The trials and tribulations of a self-published steampunk writer

Saturday 30 June 2012

Publish! (And hopefully don't be damned)



Well, it's done. Red Mercury has been released into the wild.

I will post in a couple of days about the fun (or otherwise) of formatting a book for final publication on Kindle, and then re-formatting it for publication in other formats for other e-readers. Overall, simpler than I expected, but it still took me a whole afternoon and evening.

However, forget all that. I am totally stoked with excitement because Red Mercury is out and for sale on Amazon - in the US, UK and Europe. And it's also available in other formats at Smashwords.com

If you think you might fancy a good old-fashioned adventure story in the grand tradition of The Guns of Navarone, but with an added dash of steam-driven sci-fi then please check it out.

Friday 22 June 2012

It's getting a little drafty...

Right, got feedback from 2 of my 3 Beta readers. The good news - they generally liked Red Mercury. One of them described it as "the kind of thrilling, pulpy yarn that I really enjoy". I was quite delighted, and more than a little relieved, at the positive reception the book got from these guys.

The other good news is that both of them had some really good feedback on how to improve the book further. I was pleased they could do that, as I would have suspected that praise unaccompanied by suggestions for improvement would have been fairly hollow.

I'm now at the tail end of my third draft of the story, taking on board their feedback and trying to address some of the points they raised.

Here are some of the pointers they gave me (not including the ones that would be plot-spoilers, obviously)...
  • Visuals - Both Beta readers said that the book needed more visual description, especially of locations and characters. I suppose there's little point in setting your story in a fantastical steampunk world if you don't describe it to the reader every now and again. Now, I wanted to avoid any "stop to describe a face" moments and so cut a lot of this out of previous drafts in the interests of pace. I've gone back and spiced up the visual elements hopefully without slowing things down too much or being clunky about it.
  • Villain Earlier - Again, both the guys said that the villain needed to show up earlier in the story. They felt it could do with a Bond-style "false showdown" with the main villain or his henchman early in the plot. An actual encounter has proved difficult to stage, but I've tried to introduce the idea of the villain as a malign presence hanging over the earlier stages of the story. Our heroes don't get to actually meet the villain, but he's hopefully lurking there in the back of the reader's mind. We'll see how that works.
  • Characterisation - Some of the minor characters need a little more fleshing out, especially those who go on to affect the plot. I've gone back in and done what I can around this, particularly for the main supporting characters.
  • Naming - One of the Beta Boys questioned the main character's name. Was it intentionally bland? Hmmm. I had hoped the name would lend him the air of an everyman called upon to do extraordinary things. But "bland" was definitely not what I was aiming for! I'm struggling a bit with this one. I'd grown quite fond of this guy, name and all, so changing it feels wrong. I'll experiment a bit more and see if anything else comes up that sounds right to me.

Overall, really useful feedback that will undoubtedly make Red Mercury a better read. One more Beta reader to come back with his thoughts and then it'll be final draft and publishing time. Eek!