What to do when Amazon spells your name wrong (or gets other book details wrong)

I was really excited to see Hell To Pay going on up on the various sites including Amazon, but that excitement was diluted ended when I saw that they’d spelt my surname wrong. Firstly, on the Amazon.com site and then on Amazon.ca

It’s important that the details are correct so that your Amazon author central* page will be linked to your book. Your author central page has tweets from you, details of blog posts and a list of your other books. It’s a great promotion tool, but only if the details are correct.

If this happens to you, this is what you do to get Amazon to change it.

*To get an Amazon author central page click here to register. For Amazon.com, click here

STEP ONE

Go to the book page on Amazon

Tip – Ignore the message for publishers and authors where the publisher is told to update the feed sent to Amazon and the author is told to contact their publisher. I know for a fact, that my publisher sent the correct details to Amazon who keyed it in wrongly.
 

TWO

Scroll down to where it says Would you like to update product info and click on that.

 

THREE

You will be taken to your Amazon sign in page. Sign in.

FOUR

From there you will be taken to Update Product Info

 

 

FIVE

Put in as much info as you have. For instance, if you have a pictures of your book cover complete with ISBN number (you need this) then submit that.

Tip – You can also submit a change of details through your Amazon Author Central account. It's just as easy to use.

Writers, what to do if you get a stinker of a review

My filing cabinet for bad reviews.

It happens to every writer eventually. You get a review that has you wanting to scream one minute and curl up in a ball sobbing until the stars fall out of the sky. How do you deal with that?

Here's a few tips.

1. Remember it's only one person's point of view. One person. Not hundreds of people - just one. Does everybody everywhere like the same things? Nope, so you have to accept that there will be people who may not like your book.

2. Print out the review and roll it up into a ball and throw it in the bin, or use it to play a game of ping pong. The review doesn't have much power over you now, eh?

3. Talk to other writers. Ask them about the worst review they've ever had. Moan about it. Laugh about it. Then forget about it.

4. Look at all your good reviews and all the good things that anyone has ever said about your writing. Does one or two bad reviews mean you are suddenly a bad writer? Of course not. Push away all that negativity by submerging yourself in positivity.

5. Tell yourself that at least they bought your book. The money from someone who leaves you a bad review is the same as someone who leaves you a good review.

6. And, if you really get upset by reviews, step away from the computer and STOP reading them. I know it's hard, but a writer needs to keep writing. Any time spent being all maudlin over a review, one person wrote, is eating into your writing time.

7 Ways to Kickstart your writing in the new year

If only it did come in a can:)

It happens to all of us. We get very little writing done over the holidays - that's if we get any done at all. Then when we have to get back to it, it's hard to get going again.

How do you break through that wall and get going again?

Here's some tips -

Even time spent watching Jeremy Kyle isn't wasted.

1.Look through a real life magazine or watch a show like Jeremy Kyle or Jerry Springer. Are there any stories that catch your eye? Don't read it. Just take the headline say, "My husband was a bigamist and a murderer" and write your own story based on that. Try for a new angle. Write from the husband's point of view or from two of the wives when they get together. 

2. Write your own version of your favourite movie or TV shows. 

Even time watching the soaps isn't wasted.

3. Soap storylines are also a good source of inspiration. Use a current storyline, but feature your own characters.

4. No takers on that book? Try turning it into a screenplay. The more strings a writer has to their bow the better. 

5. Pick any book off your shelf and look at the first paragraph. Write a story that follows on from that. 

6. Cut out pictures of people from a magazine or catalogue. Imagine their lives and what could have happened to them. Write about them. 

7. Try an online story generator. You'll be surprised at what they come up with. 

Writers, it's time to get out of Twitter jail

I realised I was getting too caught up in tweeting, Facebooking, blogging, messageboards, google plus...and the list goes on and on and on...when I wanted to throw my computer out the window in a fit of all consuming incredible Hulk rage.

Well, I couldn’t get the book trailer for Dead Bastards on Kindleboards.

With a second book in what I hope will be a popular Die Hard for girls series to write, my blood pressure bubbling and the lack of sleep, I decided enough was enough.

Here are the commandments I will now live by -

1. No social networking through dinner. No tweeting, Facebooking or writing a blog post.

2. Have one day a week when I don't use social networking at all.

3. When I'm watching a film or a TV show, I also have to go cold turkey.

4. Enjoy the social networking experience. Have fun with people. Stop saying "Please, pretty please buy my book/s" all the bloody time. Folk are sick of hearing it. You're sick of hearing it.

5. Write more without a computer because unless you do you’ll be dragged back to Twitter. Write in long hand. Scribble. By all means take a break, go on Twitter, but only for twenty minutes at the most. Then go back to writing. I'll set an alarm if I need to.

