Hunting Demons: Finding Momentum not 10K

It is funny how we come to things. Trying to write ten thousand (10k) words in a day was a consequence of needing to kick myself out of a ponderous editing compulsion. A single day word count goal that would prove beyond me, as it happens. But I had guessed that from the outset, having calculated it would take me over eight hours of non-stop typing at twenty words per minute, with no pondering, or breaks or anything to achieve it.

But I wanted to see what I could achieve in a day of flat out writing. Especially as I needed to get my arse in gear with a deadline looming.

Before starting on the day I planned the medium term goals of the characters and the story. And then I began. I wrote in three sessions of three hours. Managing on average 1.2k words per session. Totalling just under 4k for the whole day. I stopped just before 9PM having written myself to a standstill. An expected fail you might think, but a funny thing happened during the day.

A novel is a strange beast. It is nothing like any other writing medium. It is focused on the moment to moment and at the same time it is a dauntingly huge canvas of interlinked threads, most of which are layered deep into the moment and only realised as we move between these moments. A lot of the links won't even be neatly tied off when the first draft is finished.

And in the four years since finishing the first draft of Chasing Innocence, I'd forgotten about those interlinking threads. As I built momentum through the 10k day they started to form, wildly branching out the more I wrote. It was incredibly thrilling realising the shift from ponderous editing to full on novel writing. This is what I got most from the day, that once my characters feel real and I know where I'm going, it is momentum that will fill the canvas and build the core elements of the book I'm trying to write.

Here are a few other observations I made during the day:

I thought in trying to write a lot in one day I might overwrite - the actual output if anything was lean. It will be built on, with additional colour edited into the core story. It will change by percentages, getting swapped about, added to, moved or dropped. I do think those percentages are considerably less than I might have expected.

Dialogue was fully realised within the needs of the story as it currently stands. There were some nuances, emotion and character inflections built around the dialogue but only those that helped the characters speak as I progressed. Once more additional colour and drama will be layered, again in lesser percentages than I expected.

By writing with momentum I was far more creative in how I told the story than I would be in ponderous mode. I think this is important for me at least in my thriller mission statement.

If I realised I needed to change previous content as I wrote, I only went back if it helped build the story. If it was just an edit I made a note and continued.

I have to see the physical environment in my mind to tell the story, so if I can't I have to stop and mentally build it. This I had to do twice during the day. Better planning would have overcome this. I knew I was going to be in these environments but realised while writing I needed more geographic detail.

Huge fun.

Shout out to Melissa Foster for providing the inspiration to attempt a 10k day.

Hunting Demons: Writing 10k in a Day

Taking the imagery that exists in my mind and producing prose that plays that imagery in other peoples minds, is a complex multi-layered process. The first layer is the hardest for me, which is the actual process of writing the first draft. Anyone who thinks an author sits hunched over a keyboard, massaging the keys with conductor like flourishes while producing sparkling jewels of literary treasure, has quite clearly never tried writing fiction.

The production of my first novel took three years, largely because I made so many mistakes and learned a lot of lessons.

For book two I'm on a tighter schedule. I need to have finished the first draft before the end of September (2013), preferably earlier. With a publish date scheduled for February 2014.

I'm currently behind schedule. This is in part due to my usual slow start while finding characters and voice, but it's also a product of my propensity towards over editing. While writing I will habitually comb back through the last few paragraphs and smooth them out. There is nothing about writing I enjoy more than editing, but with a whole book to write, these edits are a luxury I don't have. Especially when so much will change once the first draft is completed and 20% of those excessively edited paragraphs will be discarded, as I tend to over write in draft one too.

I have a number of writer friends who have studied the art of productive writing. One in particular will manage to produce ten thousand (10k) words, usually on about one writing day a week, 2-3k on normal days. 10k is often the total output of a good week for me.

My 10k specialist friend says preparation is key for the 10k day, with bullet points to hand for where the story will head, the themes and character goals. Then go for it.

Which is what I will be doing Saturday 8 June, my first 10k in a day attempt. I will Tweet occasional updates #amwriting10ktoday on my progress and blogging my considered thoughts after.

If anyone else has any productivity tips, I'm all ears.

KDP Promotion February 2013

I ran a KDP promotion at the beginning of February for Chasing Innocence. This video is about what happened. It's my first Chasing Innocence promo video and although it may not show, the culmination of many hours practising video editing.

Emotional Colour

Finish it.

I did write a book of fiction. It is out there and it has been read by so many people. 'What about the next one?' Many ask. 'When can we read it?'

Isn't that a wonderful question to have as a writer!

