And Now The Experiment Becomes Interesting.......

Why? I hear you grumbling to yourself, in between thoughts of what’s on the television tonight and should I stop reading this arsehole’s lame Blog? (How come arsehole is in the spellchecker, yet Adolf isn’t? Maybe the thesaurus has the two words linked?)

Well after Amazon kindly gave away 22,000 copies of FBK1 for free, they have decided in their eternal wisdom to start charging 86p again, something that I won’t moan about. Since the price label went back on four days ago I have sold a further 150 copies (money, money, money!) and 600 copies of FBK2. Now I will be able to gauge the true follow through. In other words, people who thought that FBK1 was shit will not buy part 2. The current follow through is 17.5% = 3820 sales of FBK2. Plus 210 sales of the Sunday Club. Now 17.5% doesn’t seem like a big percentage but bear in mind that a lot of people are still storing FBK1 on their Kindle, unread ..... I hope. Therefore it is going to take a few more weeks to get the real results through. Stay tuned. Sales of FBK in the US are slow but the follow through is 60%, which is more than encouraging.

The United Kingdom Of Islam is rapidly taking shape. I am dedicating work on it from 11:00am until 7:00pm, seven days a week. As I mentioned in an earlier Blog, there appear to be too many authors who establish a winning formula and just keep bashing the same old bullshit out. The readers buy it because they are used to buying it. I don’t want to end up like that. I’d rather give a monkey my computer and let him get on with it. UKI might bomb instantly or it may become as successful as FBK, either way, I have to give it my best go. That’s all I can do.

Now that’s the statistics out of the way. What can we talk about next? Oh yes, I almost forgot. Many facets of UKI are about going back to the primitive way of doing things. Fire as opposed to electricity blah, blah, blah. So it got me thinking, (in that strange way that I do) How could I take a uniquely modern day idea back to its primitive roots and do you know what I came up with? I hope not, because that would make us equally troubled. SPAM!

Okay imagine that you are a caveman or woman, you’ve just killed the biggest mammoth in history and you’ve got so much meat left over that you need to start selling it. How do you do it? You start to spam the neighbouring tribes. Are you with me? You send your fastest runner to the neighbours' cave with a rock and some red berry juice. When they’re all out hunting and gathering he writes on their Facerock Wall, “mammoth steaks for sale at the Kindle cave, only 86p each” and then he runs like f+ck back home before he gets a flint in his arse.

Where am I going with this? Well before the Internet, before emails, gmail, yahoo and hotmail we had bottles. Bottle mail. Today I sent my butler with five hundred bottles down to the beach. Each one contained an advert for FBK and a link. He was arrested after throwing four hundred into the sea, so I finished the job. Now give me the name of any author who has tried this before and I’ll give you my butler’s job during his six months incarceration.

Stay tuned for the results.

Regards

ML Stewart

ml.stewart@yahoo.co.uk

How To Make £1000 From Ebooks (and waste two years of your life in the process)

So what’s happening in the ML Stewart Fun House? I hear you all cry in a desperate thirst for knowledge kind of way.

Well, in between ogling obese bikini-clad women on the beach out front, I’m still pounding away on “The United Kingdom Of Islam.” I am attempting 3,000 words a day, preferably at least 500 of those spelled correctly and I’m close to my target. My spellchecker has exploded in protest. I’m thinking about going into the movie business or audio books, I mean they don’t have to worry about spelling or punctuation, do they? It would simplify my life no end. What is UKI about? I hear you scream with blood lust. Well I don’t know it isn’t finished yet. The way I write it could be about anything.

FBK2 is maintaining sales of 160 a day and remains #2 horror-thriller and #50 bestseller in the UK. Follow through sales, this month, from FBK1 are over 50%, thanks to my blind proofreader sorting out the correct version to be uploaded.

Now I could go ahead and keep writing FBKs until I die, but it’s a niche market and I want to expand my readership. That’s why I’m writing UKI, to broaden my horizons and try and attract a different kind of 1-star review.

I have received an offer to make FBK into a film, it’s true, the offer came from a film student with no money but grand ideas. My lawyer told him to go and ask his parents for extra pocket money, then come back and we can talk. Seriously though, if you know someone that wants to make FBK into a movie, they can have it cheap.

Stieieieig Laaaaaaaarson’s book: “The Girl With a Helmet-Shaped Haircut” is still lying about my villa. As God is my witness, I tried more than once to get into it but failed miserably. Plus it’s so f++king big! When I tried to read it in bed, I had to buy an artist’s easel to put it on, it was lashed with ropes to keep it open but eventually the easel collapsed into the lounge as the floor gaze way beneath it. I have tried using it as a doorstop, as a mooring for my boat; I even thought about hollowing out the pages and using it as a garden shed. Eventually I donated it to the local Police who are going to use it as a roadblock. Do you think I’m joking? A book that big is the equivalent of having a Kindle the size of a 40-inch plasma TV. I kid you not, it’s bloody ridiculous.

So the experiment?

The plan is to launch UKI, hopefully in the middle of October, which will allow me six weeks to finish FBK3, then just before Santa’s fat arse arrives, maybe a collection of short stories. By that time I will have achieved my goal of having 500,000 readers, without a shadow of a doubt????????????????????????

