Bad Sex and the Oddest Book Title...

A quick post to update on the results of the recent Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of 2019, and the Bad Sex in Fiction award.

To the
Winners...

Now the Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title has been getting less press coverage than in past years, which is a pity as there's been many chuckle-inducing titles over the years.

My favourite for the title was the bible stories, Noah Gets Naked..., with the Ending the War on Artisan Cheese as a strong contender. Sadly the Cheese related book came in second place with 24% of the vote; While the Bible Stories title came third, garnering 18%.

The winner for 2019 was The Dirt Hole and its Variations by Charles L Dobbins that won 40% of the public vote. Sadly he died twenty-two years ago, so a posthumous winner.

Read more about it at the Bookseller.

The Bad Sex in Fiction Award (like the Booker Prize this year) has announced two winners; Didier Decoin for The Office of Gardens and Ponds- my choice for this year. And John Harvey's Pax.

You can read about the judge's dilemma in choosing a winner also over on the Bookseller.

That's those two awards for another year...

The 2019 Bad Sex in Fiction Shortlist is Out...

It's that time of year when the Literary Review's annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award shortlist is revealed.

Of course the extracts in the news reports are only a part of the novels they appear in, so put in context they may work okay, but in isolation they don't.

This year's contenders- with some unexpected names appearing:

• City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert (Bloomsbury)

• The Office of Gardens and Ponds by Didier Decoin (MacLehose Press)

• The River Capture by Mary Costello (Canongate)

• The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith (Allen & Unwin)

• Pax by John Harvey (Holland House)

You can read about a few of the well-known authors who escaped the list this year in this Guardian article.

The shortlisted extracts from each novel are revealed on another Guardian page.

Having read the extracts, they are not as bad as in previous years.

But I'm sorry Didier Decoin, your extract would get my vote any day, just for the ponds and omelette rolls...

The winner will be announced on the 2nd December.

It's that time again.../

Reading, Writing, Learning and Improving...

Only a month to Christmas Day and I've just started thinking about all that I need to do.

Usually that's because November is busy with family birthdays so I don't think about the festive season until they're over.

I'm determined to get the Christmas cards into the post sooner rather than the last few posting days- which usually happens.

Since I received my readers report back from the RNA's New Writers' Scheme I've read it again and analysed what I need to concentrate on this time- I've identified my weak spots...

There are other aspects in the historical that need further thought, so while I resolve those, I'm going ahead with my original plan to do my contemporary romance idea for the 2020 NWS.

So, I've been learning more about character arcs which has helped me understand the issues with my historical romance protagonists- and for my contemporary where I'd gone astray in the first draft.

I've got a better understanding of beats in the three act structure, but need to work on the middle 50% of the story.

Image from
Amazon.co.uk

As I've been able to set the new story up on Scrivener from the start (rather than half way through) it's given me time to identify changes I hadn't considered before, but need.

The good news is the first 25% of this one is doing what it should do, so I've begun the rewrite on those chapters, while I continue the outstanding research items.

My current reading is Our Uninvited Guests by Julie Summers.

It was pure chance that a Google search led to a mention of it in an article; then I searched for it on Amazon to find the kindle e-book on offer for 99 pence- a definite sign I should buy it! (It's now £3.99.)

An interesting read too.

It does have relevance; indirectly...


Have you ever gone looking for a book and found it's on offer just when you need it for research?

The Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title 2019...

I was beginning to think that this may not be happening this year as the shortlist announcement is later than in 2018.

The mystery is solved and you can read the wry introduction to the 41st year of the prize over on the Bookseller website and the mention of last year's winner- kettles and water were involved...

This year's shortlist:

• How to Drink Without Drinking by Fiona Beckett.

 (As it's not due out until January 2020 I'm ruling it out of my possibles.)

• The Dirt Hole and its Variations by Charles L Dobbins.

 (Hunting related.)

• Viking Encounters: Proceedings of the 18th Viking Congress by Anne Pedersen and Søren M Sindbæk.

