Why I'm not asking you to buy my 1st ebook

I've worked damned hard to get this first book out. I want it to sell and to sell well. Eventually, I want to be able to give up the day job and commit full time to writing all the books that I have lined up. So why aren't I promoting my first baby? Why don't I want it to sell just yet?

That's easy. If you buy it and like it, you won't buy anything else from me. The reason? I don't have anything else to sell you just yet, and by the time I do, you might just have forgotten about me!

Do not buy my book!

Once I have written the next four parts to The Rozzers, each priced at 99c, I'll put them all together in a collection for $2.99. Then I'll gladly give you End of the Road! That's right, it'll be free. And the reason being is that if you like it, you'll want to buy the next 4 books, which will all be available as a collection. So if you buy that instead of the 4 individual books, you'll save yourself $1. You'll buy the collection, and not the individual books, I know you will. Of course you will, don't get defensive, we all do that!

That works for me though, because I'll earn more royalties that way. If you were to get the 1st book for free, then the next 4 books at 99c, I'd earn less than if you got the freebie, then bought the collection afterwards, saving yourself a quid. We'd both win.

Once that collection is out there, I'll start actively promoting End of the Road. In the meantime, I won't get upset if you do buy the first book, but only if you do forget me later!

The only active promotion I will be doing is encouraging my readers to leave a review if they liked the book. And what's wrong with doing that?

M4 (or My Magical Monday Moment)

My book cover

OK, hand on heart, I can truly say I am really proud to be able to say 'I AM A PUBLISHED AUTHOR!' As of last Monday, I achieved my Dream and one of my 5 life-time ambitions (see below for other 4). Yeah, I published my first book...

OK, it's only 15,000 words short. OK, it's only priced at .99c. OK, I only get about 35c for each sale but that's not the point!

I worked hard to get to this stage. I started writing about 6 or 7 years ago, learning the craft of writing, punctuation, story lines, conflict, show don't tell, and everything else us authors have to learn to be able to call ourselves an author. Oh, I also needed a good looking cover, so I learnt how to do that too through trial and error, using various free image manipulation programs, making several up.

My baby was nervously sent out to volunteers to pull apart - the first people to ever read any of my work - then it was amended and given to an editor who really pulled it apart. After the final rewrite, I had it proof-read one last time and then turned to the formatting. I had to learn how to format my document for Smashwords and Amazon - no easy feat - yet it got through the first hurdle of being submitted for inclusion in the SW premium catalogue.

Me, around the time of  'End of the Road'.

Once all this was done, I had to check that the book looked OK on several platforms, that the people who were following me and waiting for the book not only got to know about it, but got a free coupon code for it too.

Then I discovered Amazon Central, a place to add author details, so I did this. Then I realised that this was only for Amazon.com, and that Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.es etc etc needed individual entries. Amazon also sent me to Shelfari to complete some book details, as these migrate across to Amazon.

I am also learning about where to follow my books performance, ie its sales, downloads etc, and so visited and set up home with NovelRank, My TitleZ, as well as learning which Amazon page to visit to learn of which sales...

A banner I created for the book

So you might forgive me for ignoring this blog, for dropping out of The Twitterverse, for basically closing the door of my cave to get this first task done. The on-line presence is essential to become a successful author, but it won't write your book for you...

So now I'm busy writing part 2, looking for a suitable image for the cover and trying to keep my on-line presence alive. I have to say, despite my absence, I have received some incredible support from certain Twitter folk, some of whom I have got to know over the months, others I hardly know at all.

It's fair to say that without the contacts I have made on Twitter, My Magical Monday Moment would never have come...

Thank you, you know who you are.
xx

Book blurb for End of the Road (first draft)

Ruing the day he joined the British Army, bored soldier Corporal Dave Burden has just twelve short months left in the army in which to find a new civilian job. The clock is ticking away, and with the added burden of responsibility in the form of a new wife with a child on the way, he has absolutely no idea what he is going to tell his boss at the dreaded pre-release interview next week.

Fortunately for him, an idyllic outing quickly spirals into a day of tragedy. It was a day in his life he’d rather forget, a day full of horror and grief. On that fateful day a seed was planted, a seed which should never have seen the light of day. That seed only needed a slight amount of nurturing to begin its life, and that nurturing came from the most unexpected of places, as indeed did the damned seed...

Based on true events, END OF THE ROAD is the first part of THE ROZZERS series, a collection of five contiguous short stories by new British author DIEM BURDEN.

Look out for COPS DON’T RUN, part two of THE ROZZERS series, out soon...

(just for Chris @celwelsh !!)

I'm OK, I'm still undead (sorry!)

I'm not dead, I'm not on holiday, I haven't had a nervous breakdown and I haven't been arrested. Truth is, I'm fed up with making excuses for not having a single book from my l-o-n-g list of 12 books published yet!

Knock before entering...

Ergo, I am hiding in my writer's cave.

I don't wanna be one of those writers who does more talking than writing, who does more networking than publishing. They aren't really writers, they are either people who talk about things they should be doing but can't be bothered, or social intercourse addicts who do a bit of writing when there's nobody on line...

Not me. I'm a writer. I know how many words I have written these last eight years. How many? Ooh, about a quarter of a million creative words, maybe more. But the only person to have read them is me! So it is a little absurd to be calling myself a writer or an author at this point, right?

Well, that's why I'm not here. Or on Twitter. OK, I have been boosting my Facebook page 'likes' when I can (and that's a story worth talking about later) but in truth, I have completely vanished from cyberspace! There is NO internet in my cave!

Because, to continue to call myself a writer, I must be able to do more than talk about it, I must be able to do more than Tweet about it, I must have a published book to offer you.

So that's what I have been doing, selfishly. I set myself a deadline of May 1 to get my first offering out there, and I need to cut myself off and get on with the craft of not just writing, but publishing my first book.

Life can't be ignored, the internet can - it's just a matter of will power (or a deep enough cave).

(The reason I am contradicting myself here and blogging tonight is that I have just finished the final edit of my first book, End of the Road, part one of The Rozzers series. My critique partners have been tapping their feet, believing I was just a talker-writer. I'm not. I am a writer!)