Saturday, July 30, 2011

A fat man with a cigar once said.....

.......We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

The question is, was he talking about English hooligans? perhaps! No he was talking about the British spirit (wannabe authors included) and it is with these words ringing in my ears today that I have decided to load my war machine with the ultimate weapon. Yes, you've guessed it. SPAM!

Now. What is the difference between spam and begging? Well let me tell you. Absolutely nothing. Now don't get me wrong, I hate receiving spam messages... "please read my book and I'll read yours and then we can say how wonderful each others books are and people might actually believe our bullshit reviews and we can be famous together one day..." etc.

But at this point in the game. I have to do something drastic. So I have flown in my weapons technician from Libya and he has spent the whole day totally dismantling my Mega Spam Missile Launcher. He guarantees me that it will be rebuilt and in full working order by the morning. I have a container load of spam being shipped in from France, which should arrive antime now and then Stewart Squadron will be unstoppable.

The Top Secret masterplan is as follows. (Better known as Operation Desperado)
1) I spam the top reviewers on Amazon.com and Authonomy.com
2) The spamming attack continues on anyone showing interest in crime-thrillers.
3) We target unknown enemy, fiction-related websites and forums.
4) If necessary we import more spam from Nigeria.

Get the picture? You're either with me or it's time to get out now. Operation Desperado commences tomorrow morning at 9:00am from a secret wifi spot in Europe. Stewart Squadron will spam 500 targets in total. The debriefing will be in seven days time.

Distribution of my Ebooks? Moving at a similar rate to a one-legged elephant with an itchy arse.

Next plan of action after Operation Desperado? Simple....Cheat!

Stay tuned my friends.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

DAY 23 In The Big Kindle Household.....

......and I have just broken the 300 readership barrier.

Smashwords.com
250 downloads of The Facebook Killer: Part 1
37 Downloads of The Sunday Club.

Kindle
9 sales in total.

Authonomy.com (HarperCollins Publishing): Weekly Ratings.
Facebook Killer ranked #1 in Crime genres and #2 in thrillers. Number 7 overall on the site.
Sunday Club ranked #6 in thrillers. Number 15 overall on the site.

The first 10,000 words of Facebook Killer 2 is now available on authonomy, I hope to have it complete in a few days (approx. 30-40,000 words. Making the total around 80,000 words) I hope to cash in on part 2 via smashwords. With 250 readers of Part 1, I have to make some cash. Don't I?

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

I have now made $5 from my books. Who wants to come to the party?

Please bring your own food and drinks.

I am verging on 300 readers as of Day 22 in the experiment.




Am I happy? Are you impressed? NO, because it's all bollocks. I could start up one hundred accounts tomorrow and push my books up to number one in all of their charts. Would it make any difference? Yes. It would encourage more readers. The sheep. But I would be lying to myself. It would be good for quotes... "The Sunday Club: Voted Number one in HarperCollins Crime Books". On the upside, people are reading the work. I shall not cheat...I shall not cheat... I shall not cheat. Not yet anyway, but when I do, I will give you fair warning, so we can watch the results together and by God, when I cheat, I'm going to do it on a massive scale.

Their have been no other results from the experiment today.

SB Jones wrote: I took your advice and joined Authonomy. I have heard it mentioned several times.

I am curious to see the feedback it provides.


Well SB, I backed your book today. You back mine and we'll see if we can push through the ranks together. I am of the opinion that the reviewers only read the first chapter, if anything at all, I think half of them just rate your book without reading it so as to add to their "score".


Until tomorrow, Good night.




The Sunday Club is ranked number 7 under crime and #140 overall.
The Facebook Killer: Part 1 is the top 5 rated on authomy.com under the crime and horror genres. It is #50 in best-rated for the week (all genres.)

Monday, July 25, 2011

There's an old joke...............

..... This man is lying on the beach, he has no arms or legs. A blonde girl walks past and spots him sunbathing, "Oh look at you, you poor thing, have you ever been hugged?" The man shakes his head, so she gives him a hug. Ten minutes later, two ladies are walking past and spot him, "Aah, poor dear, have you ever been kissed?" They ask, again he shakes his head. They bend down and kiss him. An hour later and a woman is walking along the shore when she spots him, "Have you ever been f*cked?" she asks, again he shakes his head, "Well you will be when the tide comes in!" She says.

My point being? I feel a little like that poor man at this point in time. Bobbing along on a ocean of books. I want to wave my hand and get someone's attention. The worst thing is that the wheelchair's getting rusty with all the saltwater.

Fear not! We are only on Day 21 of the experiment. My total readership to date is 281. That's 34 more than this time yesterday. That's more than a quarter of a thousand readers. Dan Brown, watch your arse.

