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...

Tollesbury Time Forever Update - APRIL!

Well I hope everone is doing fine in their worlds!

In keeping with  the initial motivation for this blog - monitoring the journey of Tollesbury Time Forever from last Summer's frustrations onwards - here are the latest figures...

January 2012

US sales -      28
UK sales -     272
Other sales - 1

Total sales - 301

February 2012

US sales -    31
UK sales -   135

Total sales - 166

March 2012

US sales -      187
UK sales -     118
Other sales -  1

Total Sales -  306

Total Combined Sales

US sales -     246
UK sales -    525
Other sales - 2

Total - 773

Of obvious note is the huge increase in US sales in March. I have no idea how this came about but it is wonderfully welcome. The sales gave me the final push I needed to start the process of acquiring my US tax number which I hope to get through in the next few months! UK sales are gradually reducing and 'Other sales' are remaining steady at....well....1 every six weeks. But that 1 still means as much to me as any other. When I started out in January 2012 I hoped maybe to sell 100 overall - so I really am still getting my head around these figures.

Of note to those in a similar boat to myself - getting used to the old eBook KDP Select ocean - I have kept the price at £1.53 now for a good few weeks and intend to do so. Yes there has been a drop off of UK sales but I don't think this is price related. It's still very early days in the life of Tollesbury Time Forever so we shall see what we shall see. I also don't plan to offer the book free anymore using the KDP Select Free Promotion days. I've seen recently books that have been offered free and it seems to have had, as well as a welcome up turn in sales, the less than welcome spread of unpleasant reviews. I think I would rather keep things as they are. At least if I get a rubbish review I would have got a pound or a dollar out of it!

My days of checking every few minutes for sales are well over too, having received some fine advice which I will now share...

"Just because you press that F5 button all the time it won't make people any more likely to buy the book - all it does is stop you finishing the ceiling downstairs and stops me checking Ebay." -

Rebecca Ayris (wife) - March 2012.

Tollesbury Time Forever has been top of the Literary Fiction Average Review Rankings (UK) for the last seven weeks with a total of 59 reviews (5 five star) which is so pleasing. The actual sales rankings are up and down as you might expect but I guess that's the nature of the fluid model that Amazon employs.

So all this gives me great impetus to finish The Bird That Nobody Sees. I've written the first 45,000 words concentrating very much on the plot and dialogue. I'll add in descriptions, made-up words, ramblings and nonsense when I go back over it then hopefully I can release it by the end of August 2012 at the very latest.

Well take care good people. Please leave comments here if you like!

A Review of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone was published in 1868 and has been hailed as the prototype of much subsequent 'Detective Fiction.' Interestingly a novel called Monsieur Lecoq by Emile Gaboriau was published the same year and was, according to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a direct influence on the creation of Sherlock Holmes. A final note on 1868 is that it was the first Cricket Tour to England by an Australian team - a team made up entirely of Aboriginies. Over a five-month period, the tourists played 47 matches. They were not paid and, after each match, they had to put on a boomerang and spear-throwing display. Interesting times then!

So to The Moonstone. I found the basic premise of the novel far less interesting than the characters. An Indian Diamond (The Moonstone) is stolen from a shrine by a rogue English soldier who in the process slew the three men whose purpose in life was to protect it. There are stories of a curse being put upon anybody who possesses the stolen diamond and that the descendants of the three Indians who were murdered are to retrieve the diamond at whatever cost. The Moonstone is bequeathed to a young aristocratic woman from whom it is subsequently stolen.

The majority of the novel comprises the investigation into the stolen diamond. It is told in several first person narratives including a servile butler, a religious zealot, a mysterious doctor and a gentleman who is in love with the young woman from whom The Moonstone was stolen. A famous London Detective is assigned the case following bungling attempts by the local constabulary. He is mistrusted by the aristocratic establishment. He has a passion for roses and the arts. He employs methods others deem to be eccentric. Yet he gets results and is famous all over England. Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Morse and Adam Dalgleish - progenies all!

The plot is very clever, intricate and daring. The reader is led to believe that almost every character could be the thief and there are red herrings galore. The fact that the novel was first serialised in a magazine is evident by the cliff-hangers at the end of every chapter and the occasional contrived summation of events by one character to another. And the literal unmasking of the thief towards the end is straight out of Scooby Doo - but no, it's not Old Man Withers from the abandoned amusement park...

For me the biggest joy, and what a joy, was the characters. The skill necessary to write several first person narratives within the same novel that all have such distinct voices is incredible. I would even go as far as to say that within the narrative of Miss Clack - the young religious zealot, there are passages that rival Catch-22 for outright hilarity and madness. The butler, Betteridge, who consults his copy of Robinson Crusoe at times when he needs answers to the confusion in his life is wonderful too. Two swipes at the prevailing religious establishment and two characters that Oscar Wilde or PG Wodehouse I'm sure would have been proud to have created!

More courageously and, for the time, so humane, is the depiction of the foreign characters in the novel. Ezra Jennings, shunned by his local community for his Indian origins is a wonderful depiction of dignity and gentleness so much at contrast with the insular, money-ridden lives of the other characters. And the final scene really humbled me, not just with the majesty of it but in the realisation that I too had been swept along by the machinations of the rich and the search for the diamond thief when right from the outset it is quite clear that the real thief is The British Empire. No spear-throwing demonstrations here - just a deep understanding of the nature of a dignified man and his people.

Elements of The Moonstone have clearly been embellished by subsequent authors (as well as Hannah Barbara!) and to this day TV programmes, films and books continue to survive from the genius of Wilkie Collins. I do think it is sad though that perhaps the humanity of the book may get missed amongst the chuckles and the cleverness, that the irony and the social commentary may be overlooked as I'm sure it was back in 1868. People would have read the serialisation with absolute excitement being enthralled and entertained, rushing out to buy the magazine to read the next installment. And who, even these days, doesn't want to be excited, enthralled and entertained? I as much as anyone. But it is the subtle reflections on Empire, the perhaps less than subtle reflections on religion and the marvelous dignity in the characters of Ezra Jennings that, for me, elevate The Moonstone from a good book to a great book.

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!!