Tips on writing a series

Have you ever thought about writing a series of books? Here, prolific author and great friend, David Robinson, gives his thoughts and advice.

On Friday, November 23rd, Crooked Cat Books released the fifth STAC Mystery, Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend. Five books, all with the same central characters, but the only theme common to them is a murder mystery.

Writing with a series in mind is a fine idea, and even when I produce stand alone novels, like Voices, I tend to finish them with a sequel in mind. There are many pros to turning out a series. But, equally, there are a few cons.

The STAC Mysteries are just beginning to be noticed, and a part of that lies in the series factor. A reader buys one, enjoys, and buys another, and another, and another. Why? Because they know what they’re getting.

From the writer’s point of view, this is a great advantage. As long as you can keep the storylines fresh, keep the characters in character, maintain or improve the level of quality you set at the start, then the readers will follow, perhaps slowly at first, but they will be there.

In a stand alone novel, you have 100,000 words to develop your character(s). In a series, you can have them grow. Joe Murray, the amateur sleuth of the STAC Mysteries, is a case in point. Grumpy, hiding a heart of gold, Joe remains obstinately single after his divorce, but with this fifth book I took the opportunity to re-introduce him to the joys of love (non-graphically, of course) and in the sixth book, I’m taking that theme a stage further.

Another advantage is you don’t have to go into detail on character backgrounds. Most of the groundwork has been done in the first book. A few reminders here and there in subsequent tales are all that is needed. It frees you up to concentrate on plot and action.

Finally, the great advantage a series has over, say a serial, is that each novel is a stand alone. Think of Harry Potter as an example. Would Goblet of Fire make complete sense if you had not read the earlier books? But if you read Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend, it would make perfect sense, and you could go back to The Filey Connection (the first STAC Mystery) at your leisure.

But it’s not all plain sailing. There are downsides to the series, and the biggest one is accuracy.

Joe was born sometime around 1955. He was 55 years old in The Filey Connection. I cannot, then, have him as 54 years old in Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend. Opposite Joe’s café is Doncaster Road Industrial Estate. It will always be Doncaster Road Industrial Estate. It cannot suddenly change to Sanford Industrial Estate, anymore than the local newspaper can start off as the Sanford Gazette and later become the Sanford Herald. To make such changes needs an explanation, and to avoid error, keeping detailed records is vital.

It’s one of the tenets of writing novels that you should know every, tiny detail about your characters. That goes double for writing a series. One of Joe’s friends is diabetic. I cannot have her taking heaps of sugar in her tea when I’m six books in. Another is a self-employed painter and decorator. If I have him installing a new central heating system several books down the line, the reader will want to know where he got the skills and whether he’s just doing it as a favour.

Another problem you face with the series is variety. The Filey Connection was a traditional, British seaside mystery. When I began work on the second book, The I-Spy Murders, I set it in Skegness, but then I changed my mind and moved it to Chester. I did not want the STAC Mysteries to become seaside mysteries. Since then, I’ve set them in Leeds, York, and with Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend, Lincoln. I vary the murders, the murderers, the circumstances and the motives as much as I can.

Is there a limit?

I don’t know. Alan Hunter, author of the George Gently novels, turned out 46 between 1955 and his death in 1982. I’d like to think that the STAC Mysteries could go that kind of distance, but only time will tell.

