My book is running free in the vastness that is KDP.
Amy Grace: Payne is out there (Kindle, Paperback & Hardback).
If writing a book is hard (and it can be), marketing is most definitely a struggle on another level.
The cover was/is a deliberate attempt to stand out in thumbnail scanning, the lack of a title on the front and the cropping away of Amy’s face all deliberate too.
The face – that’s easy, I wanted the reader to let their imagination create a face for Amy.
The lack of a title on the cover – again this was a deliberate attempt to let the image talk to the reader, the overly simplified art my attempt to give free reign to the imagination of the turner of pages – maybe it works, possibly it doesn’t, but that’s why I did what I did.
Critique only works AFTER the event, first you must do, and only then can you review.
Maybe I’ve taken the ‘Man in the Arena’ too much to heart…
Back to the plot.
To publicise my work, I’m hamstrung on many levels, not least in that I have a small social media presence AND I have zero in the budget to pay for highly skilled marketing folk to assist me.
The answer?
I don’t know.
I wish I did, but I don’t.
Does my book have a USP that would help it stand out; help it jostle in such a crowded marketplace for attention?
Yes, I think it does, but again how do we let folk know?
Amy IS an interesting character, she has strengths, she has weaknesses, she is flawed, she is human.
She is gay, do we lead with that?
I haven’t because (in my mind) it’s just who she is, one facet of her life – it creates situations, but so too does her diminutive stature at 5’2” tall.
I wrote Amy as a gay character, for no other reason than in my mind as I was typing away it just seemed to be the right thing for her – no political point scoring, no following a trend, no attempting to ride the rainbow, she’s just gay because that’s what she is.
But mostly she’s a young woman in pain, she’s suffering and attempting to come to terms with the events of chapter one.
Amy is driven, she is singular in her focus to seek a redress, and for this she suffers and she struggles – that’s the story, that’s the tale I’m attempting to tell.
Trauma isn’t neat, you don’t simply ‘get over it,’ for some it consumes with a ravenous appetite that destroys everything and screams loudly that ONLY vengeance will give it peace – it is a liar.
And then we have the villain, we have Thomas.
He has growth, he seeks redemption after finding love, but his character arc cannot be neat and clean, all Hollywood soft focus, because life just isn’t like that.
Hopefully, the reader (when they appear) will appreciate the human conflict that both Amy and Thomas experience – I hope they do.
The book, for whatever faults it has, is an attempt to be sympathetic to all in the tale, maybe that’s the USP.
So, how do we let the world know, how do we let the reviews and the stars decide the success of my attempt to tell a tall tale?
In a perfect world one of my many unsuccessful attempts to land a ‘literary agent’ would have been successful and skilled assistance would manifest…
Ah, so many shots fired, and all failing to hit the mark.
So, as we hit week two of the book being available will the opening book of the adventures of Miss Amy Grace be a slow burn?
Will organic word of mouth succeed?
Do I need a gimmick?
Such are the trials and tribulations of a writer such as me.
Hug those you love, hug them for no other reason than right here and right now you can, tell them of the love you have for them, and in a topsy-turvy world do your very best to remain sane!
Climb the mountain, acknowledge the enormity of the effort it took to get there, sit on the peak, drink some tea, and then have a good long and hard think about what to do next.
That is me, this is me, here we all are with nowhere else left to go.
The feeling isn’t like While E Coyote eventually catching the Road Runner, but it isn’t too distant a cousin not to be invited to family gatherings.
The act is done, the curtains have swished across the boards and now we occupy that infinitesimally small space, that pause between velvet touching itself and the hoped for gasp and then clap of an appreciative audience (double entendre?).
If only.
I have no idea if my one-man show will sell or indeed if those that attend will like the show, and so the spiral ever tightens – not knowing is insufferable.
The cover format is incorrect – this will be rectified, but the process is almost becoming a punishment (political satire?).
The book isn’t perfect – no book ever is.
