Walker Chronicles IV Almost Ready to Release

It’s taken me a while to write this novel.  That’s not because I’m slow or didn’t work at it, either.  Nope, part of it is because I ran way over the Amazon suggested word count for a Kindle novel.  Also, because I’m becoming more fussy, I guess. 

The Prologue isn’t written yet.  But the text is probably done and mostly edited.  I’ll give it another read during the week and see what kind of errors I can find.  The problem with that is that I usually add more to the story line and then have to edit again.  

Okay, so now we come to the part about making a book cover again – which is never one of my happier moments for the project.  I was playing around with this for a while.  It sort of works with the storyline:

I’m not sure that will be the one to get published, but it might. 

So then I’ll have four novels at Kindle.  They’ve been selling a little, but not all that much.  Of course, I haven’t done any advertising yet.  And by any, I mean nothing whatsoever.
Three guys have been helping me in the background just a little, though.  As I mentioned before, two big city politicians took an interest in my books.  It wasn’t exactly a favorable interest, either.  Now a third from another city joined in. 
I have no idea if these three guys know each other, but their questions and comments seem to be similar.  

Anyway, I’m not writing about their city.  As readers may realize, no city is mentioned in the novels.  The setting could be any large city.  That most large cities have the same types of crime by politicians is understandable – there are only so many types of illegal things they can get into and keep their office.  

The ideas for the novels come from reading the newspapers from major cities over the past fifty years.  So, yeah, most of these things happened in one form of another somewhere.  And, unfortunately, most of them are still happening in big cities somewhere.  Such is the nature of life. 

Therefore, when a politician writes to question me, I just kind of chuckle a bit and wonder if maybe they are not seeing some of that at their city hall.  Who knows, they could even be part of it.  

More importantly to me personally, now that I will have four novels published on Kindle, it becomes time to try to market them. 

And, sure, I’ll admit to being a newbie at that.  Fact is, I know absolutely nothing about promoting and marketing books.  So, I just started learning. 

All of the “best sellers” on Amazon have blogs and a few have written “how to do it” books.  Nowadays, sometimes when I should be writing, I’m reading about marketing tips instead.  

Along the way I’ve noticed that there are many people marketing their services and “expertise” on various aspects of editing, formatting and marketing novels.  But, when I search for the novels they sold, I find zero.  They push themselves as experts, but never did it themselves.  I’m staying away from those. 

On the other hand, there are quite a few authors who make a very good living selling novels on Amazon.  Some of those are nice enough to give out some rather useful tips.  So, I have a lot of reading to do in the next few weeks.  Studying, actually. 

When I’m not around, it’s not that I wouldn’t rather be blogging, writing zappy one-liners on Twitter, of browsing Facebook.  But for me this is like going to school again and carrying twelve credit hours.  Yeah, when it comes to the marketing aspects, I often feel like I’m pulling a few all-nighters studying for the finals again.  

But, in this case, a better score on the tests will mean more money in my retirement account. 

So, after a couple weeks of fooling around with marketing ploys, I’ll start on novel number five.  Actually, I already have a good start on it because it has been well foreshadowed in books three and four.

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Walker Chronicles III is Posted

 

It took a little while because I’m a slow editor.  Ann helped some.  But every time I read the novel over I found more spelling errors and typos.  But I think I’ve got it right now.

Yesterday afternoon I sent the novel off to Amazon.  It usually takes a day or two before it becomes available.  But this morning I was surprised. Kindle had Walker Chronicles III available for sale.

    

Along with that, I realized a good advertising point:  I’m now offering three novels in a series for just under $9.00.  That’s less than they sell one paperback for in most places.  Maybe people will be interested, eh?

I’ve got some housekeeping I would like to do around here – and my computer needs some work – then I’ll start on the fourth in the series.  Actually, I’ve already got a little of it written in my head and just have to squeeze it out of there and onto the computer. 

Meanwhile, I’m writing the novels in Word on a laptop running Windows 7 that only has 2 GB of RAM .  Two GB of RAM is good for most things.  But strange things tend to happen by the time I’m getting to the end of a novel.  These are things that I can only attribute to memory problems.  Last night I looked up all the specs for my laptop.  I can run 8 GB on this thing and that should cure that problem.