I am still in the Top Million bestsellers.

Authonomy: The Sunday Club jumped 800 ranks from #3709 to #2909. Facebook Killer: Part One jumped 102 places.

On Kindle I am still around #250,000.

What have I learned in the last three weeks of keyboard-pounding?
It is definitely worth having your own blog, but don't spread yourself too thin and repeat yourself on Facebook, Twitter etc.
Don't waste your time joining in all of the author forums, thinking that you're getting your name out there. It's bullshit. Most of them are unemployed housewives with nothing better to do.
Do join authonomy. There are some highly skilled reviewers and literary experts that will kick your books arse. You may not like what they say, but take a step back and listen to the advice. It could be the difference between getting published and remaining at number 21,400,987 on Kindle's Top Trillion.

Thanks for stopping by. I will remember you all when I write my will.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

When I first began this experiment, my index fingers measured eight centimetres long...

....... I now have four and a half fingers on each hand. I went to see my doctor today and he estimates that I will be typing with my elbows by Christmas.

Quick Update (after all, it is Sunday):

Facebook Killer is flying out of smashwords again, free of charge, it now has 225 readers. It sold one more on Kindle too. The Sunday Club is stagnant. I mean, what do you expect for 99 cents?

On authonomy.com my books are still in the top one million. Sunday Club had jumped 300 place to rank 3701. It is being backed by one of the top-ranking reviewers and FB Killer has jumped 70 places to rank at 4194. Remember if either book makes it into the top 5 at the end of the month, it will be passed to HarperCollins International editors for review. Looking at the current books in the top 5 this will take around 6 months. Or in my case, 6 years. It looks like you require around 300 backers of your book to make it into the top 5. Tomorrow, I will join in the ranks of the spammers.

Total readership after 20 days: 247 people on Kindle and Smashwords. 20 daily readers of the blog (Welcome Fiji, Indonesia and the Phillipines) and an unknown quantity on authonomy.com.

Take this average over a year and I will have 4,872 readers and no arms.

Is it possible to type with your toes?

Friday, July 22, 2011

Helo my name is peDro I have wrote a Book and I hope you like to want to Buy it on Kindil

OK, let us look at the facts. I am English. I was educated in the English language. I think my grammar is up to scratch. So why the hell would I decide decide to try and write a book in Chinese? Point being? I spent the entire day trawling through forums and blogs and bullshit, only to discover that these sacred realms of the self-published author are clogged up with a larger than preferred number of illiterate writers who have probably penned there masterpiece during the raft-ride from Cuba to Miami. Maybe they assume it will help their claim for asylum in the US..."I am here to publish my book"... as he holds up his collection of scribed banana tree leaves to the US Coastguard official...."Call that a book, do ya?"...asks the Coastguard. "It will be when my Uncle Jose finishes the cover."

Now I'm not saying I am perfect. I like my books. Every author must have a high opinion of his work (not too high though) there is always room for constructive-criticism and improvement. Here is the rough rundown of a conversation I had today with a fellow online author. I won't mention which forum, to spare his blushes.

TOPIC: Promote your new book here.

PeDro: Hello to all and welcome. My new book is now out and I want to tell a little about it.
John Jones is a high paid atorney. He is on the trial of his life. After 50 murders Jorge Ramirez is in court...... (you get the picture).

ME: Hi Pedro, Welcome to the forum but may I just say that my nephew writes better English than you and he is eighteen months old.

PeDro: Hello and welcome. Why you being so rude! (great punctuation)

ME: It is not my intention to be offensive but I must point out that perhaps you would be better suited to writing in you own language, which one assumes is Spanish.

PeDro: IF YOU NO LIKE MY BOOK. FOCK YOO?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Believe it or not, this is the truth. Moving quickly along with the experiment.

2 More sales on Kindle. The Facebook Killer: Part One.
Smashwords has had very little action since I removed the free status of Facebook Killer. It has now been a week and so I am giving it away again and things are starting to move.

It is my aim to finish Part two within a week and then we will see if the lossleader brings me some cash.

So far after 19 days of this experiment I have earned $1.66. Now that's just about enough to buy a pint of milk, but taking into account the 20 kilometer drive to the shop and back........? But at least I am selling something.

Total readership, as of Day 19: 230

The Sunday Club has jumped ten places in the authonomy top one million. I know I'm onto a winner here. Stick with me, I'll prove it can be done. Support me and don't buy peDro's book.

Until next time and don't forget you can read my books online (for free) at www.authonomy.com

M.L. Stewart

Thursday, July 21, 2011

If The Mountain Won't Come To Muhammad...

