WIN the first book in the Crime Files series, Hell to Pay

Did someone say FREE book?

Hell, yeah.

Enter to win the first book in the Crime Files series, Hell to Pay by Jenny Thomson now. Just click HERE 

Here’s a wee taster –

Nancy Kerr refuses to be a victim—even when she walks in on her parents’ killers and is raped and left for dead…

Fourteen months later, Nancy wakes up in a psychiatric hospital with no knowledge of how she got there.

Slowly, her memory starts to return.

Released from the institution, she has just one thing on her mind—two men brought hell to her family home.

Now they’re in for some hell of their own…

Now available on Amazon –

USA 

UK

CANADA

AUSTRALIA 

Categories: Mystery/Thriller, Pre-Orders. Tags: Crime, Crime Files, Criminal Supense, Detective, Hell To Pay, Jenny Thomson, Murder, Mystery, Revenge, Suspense, Thriller.

This week I needed Liam Neeson

I bet he'd find the phone

"What kind of week have I had?"

The kind that makes you shove in your earphones and play Karma Police so loud, you’re not just listening to it: it’s in your head.  

The kind where you set up a page to talk about your bullying book and folk come onto it and wait for it, start bullying one another. Yeah, really. Couldn’t believe it either.

The kind where you think your downstairs neighbour has opened a brewery because it sounds like he’s been tossing beer barrels about his floor for the past few days.

The kind of week where you despair of human nature because your OH dropped his mobile phone and someone picked it up and pocketed it. We don’t have much but what we do have we’ve worked damned hard for.

Note to the ass wipe who kept it - what you’re meant to do when you find someone’s phone, is ring up one of the numbers and find out who belongs to and return it. At least if you want to belong to the human race. You clearly don’t. Karma police are gonna get you, mate.

Just realised that instead of venting my spleen here, I should have left a Liam Neeson Taken-style message on the phone –

‘I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

Obviously, the ‘kill’ in this case means in my novel and not real life.

Only two things have made my life bearable this week –

A wee dog who loves me unconditionally and always wants to play.

Happy as a sand dog (on second thoughts, he looks worried)

Football (that’s soccer to my pals in the good ol’ USA). Non-football fans don’t get it, but there’s a reason this sport is called, the beautiful game.

Few things make you happier when things go right. You see a cracker of a goal. Some brilliant play. Your team (in my case Dundee United) lift that elusive trophy. And, here’s the best thing of all – you get to bawl and shout and it gets your frustrations out. And nothing beats the times when everyone in the crowd is cheering as one, and making something happen on the pitch. The atmosphere is electric and it’s as if you’re riding along on a wave.

But more on that later. I’m now off to hone my CIA skills. ‘I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want…’

Guest Bloggers required

I’m doing a release day promo for the first book in my Crime Files series, Hell To Pay and I’m looking for fellow authors and bloggers to post on the day the book is released – April 28^th. Is that something you think you can do?

I could either send you something of your choice or there’s a release day blog post, please sign up here. 

If you sign up there, html will be provided for quick and easy post by the PR company I’m using. I know, I’ve gone all Hollywood, mainly because my head isn’t really in the game. My dad recently passed away and after a long battle with cancer (he was brought home to die and I helped to look after him) and I only got back from looking after my mum a few days ago (my dad's funeral was on April 1st, which would have appealed to his sense of humor).

I’d really appreciate it if you could do a blog post.

Order links for Hell to Pay (Crime Files Book 1) on Kindle

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.ca

Amazon.com.au

****Coming soon in paperback***

Books 2 and 3 coming out on May 12th and May 26th.

5 Common novel writing mistakes

This is how I am when I write a novel:)

Writing a novel is hard enough. Writing one that will not only get published, but also sell is harder still.

But, what if you're writing your novel and you think something's missing? Could you be making one of these common mistakes?

1. Writing what you think will sell and not what you want to write - We all want to have a bestseller; to write the book everybody is talking about. But we won't do that if we don't write from the heart, because if we don't enjoy writing our books; if we don't put our heart and soul into our writing, who on earth is going to enjoy reading them?

2. Writing too much back story - Writers need to think like the readers they are and what can be worse than wading through heaps of backstory to get to the real story? You've read 30 pages of a novel and you know every intimate detail of the main character's life but guess what - the story hasn't started yet or its been dragged down by all that mind numbing backstory.