In the meantime, if you’re contemplating a series, go for it. I’ll keep an eye out for you in the Kindle charts.

~~~~

David Robinson is a 62-year-old freelance writer, novelist and blogger. He lives and works in Greater Manchester, England.

He has published six novels with Crooked Cat Books, five of which are STAC Mysteries.

He was a volunteer editor on 50 Stories for Pakistan, an anthology whose profits go to the Red Cross to help those afflicted by the 2010 floods in Pakistan. He was also a managing editor on 100 Stories for Queensland, the proceeds going to help victims of the Queensland floods of January 2011.

You can find David at http://www.dwrob.com and you can learn more about the STAC Mysteries at https://sites.google.com/site/sanford3rdageclubmysteries/

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Can I Write A Novel In A Week?

Can I Write A Novel In A Week? No, not me. That question is posed by my guest poster today, David Robinson, who answers it by saying ...

I don’t know, but from 9-15th July, I’m going to try.

It’s not simply an academic exercise, nor something to keep my tiny mind occupied for a week. There is an underlying purpose to it… aside from producing a novel in a week, that is.

What is it we writers are best at? Procrastination. It’s in the genes. We get out of bed determined that today is the day when we meet the WIP head on and really get to grips with it... after we’ve checked the emails, the Facebook and Twitter updates, and let’s not forget the news. There’s an hour gone. Time to get to it… oh! Ford have produced a new model Ka. Must check that out, and look, here’s a woman who lost two stones in three days. How did she do that?

Between visits to the kettle (or coffeemaker) trips to the shop, chats on IM or the phone, taking the dog for an extended walk to contemplate the direction the WIP should take, the morning soon goes, and then it’s the obligatory hour with Loose Women, and Wimbledon fills the afternoon. Before we know it, it’s yawn time and we need some sleep. Pity about the WIP. Still: there’s always tomorrow.

I like to think of myself as well-motivated and focussed, but the truth is, I’m as bad as anyone else. The road to hell is not a pavement of good intentions; it’s an unwritten novel that needs attention.

I got to thinking about the days when I worked for a living. Long hours and no skiving. I put in anything up to 55 hours a week. True, I was well paid, but the working week was just that; work.

What would happen if I translated that level of industry to novel writing?

I’ve never actually timed it, but I guess a day’s work now amounts to less than three hours of actual work; the rest is smoke. The missus will say, “Have you seen what the government’s done to (choose some contentious theme)” and I will respond, “Leave me alone, I’m busy.” Yes I’m busy all right; busy playing Marble Lines on Facebook.

Suppose then, I apply the principles of the workplace to novel writing. I did some rough calculations. I timed myself producing 1,000 words, and it came to 40 minutes. It’s about right, my typing speed is about 25-35 wpm. So in an hour, I should produce 1500 words. Let’s call the standard working day eight hours.  8 x 1500=12,000. That is the number of words I should produce in a working day. If I then multiply that by seven (no day off for a wicked idler like me) then I should produce 84,000 words in that week. For a cosy whodunit, like my Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries, that is a full book. For a major work such as The Handshaker (100,000 words) it needs only two more days work to complete it.

I’m not stupid… well I am. Only an idiot would tackle something like this. But I’m not foolish enough to think that I can have a completed novel in a week. I do believe I can get a workable first draft. I also know enough about myself to realise that I won’t put in eight hours of solid graft every day. Even when I worked for an employer, I took smoke breaks, coffee breaks, and bone idleness breaks. So I’ve decided to be generous with my targets. Over the seven days, I want to produce a working first draft of 60-70,000 words. That is 10,000 words per day.

I said earlier that this is not simply an academic exercise. The finished product will, at some stage, go to Crooked Cat Books, those lovely people who publish my work and that of Lorraine’s alter-ego Frances di Plino.

Can I do it?

Why not follow me and find out? As well as producing the novel, I’ll be blogging my progress at http://novelinaweek.blogspot.co.uk/

Find out more about David and his published novels on his website: http://www.dwrob.com/

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KDP select: An Assessment

KDP select: An Assessment by David Robinson

A week or two back I put up a post on NickDaws’ blog recounting my experiences of KDP Select.

For those who are not aware of it, Select is a lending program that allow you enrol any of your titles for a 90-day period. Amazon set up a fund, never less than $500,000 to cover payments to the authors. At the end of each month, the fund is divided by the total number of loans to work out how much each title is entitled to, and the authors are paid that rate times the number of loans. Typically this is about $2.00 per title per loan.

There is a price to pay for inclusion in Select. You must make your title exclusive to Amazon. You are not permitted to sell it elsewhere, not even on your own website.

In January, I enrolled my thriller, The Handshaker, in Select. It wasn’t doing anything, so I thought I’d experiment with it. It didn’t do much better while it was in Select, either, so when the 90-day period was up, I withdrew it.