.... then we have to chloroform Muhammad, bundle him into the back of a stolen car and dump him at the foot of the mountain. I'm not sure if that was the exact wording of the original phrase. but I'm sure I'm pretty damn close.

Now, I'm sure that by now you are all bored with me going on about free books, slow sales etc? ....... all together now.... YES! We are... you boring ****. 

Well, I spent most of today searching for further real-life agents from whom I could receive rejection slips for my growing collection. Some were still accepting unsolicited submissions, some weren't and many stated that they were accepting manuscripts except from M.L. Stewart. During my hunt for a victim, I stumbled across the HarperCollins Publishing site. Now, obviously, they don't accept submissions but they do recommend http://www.authonomy.com/.

Regular readers of this blog will remember some time ago, I posed the question "why don't any of the large publishing houses have an ebook department, which would work side-by-side and the "best-selling" or "most popular" authors could be offered a publishing deal?" Well, it looks like I'm not the only genius on the planet, because that is exacly what this site is. Basically you upload you book, bio, cover page (just like smashwords or Kindle but you can't charge for it), readers and other authors review it and each month, the five best-reviewed books are read by HarperCollins editors and then they submit their own review, or to the very lucky/talented, you get a deal. I won't go into too much detail because there FAQ section covers everything, down to the colour of toilet roll they use in their offices.

So I spent the rest of the day doing that. The Sunday Club is up their in it's full glory, like a dead sheep caught on a barb-wire fence waiting for the vultures. But, seriously, in the name of science and this experiment, I would ask your consideration in visiting The Sunday Club on authonomy.com and giving it a review, after reading it of course. The ratings are from 1 to 6, the latter being preferable. It is currently ranked number 4370 in the charts. I will keep you updated. Let me just repeat the point here, this is an Ebook channel into an established publishing company.

I sold one more book on Kindle UK today...Thanks Mum.

For the next few days, I will concentrate on the authonomy.com route. Please support me on this guys. Bloody Hell! I'm doing all the hard work for you.

BTW I put the car on the market. Ferrari for sale.

That's about all I have time for right now, I have to help Obama sort out his debt problems.

P.S. Don't forget to tell your friends.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

The Story Of The Tortoise And The Hare.....

OK so I am the tortoise. Now in their eternal wisdom, the British Army decided to use me for an experiment during the Second World War. They had the amazing idea that due to my camouflage and natural armour, I would be great at sniffing out land mines, without the Germans spotting me. All went well for a month or so; Princess Diana would have been proud. Then one day, as I was trying to diffuse a mine by biting through the blue wire, a piece of lettuce, that had gotten caught up in my teeth, caused a short circuit and BOOM! I was left a former shell of my old self. The field surgeons tried to reattach my legs but there was no chance.
    So here I stand (or more aptly lie), at the starting line, with only my tongue to pull myself along, pitted against an amphetamine-fuelled hare. How can I win this race? To tell you the truth...I haven't got a ******* clue.

I have considered changing my author name to slightly misspelled versions of the rich and successful:  James Paterson, Don Brown, J.K. Rawling or even Stephen Lather. I could rename my books: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Parlour or Barack Obama: A BIOGRAPHY (I saw him once on television). But I know I'd be branded a fraud. This no-legged tortoise has to do it on his own and failure is NOT an option... Well actually it is a huge possibility, but not an option...not yet...soon maybe, but not yet.

OK, enough of the fighting talk. Down to "distribution", zero, zilch, nothing, nula since I stopped the free giveaway of the books. Four downloads of the samples on Smashwords but no cash. I have put the villa-extension plans on hold for the time being. My accountant explained to me, in no uncertain terms, that at this rate I would to have sell 11 million books and that would take me until the year 3098. Now I may be an optimist, but I think there is every chance that I may be dead by then.

I am still hopeful that sales of Facebook Killer Part 2 will kickstart my so far drab career, with over 200 copies of part one given away, I am hoping to $ell at least 5% of the follow up. Which is what I am wasting my time writing now.

My controversial book is being written slowly. I have been banned from several other UK Christian websites but I have gained a foothold in the US online bible-bashing belt. Stay tuned for more damnation. American-style, 'cos those guys can kick ass. I can hear the unmanned drone-assault aircraft being refuelled as I write, fully loaded with the latest lightning-strike-from-God missiles. The USS GodSquad aircraft carrier will be moored opposite my villa in a matter of weeks. The heat-seeking missiles trained on my toilet so they can catch me when I'm least prepared.

So what have we learned folks?
A) If you want people to read your books and the financial gain isn't your primary agenda. Get on to smashwords, free of charge. If they're good enough, you'll get some fans. Then slowly start charging.
B) If you have a pet tortoise and the Ministry of Defence come round to your house, call the police.