• Ending the War on Artisan Cheese by Catherine W Donnelly.

(Sadly not released until 28th November.)

• Noah Gets Naked: Bible Stories They Didn't Teach You at Sunday School by Xanna Eve Chown.

• Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich by Eric Kurlander.

 (Published May 2018.)

You can vote via the link at the bottom of the page on the Bookseller website (link above) and there's time to consider the options before the 22nd November deadline.

This is going to be a tough choice. But I think many of them aren't so odd when you read the other text on the cover- you can find most of them on Amazon.

I suspect the Noah one will get lots of votes, it's definitely odd... so odd I voted for it.

It's a fun annual prize and the winner gets a bottle of Claret...

It's red wine from
Bordeaux...

Image by gerttaeymans from https://pixabay.com

A Book Launch in the Museum...

Usually when I'm in Leicester, it's on a Friday for a Belmont Belles RNA Chapter meeting, so going to the city on a Saturday was unusual, especially when there was a big football match and memorial parade at the football stadium.

This time I was there for a book launch at the New Walk Museum, for Rosemary J Kind's new release, Unequal by Birth.

Cover design...

The museum was busy and popular with families. Just inside the entrance there was a large Lego figure displayed- think it was an Astronaut.

I will definitely visit another time as there was so much to see, including the art gallery that I passed through to get to the book launch in the Lord Mayor's room.

There were refreshments provided in the area outside the meeting room before the launch began, which gave me time to say hello to Rosemary in person- we've been friends online for many years but never met because of distance and no opportunity to be in the same county.

Rosemary's books for sale at the launch...

Rosemary read the opening chapter, that carries on the story of her characters from the earlier book New York Orphan.

There is another book in production...

Rosemary talked about the research she'd undertaken and the part the Orphan Train Movement in late 19th century America, featured in the first novel.

The Q&A followed, then there was the opportunity to buy a Rosemary's book (or books) and get them signed.

It was a lovely afternoon and I'm sure Rosemary's latest book will do well- she told her guests that on Saturday morning it was in the kindle charts ahead of Hilary Mantel and just behind Ken Follett- there's a screen shot on her Twitter account...

Sadly, I couldn't stay longer as I needed to get my train before the football match finished and lots of people headed for their trains home.
Fortunately, the station was only a five-minute walk away, barring getting across the road via a series of new pelican crossing points!

New Walk Museum
Leicester...

It was good to get away from my desk for an afternoon...

Have you been to a book launch in a place that wasn't a bookshop?

A Week of Learning...

It's been a busy week so you'll be getting two posts today and tomorrow, otherwise it would be a very long post to read.

I was scrolling through my Twitter feed earlier last week and saw a link for the Romance Writers Summit. There was a free sign up to see the sessions released each day for five days- though this was a time zone in America.

After signing up I watched a few of the six sessions and they were interesting and useful. There was an email waiting the next morning in my inbox with the link to sign-in and go to page for playing each session.

It was like the online conference that the Alliance of Independent Authors do twice a year; you can access the content for a limited time but after that you need to buy an access pass, but with this summit that would give access to additional content and downloads related to some sessions.

Having been struggling with the beats in Act 2 of the Three Act structure- I'd been reading up on it and was still not clear around the middle mark, but then it all fell into place with NYT Bestseller, author Marilyn Brant. Her session 'Breaking Down Pride & Prejudice by the Beats' finally made sense of the troublesome middle.

Now I need to apply what I've learnt to my own novels!

Back to offline life, Friday was a workshop session held by the Nottingham Story Weavers, my local RNA Chapter, on Social Media & the Savvy Author with author Talia Hibbert.

She is brilliant and a lovely person too...

Talia has a book coming out early November with Avon, 'Get a Life, Chloe Brown'. So we received some insights on her social media use around the new book, and on using several social media platforms.

We all see writers with great social media posts, photos and images with the accompanying text. I've wondered how to do these correctly. Well, now I know and it's not complicated. 

There were examples of specific tools that make the process user-friendly. I will definitely try them out.