Writing book one took all of me, at least everything I was to the point I finished it, which was 2010. I came up with the idea for book two about a year before that, in 2009. My time from 2010 to 2012 was largely spent getting book one polished and published. All the while book two brewed and bubbled in my mind, busily evolving the bones of a story from the stew of imagination. In 2012 I started writing it. It is there, the bones, but in writing this second book I have learned a lot, not just of what it takes to craft the lives and dramas of whole new characters, but in the kind of writer I am.

From the moment I started writing properly in 2002, it has been a release valve. Reflected in the words are all my frustrations, hopes, dreads, loves and murderous rages. Most of all writing is a means for my emotions to be gently let out. Emotion for me, I have learned, is everything. I'm telling you now like I've always known this, the reality is it took a hard year of struggling. It has been a year of plotting and progressing slowly, driven now by the need for a second book to create a broader commercial canvas. Some of the writing has glowed but so much has been dry - words and actions strung around momentum in the name of a story.

Finishing book one really had taken all of me. Everything had been expelled in creating Sarah Sawacki's story, the emotions of my imagination given colour by the books, images, video and music, were all now part of that book. Very little remained inside of me.

Fortunately this is a restless mind. I have realised the struggling isn't so much that I haven't got another book in me, it's that I'm busy creating a whole load of new imagination to pour into book two. The research has been as much discovering the content and colour of the emotions as it has the technical detail. This is after-all a learning process, I'm coming to understand it always will be.

Book two is about a man who makes a living protecting people, coming to terms with the murder of his wife. It is about him discovering why. It is now busily being animated, the dry words given emotional colour. It is being written because I care for the story, it is being crafted for a commercial audience to share and enjoy, not just so I can expand my canvass of work. Book three will be the next stage in Sarah Sawacki's story. I'm very keen to find out how much of what went into her first story will be there for me again. We will see.

So you want to publish a (Kindle) book? (2 of 2)

In eighteen months Amazon have turned the publishing industry on its head. You could not deny them any of their success. Ebooks had been around for a while. Publishers were puzzling the long term impact of digital books and charging more for the convenience of reading them while they deliberated. The Kindle for me was a natural evolution of technology and consumer needs. Today consumers expect a book to be on the Kindle, where a year ago they might just have been grateful it was. Buying Kindle books gives you an almost limitless personal library never to be lost, that can be accessed practically any where, any time. With Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) anyone can publish a book for free and it would seem many have. This post though, is not about that. It's NOT about making a Kindle book, designing a snazzy cover or making the content a thrilling, error free ride. This WHOLE site is about that. This post IS the second in two detailing what happens after you have published on Amazon. The first was about printed books, this is about Kindle books.

We should start with a repeat of the parameters.

1. I've started every single stage of this writing/publishing journey with my eyes wide open and little comprehension for what I was getting into
2. I REALLY didn't have any clue at any stage for what I was getting into
3. I'm constantly analysing, absolutely everything. I hope this analysis is at least interesting. I'm human and sometimes do get things wrong. Sometimes I get it horribly wrong

We start with Amazon. As an ebook publisher there are many places to pitch your stall. Mine for the time being is set in Amazon alone. Many people don't subscribe to the Amazon world view. They will buy from Barnes and Noble, or Kobo or from the Apple store. If I want to hit these stores then Smashwords will publish there for me. I know I'm missing out on a lot of potential sales by sticking with Amazon. Here is why I am staying with Amazon for the time being.

1. Smashwords do not accept pre-formatted ebooks. You give them a word doc and they will convert your book into the different formats. I'm obsessive about quality, I will always be reluctant to use a distributor if I don't have control over the quality. I don't know enough yet about how Smashwords works as a distributor and promoter, especially promotion. That said I'm probably going to add Chasing Innocence to Smashwords later in the year (2012)
2. Amazon Select is a program that requires selling your book on Amazon alone. In return for not selling anywhere else the Select program will promote your book as a free download for a maximum of five days every three months. The Select program allows you to potentially make more money by loaning your book to Amazon Prime customers, than you do in sales. This is unlikely for indie authors though as it's only available to US Prime customers
3. Time is the biggest reason for staying at Amazon. I have so little spare time outside of a job, commuting, a wife and writing. I need a sales mechanism that functions with little maintenance. That I trust. Amazon Select is all that right now. I'm busy writing two back-to-back books that will be published in 2013. Multiple good books multiply the chances of success. I only have one right now. I need to finish these other books to build success. I could push Chasing Innocence a lot harder right now, across multiple platforms, but it would take me away from writing. Success in 3-5 years time means I need to be writing now and not actively selling

Amazon Select has been a blast. The key is the five days of free promotions every ninety days. During these promotions Amazon will put your book in-front of their customers. This will also suck it into the Amazon trending and recommendation tools, as well as the charts. Here's a few things I've learnt along the way.