Tip - A little back story is fine, but generally back story should come out in dribs and drabs in the course of telling your story. Not as an avalanche.

3. Using the wrong point of view - Are you telling your story from the right POV? Is first person too restrictive (you can only tell the story through your narrator's eyes) or is third person not intimate enough?

Changing POV can work wonders.

4. Starting the story too late or too early - Every story should begin when something has actually happened or is about to happen. You need to hook the reader from the start, not expect them to skim read through a third of the book before they get to the good part. They won't. They'll put your book down. They won't buy the next.

One of the best books for writing tips.

5. Being too predictable - Have you ever read a book and thought "I feel like I've read this before" when you know you haven't? Why not follow a tip from Stephen King's On Writing and think "what's the most logical thing that should happen next?" then write the opposite.

Isn't it about time women got justice in life and fiction?

Someone I know very well and care about very deeply, was walking to her car in broad daylight just as she'd done so many times before. She'd just put in a 12 hour shift at the hospital where she works as a nursing assistant and was so tired she'd trouble putting one foot in front of the other. She was desperate to get home because her cat hadn't come back the night before and she was worried about him.

She was about 5 steps away from her car when she heard a voice.

"Lady, I think you dropped something."

She didn't think she had, but turned around anyway.

When the fist pummelled into her face she fell and hit her head on the pavement. Too dazed to get up, she could do nothing as the man dragged her into bushes. She was raped and beaten so badly even her own mother didn't recognise her.

She'd scratched her attacker, so she had his blood under her fingernails, but there was a mix up at the forensics lab and the only sample they had got lost. The police made an arrest, but they let the man go because his lawyer argued that her identification of him wouldn't stand up in court because she'd been concussed when she’d fell.

Cathy (not her real name) is not alone in not getting justice.

In the UK, the prosecution rate for rapists is pathetically low. According to official figures in the UK for 2012, only one in 30 victims (the majority of them women) can expect to see their attacker brought to justice. In 2010, Jane Clough was murdered by former boyfriend Jonathon Vass who'd been released on bail whilst awaiting trial for raping her several times.

In the USA, it's more difficult to determine, but it wouldn’t surprise me if most women who are raped don’t get to see their attacker convicted.

I wrote Hell To Pay because I wanted to see an everyday woman turn the table on her attackers after the law failed her. I was sick of seeing strong, brave women like my friend subjected to the vilest of assaults and left with victim's guilt. Cathy once said to me that the police asked her why she didn't ask a male colleague to walk her to her car. The question upset her. She felt as though they were blaming her for being attacked.

In time, she started to think they were right.

In my friend's case she never got justice. She never saw the man (if anything that can be called a man could do such cruel things aimed at achieving the maximum hurt and degradation to another human being) in the dock and never got to tell her story to a court.

The Crime Files books come with a guarantee: that women will always get justice and the bad guys will be punished. Maybe, just maybe, one day that will happen in real life.

Note - this piece first appeared at http://diehardforgirls.weebly.com/1/post/2013/07/isnt-it-about-time-women-got-justice.html

Disclaimer: the Crime Files books are pure, escapist fiction and do not in any way advocate violence.

Order links for Hell to Pay (Crime Files Book 1) on Kindle

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.ca

Amazon.com.au

****Coming soon in paperback***

Books 2 and 3 are also available. 

Book 2 

Book 3 

Why is it when women get revenge they're called man-hating bitches, men are called heroes?

We need more strong women like The Walking Dead's Michonne and Carol in fiction.

I wrote Hell To Pay because I was sick of the way women are portrayed in
fiction. Whilst TV shows like The Walking Dead (has there ever been a more kick
ass woman in a TV show as Michonne) and Person of Interest (hey, we're spoilt
with three strong women in one show) have cottoned onto the fact that women are
just as likely to punch a mugger as hand over their handbag, fiction seems to be
trailing behind with far too few exceptions like the excellent Detective DD
Warren series by Lisa Gardner and Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoloi and Isles.

In Hell to Pay, office worker Nancy Kerr comes home to find her parents
tortured and murdered. The culprits, two men repeatedly rape her and leave her
to bleed to death on the floor after they've repeatedly stabbed her. Nancy has a
breakdown and when she recovers she has just one goal - to get revenge on the
men who ruined her life.

