use quotation (speech) marks can be confusing.     Website - Author page

Should we use ‘single’ quotation marks or “double”?

When we write a story we are invariably going to use dialogue. We are also likely at some point to use a character’s train of thought.

Before a word is written the author must be clear on how the text is going to be presented throughout the entire story.

Thoughts

If there is difficulty in remembering whether to use ‘speech’ marks, just keep in mind that thoughts are not the spoken word – therefore there are no speech marks used.  Simple.

Example:

How should I demonstrate this, he thought.

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Talking

There are those that say we should use single quotation marks, and others suggest double. For many years it was thought that one method was right and the other was wrong, and that certain nationalities used single, while others used double. It is one of the many aspects of creative writing that has seen a lot of flexibility over the years.

It appears to be a growing trend to use single quotation marks. Check out work by Lee Child, Jeffrey Archer, or Ian Rankin. They all use single quotation marks for regular dialogue.

I admire all of these writers, but my own preference is to remain with double and I will go on to explain my reasoning.

Examples:

Single – ‘The use of single speech marks is quicker when typing,’ he suggested.

Double – “I know,” I agreed, “but there are times when double helps. It tends to make me concentrate whenever I’m using dialogue.”

Now those two simple sentences demonstrate that either method works equally well, so I will now go on to complicate things a little.

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Quotes

We must also remember the use of a quote within a piece of dialogue. If the regular dialogue has been produced with double quotation marks, then any quote within the speech should be completed in single quotation marks. If the regular dialogue has been produced with single quotation marks, then any quote within the speech should be completed in double quotation marks.

Example 1.

“What did he say to you?” Helen asked.

“Well,” Barbara said and paused. “He said, ‘Check it out first,’ and that was it.”

Example 2.

‘What did he say to you?’ Helen asked.

‘Well,’ Barbara said and paused. ‘He said, “Check it out first,” and that was it.’

Either method works equally well as long as it is used consistently throughout the manuscript.

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In Summary

There are other occasions when single quotation marks are used in a manuscript, but I’ll write about them in my next post. However we decide to play it out in our writing there are guidelines we should observe.

  1. The writer must remain consistent in the use of either single or double throughout the manuscript.
  2. Whenever a quote is inserted within a passage of dialogue, the quote must be in the alternative type of quotation marks to the main speech.

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As always, thank you for dropping by, especially if you decide to leave a comment. I’ll be back with more soon.