• Amazon is almost totally automated. It's a giant shiny machine that constantly analyses trends across continents and millions of buyers. It's not interactive. Learn how it works and adapt. It's not that it doesn't care, it's just too big to change direction quickly or go back for bits that fell off. Work with it but don't expect interaction. When you're emailing people at Amazon remember they're likely to be very busy and equally bound by the mechanics of the system, they just know a little more about the cogs and where they all are
• For the reasons above Amazon provide a lot of very informative documentation. If you're publishing a Kindle book you should probably read it. http://kdp.amazon.com
• The higher priced your book is immediately prior to any promotion the more often it will likely be downloaded during the promotion
• Never, ever start a promotion at the weekend. The Amazon databases are very busy and the promotion might not even start until the Monday. Each weekend promotion day will be counted against your available days even if the promotion doesn't start that day. Sending Amazon an indignant email isn't going to change anything
• Likewise, if your promotion is scheduled to end at the weekend, don't be surprised if your book keeps getting downloaded for free right up to the Monday
• Never, ever change the pricing or product detail of your Kindle book in the THREE days leading to the start of a promotion. Sometimes the changes can take a while and MAY hold up the start of the promotion
• You will NOT be paid for any books downloaded for free, even after your promotion ends
• Promotions start at midnight Central Standard Time (CST) which is seven hours behind British Summer Time (BST). If you're in the UK the promotion won't start until about seven AM and finish at the same time
• I've found sales and free downloads alike, dip daytime during the weekend. The busiest download day for me has been Thursday
• The KDP sales reporting tool is not always to the minute or hour accurate. If you're refreshing this every two minutes to check on sales you're wasting your time
• The book's sales rank on its product page IS an hourly updated and pretty accurate indication of sales. Remember there are different sales charts for the printed and kindle books, the ranking is displayed on the relevant product page. Here's my rough approximation of Kindle sales against ranking

• #100 - 150+ books sold in the last 24hrs
• #1000 - 20+ books in last 24hrs
• #3,000 - sold 5-8 books in last 24hrs
• #10,000 - sold two books in the last 24hrs
• #14,000 - sold one book in the last 24hrs
• #20,000 - not sold a book for 24+hrs
• #25,000 - not sold a book for 36+hrs

• You will very likely sell a higher proportion of books after a promotion ends. In the week following each of my two day promotions I sold a figure roughly equating to fifteen percent of the total books downloaded for free
• Promotion one: Chasing Innocence £3.45 - downloaded for free 3800 times. 550 copies sold
• Promotion two: Chasing Innocence £1.53 - downloaded for free 360 times. 60 copies sold
• Do not underestimate word of mouth. I have lost count the number of times I've heard: 'I'm reading Chasing Innocence because my friend...' These free downloads matter in getting the book out there
• Expect refunds after a promotion ends even if your book is only 99 pence or cents
• It is very easy to get hooked into your books position in the Kindle charts. You can find yourself doing bits here and there to promote it and get it up the charts. It is very painful to see your book slip down the charts. It is very easy to find yourself not writing the important next book. Probably the best thing you can do to promote your book is to write two or three more that are at least as good
• About half of one percent (0.5%) of people that buy your book will write a review without coercion
• About two percent of the people looking at your books product page will click the Helpful Yes/No button on reviews
• Twitter can be a good tool for discovering people that are reading your book. If you're using Twitter to find an audience you'll likely be disappointed. You will probably meet lots of writers that had the same idea
• Goodreads IS a great tool for discovering people reading your book 
• I have found people to be very helpful. I'm not sure I thought they wouldn't be, but it has been heart warming to discover just how helpful. If you are nice to people they are generally nice right back. They might even write you a review

Finally, I did a lot of research into ebook pricing before I published Chasing Innocence. Initially I priced the Kindle as I had tried to with the paperback, to be contemporary with authors like Lee Child and a little bit cheaper. £3.45 was the first price but I discovered this was too much for an unknown author with only one book. I've had some people say they won't buy a Kindle book from an unknown author for anything more than 99 pence. I hadn't even thought about that. The wave of indie author's publishing on the Kindle has driven down prices. If you're an established author then people will pay, otherwise you're in the mix vying for attention. I've tried all kinds of pricing, from £0.99 pence to £1 to my preferred price of £1.53, which is the minimum you can sell a book on Amazon's seventy percent plan. This plan is key for me as this last price means I make £1 on each sale. I've sold a thousand books so far and need to sell another two thousand by the end of the year if I'm to break even on the cost of copy/proof editors and graphic design. Which is vital because my mantra is to produce books at LEAST as good anything produced commercially. I found I sold EXACTLY the same number of books priced at £1.53 as I did at £0.99 pence. I'd like to think that's because most of my sales are recommendations.