The response I've had has fallen into two camps -
the overwhelmingly positive with people saying it's about time women got
revenge just like men (and many of the readers saying that have been men) and
the ones who dismiss Nancy as a man hating bitch.

The second opinion surprises me and after spending time thinking about why a woman who goes after her parents killers and the men who raped her and left her for dead, should be described as "man hating," I've come to the conclusion that women just aren't meant to get their revenge.

Nope, they're meant to turn the other cheek and forgive their attackers and just move on with their lives. They're certainly not allowed to use violence. 

I've interviewed women who've survived rape and the one thing that seems common to
 them all is the guilt they feel. When they were attacked, they were powerless. There was nothing they could do, yet they blamed themselves. They believed there was something they could have done; they should have fought more. For some of them that feeling was so intense that they took their own lives or became terrified to go
out. 

Out on April 28th

That's why I wrote revenge thriller Hell To Pay, the first in a series of books I've
called the Crime Files. I wanted to have some escapist fiction where a woman
does get her own revenge, because let's be honest here, the conviction rates for
rape are pitiful.

Why don't you read Hell To Pay and tell me whether Nancy Kerr is really a "man-hating bitch" or an avenging warrior?

I'd be interested to know what people think.
You can read an excerpt here

Order links for Hell to Pay (Crime Files Book 1) on Kindle

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.ca

Amazon.com.au

****Coming soon in paperback***

Books 2 and 3 coming out on May 12th and May 26th.

There's somebody outside the door...Introducing Don't Come for Me (Crime Files #3) (out May 26th)

THERE'S SOMEONE AT THE DOOR...

Crime thriller, Don't Come for Me is based on something that's probably happened to us all.

You're alone at night, in the bathroom when you hear a noise outside the door.

And there's this tiny part of you, the primaeval part of you that thinks there's someone outside that door.

SOMEONE WAITING

TO GRAB YOU

SOMEONE WAITING

TO ROB YOUR HOUSE

In almost every case, there will be nobody outside that door. Or, it'll be your cat/dog who's knocked down some furniture.

But, what if someone is out there?

What do they want?

Who are they?

That's how the idea for Don't Come For Me came about.

You can find out what's outside Nancy Kerr's door, by reading Don't Come for Me.

Released May 26th, 2015 from Limitless Publishing (Book 3 in the Crime Files)

Check out the other books in the Crime File series

Tips for writing a successful novella

I stumbled onto writing novellas by accident. I saw a snippet of news in Writers' News magazine. It said that a publisher was looking for revenge novellas and was struggling to find women to write them. It was one sentence, but it caught my eye.

Three years later, I have a contract for two novellas in my *Die Hard for Girls series and a publisher interested in the first novella I ever wrote. At last, I had found my niche.

*Note - the Die Hard for Girls books  will be relaunched and re-released by my new publisher, Limitless Publishing as the Crime Files in April and May 2015. 

Here's my top 5 tips on writing novella -

1. You need to be able to pitch your novella in one sentence. Any more than that and it's probably a novel you're writing.

2. Short chapters are ideal for novellas. They keep readers interested. 

3. Your main character's goal should be the main theme of the novella. For instance, the theme for Hell To Pay (the book will be relaunched and re-released by my new publisher soon) is revenge and how Nancy Kerr avenges her parents' murder and her rape.

4. End every chapter with a revelation, a question or a shock that will have readers racing to the next chapter.

5. Your main character should be someone readers will want to go on a journey with, usually a heroine or a hero. If he or she is a villain, make some part of them sympathetic. If you don't, it will put readers off.

For more tips on writing a novella, check out the piece I wrote for Words With Jam. To read it click here

Happy writing:)

Whatever you do, don't start your novella like Snoopy.


Book 1 in the Crime Files
Available April 28th

Coming soon from Limitless Publishing - the Crime Files

Introducing the Crime Files

COVER REVEAL - I'm very excited to announce that Limitless Publishing will be bringing out three of my books over the next few months. 

Hell To Pay will be published on April 28th and Throwaways will be out on May 12th. The publication date for the third, Don't Come for Me, will be May 26th. 

