A Review of Leiyatel's Embrace by Clive S Johnson

Leiyatel's Embrace is described as a fantasy novel. I must say to begin with that I have never been entirely predisposed to fantasy. I have read Lord of the Rings several times and love it. I have started The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever several times but just can't seem to get through even the first book. So that my friends is the sum total of my exposure to fantasy - discounting of course the little world of my own creation in which I have scrabbled around for the past forty-three years...

And you know what else? I can't remember why I decided to buy Leiyatel's Embrace, which is rather ironic given one of the major themes of the novel.

Leiyatel's Embrace is set in an alternate world and is a tale told on several levels. There is the thread of the story that begins with an impending invasion of the castle realm of Dica and the response by what is left of the local poplulace to this threat. Dica has been in decline for many years and is no longer a Kingdom able to defend itself. It's King has lost his mind and his subjects have been either scattered throughout the land or have just dwindled away. There are just a few people who have both the knowledge and courage to try and discover what is going on and it is their efforts that occupy the majority of the novel. The characters are wonderfully realised, each unique in both their mannerisms and their speech, responding in ways that define their individual characteristics.

The story is exceedingly clever. There are plot twists galore and twists and turns that will delight and enthrall. But for me, the story, wonderful though it is, is only a part of the novel.

To craft a novel of this complexity takes an incredible amount of talent - particularly when the world in which it occurs is entirely fictional - not that you would know it. The world is described in absolute detail with precision when needed, poetic brilliance when necessary and a love for nature at its core. Much of the book is taken up following the various characters on their journeys around Dica and I felt I was travelling with each and every one of them - seeing what they saw, smelling what they smelled and feeling their awe at the spectacular sites. I honestly feel like I've been to Dica! Perhaps I have and have just forgotten...

So to the themes. I guess this is a very subjective thing as different parts of a novel will resonate for different people depending upon their experiences and reflections. For me, there are three main themes: man vs nature, monarchy vs republic and finally the process of life itself. I will speak only of the last of these themes as touching on the other two may give away too much of the storyline.

As I said above, the characters go on a physical journey, many in fact, but that runs parallel with the feeling, the intense feeling, that with every step taken, something is being eroded, lost to time. There were some passages that were so poignant on this subject that I had to stop and think about how this all related to myself. I have, mainly by neglect, a poor memory. Some parts of my life are a complete blank. Years run into themselves and I struggle to put even the major events of my life into the correct sequence. Like one of the central characters in Leiyetal's Embrace I yearn to recall every detail but somehow things slip away, much like the Kingdom of Dica, much like the passing of time. Make no mistake - this is not a fantasy story about dwarfs and goblins and monsters and dragons. None of these things appear. And it's not about big battles and magic and sorcery. It's about good people trying to make sense of what is going on around them as their lives ebb away.

I may not remember clearly how I came to read Leiyatel's Embrace but having read it, I shan't forget this book for a long, long time.

You can by it on Amazon UK here and on Amazon US here

Cheers!

Stu

KDP Select - To Free or Not To Free?

Now I have two novels published with Amazon and have enrolled both in the KDP Select Programme. By enrolling in the Select Programne you are not permitted to have your books for sale on any other site (Smashwords etc.) For this though you are given two priveleges:

1. The ability to give away your book for free for five days during the ninety day period of the enrollment.
2. The inclusion of your work in the Kindle Owners Lending Library accessible by Amazon Prime Members who are entitled to one 'borrow' per month. The author receives payment for the borrow based on certain variables. Depending on the purchase price of the book an author may get substantially more income from a borrowed copy than for a paid copy.

In this post, the issues surrounding giving away your work for free and 'lending' it, will be discussed, both in terms of my own experience and observations I have made on the process in general.