Here are some comments from some of the blogs much appreciated followers, all ten of you XXX.


You will have to keep a log of what you are doing and where you are doing it. That way we can see what parts of your efforts returned the largest gain.
Thanks SB, I am keeping a log. It will be available for sale as an Ebook next year priced $1,000.99
I am over $1,400 into my self published book. Most of it was getting the paperback created. Getting your name out there is important. If you can reach a lot of people easily with emails then do it. However if you start to spend any money or a lot of time. Target people who have influence. A radio host, a local tv news person, celebrities. These people reach a lot more people than others. You could tell 1000 people and maybe 1% (10 people) buy it. Get the guy on tv/raido to tell 100,000 people and maybe 8% (8,000 people) buy it.
Hi again, SB, sound advice. Take note people!
I am following your progress with interest. I do wonder how it would change if the book wasn't free from the start.
Hi EW, thanks for following my drivel. I am surprised you have the patience. Good luck with your emerging, let us know how you get on.
Bro I am a fellow author and I must say you are extremely clever and funny as hell; witty. I have 4 short stories out now and I am following your experiments keenly. I wish you the best. I want you to mark my name so you will remember I knew you when and supported you before you sold the half a million books. I am going to ask you to make me a guest author on your blog. Cool beans. Conrad Milton Powell.
Hi Conrad Milton Powell, Thanks for the compliments, the cheque is in the post (or check if you are American) I don't think I have the power to allow a co-author on this blog, which may actually be a blessing in disguise. Only jesting! (or joking if you are American.)
Loyal followers! Thank you for your continuing support. I have two stunts in progress but without any reaction yet. When I have results, you'll be the first to know. 
 As that ******* hare would say....."That's all folks!" Or was it a rabbit?
 M.L. Stewart.
 P.S. Time to rob another bank methinks.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

If the Mayans had predicted the end of the world one year earlier, It might have got me off the hook.

.......... Those bloody Mexicans, total disregard for anyone but themselves.

Anyway, enough about Doomsday. Let's get back to reality. The Experiment. As you all know, I have postponed the giveaway of free books for seven days. 24 hours later and I am convinced that both Kindle's and Smashword's servers have crashed. What other explanation could there be for zero sales? It's not my fault, it must be theirs.

What does this prove? I don't have a following. My current 232 readers are obviously mutes and prison inmates serving 20 years in solitary confinement, to whom the word-of-mouth thing hasn't quite caught on in their social circles.

My thoughts? Well, suicide is a long way off and writing poetry is even further from my mind. But I shall wait these seven long days to see if anything happens in the world of the 99 cent book-buyers of the world. You never know, I may get lucky and some lady from Alabama might find a dollar down the side of her couch.

I have bumped the price of  The Sunday Club: (this book makes Dan Brown's stories look like some sort of dodgy film script that even Tom Hanks wouldn't lower himself to take part in) to $5.99 then discounted it to $1.50 on Smashwords. Everyone loves a discount!

I must warn you now viewers, I think the next six days are going to be very lean. But! As usual, I have a plan.

Thank you for your following,
in misery, I'm not wallowing,
Poetry I shall not write,
for to me it sounds like shite,
the bottle of pills, I won't be swallowing.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

A Wise Man Once Said...It's easier to sell something to a million people for one dollar than it is to sell something to one man for a million dollars.

...... how full of crap was he? And obviously never published his own book of wise-arse sayings.

DAY 15 of the most time-consuming and frustrating experiment ever conducted on planet Earth, except, perhaps, for the Large Hadron Collider.

Ok, so for the past two weeks, I feel like I have been fishing. Think of the worm as a free book. I cast it into the river and the fish are feeding. I can catch eighteen fish a day. Take off that worm and add a 70p/$0.99 piece of bread and none of the fish want it. My point being? Well as part of the scientific nature of this experiment, I will stop fishing for the next week. Both books are now being retailed for $0.99, at both Smashwords and Kindle. Do I think "distribution" will slow down? If you can call a fly hitting a car windscreen at 150 mph slowing down, then yes. Fear not! I am fully prepared for the mental trauma of my book "sales" being squashed upon the glass of capitalism.

So, until next Saturday, (by which time I may reassess the situation, out of sheer depression) no one gets any free books. Let us see how this transpires. Surely one must think that of the 203 readers who have now downloaded The Facebook Killer, maybe one or two will go on to purchase my other book. Let us see. As of today, I have 232 readers. It will be interesting to see how much that changes, if at all, in a week. When the miserable b******s have to cough up some dosh.