Imperfect as it is, it does deserve a reader, and the reader truly is a lesser being for not having followed Miss Amy Grace.
A strong no nonsense female character, flawed, contradictory, obsessively focused on her own plight, always brave, emotionally vulnerable and oh so in need of a loving hug…
And we have Thomas Payne, not a one-dimensional matinee villain twirling his moustache while he ties a woman to the railway tracks… he grows, he evolves, he becomes so much more than he was on page one. Redemption exists for all.
Four hundred or so pages.
Page turners each and every one.
The first of July cometh and with it our release of the first volume of Amy’s adventures.
Hug those you love, stay safe, and do your very best to remain sane.
All that anguish, all panic, and in the end the stone thrown into the mill pond that is Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) will cause not so much as a ripple.
It’s not until you dive in, that you truly realize just how large the KDP body of water is.
1,400,000 title EVERY year – it’s a truly mind-numbing number.
So, how do you stand out in the crowd?
Being famous (notorious even) would help – alas I’m neither.
An advertising budget that would make the “Big Five” (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette Livre, Simon & Schuster, or Macmillan) blush – don’t have that either.
Okay, then tap into your social media presence or all those followers of your website…. Ah, and again NOPE.
So, what are my options other than relying on blind luck for my book to reach the attention of readers?
Truthfully, I don’t know.
Many will attempt to sell me a service, many will claim to have magic beans, but I think I’ll keep a firm hold of the cow.
That knot tied by Mr Gordion looks more and more impossible with each tick and tock of the clock.
When writing, my problem was ‘what happens next,’ and now that deed has been done, I am somewhat at sea as to selecting my next realistic option.
I cannot throw more money at the project – that way madness lies.
While I wrestle with that particular conundrum I will continue to type away and give life to the tale of two Iceni women – who history has somewhat abandoned under the shadow of their incredibly famous mother. The Fox, The Greyhound and The Bull continue apace.
Maybe the telling of the adventures of Heanua and Lannosea will be the success that will bring light to the plight of young Miss Amy Grace?
Who knows.
What is that they say “l’art pour l’art,” lose sight of that and we are all doomed.
Stay safe, hug those you love, and remember you could have fussed over a manuscript for nearly a decade, put it out to alpha, beta, gamma or indeed delta readers, had it professionally edited, AND still only found a spelling error (only one) when you attempted to upload the script into KDP.
Amy Grace: Payne – available via KDP (Kindle and Paperback) 01/06/26
Not an ode to jazz, more a short ramble about crippling imposter syndrome in relation to my declared intent to publish the engaging narrative that is “Amy Grace: Payne”.
The book is written and has been so for several years.
Is it the absolute best iteration of itself – I don’t know, and that is the question that haunts me.
I know it’s a good tall tale, the story is engaging, different, and all those things that should keep the reader engaged while licking their finger and turning the page to eagerly find out what happens next.
However, is the telling up to the job?
That is the spectre that haunts my waking day.
I’ve hidden behind the cover design and text formatting; in fact, I’ve used any and every reason real and imagined to delay publishing this book.
But eventually even the most reluctant author must stand and be counted.
The naval gazing, the woe is me, the hand to forehead flouncy shirt wearing dramatics – it all must end.
If I fail spectacularly, if the reception of my work is to condemn it as toe curling cringe, then so be it, the sun will still come up on the morrow.
I quote it often, and I should live it: “It’s NOT the critic that counts…”
Print, embrace, and relish the ride.
Hug those you love, stay safe, and do your absolute best to remain sane!
It is indeed true that it lingers longer than the smell of cow poo under your fingernails.
Self-doubt jockeys with joyful optimism, and it doesn’t fight fair.
For every passage of majestic prose, it happily points out that clumsy phrase, that overused trope and exhausted cliché.
Bugger.
Getting the cover to my book [Amy Grace: Paye] painted/drawn/created has taken considerably longer than anticipated – art it seems has no concept of time.
What was to be published in February, was then moved to Easter, and now sits somewhere in the broad and vague expanse of 2026/27.