I think that's about it. While I'm busy writing the next two books I'm going to stay with Amazon Select. It can be frustrating being tied into one sales platform when the sales start to dry-up, but for now a combination of time and only having one book makes it a necessity.

I hope this and the previous post have been informative.

A Free Signed Copy of Chasing Innocence

http://amzn.to/waQ1EO

Any day now, the thousands of people that have downloaded Chasing Innocence to their Kindles, will turn to the last page. When they do they will see my offer of a free signed copy of Chasing Innocence in paperback. Which is just below my request for them to immediately rush out and coerce everyone they know into downloading the book too.

The deal is you write an honest review of Chasing Innocence and post it to either the US or UK Amazon site, or both. You then email me the review or a link to the review. The email address is  listed on the last page of Chasing Innocence. Only the first claim to a review will be considered, so send the review or link when you submit it. Each month three people will be drawn from a hat from those that send me their review. I will contact each of the three and send a signed copy to each. A forth copy will be sent to whoever wrote the review I liked the most. If you write a particularly insightful review, I might just send you a book anyway. Honesty is the key. If you didn't like Chasing Innocence you simply say why. Or, of course, you can say why you loved it.

If you're comfortable writing a review then jump down to the bottom of the page. If you want some direction, then this next bit's for you. I've been writing reviews on Amazon for a few years now and tend to hover around the top 100 reviewer mark. A good review doesn't need to be long, although I can occasionally wax lyrical.

At all times while writing a review I try to be chatty rather than official and try to provide succinct information about my experience with the product. I have used my recent review of The Warrior as an example here. It's probably longer than you will want to write but at least it's full of examples for you to pull on:

The Stars
One Star - Seriously flawed or nothing like it was described
Two Star - Likewise, but less so
Three Stars - Delivered a good experience but nothing to stand it out
Four Stars - Contains some remarkable quality that really imprints on me
Five Stars - Quite simply Brilliant. Right up there with the best of the best

The Title
This will be as short as I can while quantifying my overall impressions. If I haven't thought of something by the end of writing the review I'll usually use a line from the review.

Opening Paragraph
This puts me, the review writer, in context with what I'm reviewing. How I came to it and what I thought of it. I write this so the Amazon browser can read only this paragraph and know what I thought. Sometimes I'll post only this paragraph. The rest of the review is just details. Here's my opener from the Warrior (DVD):

'I thought the advertising for the cinematic release of Warrior was slightly off the mark. Making it seem a little too much like a young fight flick, which it most definitely isn't. I think it might also have suffered from being the last of the recent fight genre movies released. This movie, regardless of genre, is quite simply one of the best I have EVER seen. I watched it three times on the roll during a long haul flight and immediately pre-ordered it from Amazon when I landed.'

The Overview
My next paragraph is a summary of the story without opinion or giving anything away. This can seem tough but basically details the key characters, their relationships and summarises what happens for the first third of the story. This paragraph is designed to contrast against the next one, which is your opinion. Here's my overview from the Warrior:

'Warrior is about two estranged brothers and a family ripped apart by a violently driven alcoholic father who was once a fighting coach. When the oldest brother finds the cost of saving his daughter from heart disease, is the mortgage on his house, he is forced to return to fighting to make ends meet. Always a greater technician over a great fighter, he now has something worth fighting for, his family. This is contrasted against Tommy, the young brother and prodigal son. A deserter from the army after his platoon were all killed in a friendly fire incident, he is fighting only to raise money for the families of the dead soldiers. As the UFC competition plays out in front of the media, it is these two very personal battles, that drives this emotionally intense and very violent story to its conclusion.'

Your Opinion
This is where you detail what you thought. I usually cover the characters and what they meant to me, the depth of the story overall and how it played in my mind. This will include the pace and quality of the writing/filmmaking. Also the levels of violence if relevant and how involved I was in the experience. This sometimes runs into a couple of paragraphs. Once more, from The Warrior:

'The quality starts with the script, it's incredibly well put together, managing the fine mix of violence and drama. This is backed-up by great acting throughout. Some of the key characters do not have a lot of screen time but bring such depth to the character you get them more from who they are over what they say. Tom Hardy combines raw physical intensity with real depth of character, and for me, as great and brutal as his fighting was, the scenes between him and his father and brother were riveting. Joel Edgerton for me though was the star. The underdog that will not give in because doing so will lose his family the roof over their heads.