There were three things (among many others) that Talia emphasised as important: a website and a mailing list for your newsletter, and your author brand. 

For the couple of hours we had, there was a lot of practical and helpful content with the visual displays- and the handout with the website links we needed.

By the end we were all buzzing with a renewed energy.

If you'd like to find out more about Talia and her books, then pop over to her website.

Join me tomorrow to read the second post about my day in Leicester...

image:pixabay.com

When Amazon's KDP Met East Midlands Writers...

East Midlands writers heard from Darren Hardy, manager of the KDP UK (kindle direct publishing) at an event organised via the Society of Authors last Thursday evening.

They held the event at The Nottingham Mechanics- the regular venue for Nottingham Writers' Club meetings, so this was a local and a great opportunity to attend.

This was only the second time KDP had run this session so they're still refining the event and learning from each one.

Though I'm not sure Mr Hardy was quite prepared for the RNA members attending.

Basically, it was KDP promoting and showing how easy it was to self publish with them and generate up to 70% in digital and up to 60% in print on demand royalties.

They provided a helpful A4 handout with relevant details and URLs and examples of royalty calculations.

For those who had not used KDP there was a run-through of the process, though the images on the screen were not large enough to read the text from a distance, it was explained and key aspects highlighted.

Apparently the help button on the dashboard connects to a tech team whose only job is to sort out the technical issues or queries writers may have during the process. There are also webinars, which if you can't watch at the time they're running, you can access later via the video library.

Questions were raised during part one and more again with the part two content.

There were insights into Author Central and how the writer could use their profile. Their suggestion that authors should link all their social media accounts to their Amazon author profile was met with scepticism by some audience members; I raised the question of algorithms and writers losing reviews, or being banned from leaving reviews.

Mr H said this was only when there was a financial connection, a gift card or cash had been paid for a review. He said that if an author contacted them about disappearing reviews, they would look at it. A human would look at it...

Sadly, he did not appear to believe that authors were losing reviews when they'd done nothing wrong, but as they would not tell the writer the actual reason for review removal, and consequently not reinstate them (some are); it was not a satisfactory answer.

But the audience were also told to contact the Society of Authors with the details of when and what had been removed, so the Society could feed that back to KDP. He admitted that there had been a glitch last year, and they had reinstated those reviews but was unaware of any recently.

There were complaints of cover colour inconsistency from the print on demand service, but again there was no explanation, just let the Society of Authors know as well to feed it back.

Four RNA members I know of had received damaged books in the last few months because of poor packaging, including one sent back by the carrier, before it got to the author, because of the state it was in. It appeared Mr H was unaware of these type of complaints.

Another attendee asked about the get 50 reviews and visibility improves. That isn't right, we were told. It's the metadata, so using the best categorisation and effective keywords in relation to the book is the important thing.

There are some promotions that authors can be invited to take part in, but, unlike those occasions when Amazon reduces the price but the author still gets their set royalty rate, the invited promotions will be at a reduced royalty rate...

KDP encourage writers to set up their author central profile on each of the Amazon sites, but they have to be done individually, so sign in, apparently using your normal Amazon log-in details, and complete your profile for each one. Cut and paste is the only shortcut for this.

Print & e-book...

There's more but hopefully you'll get the opportunity to attend their future events in other parts of the country, so sign up to the Society of Authors non-members newsletter- if you haven't done so, as this was how I heard the news of this free event and booked.
While I learnt a few useful things, I went away disappointed.

The KDP manager was not as well briefed as he could have been, so when he couldn't really answer the negative issues writers raised, it showed and suggested, right or wrong, that KDP thought everything was rosy.

Hopefully, he'll take back those negatives and get them resolved.

The good news is that one RNA writer who had received damaged books a couple of months ago, received her latest author copies in good condition and better packing. So maybe there's hope for solutions.

If KDP do more of this event, hopefully, they'll be able to answer any difficult questions writers raise.

All that said, any opportunity to hear from KDP direct is to be welcomed...





image:Pixabay.com