Time hasn’t been idly spent.
A book I’d written, rewritten, given to Beta readers, rewritten, given to a professional editor, rewritten, is again in the very real danger of again being rewritten.
Not through need, but nerves.
The devil does indeed make tasks for idle hands…
I’m second guessing everything.
Every historic comment (real & imagined) is being overanalysed.
Every negative, no matter how oblique or trivial is now front and centre of my mind.
No art is without fault, or immune from legitimate critique, and trying to please everyone is indeed a fool’s errand.
I’ve filled my time with the Iceni rebellion, with a spy suffering amnesia, and even a few choice pages around the tales of a sorcerer’s apprentice – yet everything pulls back to the plight of a young woman in Egypt.
Amy Grace dominates.
I need to publish and be dammed.
But before I can do that, I need the much-delayed artwork.
Oh, to suffer the problems of the comfortable first world is such a weight…
Hug those you love, tell them you love them, hold them tight, stay safe, and do your absolute best to remain sane!
It’s not a cliché, but it is a maxim that is heavily abused (probably because it is true) in that “No Plan Survives Contact” – take a bow Karl Bernhard von Moltke.
Our plan was to publish Valentines Day 2026.
We missed that.
To be fair, it was/and is better that we did.
Editing is emotive for any writer – cutting words so carefully chosen is akin to asking which child you want to sacrifice to ensure that the sun still shines and the crops continue to grow…
Okay, possibly not that hard – but hyperbole is the cornerstone of writing – so we will let that one ride.
Editing came, editing went, and editing was completed.
Next stage.
I’ve always had a cover in mind – the idea has remained a constant throughout all the plot changes, inserts, and deletions.
I had an artist in mind, I’d seen their work on the WWW, and I was sold.
Labour costs, I was (am) happy to pay.
Art is the expression of emotion, and such a thing is forever susceptible to the whims and fancies of life – point accepted (no need to concede).
My timeline has always been flexible.
Flexible, but not open-ended.
Now I sit nine weeks into the book cover phase with no real decreeable progress made.
Tommorow was the promise, but that was weeks ago.
“Nearly there” is uttered but not delivered.
I am at a complete loss.
Have I been taken for a fool – or am I just drowning in paranoia of my own making?
I don’t have the funds for a relaunch, the are no coins to start this again.
I’d cry, but I don’t know how…
Keep that Serenity Prayer in mind as life moves forward.
At one stage or another we’ve all let our imagination get just that little bit carried away with itself.
Me, I’ve already decided that Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) will direct the film adaptations of the Amy Grace adventures – why wouldn’t he?
Musically I’m torn as to who will do the soundtrack, sometimes I pick Trent Razor (Nine Inch Nails), and then I pick Florence Welch (Florence and the Machine) convinced that she’d jump at the chance to warble away… possibly a collaboration with The Pogues – why not. Flip even Fergal Sharkey makes an appearance in such runaway dreams – such are the indulgencies of an active imagination…
Oh, for the runaway fantasies of a writer whose debut novel has still yet to be published.
Natalie Merchant would be on the soundtrack – obviously.
I’ve never squared the circle of a theme tune – genre or artist. Amy needs a recognisable tune, no pressure but those who sing will need to really earn their supper!
Characters and cast – that one has never really taken off.
Amy would be the hardest to cast. She MUST be a redhead, gotta be petite and simply must be five feet and two inches (or metric equivalent) tall.
I think I’ve settled on debut thespians, on the unknown signing up for the series and using its (inevitable) success to launch Oscar heavy careers.
Anyway, that’s me, deluded fantasy chasing writer and teller of tall tales.
Stay safe, hug those you love and tell them so every chance you get!
I started writing the first iterations of the Amy Grace adventures many years ago.
Version 1.0 Amy Grace: Khartoum started life sometime around 2015.
The central tale has remained unchanged; the telling has hopefully improved with each review and addition.