'The climax is incredible because come the end, there is no favourite. How it is done is quite brilliant and sends chills down my spine just thinking about it.'

The Summary
I end my reviews with a short summary. Something that once more quantifies for the reader what I thought of the experience:

'Quite simply, Warrior is one of the best movies I have ever watched at any level. I can't recommend it highly enough.'

You can read the whole Warrior review here

So there you go folks. Don't forget, if you do write a review of Chasing Innocence and want a signed paperback, email it to me. The address is at the back of the book. If you already bought the paperback but want a signed one as well, the address is there on the last page. All reviews emailed to me count.

Click one or both the following links to be taken to the Chasing Innocence product page so you can write your review. The reviews selected each month will be listed on this site. The first draw will be April 1st. Deliveries in the the UK will be via Royal Mail, overseas via DHL.

Chasing Innocence UK
Chasing Innocence US

Thanking you in advance.

Nine Days in February (An alternative approach to marketing)

On January 17 the Kindle version of Chasing Innocence became available on Amazon. 21 days later it had sold 21 copies and I knew each and every one of the people that had bought it. I was one of them. My search for an audience led me to Twitter, where I found a lot of indie authors. None of course were particularly interested in my book, because like me, they were looking for an audience for theirs. One author did lead me to the Kindle Book Review, resulting in my first 5 star review and my first interview. This same author was marketing the hell out of her book with great success. The author was also a successful businesswoman. In describing her book's success she detailed the need to create a platform. Hers was the Twitter community.

As much as I admired her drive and was a little envious of her success, I knew pretty quickly her platform wasn't mine. For a start, I just don't have the time between a wife, full-time job and writing the next book, to build a second career in marketing. The reality, even if I did have time, is I don't have the marketing brass balls, or desire, to do it. Commercial marketing is part of a world I'm trying to escape from. It probably sounds awfully naive to ignore the power of digital marketing, especially from someone that has spent their entire career neck deep in the digital industry. But it's my experiences over the last two decades especially, that drives me to sidestep viral marketing campaigns, and to offer instead a friendly smile and a great book.

Of course, I still need a platform to get going. In this case I need people to start reading my book and talking about it. To this end I signed up to the Amazon Select program. Among many other things Select will offer your book for free. Amazon will then tell Kindle owners who like your kind of book, that it's there to be downloaded. I set my promotion to start 8 Feb and to run for two days. I had no idea what to expect at all. Having sold 21 copies of Chasing Innocence to friends and family, I hoped some people would download it and eventually read it.

36 hours into the promotion Chasing Innocence had gone from unranked to #2 in the overall free UK Kindle charts, and #30 in the US. A position it maintained right to the end of the promotion. Over 48 hours Chasing Innocence averaged a download every 45 seconds. It's success within a crowded marketplace of free books, was testament to the quality of the cover art, product description and Sarah Burns' excellent 5 star review, given on behalf of the Kindle Book Review.

There was more to come. Chasing Innocence hit the paid charts. By Sunday the 12 Feb it had reached #71 in the UK Kindle store and was #21 in thriller fiction. Nine days after offering Chasing Innocence for free it had been downloaded 4,400 times. And I can't say I wasn't caught up in the whole chart thing. The reality was, apart from a great cover and a handful of 5-Star reviews on Amazon, there was nothing to keep it in the charts. It had built momentum though. Word of mouth, some dedicated friends, the increasing number of Amazon reviews and the mechanics of Amazon's website, mean Chasing Innocence continues to sell at a steady volume. Something I could only have dreamed of nine days ago. That volume wasn't enough to keep it in the charts though. I could have dropped the price and started marketing. It was real tempting. I didn't for all the reasons I have explained.

My hope is that a portion of the people that download Chasing Innocence, will read it. I know it won't be for everyone because twelve people have gone to the trouble of returning it. It is after-all everything it says on the cover. The chances are, if the reader is gripped by the prologue, they'll turn the last page of the Epilogue about two days later. They might then tell someone just how good it was. And maybe even write an Amazon review. Then, in a year or so, I might be able to tell you how great books and a smile did make for good marketing after all.

