This month’s special guest Mike Shackle reveals the importance of deadlines, why releasing each book is like a pay rise, and whether he’ll ever retire…
TRANSCRIPT
MARK: How do you know when you’re done?
MIKE: Deadlines, deadlines. Basically, every time I release a book, I. It’s like giving myself a pay rise each month of $1,500. So, yeah, it starts a big pay rise each each time over a year and things like that. So if I was being really cynical about my career, I would just be writing the next detective book and putting out… I had a discussion with this Sebastien de Castell, because he was talking about, you know, when do we know we’re going to retire? I mean, but, I need I know the, the money I like and I need to live on, but I have to make this stuff. I have to tell these stories. Even if it was just me doing it. And that desire to do that is only got greater as the years have gone on, I probably end up in a loony bin, dribbling in a corner, talking about Simon Wise and, you know, everything else…
This month’s special guest Mike Shackle reveals how he knows when to start working on a project…
TRANSCRIPT
MARK: What’s the thing that makes you think you’re ready to start writing on a project? MIKE: I have lists of ideas that I want to write that go back years. I write a Witchfinder, I write a Michael Dylan book. Right now it’s the Witchfinder. I should be writing a fantasy for the next couple of months. It’s like a little production line, but I have all these notebooks everywhere with different things that I’m working on, just so I can keep the ideas straight in my head. With the books that I write, my ambitions, and what I want to write. I they push me on and they’re the devil on my back, but they’re also the cheerleader saying, you can do it.
I’m joined by Mike Shackle, author of the epic LAST WAR fantasy trilogy, and he also writes thrillers under the name Michael Dylan: we talk about the perils of writing epic fantasy when publishers are imposing word limits, the pros and cons of self publishing and traditional publishing, writing cop thriller fiction, setting a mission statement for each book, and Michael creating his own artwork! And we’re also joined by Buddy. Who has a squeaky toy that has an urgent message for the world…
Welcome to Mark Stay’s Creative Differences, a monthly livestream where I talk to writer friends about those little things that make a big difference to their craft and careers in the hope that we can give readers some insight to the creative process, and writers and other creative folk some practical advice that they can actually use!
For the next livestream recording on TUESDAY 19TH NOVEMBER, 2024, I’ll be talking to MIKE SHACKLE! Mike is the author of the LAST WAR fantasy trilogy and he writes crime thrillers as Michael Dylan. Originally from London, Mike Shackle has lived in Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, New York and Dubai before settling down with his family in Vancouver. In that time, he’s sold washing machines, cooked for royalty, designed a few logos, and made a lot of ads. Ideally, he’s happiest day dreaming over a cup of tea. I hope you can join us live!
I can only do this in the USA… Unbound have the UK rights and I have no visibility on sales other than the twice yearly statements.
I’m going to stick with Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.
I’ll be counting both Kindle and Paperback sales.
Here’s week seven!
The big change in strategy has been to stop with the expensive ads on Facebook, Bookbub and Amazon and instead to build my readership. And that means bulking up my newsletter and getting bloggers to review my book to drive a little buzz.
I started by looking online at other authors’ blog tours. Both Mike Shackle and Edward Cox have had recent blog tours with their new books – both of which are similar enough to mine – and they posted these handy images with the details of the bloggers…
I spent a day visiting the websites of these bloggers, finding out how they accept submissions (they all do it differently) and dropping them a line.
I also did a small blog tour when The End of Magic was launched in the UK in February and I got in touch with a couple of bloggers who had offered to review, but hadn’t posted anything. Immediately, I got a result…
— eBookwyrm (aka Vermax The Magnificent) (@andyangel44) August 20, 2019
The good news is I’ve had some very positive responses from the other bloggers I contacted. A few weren’t taking reviews (despite the Ed Cox and Mike Shackle blog tours… but that’s what a big publisher gets you!), and a Grimdark blog had the cheek to tell me that it wasn’t for their readers (!!).
When will these reviews go live…? God knows. A few of them post their TBR piles online and they’re swamped. I’ve told them I’ll be happy with anything between now and Christmas.
Next on my list was to start building my newsletter numbers. I was lucky enough to get a proof of the new Joe Abercrombie novel from my friends at Gollancz. I loved it, said so on Twitter, and got a great response from fellow fantasy fans. I had finished with the proof, so I could give it to a charity shop, maybe? Or… I could give it away online to people who subscribe to my newsletter!
Rather than just fill out the form I interviewed Story Origin’s founder Evan Gow for the podcast to find out how it all works. It should go live as an exclusive for our Patreon supporters next week.
The interview inspired me to get started, and I’ve been accepted for a group promo. This means I give away my short story – How Drust Krax Lost Two Fingers – as part of a group of similar authors to gain newsletter subscribers. It starts on Thursday, so I’ll report back on how it went next week.
Sam Missingham also featured me on her first webinar for The Empowered Author last week. It was a fun session, discussing book sales and marketing and this very quest, and I’ll post a link to the Youtube video when it goes live. Thanks, Sam! Once again, if you’re an author and you’re not following Sam on Twitter or The Empowered Author, you’re really missing out.
I also realised that I hadn’t let my Unbound supporters know about this. 279 gorgeous and wonderful people supported The End of Magic on Unbound and I’m able to contact them via the book’s dashboard. I rattled off a message asking them to spread the word and maybe leave a review on Amazon/Goodreads. These posts are sent via email and need to be review by Unbound and we’ve just had a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, so it probably won’t go out for a couple of days, but I’m hoping a few of them might say something nice online.
So, how many sales have been driven by all this hard work? Drumroll, please…
Well, no one said this would be a get-rich-quick scheme… but none of my efforts last week will have the immediate impact of, say, an expensive Bookbub ad. I’m planting seeds, folks, planting seeds…
The KU page reads are up and down…
I did get some good advice from my friend Ian W Sainsbury over on FB and here’s the conversation we had…
He’s absolutely right, of course. This is something we discovered when pushing Back to Reality this year. You need a series to really make this work. And, as I’ve hinted at there, I am working on a brand new series.
I also got a couple more wonderful five-star reviews on Amazon UK…
I still only have six reviews on Amazon.com. They’re good ones, for which I’m very grateful, but ideally I need at least 20+. I like my reviews to grow organically and they have to be honest, so if you’re American and have read The End of Magic a few kind and honest words will go a long way.
If you have any thoughts or comments on what I might be doing wrong, do please leave them below! Until next week…
Mark Stay Writes 