Select, however, does have one advantage over the normal Amazon channels. You are permitted to make your title free for five of the ninety days. During my five days, 1600 users downloaded The Handshaker.

To say I was unimpressed with Select is an understatement. My titles don’t sell mega, but I do as well through Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Diesel, Scrollmotion as I do on the Kindle, and they’re all through the Smashwords Premium Distribution Catalogue. Having cut The Handshaker off from them (it had only ever sold one copy) I expected better than 1600 freeloaders.

The curious thing is, although I didn’t realise it at the time, it got better. I wasn’t even aware of it when I put up the piece on Nick’s blog, but over the three-month period The Handshaker was in Select, not counting freebies and loans, it became my bestseller on Amazon.

Don’t run away with any false impressions. You’d still be hard pressed to find it, but it is selling fairly consistently in double figures per month.

Was that because of increased exposure in Select? Or was it because I began to push it more after it went into select? I’d need some sophisticated research to work that out, but it’s back in the Smashwords Catalogue now. Unfortunately, Smashwords’ distributors are notoriously slow at reporting sales, so it’ll be several months before I can make an informed judgement.

And KDP Select? Not a bad idea, but it’s weighted in favour of American audiences (why not? Amazon is an American company) and British titles traditionally do not do well over there.

One thing that has happened, and Amazon are not saying whether they expected this, is that the 99ȼ brigade are using select. It was a forgone conclusion. Selling your work at 99ȼ on Amazon, your royalty is about 30ȼ after delivery charges. Going out on loan through Select, your royalty is whatever the month’s rate is set at, and that, as I said earlier, is usually round $2.00

The Handshaker is available for the Kindle from Amazon UK, Amazon Worldwide, and in all formats from Smashwords

Find out more about David Robinson and his other works on his website:  http://www.dwrob.com 

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Latest release from Crooked {Cat} Publishing

I interrupt this week’s blatant self-promotional postings to bring you news of the latest release from Crooked {Cat} Publishing (great publishers with impeccable taste – well, they are publishing my novel, so I am bound to be a touch biased.)

But to get back to the point of this post, David Robinson, a writing friend of many years standing has his book launch today. The Filey Connection is the first in a series featuring a grumpy amateur sleuth and his two long-suffering female friends. It has humour, crime and a great storyline – what more could you want in a good read?

Out now on both sides of the pond.

     
 

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You May Be Surprised by What You Find

David Robinson shares his thoughts on why we should look deep within to find possibilities.

I read this week that writer Talli Roland has hit 20,000 sales of her e-titles over the last year. Great going, Talli, more power to your elbow.

Then I look at my sales. Nowhere near. Not even a dot on the horizon in comparison to Talli’s and when compared to the likes of John Locke or Amanda Hocking, I’m not even a loose atom floating around the universe.

When I analyse why, it comes down to just one thing: visibility. There’s nothing wrong with my work (according to my readers) the plots are solid, I leave no gaps in them, my covers have improved, and even if I do write in three different genres, crime, sci-fi and paranormal horror, I’m not the only one. My price falls within the generally accepted guidelines, 99ȼ - $2.99 and I plug work in the right places. I guest on other blogs such as this one, I turn out adequate slideshow trailers, and I podcast readings from my work.

In other words, I follow all the rules. But I don’t enjoy the visibility Talli, John Locke, Amanda Hocking and the big hitters do.

How do you achieve that “front”? To coin an English-ism, I have more bottle than the co-op dairy, and I’ve never been shy about putting myself forward, so it’s not that I’m reluctant to do it. I simply don’t know what I’m doing… or where I should be doing it.

There’s a fine line between publicity and spam, and I refuse to stoop to the level of bombarding every forum I can find with my links. According to my reading, it’s not the most productive route anyway.

Twitter and Facebook have their limitations. There’s only so many time you can tweet “buy my book” before people start switching off. Goodreads could be promising, but I can’t even get my books listed on there because of some problem with my identity clashing with my author name.

I need to find other routes.

It’s a problem that’s bugged me for months now. Then on November 22nd I caught a programme on BBC TV, a documentary about hairdressing legend Vidal Sassoon. I’ve never needed his services. I haven’t had enough hair for our local barber to tackle since 1980. Towards the end of the program, Sassoon said something like this:

“Look deep inside yourself. You may be surprised by what you find there.”

It’s something I’ve known for years without actually being aware of knowing it.

Now I look, and what do I find? Not answers, but possibilities.