Most of you will remember an earlier blog regarding a certain book which skyrocketed into the top ten when the authors subtitled it (For fans of Dan Brown & Stieg Larsson) which Amazon later removed. Now I vowed I would never stoop so low, but in the interests of scientific-social research I have retitled my books on Kindle, as follows: The Sunday Club: Da Vinci Code meets Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels......The Facebook Serial Killer: Social networking Hannibal Lecter-style.

There is nothing underhand about this, you understand. I only did it ten minutes ago and I am professing to it. To compare my book to the Da Vinci Code is like comparing the Taj Mahal to an igloo. I will be the first to admit, and quote me in the High Court if you like Mr. Brown, I am not fit to scrub your toilet clean after you have downed two bottles of champagne and half a ton of curried prawns. But let us see what the ebook-buying public, who are about to embark on a seven-day holiday and only have 99 cents left on their credit card, have to say about it. More importantly, let us see if Amazon allow the descriptions to stay. Afterall. I am not comparing the books to another style of writing, merely to a storyline. As for Guy Ritchie, well that is a different story.

Quote Of The Day:  "Thank you Mr. Stewart for your submission regarding your blog. I have read it with much interest, however it seems a little early in the day to devote any space to your experiment. Please inform us when you are half way to your goal."  (A well known UK newspaper)

Well folks, that is it in a nutshell.

Once again, thank you all for your support. Especially Dan Brown.

Friday, July 15, 2011

WHICH IDIOT SAID THAT SELF-PUBLISHING DIDN'T COST ANYTHING?

...........In pursuit of my "craft" I am now almost 300 Euros worse off (in one day).

So here's the story. My most avid readers, who live and breath for this blog, may have noticed that yesterday, I was blogless? unblogged? Whatever. I didn't convey my world-changing message to the world. The reason. I ran out of credit on my satellite connection. (I use a pay-as-you go system for certain legal reasons. Interpol being one.) So, last night, as I was preparing to update aforesaid blog, I received an SMS in Espanol from my service provider which went something along the lines of "you need to buy mucho more euros for your experimenta to continue."

Herein lay the problem. Normally I send a text to a man who buys me the top ups, he then sends me the code and Hey Presto! Problem solved. Alas, last night, the top-up magician was unavailable. So I decided to resort to something I rarely do nowadays. Drive.

First problem: The shop is almost 20 kms away.
Second problem: The Ferrari is low on fuel.
Third problem: The fuel station is almost 20 kms away.
Fourth problem: It is in the opposite direction to the shop.
Fifth problem: I had drunk two glasses of red wine.
Sixth problem: To reach the fuel station, you have to drive past the police station.

To cut a long story short, I put 100 Euros of fuel in the car, paid a bribe of 100 Euros when I failed the breath-test by a trillionth of a percent (let a fat Spanish policeman sit in the car while his mate took a photograph of him and then vice versa), bought 50 euros worth of top-ups, received a 40 euro parking ticket whilst trying to negotiate the latter in my finest Spanglish, drove home 290 Euros worse off and decided not to bother blogging after all.

But fear not! Here I am with 40 euros worth of ammunition to set things right. The top-up magician called me back with his apologies and I am seriously thinking about buying a mountain bike.

Well, I sent an email to most of the UK newspapers, outlining my experiment and giving them the blog address. Now I know at this point that the more experienced authors reading this blog will probably change their underwear once the hysterical laughter eventually subsides. Do I seriously expect any newspaper in the world to report on my little experiment? Well, no, but that's not the point. The point is that someone on almost every UK newspaper now knows about me, probably their editors too. I don't expect someone to run a story but when I checked my web stats, 80% of web traffic was from UK newspapers internal servers. Maybe one washed-up journalist with nothing better to do will read one of the books and like it. He may be having a drink with an old friend who happens to be the friend of a friend of a .........catch my drift? Get your name out there.

Now I don't honestly believe that anything concrete will come out of this but you have to admit that I am persistent and my blog is probably logged in a few media databases somewhere by now. Who knows?