Being Unfaithful (To Fictional Characters)

There is a little known saying, that goes like: 'Nothing sells a good book like a second good book, and nothing makes money like three good books.' A saying that Steig Larsson would probably whole heartedly agree with, if his heart had not so inconveniently failed him as his books went global.

Money, force of will and smart marketing will get a book attention in the short term, but for it to be successful it needs to be good. To make money it needs siblings. Modern reading minds love series characters. If they like one book, they will typically work their way through them all. It is therefore to series characters I aim. But I do not want to be tied to one series. I do have the outline for the second Sarah Sawacki book, sat on my hard drive. I am very excited about it too. As nobody really knows about Sarah at this moment in time, what better time to start another series.

So we busily make book two. I'd say write, but the ideal of playing a computer keyboard like some concert pianist and producing four effortless brilliant pages a day, is a long way from reality. So I make, I think of it more as paper-mache using words. The idea for my second series character occurred about two thirds of the way through writing the first. So we are talking 2009. This in contrast was about a man. He would be a man that women like and men understand. A very hard man with heart, a lost soul trying to understand why the most precious thing in his life has been ripped from him.

I wrote about 30,000 words of this, just under one third, after I had written Chasing Innocence. It then sat in the digital draw for two years while I edited and polished and eventually published Chasing Innocence. During the publishing stage I started working on TMWWRWs again (it's an acronym for the books title). This started as an edit and eventually became writing the book. It was slow work because publishing your own book takes a lot of time and energy. I was getting in about 4-6 hours a week. Now Chasing Innocence is out there and much of what I can do is out of my hands, I have about 4 hours a day to write. Hoorah.

Except something is different. It feels odd. I'm very excited about Marcus Hangiman and his journey, and during the hiatus came up with a whole bunch of very good ideas. I'm as excited as I was starting Sarah's journey, and a little more comfortable because I know a little more of what I should be doing. But somehow, having had Sarah Sawacki in my life for four years now, it feels like I am being unfaithful to her, by writing about somone else. It is a very weird feeling. Even when I was writing TMWWRWs the first time, Sarah and how I could progress her story was always in the back of my mind. But now it's all over for a while, it's a bit like selfishly going off with someone else knowing this character will be waiting when I'm done. It is a feeling similar to the one that makes you finish a book, which is the very strong allegiance you have to your characters. You want to finish the story for them. I suspect that is what will drive the completion of this book too. The need to tell this first part of Marcus' story, the excitement of publishing it and the thrill of saying hello to Sarah once more.

Book Cover - Front Cover

I do not really know where my fascination for empowered females comes from. It is possibly an underdog thing, the meek rising up against the strong. I don't really know the why. But when I conjured the idea for Chasing Innocence, the very first thing I did, was switch out the initial main male character, for a woman.

For almost the entire duration of the book's gestation, I knew the title would be Chasing Innocence (CI), although in my efforts to entice agents it almost got changed to Hunting Demons. The title stayed as it was, and ironically, Hunting Demons is now the title of the sequel to CI. The mental image I had in mind for the cover, was always of Sarah Sawacki face-on, looking out from the book's cover. One side of her face would be shrouded in shadow, her expression would show her vulnerability, it would tell some part of her journey. And that she is a warrior. Of course, I had no idea how that would come to be, I just imagined it. It did become a very important question two years later, when I decided I would publish CI myself.

I would need to create the image I had in my mind. A photographer was hired along with a model and make-up artist. We took nearly 500 images and image 408 turned out to be exactly what I had always imagined for the front cover. The task of making that image into a book cover was given to a graphic artist. He added texture to the face and to the background, and very importantly, a font for the title, that made it very clear the contents of the book were fiction. There was of course a last minute panic. I would need to come up with a shoutline, a phrase I had never heard before. It is the quirky tagline on the front cover. The always reliable Renata came up with the wonderful: A woman, A Girl, One Hell. But it was rejected, in hindsight quite rightly, because it was too female centric. In the end we used the two line quote I already had that proceeded the stories prologue. And then after three months of driving to make a mental image a reality, it was done. I had wanted an image that would stop the casual book browser on Amazon in their tracks, an image that would stand out on the page and was unlike a normal book cover, it would be somewhere between book and DVD - a book cover for an evolving entertainment medium.

I now had it. Even more exciting, is the first proof copy of the book is now in the post from the printers, and you will see that when it arrives as well.

Book cover - Back cover

The need for a jaw dropping front cover drove the hiring of a photographer, make-up artist and model. Part of the plan was to also create imagery for the back cover at the same time. Unfortunately it was only after the shoot I realised the back cover images didn't work when contrasted against the front cover, and that was here to stay. The back would need to be uniquely stylised in a different way - if the front was of Sarah at an advanced stage in the story, the back would now show her in a moment from the beginning. Somehow.