The books were formerly known as the Die Hard for Girls series (although half the readers were men) and I'd like to thank everybody who read both books and who took the time to review them. I really appreciate it.

Both books are being relaunched as the Crime Files.  

Check out the covers. What do you think? 

John Steinbeck reviews the reviewers

This is a bit naughty, but I like it:) 

"Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, 

I say ignore the bastard." - John Steinbeck 

How bad punctuation could kill grandma

Here's the proof that poor puncuation can kill. 

Not just grandma, but anyone.

So, you've written a novel. What next?

You're novel's all written. What do you do next?

First, off step away from the manuscript. Have some fun. Zap zombies on a computer game. Catch up with your favourite TV show. Hey, the whole new season of Orange is the New Black is on Netflix.

Had a break? Feel rested? Now it's time to look at your manuscript again with fresh eyes.

You're looking for -

Spelling mistakes - do not trust spell checkers. They can lull you into a false sense of security and change words. Mine change violet jumpsuit to violent. Don't know what it had against violent.

Plot holes - did you bring a dead character back to life? Not resolve a part of the storyline that needed to be resolved? Don't leave someone standing on the ledge of a building without having them persuaded not to jump, or rappelling down to break into that office.

Look for continuity errors - Did you rename a character halfway through the book or change the spelling of their name? Were they shot or kidnapped, and you carried on writing like they hadn't been?

Get rid of all the fluffy words like just and only as much as you can. They don't read well and are unnecessary.

Did you commit the sin of writing he/she started to (ADD AN ACTION like run) - Have someone run not start to run.

Check for errors you and only you would make - For instance, I had stench the flow of blood instead of staunch the flow in one of my books and I did I even notice. My publisher's copy editor didn't, but the proof reader did. But, she only spotted one, another two instances were left in the book.

Don't have characters doing the same thing all the time -
I found too many taking a deep breath in my latest book. Shake it up. Have characters doing different things.

Please don't send your novel off without the best chance of publishing success. Publishers and agents want you to make it easy for them to say no. Don't hand them that reason.

Happy writing folks. Would love to hear what you are working on.

Is Kindle Unlimited hitting author incomes?

Is Kindle Unlimited picking authors pockets?

Kindle Unlimited sounded like it might actually help authors to reach a wider readership. For a relative small sum a month ($9.99), members can read as many Kindle books as they want. Authors like me hoped that would lead to our books that wouldn't otherwise be bought, being lent instead and us getting a payment (albeit less than what we'd get for a sale) for each loan.

Sadly, I've found Kindle Unlimited has lost me money, especially for my non-fiction title, Living Cruelty Free: Live a More Compassionate Life.

I put a lot into writing that book. More than I put into any of my fiction titles, because I had to do so much gruelling, distressing research into animal cruelty and human cruelty towards other humans that gave me nightmares. All of the research took almost a year to do and I had to decipher complicated laws that made my head spin.

I had a publisher for the book, who badly let me down and didn't send me a royalty statement in 2 whole years since the book was published, causing me so much stress trying to get the rights to my own book back. Then I self-published. I did everything myself and it cost me more money than I could afford.

Considering the work that went into Living Cruelty Free, a book readers could turn to again and again, I felt a Kindle price of £4.99 ($8.99 in the USA) was fair.

Sadly, I'm starting to notice a trend. I sell a book and it shows up in my sales on KDP. Soon after, usually within an hour, that book appears as returned and a loan shows up almost right away.

So, what's happening?

To me, its simple.

People are either 1. Buying the book by mistake, instead of borrowing it using Kindle Unlimited, and then they're returning the book and borrowing it.

Or, 2. Borrowing the book because it costs nothing.

You can't blame readers. But, you can blame Amazon for having the facility to buy and borrow a book on the same page (which i believe is confusing people) and for coming up with a scheme that takes even more money away from writers.

Borrow rates for authors on KU in 2024

When one of my book sells, I make $6.26 or £3.37 on a 70% royalty. On a loan, I make just over a dollar. So you can see how I lose out every time a buyer switches to a lender.

I'm not alone in this. Other authors are also being hit in the pocket, and many of them used to be big earners. See here

What's your experience of KU? How has it affected you? I would love to hear your experience. 