I now sit with Amy Grace: Payne (10.1) as the latest version of that original tall tale.
The words we can count, the hours taken to create them, at these we can only hazard a rough guess.
We’ve gone through the full range of emotions, all the highs, and a lot of lows.
Euphoria has shone at the joy of our creation, self-doubt kicked away at my heels and done its very best to try and drag me down.
Yet here we still stand.
We’ve adapted to the feedback from Beta Readers.
Chapter one was rewritten, scenes amended and some deleted.
We’ve had a developmental edit recommend changes – again most of these we’ve incorporated.
Polish polish polish… rinse and repeat.
At some point, now that I’ve firmly taken the decision to self-publish, I’m going to have to do just that.
Its not poor reviews, or indeed any negative reactions that I fear, it’s the NOT offering the very absolute most polished version of this tale to the world that worries me so…
If I fall flat on my face, then so be it, but let it not be due to poor preparation and presentation.
Titivate, titivate.
At what point do I have to just let go?
Statistics tell us that a debut novel (self-published) will sell between 100 – 250 copies.
If I continue with third party assistance (editing/formatting/cover) I will need to sell 400 to break even.
The odds are NOT in my favour.
Bugger.
Bugger, bugger, bugger.
Procrastination is indeed killing me.
Amy Grace: Payne WILL hit the world April 2026.
I will pay for a cover – it was always the plan; copy edit as best I can and then set Amy free into the big, crowded world of KDP published novels.
Maybe she’ll thrive, maybe the world wants to read the tale of a flawed heroine, who gets knocked down, but rises back to her feat every time.
It sounds like it should be the title to a noir thriller, but it’s not.
In this case we are referring to the developmental edit for my book “Amy Grace: Payne”, twenty-two pages of notes, observations, suggestions and support.
Like all writers my book has been through the Beta Reader stage more times than you can shake a stick, and to be fair to all involved the feedback has been honest – supportive, at times critical, but always helpful.
The opening chapter has been completely rewritten.
It was a near universal comment that it just didn’t hit the right note. Not the subject matter, but the scenario that preceded it.
Big boy pants, rewrite – success.
Of all the parts of the book, chapter one ‘Arrival’ was the one that has been fussed over the most.
To be fair, the balance of 130,000 words stands or indeed falls on the first 1800.
Time and place, main character, inciting incident – hook to keep them reading – that’s a lot of pressure for 10-pages to deliver. But they do. Indeed, they do.
My concession to the reader has been the insertion of 430 words to explain historic context and Celtic folklore – hopefully this will aid and not deter the reader.
Scenes have been deleted in their entirety – where I’d used cruelty to indeed illustrate cruelty, I’ve now pulled back, toned it down – such passages now only to be available in the inevitable ‘collectors edition’ (LOL).
I’ve chopped a few linking scenes, trimmed back any hint of repetition and now hopefully the new version reads smoother for the reader.
I struggle with dialogue, not because I dislike it, but because (IMHO) there is a danger that it slows down the narrative and becomes unnecessary art house indulgent distraction.
So, in places summaries of the discussion are mentioned and not verbatim copies written.
Maybe it works, hopefully it works…
I have two main characters – Protagonist Amy Grace & Antagonist Thomas Payne.
At certain points they are both going in the same direction (the book is a chase movie) and I switch between them as the plot proceeds.
A critique given is that switching POV could confuse the reader – and on that one I am still deliberating.
If one is happy, the other sad, switching POV in the same chapter I hope illustrates the difference.
One is partying, the other drowning in despair…
As stated, I’m still looking as to how I can ride both horses – compare and contrast AND keep the POV singular.
It is taking me longer than I anticipated, but the notes as provided were what was needed.
And if I may I’d like to give a heartfelt shout out to (and recommendation for) Black Thoughts Editorial Services.
It’s been a long journey thus far, but it’s one I’d take again in a heartbeat.
Hug those you love, tell them, stay safe, and do your very best to remain sane!
Telling Tall Tales 