A result of the photographer's planning and schedule for the photo-shoot was a good number of 'before' pictures, although many were unusable as they were taken while we were still figuring the 'Sarah look'. The bonus though of hiring a professional model was we got so many different looks and one image in particular stood out.

Except of course you can't just throw a very sharp image of a model in a jacket stood in front of a white screen onto the back of a book. In my mind it needed to be stylised with a blurred background that told a little of the early story. So I packed my digital camera and went into town. I got pictures of park benches, the pond, the canal, lots of the high street and every alley I could find.

The next stage was a problem. While I'd always known I would create the book cover, I'd never imagined THIS journey! At this stage I needed to create concept art, something I could give to the book's designers. The trouble was I had no idea how I was going to do this. I knew I would use Photoshop but hadn't spent any time getting to grips with its complex and broad features. With two weeks to create stylish concepts for both the back and front cover I needed to learn fast. Thankfully the internet took me to Amazon where I found Scott Kelby on Kindle and Google kept pulling me to a website called lynda.com - a site full of Photoshop video tutorials for free. I studied Scott on the train and Lynda at nights and soon I'd almost mastered Selections and Masks in Photoshop. Now I could try and create my image.

A lesson I learned while writing the book is that you probably don't know if something's going to work unless you try it. And that you should try everything because the idea you settle on will probably only come from trying everything else. This happens so often, at least in my creative realm and it's admittedly exhausting. As I tested the different images it became clear those of the high street/canal/park bench weren't going to cut it. A wistful Sarah with these backdrops rekindled the nemesis of non-fiction. Fortunately I had quite a few shots of alleys and one in particular stood out for its perspective and the texture of the bricks that looked quite foreboding.

I cut out the left section of the alley and moved it over to create a narrower sense of perspective. Then to make the image darker I used a cut out from a different shot of the alley to block the light at the end. All I needed now was Sarah and to stylise! Fortunately cutting Sarah from her existing image wasn't too difficult once I almost understood Channels and Layer Masks and how to Refine Edges. Photoshop also has some incredible features for blending two images together although my lack of knowledge meant I didn't quite get this right. Once Sarah was placed in the alley she needed resizing and then it was all about stylising. I needed to take away the sharpness from Sarah and have the perspective pull you into the image - playing with and eventually using an assortment of blur effects.Then I blended colour tones across the whole image. I wanted the shadows to contrast but I needed a light tone as Sarah starts the book in the best place in her life she has ever been.

And then once everything was blended and styled I cropped the image down to fit the back of the book and still have room enough on the space across the wall for the back of the book blurb. The book design people may take one look at the image and giggle hysterically at my Photoshop kudos and blow out their cheeks at the 500 technical aspects for a back cover I got wrong, or never thought of. But I'm pretty sure the back cover will look something like this.

Finding Sarah

The book cover for Chasing Innocence will feature the shadowed and somewhat determined and fraught features of the books female lead: Sarah Sawacki.

Stock Image #1 - Great Look, but...

That sounded simple, didn't it? Now onto the reality. In finding the right image of 'Sarah' I exhaustively searched through shutterstock, dreamstime, iStockphoto and so many more stock photo libraries. I found a bunch of faces that met the criteria for the shadowed look but not for how I imagined Sarah. And a bunch of images that hinted at how I imagined Sarah but didn't give me the shadowed look. The look is important. This is thriller fiction and the image needs to very clearly state this. The images I found all spoke of Non-Fiction, which I needed to avoid.

Stock Image #2 Which I loved, but...

And I have to admit, I considered no one might match what I thought Sarah Sawacki looked like. So I started wondering how much it might cost to do the photos myself? It sounds crazy but I did think that. I hatched a scheme where I was going to print business cards and hand them out to women that might be Sarah and invite them to send me face to camera photos of themselves. The trouble was, well there was endless trouble with that approach. Not least the most important delimiter - time. I didn't immediately abandon it though, although fortunately I quickly realised me and my Canon EOS, more so me, probably weren't upto the job. So I started looking for photographers, preferably one that was local. The first photographer that impressed me specialised in glamour and listed the models he used on his website. Browsing through the models I wondered whether I could find one that looked like Sarah. A thought I'd had before but searches had only ever taken me to modelling agencies with very expensive looking websites. It occurred to me the photographer's model portfolios were linked to a separate website - a community site that was an advertising focus for photographers and models - that covered everything from editorial, fashion, headshot, lingerie, body part (hands and legs and the sort, I think), glamour, nude and adult imagery. I typed my detailed criteria for 'Sarah' into the sites search dialogue, which immediately returned zero hits. So I narrowed it to 'blond female' and spent many jolly hours looking at model profiles. I probably did get a little sidetracked at times.