The first novel I put up for free was Tollesbury Time Forever. Sales for the initial two weeks were good (about 5 per day) and they then faltered a little so I jumped straight in with a Free Promo day. Watching the numbers rack up was very addictive. It was almost like playing an online slot machine with fake money though. Throughout the period I thought many times "ah, if they were actual sales, how good would that be?" Once the promotion had ended I saw no direct increase in paid sales but as time went on reviews began to come in and it was clear that the Free Promo day had put the book into the hands of Kindle owners who otherwise would never have heard of it. This led me to discover sites like Goodreads and the UK Kindle User Forum which have been invaluable in terms of support and shared knowledge.

I thus adjudged that first Free Promo day to have been a success. I must say however that subsequent giveaways proved fruitless in terms of stimulating increased sales both for Tollesbury Time Forever and my other novel, A Cleansing of Souls. As such, although I have re-enrolled in the KDP Select Programme I have no intention of using any ither Free Promo days. That situation may change when my third novel is released, but it is something I will consider in depth.

In terms of the Kindle Owner Lending Library, this is currently only accessible on Amazon.com. My novels were borrowed barely at all in January or February but in March my novels were borrowed 40 times. April saw (as well as a decrease in general sales) borrows revert to their January/February trickle.

Now to what I have observed with others who have used the Free Promo days.

There have most definitely examples of authors benefitting hugely from the Free Promo days. The success of these days seems to hinge on a variety of factors:

• engaging with various sites who publicise free ebooks
• co-ordinated posts by the author and others on Facebook and Twitter to announce the free promotion
• whether the days are used individually or consecutively 

The rule of thumb seems to be that if your book makes it into the top 100 Free List you have a good chance of achieving a sharp upturn in sales over subsequent days. Outside of the top 100, your work may not see much of a surge.

So a massive surge in sales following on from giving away thousands of copies - surely that's worth it? Well I'm not so sure. I have observed two factors that in some way make me glad that my Free Promo days did not break into the top 100. The first is that the surge oftentimes does not seem to last for more than a week or two before sales continue at their pre-promotion rate or, perhaps, reduce even from that. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Perhaps. But the second factor is a little more concerning. It seems that getting a book for free does not preclude some readers from leaving damning reviews. Novels that have previously had maybe twenty glowing five star reviews from people who have considered their purchase and downloaded it thinking it is something they will like can come to grief when that same novel is downloaded free on a whim and summarily disregarded with a one or two star review. Harsh but true.

I guess it's weighing up whether a temporary surge in sales is a reasonable price to pay for perhaps one or two permanent bad reviews. It is also worth noting that some Indie Authors (Cheryl Reid for example) have seen huge success without ever giving away their work for free - Rachel Abbott also; although her novel began to receive greatly varying reviews once it reached the top of the charts.

And so finally, on a wider point, is having the facility to give away ebooks for free a good or a bad thing?

Following my initial enthusiasm I am more and more inclined to think that short-term gain is a high price to pay in terms of the long-term future. What seems certain is that the KDP Select Programme with its vast array of free books and borrows is a wonderful thing for readers - it certainly seems true also that they are a major factor in the increasing sales of Kindles. So do free books sell Kindles or are they the key to literary stardom for the author. Being something of a cynic I am of the view that the KDP Select Programme is a wonderful piece of marketing by Amazon. All us Indie Authors with our hopes and dreams are lured into the trap of giving away our work in the hope that we will catch a magic wave and before we know it we are giving up the day job. I have personally come to the view that the Free Promo function could lead to a saturated market where books become entirely devalued and readers will look for price first and quality second, baulking at spending more than a pound or a dollar on an 80,000 word novel. I have even begun to feel some antipathy towards the sites, threads and people that highlight and spread the word about Free Books - but that's just the communist in me railing against the capitaist machine. And anyway, with me, forgiveness always prevails!

On a positive personal note, Tollesbury Time Forever currently has more 5 star reviews (51) than any other Literary Fiction eBook. So how do I get more sales? Put it up for free for a couple of days? Reduce the price? Increase the price? Change the cover? Change the description? Aaaaaghhhhh!!!!

