Saturday 19 May 2012

Zombies & Living Cruelty Free is out on Kindle


This is probably not the cover for Deid Bastards.


Sorry, I haven’t posted in a wee while. A few weeks ago, a publisher expressed an interest inmy zombie novel Deid Bastards and I’ve been working away on that trying to perfect it. You know them zombies, they sure keep you busy.

I have a lot planned for them. I'm already the proud owner of www.deidbastards.com where I hope to be bringing you some zombietastic stuff in the near future. So stay tuned. The wecsite is currently under construction.


I’ve also been working hard to promote my book Living Cruelty Free: a guide for anyone who wants to live a more compassionate life and I am delighted to announce that as well as the traditional books, it’s now available on Kindle.

At the moment it's available on Amazon.co.uk, but I hope that will change soon.


Wednesday 4 April 2012

Giving away free books won't sell books

Go on grab some and throw them at me. Writers work for peanuts.

This is an update on my earlier post Could your publisher give your book away free?

I honestly wish I was writing an upbeat post.

One where I would hold up my hands and say, 'I was wrong.' That 'those people at Need2Know sure knew what they were doing giving away e copies of my books, without consulting me.'

But then the royalty cheque came for Bullying - A Parent's Guide and it was puny. Pathetically puny. And I knew that over half of the few sales I did achieve came from the reviews of the book I got on Amazon.

Check out your book on at novelrank if you want to know how it's selling on Amazon. Note - it will only track from the date you start tracking it.

‘How puny was that royalty cheque?’ you will be asking.

Enough for a week's shopping - on a budget - because apparently despite being one of the most downloaded books by Need2Know on their free giveaway site, giving something away free did not translate into sales.

And why would it? If someone gives you something for free, why the heck would you pay for it?

The moral of the story: get it in writing from your publisher than they have to limit book giveaways to prizes and review copies. I know I will, because I believe all writers should be decently compensated for their work.

Sunday 1 April 2012

Have a peek inside Living Cruelty Free - It's Free



Although this blog was set up to keep you up to date with my crime novel, Vile City, I also like to keep this blog varied. Zombies and now bunnies. You don't get much different than that.
You can now see what's inside Living Cruelty Free: Live a more compassionate life. This is a guide to living a kinder life.

Obviously, I don't mean towards zombies because if you show them compassion you are gonna get eaten.

You can check out the book on -

Wednesday 28 March 2012

Released Deid Bastards - the movie (well, video)




I'm having such a ball writing about the zombie hordes descending on Glasgow and how it efects a ragtag of survivors.

There's Glasgow couple Scott and Emma who might be expecting a baby. Well, it's hardly likely to be a puppy.

Would you like to be up the duff with the undead on the run?

Would be suicide bomber Doyle, who picks the 'wrang day for it.'
Geek Kenny who owns the last video store in Glasgow and perhaps the world.

Mustafa, a patriotic Scottish Asian muscle man who has a tendancy to act first and think later.
The characters are so real to me that I can see what they look like in my head. I even have an all Scottish cast lined up for the roles.

I thought you might like a peak at the video my clever partner, John made for me.

So far, I've sent the book to three publishers and one agent. Wish me luck, because the Deid Bastards deserve to be coming to a town near you.

I'm now off to buy the domain and make the t-hirts.

Monday 26 March 2012

Respect the Genre

This picture will not make you transform into a werewolf


One of my favourite TV shows, Being Human about a werewolf, vampire and ghost living together has left me feeling disappointed this series.

Why? Because they haven't respected the genre.

Episode one of the new series, a werewolf uses a picture of a moon and not a full moon to transform. Werewolves need the real thing to transform.

Last episode of the season, a vampire gets into a house without being invited. Sure he burns but he still gets into the house thus breaking another genre rule. You need to invite a vampire in.

Despite the good writing and acting, these episodes left me deflated. Why? Because as a fan of the genre I hate it when they mess with them.  When they break the rules.

Sure they can be innovative – think True Blood that’s turned the vampire genre on its head. Be thought provoking. Do things that have never been done before. But never blatantly break the rules.

Not just in TV writing, but in novel writing too. Because if you don’t like it when writers of TV shows break the rules, chances are readers of your work won’t like it if you do the same.


Friday 23 March 2012

What does a writer do all day?

As a full time writer you would think I'd have plenty of time to, well write. If only that were the case. Here's how I spent yesterday -

Got up and had some breakfast. Too busy booting up my laptop and doing 'dog tummy' so toast burned and turned to charcoal. Had to make more.

He wants dog tummy (his tummy rubbed)


Had to go round my blogs and social networks changing publication date for my book Living Cruelty Free. Publisher thought it was on sale now from Amazon but it won't be on sale until April 5th. 
Publisher tells me it will now be on sale on March 29th. Go round social networks and blogs changing it, again. Have a minute to myself to scream. Boyfriend tells me to stop swearing. I tell him to f off.

Spend ten minutes agonising over why agent from agency who say they always send an acknowledgement for all submissions hasn't sent me one three days after I sent submission package.
Spent ten minutes agonising over publisher I signed up with a year ago not being in touch for months despite me sending change of address and follow up to as unpublished book.

Tell nuisance caller to stop phoning me. It's a cold sales call and they've been phoning every day, sometimes several times a day. Then worry I was mistaken and it was a publisher and I've blown it.
Have a look to see if other publisher is still giving 2 of my books away free, which means I get no royalties. They didn't even tell me they were doing this. Yep, they still are.

Post copies of Living Cruelty Free to friends who've kindly agreed to review it.

Too busy working to see to dinner and it's ruined. Boyfriend and I have words. One word is said more than others. It begins with f.

Updated my author page on Goodreads and posted a review of new James Thompson book. To write well, you need to read well.

More dog tummy - it helps with the stress.

Reply to comments on various blogs - I have 4.

Post things that dogs should never eat on much neglected Caring for your dog blog. Have to break off to chase my rescue dog Benjy around the room with his bone.

Have a lengthy discussion with my brother about the origins of zombies. All research for my zombie book, Deid Bastards. We talk about stuff like this often. We are weird.

Add Amazon book carousel to my website and blogs. Takes me ages to realise I need to copy code into html of website.

Make video for Amazon as instructed by publisher. Well, boyfriend does as I tweet.

Put Facebook badges for my pages on all my blogs.

Follow back and DM people on Twitter. 

Change header on cruelty free blog to reflect new publication date. Also change links.

Gather financial data for my accounts. Fret over how to pay bills.

It's 4am and I haven't written so much as a sentence of my book all day. Oh well, at least I wrote this blog post.

Wednesday 21 March 2012

My Living Cruelty Free book will be on sale on March 29th, 2012

I know it's not crime or zombie related or indeed fiction related, but if you can't plug your own book on your own blog, where can you? 



I am so excited that Living Cruelty Free will finally go on sale on March 29th, 2012. The culmination of months of painstaking work, I really do hope it can make a difference.

I genuinely wish this book had been around when I became vegetarian 25 years ago because it's a one stop shop for compassionate living. Most importantly, it stresses that we all need to be kinder not just to animals but our own human beings.

You can buy the book on Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.ca



Price: UK £9.99 | USA $14.95 | CAN $16.95

For more details of where to buy, click here.

I'd like to thank the BUAV for letting me use their world famous leaping bunny logo in the book, my friends on Facebook and Twitter for helping me to decide what went in the book and my long suffering partner in life and compassionate living, John.

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