So now it’s time to clean up the mess I made while writing the last novel and get things ready to start all over yet again.  My office in the loft will be a busy place this winter.  I would like there to be at least five novels in this series.

 

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Third Novel is Almost Done

 

Finally, I’m about done with the third in the series of The Walker Chronicles.

Folks have written to me saying that I should write more here but I’ve mostly been busy trying to play author with the novel.  I should be writing more on Twitter and sometimes Facebook, too.  But after a few hours I just get tired of typing.

Those who have written novels probably know that it’s sort of a bummer closing out the story.  But, it’s time that Walker III gets put to bed.  I’m writing the last couple chapters now.  Well, I think I am, anyway.  We’ll see how the story goes.

There’ll be a fourth in the series started just as soon as I take a couple days to do a few things around here.

I’ve also been playing with my new Eee Pad Transformer tablet.  I can type rather well on that thing and it’s fun to use for all sorts of things.  I’ll write a little about it next week, including the couple little problems I’ve found.  It’s a great alternative computer, though.  I’ll be using it productively.

Anyway, there’s a good chance that Walker III may be completed next week. I’m not sure that I’ll also have all the editing done, too.  But maybe.

 

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Walker III is Almost Done

 

Yeah, I know that I really should write more here.  But, after I read the news and tech blogs, then write for a few hours, I’m ready to get off of the computer for a while.

Anyway, the next in the Walker series is more than 80% written.  About 75% of it has been well edited, too.  That is, I’ve been over and over it many times looking for typos and words used improperly. 

Last week I intended to write some here.  Then I reread the whole novel instead to edit.  Funny thing is that I found some things in there that I forgot about. . . . 

Even better, I found very few things in there that needed fixin’.  But, of course, I added a little here and there anyway, just because I could.  After all, the art of writing is rewriting.  I can easily write a 750 word political op-ed in one sitting without rewriting.  But with fiction, I often seem to want to fool with it a little more.

As I’ve said before, these stories more or less write themselves.  That is, the characters do what they’re going to do their own way.  Right or wrong, I don’t interfere.  But, that’s what makes the story.  Everything can’t happen my way all the time.

People have asked where I get the ideas for the story.  Generally speaking, they come from reading the newspapers over the past fifty years.  Most of that stuff actually happened, just in slightly different ways so I protect both the innocent as well as the guilty – most of whom are probably out of prison by now.

Even so, I’ve received a letter or two from big city politicians inquiring if I’m writing about past events in their city.  I’m not.  But I suspect some will keep asking anyway because these very same things have happened many times in many large cities – and will probably continue happening.

Meanwhile, I’ve been playing a little on Twitter.  I do a little advertising there and have also had an opportunity to discuss writing with some rather good authors.  At the moment, there are about 200 good authors following me and more than that that I’m following.

To date, I’ve read some of the books by these authors at Twitter. I’m here to report that they are very good novels, too!  So, instead of paying $9.99 to $20.00+ for books at the store, I’ve been paying .99 cents to $3.99 for great quality reads.  Most are $2.99, which is what I sell mine for.  Also, I much prefer reading novels on my e-reader now.

For those of you who have read my novels, please leave a comment on the Kindle book site.  That’s important to help beginning authors get noticed.  And, yeah, I would like people to notice my novels. . . . 

 

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Still At It Strong

 

Would this be a good time to take a break and say that I’m still writing a lot?  Well, I am.

The third novel in the Walker series is now about two-thirds completed.  Well, it is if I keep somewhat the same word count as the first two, anyway. 

Right now I have absolutely no idea how the novel will end and mostly no idea what will happen in the last one-third.  All I know for sure is part of the scene I’m working on right now. 

There’s been one major distraction:  The computer chair I’ve used for many years finally crashed.  We went looking and found another that sort of fits me properly but it ain’t the same.  It’s not nearly as comfortable.  But, the one I have is much better than the many others I tried.

Anyway, the novel is moving right along.  Maybe not as fast as I expected, but I’m certainly not having any writer’s block. 