Current readership after 14 days: 222

ACTION
RESULT
SALES
TOTAL
Full or discounted
READERS
DAY 1
Published Sunday Club on Kindle and opened an Author Central account.
Crap
1
1
DAY 2
Created my Blog & advertised it on Kindle Self-Publishing Forum
Gained 4 blog- followers
1
2
DAY 3
Advertised the blog on forums.
Gained 1 blog-follower
2
4
DAY 4
Published The Sunday Club on Smashwords
One immediate sale
1
5
DAY 5
Published Facebok Killer on Smashwords (FREE)
45 downloads of The Facebook Killer
0
50
DAY 6
Posted on Kindle US & UK forums
33 downloads of The Facebook Killer
0
83
DAY 7
Joined www.mobileread.com. Promoted the blog.
17 downloads of The Facebook Killer. Gained one more blog-follower
0
100
DAY 8
Joined www.epublishingconsortium.com. Promoted the blog.
23 downloads of The Facebook Killer. Gained one more blog-follower
0
123
DAY 9
Changed & added new tags to both books
17 downloads of The Facebook Killer.
0
140
DAY 10
Revised subtitles and descriptions on both Kindle & Smashwords
11 downloads of The Facebook Killer. 2 sales of The Sunday Club.
3
154
DAY 11
Posted further promotion on UK & US Kindle forums, linking to blog.
13 downloads of The Facebook Killer. Gained one more blog-follower
14
181
DAY 12
18 downloads of The Facebook Killer.
0
199
DAY 13
Received IBNS for both books via Smashwords.
10 downloads of The Facebook Killer. One sale of The Sunday Club.
1
210
DAY 14
6 downloads of The Facebook Killer. Six sales of The Sunday Club.
6
222

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

DAY 12 IN THE BIG EBOOK EXPERIMENTAL HOUSE.

    OK, I'm going to cut past the percentages and statistics today. What have I learned in the past 12 days? Now I know I am repeating myself here, but as a newly self-published author the only way I can get my work out there is to give it away, free-of-charge. I know that some of you won't like this point, but it is the truth! Get your books on smashwords and give them away. As of this moment, I have just under 200 readers. I have earned around $2 in royalties and I've spent a hell of a lot on my satellite connection, but at least I'm being read. I hope that when I publish the second part of The Facebook Killer, the 170 readers, who have so far downloaded it, may come back to buy the next installment. By then I hope it's 300 readers and I may still only sell 100 copies.

    Smashwords free ISBN numbers should be available in the next day or so. Once you obtain these, your books will be available to Apple, Sony & Borders. You can also upload advertising to Google Books (but not without an ISBN).

    I know I said I wouldn't mention statistics, but the mad professor in me won't allow it. In 12 days my readership has increased by 20,000 %. Now I know that from 1 book to 200 books appears a small leap in this timescale, especially when some authors are selling 1,500 per day, but you work it out. If your product, your book, is good and you can maintain a fraction of this daily increase. You will be onto a winner. Keep writing, keep publishing and keep your chin up.

    I feel that I have come to an impass until my books receive their ISBN and are forwarded to Apple & Sony. All I can give you are the results from Kindle and Smashwords, which is steady, but frankly boring as ****. I can see why authors create their own or bribe others to submit reviews of their books, but I have vowed not to go down this route and I am a man of my word. So what next? I need a kickstart. A rocket.
I need to "distribute" another 499,700 books before Christmas.

    Watch this space because tomorrow I'm going for it big time.



   

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Good News Folks! I have just received a great offer from an agent.....

..... the bad news is that it's a travel agent, but at least my flight to Russia will only cost £150.

Well, smashwords are still winning the "readership" war against Kindle.

The Facebook Killer : 160.
The Sunday Club stands at 16.
Total readership after 11 days: 181.

   I changed the pricing for Face Book Killer from free to $1.99 and then applied the smashwords coupons to make it free again, this was done in the hope that people may assume they are saving two dollars and getting a free book. It didn't work. Don't bother trying it. The reason? It was removed from the free book section. Sales stopped immediately. When I changed back, this evening, distribution started up again.

    Being in Europe, most of my "sales" occur overnight. Therefore, this evening I will make the Sunday Club a free book for 24 hours and report back with the sales figures tomorrow. My God, all those royalties are going down the drain.

Welcome Australia and Guernsey to my blog.

I have spent the whole day writing and listening to Spanish radio, of which, neither activity I fully comprehend, but the fact remains that they both give me a headache. Therefore, I will cut today's blog short.

Thanks for looking in.
P.S. still waiting for my first review.

Monday, July 11, 2011

It's 33 degrees celcius (in the shade), my book sales are like stagnant water, I have suffered God's wrath and Britain's top Indie author is picking on me.....

........ can my life get any worse?

How about that for an attention-grabbing headline, eh? Anyway,I have my health, wealth and freedom. I can't complain. ....Welcome back to day 10 of the experiment. My God, only ten days in, it feels like a month already.

  Firstly, to the joker that tagged my Kindle books as, and I quote, "homo-erotic", "chick-lit" and "boy love". I find this in no way amusing and please don't do it again or you will be severely spanked to death.