Monika

You quickly learn there are different levels of models - the stunning ones who think looking good is everything, good looking ones who also think looking good is everything, and some that I couldn't fathom why they were even there. A few leapt from the page, not just because they were amazing, but because they possessed some quality beyond looks. I think it starts from inside, mostly it's in the eyes. I clicked on the next profile in the long list and was suddenly staring at a woman sat on a chair wearing a bikini and a cardigan. She seemed for all the sexiness, to be smiling with a quite enchanting innocent abandon.

The model was called Monika and she had her own website which I clicked on. And suddenly I was looking at almost everything I ever imagined Sarah Sawacki to be. Even more important, was she brought character to every single image. It was breathtaking and a little unnerving. It was an incredible realisation, thrilling and very daunting - surely her rates would make me weep.

They didn't as it turned out, in fact it would seem the focus of any photo shoot - the model, strangely seems to be the least expensive of all. The next day I had Monika's hourly rate and two days later she agreed to do the shoot. I found a photographer who didn't focus on glamour, purely because I didn't want the images to be erotic in any way - John Wood had a style I did want in my images.

Caitlin and Monika

Soon enough and much fraught organising later Monika was stood in John Wood's studio. The lights flashed and John photographed while Monika did her little dance as she moved between poses. This John, the Potter John, was officially the creative director, busily watching images appear on the laptop screen and trying not to be too Gestapo. We lunched and Caitlin arrived to do what she does best, which is special effects make-up and soon enough Monika really, really looked like the Sarah of Chasing Innocence. Together everyone delivered time and time again, pictures appeared on the laptop that previously only existed as fuzzy concepts in my mind. A real moment for anyone that invested so much in bringing the thought of a story this far.

John W, Monika, Caitlin, John P

I had definitely found Sarah in Monika, and in Caitlin and John I had found people to help me realise the vision. In fact, the truth was I had more than I could have hoped for. I now realised I had another problem. I had 400+ images to choose from and at least 100 that were each valid candidates for the book cover. Almost all but the test images were suitable for use in poster or website media. I was now spoilt for choice, how the hell am I going to find the image I had always imagined as the book cover?

Who do you think you are?

When failure is a modern cliché it is easy to step back from even trying. Getting published via traditional paths is beyond difficult if you are not notorious. It leaves you with a hard choice - you give in or you publish yourself. The harsh truth is that over 80% of self published books sell less than 100 copies.

Which screams: Give in now Potter. Although it is encouraging that over half the fiction books sold anywhere, are thriller/crime. That is all I want, to write stories that are enthralling, violent and touching. I want to entertain modern minds, both of women and men. The question is: With one book written and two others in development, how do I get lots of people to read what I write?

You need a good product. I have that, I'm pretty sure. Then you get it out there, which is a story for another day. And then you need to get it noticed. For established authors getting noticed is easy, you type their name into Amazon. The cover art for these authors is usually iconic, images that confirm what you love about the  experience. Admittedly I do have half a very established name, but anyone expecting magic here will be disappointed. At least in the realm of casting spells. Occasionally I manage magical, I like to believe.

So how does no name Potter attract readers? Word of mouth for a start. But even before that I need cover art that isn't just iconic, it must stop the casual browser in their tracks. It seems obvious this imagery for a thriller crime novel about lost innocence, should contain a beguiling woman. That seems as obvious as it was to make the books main character a woman. You have to be careful though. Real stories of lost innocence abound, they are a small niche. My imagery, immediately below the title Chasing Innocence, needs to make it very clear fiction is on offer - fast, violent, enthralling and touching. The image must tell a story and create questions in the casual browsers mind. Questions that need answering. It must make the casual browser click the books thumbnail, so that when they are presented with the cover -  a beguiling woman, haunted, resilient, a warrior. They are consumed by a need to know the woman's story.

For this kind of imagery stock photos are not going to do it, I know, I tried. You need a great photographer and above all, you need a special kind of female model. That model took a long time to find. She has now been booked, along with the photographer and the studio. In two weeks I will be sat in that studio watching the imagery being created. Of course I will doubt myself, who do I think I am, playing at publisher? But I could never not do this. It's about failure not being the default option. What would be the point having poured my creative soul into the book's content, if I did not invest the same into bringing it to everyone's attention?