I think I'll just have some wine...

A Review of The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby is one of those novels that I have always known of but never read up until recently. As is common with most works deemed to be classics I knew a little of its subject matter without really knowing how I had come upon that knowledge. With regard to F.Scott Fitzgerald, I learned a little about him from a John Steinbeck biography and that was about it. I have found that there are so many links between so many authors, both in terms of their work and their lives, that there always comes a point where you are compelled to learn a little more. Thus it was for me with The Great Gatsby. The fact that I have just got a Kindle (thank you Mum and Dad!) and the fact that The Great Gatsby was free to download, certainly nudged me in the right direction!

On the surface, and perhaps one of the reasons why I had never been drawn to the novel, the ups and downs of well-to-do folk in Long Island during the 1920's boom is as far away from the stark realism of John Steinbeck and the impoverished life and death soul struggles of Jack Kerouac as you can get. If you are new to this blog you may not know that these are two of my favourite authors. But I guess as you grow you become just as interested in the shades of grey as in the blacks and the whites that confirm your moral and cultural stance.

Reading The Great Gatsby I feel I have taken a step forward in many ways. It is not a long novel and not really much happens. You don't really get to know too much about the main characters nor really get to have a fondness for any of them. Despite all that, and perhaps in part because of it, I found the book to be wonderful.

Nick Carraway narrates the events of the summer of 1922 during which he meets Jay Gatsby and participates to a degree in the story that unfolds. The subtlety of the novel is its heartbeat. Each line is so well crafted, just tempting you to see what is implied as well as what is written. If I were to use one adjective to describe it then that word would be 'sparkle'. It is a hard, uncompromising tale of rich people falling apart, the story of people who can overcome anything so long as material possessions abound - even taking the life of another or being married to someone you don't love.

Inbetween all the perfect descriptions and genteel mannerisms of the main characters there are outbursts of violence that really do make you gasp. Tom Buchanan, a brute of a man, takes Nick with him to an apartment in New York where Tom has his away days with his mistress. Another couple are invited and a drunken party ensues. Then Tom's mistress begins taunting him about his wife and...

"Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand."

Literally stunning.

The novel seems to me to be an allegory of the capitalist dream, that constant pursuit of some definable attainment that tells everybody else you have 'made it.' Gatsby, on the surface, has made it. He has an amazing house and throws lavish parties for complete strangers yet the foundations are built on lies and deceit. Even the love he has for Tom Buchanan's wife is as superficial as he believes it deep.

The tragedy that befalls Gatsby at the end almost feels superficial to the real tragedy that F.Scott Fitzgerald has laid before us - that it is not just Gatsby and the Buchanans who ruin the lives of others, it is the very ethos behind their acts that continues to this day; the pursuit of power and love by means of wealth.


Needless to say, the book fair blew me away and, ironically, served to confirm my moral and cultural stance. Well who'd have thought it?!

My KDP experience so far...Blog 2

Blog Post 2
The Sales Reports
The KDP Community Forum
KDP Customer Service
Summary

The Sales Reports
Ah! The blessing and the curse that is the sales report! Can you imagine? Every time someone downloads your book the numbers change in front of you! It might not seem much but it quickly becomes more addictive, frustrating, doom-laden and ecstacy inducing than most things this side of the law. But you have to press that F5 key to see any changes. Believe me, you are soon hanging on every hour without a sale thinking - "that's it - nobody else is going to buy my book" before BLAM another one is downloaded! And you can't help but hope it is the start of something big and magical. When you realise it's not it smacks you right the other way. Then you begin to suspect that there is a problem with the reporting mechanisms, urged on by others in the desperation forum threads. You email KDP (more of that later!) and before you know it another sale comes in. But did it come in because they fixed something or was there really just that massive gap between sales. It's an absolute mind-f**k my friends! But once you have access to these figures, imagine not having access?? Then you realise that actually, despite the frustration and the downtimes that thrill of watching those little numbers increase is worth all the standing on the bedroom window ledge...