  Secondly, I would like, if I may, to bring Mr. Stephen Leather's comment out of the box and onto the page. Now for those of you who don't know, Mr. Leather is arguably the United Kingdom's number one Indie author, as well as having a very distinguished history and ongoing career in "real" publishing (remember paper everyone?) he has also written for television. Here it is (note the size of my font in relation to our career differences)

  ML Stewart: (squeaking) "Thanks Stephen, as a major international and highly-acclaimed author, I appreciate you visiting my blog. If you are the great blue whale, I am the minnow's poop-shoot and I hope to kick your arse one day! No offence, you understand?"

  Mr. Stephen Leather: (a loud roar) Ha ha. But it's a common mistake, to assume that kicking another writer's arse helps you. It doesn't. Your aim has to be to produce quality work and to sell it to as many people as possible. It's like running a marathon, it's your personal time that counts not what the runners around you are doing. I've lost count of the number of Indie writers who've said that they have me in their sights and their aim is to sell more than me. They come and they go and good luck to them. When I started down my eBook route I wasn't interested in how many books other writers sell, or who were above me in the bestseller lists. That doesn't matter. All that matters is how good my books are and how many I sell. But hey, if you wanna kick my arse, you go for it.....
  Now I hope that people reading this blog have ascertained by now that I am writing it a little tongue-in-cheek, yet I am serious about this endeavour. I am still submitting hard copies to UK agents and I would like to thank Mr. Leather for the above advice. We should all take note. To quote Jeffrey Archer's "First Among Equals", "It is the long distance runner who will win the race, not the sprinter." Or something along those lines.
  You can visit Mr. Leather's excellent website at http://www.stephenleather.com/ for further information. Not about running, obviously. BTW, this isn't a declaration of surrender!
  OK, so that's the homo-erotic tags done, kicking Leather's arse is out of the way. Let's move on...
I have to be honest, I know I'm not going to make much money from this self-publishing lark. Not yet anyway. Therefore, this morning, I included the Sunday Club in Smashwords.com Winter Sale. It is now free to download by clicking here. My current objective is just to get the work out there, get it read and hopefully get some positive reviews, or negative....anything.
  2 more copies have been sold (for free) on smashwords in the last hour.
The Facebook Killer has is now being digested by 151 people, since offering it for free six days ago, and Kindle managed to sell one more copy of The Sunday Club for 70p to a UK customer today.

 Total increase in readership since day one of the experiment: 154. If I continue at this rate (without   publishing anything new) I will have had around 2,600 readers by Christmas. A long way short of my near-impossible target but I hope someone may learn something through my endeavours.

  Tip of the day: Pride comes before the fall. Get your work out there. OK I spent almost a year writing The Sunday Club, but I'm giving it away. In my humble opinion, is it not better to have 154 people reading your work for free than two people and less than a dollar in your balance? Don't give up people. Even if I receive bad reviews (mind you, Uncle Donald's dog loved it) I will learn from them. I will come back with something better. The readers are the buyers, they are the judge and jury on our work.

OK time to put the soapbox back under the sofa and continue work on my chick-lit, homo-erotic novels. ********!!!

See you tomorrow.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

It's Sunday. The Day Of Rest.

ACTION
RESULT
SALES
TOTAL
READERS
DAY 1
Published Sunday Club on Kindle and opened an Author Central account.
Crap
1
1
DAY 2
Created my Blog & advertised it on Kindle Self-Publishing Forum
Gained 4 blog- followers
1
2
DAY 3
Advertised the blog on forums.
Gained 1 blog-follower
2
4
DAY 4
Published The Sunday Club on Smashwords
One immediate sale
1
5
DAY 5
Published Facebok Killer on Smashwords (FREE)
45 downloads of The Facebook Killer
0
50
DAY 6
Posted on Kindle US & UK forums
33 downloads of The Facebook Killer
0
83
DAY 7
Joined www.mobileread.com
17 downloads of The Facebook Killer. Gained one more blog-follower
0
100
DAY 8
Joined www.epublishingconsortium.com
23 downloads of The Facebook Killer. Gained one more blog-follower
0
123
DAY 9
Changed & added new tags to both books
17 downloads of The Facebook Killer.
0
140

Saturday, July 9, 2011

A Wise Man Once Said...as one door closes, another opens....

.....What he neglected to mention is that that if you're standing behind the door, it's very likely to hit you in the face, breaking your nose and fracturing your front teeth.

    My point being? Amazon is the very large, steel-reinforced door (picture a bank vault) that has just swung closed in my face of self-promotion. My nose now protrudes from the back of my head. I look like a werewolf from behind. My teeth and lips used to be seperate entities, not any more. I knew my incisors and canines had a secondary purpose, it was to keep the blood in place. Get the picture?
    Anyway, to cut a long story short, Amazon have now stopped all self-promotion within their forums. Except for a specially-designed "Meet The Author" area. Now, to me, this conjures up images of 120,000 people trying to cram into "Central Perk" of Friends fame, for a cup of coffee.
    I have included an example at the bottom of the page, not of Central Perk, but the friendly Giant who is Amazon, not saying "this will stop now" but actively deleting all self-promotional posts in the history of mankind. The reason it's at the bottom of the page is because it's in a box which I can't move up. Sorry. Stupid.