And those are the rules I hope to live by. Well, once I've posted, tweet, FB, Google + this blog post.

My crazy writing year

On the face of it you'd think I'd had a successful writing year. With Living Cruelty Free out in Kindle and paperback, my zombie novel Dead Bastards astounding me by coming out before Christmas (thanks to the remarkable editing skills of my publisher Terry Wright) and Hell to Pay written and in the hands of my publisher (and more Die Hard for Girls books planned), it does sound good.

 

But, sadly this year has been a complete nightmare and one I'll be glad to see the back of, for a number of reasons -

1. Because of a Facebook page I set up for my bullying book, I found myself being cyber stalked by a crazy person and their family who'd send me harassing messages even when I blocked them.

2. Writing Living Cruelty Free meant looking at horrific images of man's inhumanity to man and animals. Some of those images and research I had to look at gave me nightmares. I sunk into a deep depression it took me months to get out of.

3. I found myself working 15 hours a day to promote/edit my books - yep, even on Christmas Day. I now find it difficult to sleep and my agoraphobia's got worse.

4. Sales of the books my publisher Need2Know decided to give away, free and unlimited (without telling me) for w YEAR have fallen through the floor. Before, one in particular, was selling steadily. No sales mean any royalties. No wonder I have to decide which room to heat. Anyone has this illusion of writers being wealthy should think again.

5. Thanks to the sock puppet scandal, I've had reviews from people who bought my books taken down on Amazon without explanation. The reason - they said in their reviews they were writers too. Like writers don't/can't read? It's hard enough to get reviews at it is without that happening. Ditto people who were bought my book as a gift because they weren't verified purchasers. Well, they wouldn't be - the books were bought by someone else for them.

 

Not that top authors who’ve already made a name for themselves will be affected; it will just be us little guys who don't have big publishing houses and the might of their publicity budgets behind us.

And, that's just my writing life. Oh, and the year started with a 3 day power cut - in an apartment, with no gas or coal fire.

So, let's raise a glass to 2013, may it bring us all better days.

 

6 Things every writer should know

I was first published when I was 15 and wrote a piece on superstitions for Jackie magazine. Over the years, though my writing, this is what I’ve learned -

 

1. Write as much as you can in as many different genres as you can. That way when opportunities present themselves you'll be ready. I know this from experience. In March 2011, I signed a contract to have my first work of fiction published, my novella How Kirsty Gets Her Kicks. For various reason it didn't happen. I also started a follow up book I called Die Hard for Girls. When I saw on Twitter that Sassy Books were looking for submissions, I tweeted the editor. Would she be interested in Die Hard for Girls that I'd since renamed Hell to Pay. She said yes and I submitted it and was offered a good royalty contract just days later.

2. That brings me to my second point - make sure you're on social networking sites so you'll see these opportunities. Without Twitter I'd have two books sitting in my unpublished file. Join great forums like Writer's News Talkback. Network with other writers. See an opportunity for another writer, let them know. They'll alert you to an opportunity you might have missed.

3. That brings me nicely to my third point - help other writers. Don't see them as competitors; see them as comrades in the trenches of writing. Help one another. Commiserate when things go wrong; celebrate their successes. Unless you do it can get lonely.

4.Learn to promote your books. You can't expect your publisher to place ads in the big newspapers. They only do that for the big names. As for you, a listing in their online catalogue is the best you can hope for. The plus side is that because you know your book so well you're the best person to promote it. I have Twitter, Facebook pages and dedicated blogs for Dead Bastards and Living Cruelty Free. The only cost to me was my time. I know doing this has sold books.

5.Don't ever tell yourself "I can't write in that." If a story comes alive in your head, go with it. I never thought I'd write a horror novel. Then this image came into my head of a man turning up at his friend's door looking like he'd been mugged. Only when he comes inside it becomes clear that his guts are spilling out and this is no ordinary mugging. When he dies and then comes back and tries to eat them, they realize that the zombies are here.

I just couldn't get this image out of my head of this guy's guts spilling out onto the floor and this Glasgow couple trying to scoop them up and shove them back in again, so I started scribbling away. And so, Dead Bastards was born.

6.Just because a publisher says no the first time doesn't mean you should give up. TWB Press who published my Glasgow zombie novel originally turned it down when I submitted it as a serial. I really admired the ethos of the company (no non-sense entertainment), so I worked on it some more and what was intended to be a 30k novella ended up a 70k novel (although over 10, 000 words were cut). The publisher Terry Wright liked it and wanted to publish it.

 

The zombies are on the move...

I was delighted to be invited over to the amazing McDroll's blog to talk about Dead Bastards and why I wrote it.

To read the piece, click here

McDroll's latest book is called Kick It With Conviction and is a collection of short stories. It's available on Amazon UK and USA.

To find out more about McDroll, click here.

Dead Bastards is available now from the following -