Positives:

• you get exact sales figures daily and royalty figures weekly and monthly

• you can work out some form of correlation between promotion and sales

Negatives

• you get exact sales figures daily and royalty figures weekly and monthly
• you can lose sight of the fact that this is a long game, not a quick win game
• you will need a new F5 key at some stage

The KDP Community Forum
Being new to all this I naturally assumed that forums would be full of helpful, like-minded individuals all enamoured with this wonderful Indie Publishing revolution. The Amazon Forums (or the Zoo as many refer to them) soon made me realise differently. Within a few days of publication I happened to mention that I had got some nice reviews. I was instantly accused of paying for them, having members of my family write them who hadn't read the book and basically scamming the system. I responded in a sadly typical sarcastic fashion and had my post deleted by Amazon along with a warning. Wow, I thought. Nobody told me about this. And I haven't been back there since. So when I saw KDP had there own forum I was very pleased. Again, naively perhaps, I thought this would be new, excited authors all in this together, a new era, a bright new thing. Now generally the comments are not as nasty or as malicious as some of those at The Zoo but you still have to be careful. It's a bit like an old pub where you get your regulars, your crotchety old codgers in the corner, your groups of happy-go-lucky chaps and one or two people that shouldn't be allowed out of their own houses. But overall there is some very good advice given. So be polite, don't brag, don't promote and try and be as helpful to others as possible. Just make sure you wear a heavy coat and don't spill anybody's pint!

Positives:

• KDP Forum offers excellent advice for the beginner and the experienced
• you don't feel quite so alone when things aren't going too well
• more or less any query you have has already been answered on one of the threads
• far better than the Amazon forums 

Negatives:

• finding the helpful threads amongst the arguments can be a little difficult at first
• easy to isolate yourself if you're not careful

KDP Customer Service 
Let me start by saying I think Amazon completely underestimated the uptake for KDP. That may be one of the reasons why their customer service is so, well, varied in its response. I have used them maybe four times, the first three times I got a standard email of acknowledgement stating the problem would be resolved within two days. And it was. Excellent. At the beginning of March though I had an issue whereby 3 sales were placed in the Free Price Match column (indicating that my book was free on another site and Amazon had made my book free in response and 3 people had downloaded it.) This clearly was wrong as my book has never been available anywhere else. I queried this immediately and the matter is still to be resolved. I have had six emails stating they are working on it, two that it has been resolved and one stating it is being looked at right now. So, to be honest, the jury is still out. They have an incredibly complex job and 3 misplaced sales is perhaps not top of their agenda. Still, they offer a service and should therefore be able to provide it.

Positives:

• good initial response to queries
• seems to be manned by real people
• they have a vested interested in making the system work

Negatives:

• variable response times
• passed from one department to the other
• don't always get back to you within the time-frame they set

Summary
KDP is a wonderful invention which provides a fantastic opportunity to authors to get their work out to a paying audience. There are no quality controls to speak of and maybe that's for the best. To my mind to share your words with another is a basic human right that has been eroded over the years by agents and publishers who value money above all else. I'd be wrong therefore to claim foul when I see some of the things that are published via KDP.

I can see KDP changing over the next year or so, particularly in regard to the Free Promotions which so clearly propel some books into the charts which may not otherwise have been there - coupled with the indifferent financial figures released by Amazon recently. 

For me the positives outweigh the negatives in all areas.

Now where has that pesky F5 key run off to again...    


So thank you for reading my early experiences of KDP. And guess what? You now have the chance to have a direct impact on any future updates! Yes, just by clicking on the link below! (of course it's a link to my novel - you've got to try haven't you?!)

Tolllesbury Time Forever - Amazon UK
Tollesbury Time Forever - Amazon US

Cheers fine people!!