    So I've covered the big bastard door closing on my experiment. Now picture this, I am lying in the Emergency room, my face looking like a pizza which has been flung from a speeding car and run over by a bus before being dragged to a fox's lair and then chewed by him and his entire family for a week. I can hear the heart monitor beeping once every hour. "He's going to need a full head transplant," says the doctor, "he'll never be the same. My God, he's only sold four books and now this. I pray I don't have to be the one to tell him, if he makes it." .....Now stay with me; take a pause and some drugs if you think it might help........" Then, all of a sudden, that little cartoon mouse Jerry, opens his little door in the skirting board and squeaks, "Mr. Stewart, Mr. Stewart, wake up. I can help you. I know you need to get rid of another 499,996 books before Christmas. I'm just a little guy, like you, but let's do this together." And so today, I discovered.....



There, is that a, big enough plug for you?
A brand new website for ebook readers and authors. Good luck to them and let's support them. F++k Amazon....RANT OVER!   Disclaimer: I am no way affiliated with the above website.


Back to business. Today's sales? Sorry, as I  refer to them now...Distribution. Paid for or not.

Kindle: No change. 4 sales in total.
Smashwords: A 24% rise in The Facebook Killer: Part 1 (Free Edition). Now standing at 123 copies. Still only 1 sale of The Sunday Club.
Blog-views: An average of 20 per day (welcome Thailand, by the way.)

So, as the experiment stands, I now have 148 people reading my words. Statistically, if each one of these 148 readers tells 3,379 of their friends, then I can reach my target by Christmas, and I thought this was going to be difficult. What could be simpler?

Update on my "Negative Publicity Experiment"

My insane attempt to prove that "all publicity is good publicity".
Quote of the day: "An error has occurred. Sorry, Guest, but you have been banned from this forum."
So much for freedom of speech! May I just point out that when I take part in these forums, I do so with the greatest reverance for their members and webmasters. I do not intentionally cause offence, I only display a page or two of the literature and invite opinions. Any foul language is replace with asterixes, so as not to upset the ********.
Tomorrow I shall seek some literary praise from further Christian websites.

The Sunday Club Screenplay:

A few weeks ago, I sent a copy of The Sunday Club for consideration to literary agents, Gregory & Co. of London. I received a very nice email from their Submissions Editor, Mary Jones. It went something like this.

.... It’s all highly visual, a bit like The Italian Job (the original).....do please give serious consideration to re-writing it as a screenplay....we wish you all success with this project.

Now she didn't say the book sucked, how could she, even my Great Uncle Donald's dog loved it, he said it was the best thing he's ever eaten. So, being experimental as I am, I began converting the 380 page novel into a 90 page screenplay, with a little help from Celtx software. This task will be completed in a week or two and then I will send it off to Mr Spielberg and Ridley Scott. Feel free to follow my fast track to Hollywood on this blog.

I'm sure most new authors fantasise about their work becoming a blockbuster movie. Well stay tuned, folks, because I'm gonna show you the reality. The cruel rejections, the no-replies and the depths a man will go to in order to fill a blog every day for five months (as promised).

Did I mention that I'm an eight-armed mutant with four computers?....no?

REVIEWS:

The problem is I don't have any. There appears to be an embarrassing silence. Only Aunt Doris and Great Uncle Donald's dog have made any worthy contribution to my literary genius. Aunt Doris has cataracts and the dog isn't to be trusted. So if anyone reading this blog wants a free copy of The Sunday Club (for review purposes only) send me an email at author@mlstewart.com Iand I will have someone email you a copy. I still have an outstanding Interpol warrant so it won't come from me. You can download a free copy of The Facebook Killer #1 from the link above. Please feel free to post you reviews in the comments section of the blog. Be truthful, be honest, be brutal but don't be afraid.

Well my friends, thank you for being here for me and taking part in this experiment. I wouldn't call myself the underdog, I think of myself more as the flea on the underdog's testicles.

Can it be done? Well put it this way. If four pot-heads can have their picture taken on a zebra crossing and sell that many records, I reckon I can hit my target.

168 days until Christmas.....that is if the ******** don't ban me from that as well.


Looking for Unexpected Endings.


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Your post: Jun 28, 2011 8:10:44 AM PDT
ML_Stewart says:
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