My tweets will be less “buy, buy, buy” centred. My characters will tweet for me. There will be interviews with Joe Murray, Sceptre Rand, Pete Brennan and so on. I’ve even lined up an interview with Fishwick, the ghostly butler of the Spookies series (how’s that for an exclusive?) and another with Bazill Beatel, who won’t be born until the year 3050.

I’ll put up more free reads, and a few crazy polls. There’s one on my site right now, under the heading What Would You Do. It’s still running if you want to cast your vote.

And there will be giveaways. I’m a Yorkshireman. We keep our wallets closer than we keep our wives, and we don’t part with money easily, but I’m forcing myself. You can read all about it on the prize draw page of my site, but basically all you have to do is review one of my titles and then send me an email with the url for the review.

Beyond all that, I will carry on turning out the titles, and I’m open to suggestions from anyone.

In the meantime, this is likely to be my last guest post on Lorraine’s blog for 2011 so I’d like to thank her for allowing me this space, and to Lorraine and all her readers, let me be the first to wish you every success for 2012.

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How Much Are You Worth?

Another guest post from David Robinson - and one which all freelance writers should read and absorb to make sure they don't undersell their talents.

A couple of weeks back Lorraine advised a chap on a site that asked him to undergo a “writer’s test” after which they would keep and perhaps use the piece without paying him. He was dealing with a “content farm” and it reminded me of an incident just a few months ago.

To give you an idea where I’m coming from, I sold my first piece (500-600 words) to a newspaper almost 30 years ago for the princely sum of $15. I’ve sold a good many since then for varying amounts. I now concentrate on self-publishing book-length work. I don’t make a fortune and like any other writer I’m always keen to make a few pounds where I can. So I, too, looked at content farms.

The rates on offer were disgraceful. I found one site offering as little as $1-2 per 1,000 words. Even back in 1985, the newspaper rate was $25 per 1,000 words. Not only that but as this chap complained to Lo, you first have to submit a test piece, which they do not pay for but which they can use at their discretion.

Another writer, a friend of mine, working on a site paying by page views, admitted to me that he’d taken to clicking his own works on a particular site in order to improve his rankings in the hope that surfers would click on them, too (the site didn’t pay him for his own clicks, obviously). He spent four hours a day clicking all his pieces and his reward? $1 per day.

I pointed out to him that I make more than that when I sell a single book on the Kindle and although I’m nowhere near the bestseller charts, I average more than one book per day.

Crossing the content providers off my list, I next checked out the bid sites. Once again, let me give you some history to put matters into perspective.

In 1996 I pitched a 5-hour serial to the commissioning editors of a British TV production house. The director and I had jumped through all the early hoops and this was a face-to-face meeting. My fees as a TV newcomer were $6,500 PER HOUR of drama. That serial was worth almost $35,000 to me as the writer. Over and above that, there were the rights to consider since it was an adaptation of one of my novels. All up, it was worth about $50,000.

All right, we didn’t get the commission. We gave it our best shot, but it floundered on production costs. Reality TV was beginning to make its mark and five hours of drama would cost half a million to produce.

That’s the background.

Surfing the bid sites, I came across someone who required a 90-minute TV script. He would provide the story line, the writer had to produce the script. Budget? $250. I can write a 90-minute draft in three days. To bring it up to production standards would take no less than 6 months, and ideally, I would prefer a year. For $250? I’d earn $10,000 a year stocking shelves in supermarket.

Neither the content farms nor the bid sites are interested in quality. They’re concerned only with price. To prove my point, I wrote an article for the same pay-per-click site my friend was so keen on. It was a blatant plug for one of my books, 1,000 words long, it took less than an hour to write, correct and upload. It was trite, hackneyed dross which I wouldn’t even put up as a Flatcap blog post.

It was accepted without question, categorised incorrectly, and the last I heard, it had earned me the princely sum of 13¢.

I’m not in the business of advising other writers. I write from the seat of my pants and what I know about the process could fit on the back of a post-it note and still leave room for Hamlet’s soliloquy. But I reserve one piece of advice for writers when it comes to content farms and bid sites. Avoid them. They devalue the written word. Far better to invest your time and energy in one of the many fine writing communities on the Web, where others will help you along. Far better to put your money into a course like the Writer’s Bureau where they, too, will nurture your talent and help you hone it (and no, I am not on commission.)

And the pay-per-click piece I put up? I am notoriously outspoken and I told them exactly where they could stick the 13¢… penny by penny.

David Robinson is a freelance writer, novelist and humorist, who self-publishes his book-length titles on the Kindle and Smashwords. You can find him at http://www.dwrob.com while his alter-ego, Flatcap, grumbles insanely at http://flatcapfritters.wordpress.com/

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