There's somebody outside the door...introducing Don't Come For Me

Hell to Pay is based on something that's probably happened to us all.

You're alone at night, in the bathroom when you hear a noise outside the door.

And there's this tiny part of you, the primaeval part of you that thinks there's someone outside that door.

SOMEONE WAITING
TO GRAB YOU

SOMEONE WAITING
TO ROB YOUR HOUSE

In almost every case, there will be nobody outside that door. Or, it'll be your cat/dog who's knocked down some furniture.

But, what if someone is out there?
What do they want?
Who are they?

That's how the idea for Don't Come for Me came about.

You can find out what's outside Nancy Kerr's door by reading Don't Come for Me.

OUT SOON 

For 2 days only, The Restless Dead is FREE on Kindle Dec 23rd Dec 24th

To celebrate the re-launch of my zombie novel as The Restless Dead with a fantastic new cover, the book s FREE today and tomorrow on Kindle.

Here's a taster -
Somebody attacked Archie and that somebody had to be a zombie because last time I checked, the dead didn’t wake up, stinking of putrefying flesh and try and bloody eat you.” 
And so begins Emma and Scott’s battle for survival against the things they dub dead bastards. Teaming up with self-proclaimed zombie expert Kenny, who works in Glasgow’s last remaining video store, macho man Mustafa from the newsagents and mystery man Doyle, they face a battle to survive the flesh eating hordes rampaging through Scotland.
Now they have just one aim – 
JUST
DON'T
GET
BITTEN. 

"If Shaun of the Dead met The Walking Dead, you'd get The Restless Dead."

The offer starts on December 23rd at midnight (Pacific Central Time), which is 8am in the UK and ends at midnight (PCT) on December 24th, which is 8am on December 25th in the UK.

Here's the links -
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.UK
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com.au

Please pass on the link to anyone you think may be interested. I'd really appreciate it and if you do read The Restless Dead, please leave a few words on Amazon. Thanks:)

Take care and stay safe in the zombie apocalypse.

Out now - Living Cruelty Free - Live a more Compassionate Life

Living Cruelty Free offers tips and advice on how we can be kinder to animals and each other, and live a kinder life.

It’s an essential guide for anyone who wants to become a more ethical shopper: to avoid buying the cruellest things on the planet, like fur, Foie gras, and clothes made using slave labour.

There are also tips on how to go free range, become vegetarian, or just reduce your meat intake, and to make sure the cosmetics you buy are not tested on animals.

When I became a vegetarian 28 years ago, I wish this information had been available to me.

The book's available at 
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.ca

The book has a companion blog.

Why should you read Hell To Pay?

Why should you read Hell To Pay?

1. In real life women don't usually get revenge on their attackers, Nancy Kerr does.
2. If you like strong women, you'll like Nancy Kerr.
3. There's a handsome strapping sidekick called Tommy McIntyre.

Hell to Pay is now available on Amazon. 

You can read an extract from Hell To Pay on the excellent Wattpad site by clicking here.

Is it time to say goodbye to your publisher?

Sometimes it's time to say goodbye

As I write this, I'm scared, very scared. After a thoroughly demoralising time with one of my publishers that made me ill, I decided to get the rights to my two books with them back. Moving from having a publisher to doing everything yourself and self-publishing, is very scary indeed.

Now I'm responsible for everything from cover design to editing and the thing that scares me most is getting it wrong. But, my publisher's actions left me with no choice. 

You see, I had high hopes for these books. They were the first two in a series I'd created called Die Hard for Girls. They were my babies, lovingly crafted. I'd already written the third.

Judging by the readers reports by the publisher, they shared my enthusiasm. Sadly, that didn't translate into any real effort on their part. In fact, the publisher started to charge for services that they shouldn't have. Things like converting your book into an eBook and even, at one point, putting it into print. 

I won't go into all that. It's a long and boring story - hey, even I'm bored with it. But, what I will say is that I spent hours and hours trying to get my book the marketing they promised me and getting basic things like categories fixed and my author name spelled correctly.

Example - Throwaways, my crime thriller about Glasgow sex workers being kidnapped, was listed as true life and erotica. My, was my mum surprised about that:)

Now, it's down to me to do things right. It's daunting, but invigorating at the same time. Having two covers designed was particularly exciting.