Oh . . . with a lot of help from another author, I got a new book cover for the second novel and it is now posted on Kindle: 

 

Also, I already have the cover done for Walker III, which is great! 

That took a couple days of playing around when I could have been writing.  But, it is necessary and I’m really glad for the help.

 

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Interesting Reader Reply

 

Some folks have asked where I get ideas for the novels.  One person (who obviously does not live in a big city) actually thought a couple things were a bit outrageous. 

Just about everything I’ve interjected in the novels has happened in one form or another.  Yeah, of course I changed it some so as to not name names and whatnot.  But, it happened – and will probably happen again.

After all, I’ve been reading big city newspapers for well over 50 years.  And I have contributed articles about crime and corruption in the big city to newspapers over the years.  I remember many things that may sound totally outrageous to anyone living in any small town USA.  But, that’s life in a big city.

Also, I received messages from two major city public officials.  First they ask if I might be depicting their city in fiction.  Then they chastise me for putting their city in a bad light while not mentioning any of the good points of the city.

Funny thing is that I don’t even know their city!  Well, yeah, I know of it.  But I’ve never been there.  Don’t read their newspapers, either. 

What I know is that all major cities are having most of the same problems.  Crime and corruption are common in big city government.  Inner-city neighborhoods can be very dangerous.  There is often not enough police protection on the streets to get the job done.  And city workers pilfer from the various funds simply because there are seldom enough accounting protections of those funds to prevent that.

These things have been happening since man started living in large communities.  They are just more evident today because we have better communications.

If any big city politician tries to tell you that all the streets are safe just challenge said politician to take a five mile walk, alone, around the inner-city about ten some warm summer night.  They have big mouths, but they sure as hell know better than to try that! 

 

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Lots of Writing Going on Here

 

Apparently people actually read these blogs.  I received a couple messages in the last few days asking why I stopped writing here.

It’s a time thing, actually.  I see other writers who say they are writing a book playing on Facebook and Twitter a lot and also running a blog or two.  I’m wondering how they find time for all that! 

Sure, I have no problem writing a couple thousand words a day.  I edit as I go and every morning start out by editing what the wrote the day before.  That not only gets things corrected, it gets me back into the mood of the story every morning.

That “mood of the story” gets broken a few times a day, though.  Sometimes it seems that I’m called down for eating every hour or so – of course that’s not true, it just seems that way when I’m on a roll.  Then the dog wants to go out for a walk a couple times a day etc., etc., etc.

Fact is, I’ve been writing the third novel for the past three weeks.  It’s moving right along nicely.  If I go by word count alone, it may be a little over half done now.  But of course I don’t really go by word count.  When the story seems complete overall, and there is somewhat of a conclusion to all the threads in the story, I simply stop writing on that novel. 

Well, there’s that and the fact that the novel has to be long enough that the reader feels they are getting value for their money, too.  I’m not selling novellas, after all.  But I’ve never had a problem with not writing enough. . . .

So how can I put in the time necessary to write a half way interesting story in a reasonable length of time and still write to a blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. every day?  When I started out, I thought I could.  But one of the first things I noticed was that I was running out of time.

Another limiting factor is that there are only so many hours a day that I can sit in front of a computer comfortably.  That time needs to be broken up by things like taking a walk and such. 

Then there’s this thing called advertising.  I haven’t really done any yet.  However, I am getting into that slowly.  What I’ve done hasn’t helped much yet, but I suppose it will be cumulative over time.  At least, that’s what those who have sold many thousands of books on Kindle say.

I’ll have three books in the Walker series posted soon.  While I’m writing the fourth novel I’ll pay more attention to advertising.  And while I’m writing the fifth novel I plan to spend almost half of my time advertising in various ways.

There’s still a major problem with book covers to get worked out, though.  When I find a way to make nice book covers, I’ll make the whole series of them at one time and be done with it!  But right now, I have no idea how to do that properly.

Oh, and I have been reading novels from the writers I follow and who follow me on Twitter.  There are some damn good writers there!  The last five novels I have read were easily “best seller” quality novels, as good as any that we have been paying six to ten times more for at the store. So I’m going to have to start writing some reviews for those.

 

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