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys, Girls and Interpol. Thank you for stopping by my pathetic, deluded and rambling blog.

ML Stewart

ml.stewart@yahoo.co.uk

26,000 Readers: That’s More Readers Than Spelling Mistakes!

The results are in for September (US & UK combined)

FBK1: 20,964 readers. (Boo Hoo, you could have told us this was part one of two. I didn’t see the cover. I want my free money returned:)

FBK2: 2,729 readers. (Still #2 thriller/horror and #53 Amazon Top 100.)

SC:  147 readers. (Still in the Amazon Top Million)

Adding Smashwords, Apple etc to this. The total readership since the start of the experiment now totals: 26,210

The free downloads of FBK1 have slowed to around 250 per day, but this was expected, I estimated 20,000 downloads maximum, this is now over 21,000, so I now hope to reach 25,000.

The follow through sales of FBK2 were almost exactly 160 per day last month. The percentage started at 8% but is now at 13% in total. Although daily it is averaging 50% over the past 3 days. If I reach a follow through of 50% I will have each and every one of your babies.

 I have now stopped reading any reviews left for FBK1; with 26 4 and 5 star reviews I will only start taking things personally. I asked Dermott to check out one of the 1 star reviews; he emailed me the following report.

Dear Mr. Stewart,

The boy made the mistake of following up his criticism on his Twitter account. He wasn’t too difficult to track down. His best friend, who got married this year (I have watched the video in great detail on YouTube) runs a company in Surrey, where she also works as a columnist for a certain local newspaper, her business is to train small businesses how to advertise on social media sites, mainly Facebook, therefore his bad review is solely an attempt to protect his business interests. Because they don’t realise the power which we have. His name is Lee Carney and I have sent you attached photographs.”

I received another review from the former President of Czechoslovakia who is also a playwright, novelist and dramatist. Exactly the sort of person my writing style is not directed towards. On the upside he also slagged off someone called Dan Brown? This fellow is the sort that would title FBK1 “The Facebook Killer (or a study into the post traumatic mind of a grief-defiant category 1 specimen, reminiscent of Freud’s controversial reports regarding the Thomas Van Deville case.)” I think the Hannibal Lecter thing says it all.

My next release UKI is almost halfway through, it is different to the FBK and I would like a couple of volunteers (they must be from the UK) to have a look at it (Stephen Leather need not apply) It isn’t proof read, I would just like some feedback on the storyline. Contact me at  ml.stewart@yahoo.co.uk . The book will be around 55,000 words long at priced at 86p.

FBK3 is still being investigated by Interpol but will released from custody before Xmas.

That’s all from me folks.

Respect!

MLS

The Facebook Killer: Part 3.

Seven fucking years they kept Albert and I in that bloody asylum. Seven whole fucking years. Can you believe it?  Eighty-four months of listening to Twinkle, twinkle little fucking star. Two thousand, three hundred and fifty five days and nights with nothing to do except taunt our next-door neighbour. Over sixty one thousand hours with nothing to do but sit and think about what we had done and do you know what the worst part was? The day they put that big old iron key into the lock of his cell door. Albert and I had listened in silence. It wasn’t mealtime. It wasn’t evaluation day, that only took place on the last Sunday of each month. We could hear the mechanism turning, the cogs engaging. What was going on? Why were they opening his door? We should have realised earlier, the clues had been there. He was receiving more frequent treatment. His reaction to Albert’s singing had decreased gradually over recent months, the screams and head banging giving way to mere whimpers, then silence and then the worst of all. The laughter. The bastard started laughing when we sang. Fucking laughing. At us! 

That was the day they declared that little bastard Hamid was no longer a danger to himself or others. That was the day the birds stopped singing in the trees, the day our long lost friend returned. The Rage.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be forever. Jesus Christ! We had failed all of those evaluations on purpose just to stay in there, next to him. And then one day they decide to just let the bastard out. Where was the justice in that?

We eventually got a new neighbour but he wasn’t half as much fun. Ronald he was called, Ronald Hughes. He was locked up after trying to commit suicide by lying on a disused railway line for two days. Apparently a woman walking her dog found him, suffering from hypothermia. Now that is one mental bastard.

No, it wasn’t the same when they set Hamid free. It felt like Albert and I were being punished instead. I will never forget that day they let him out, it was a Monday in January, he walked past our cell door and stopped, tapping lightly on the steel. Albert and I put our ears to the cold metal. “Dermott,” he whispered, “It’s been a pleasure, but your daughter was much better company.”

THE THREE M's.

Well I’m glad those bastards have gone. I’m taking a short break from work on my next book to write this blog. One of the main reasons being that the villa down the road from me has just been sold for a scary sum of money, in fact I would have to sell around one billion books to be able to buy it. The new owner has a team of fifty workers there from six in the morning until dark. The constant noise of chainsaws and Hilti guns is beginning to wear me down.

I received an email this morning, it went like this.

There have been three things that changed the way I look at things in life. Malcolm X, Malcolm Mclaren and ML Stewart.

Call me a liar if you wish, this is a bona fide email from a reader, of whom I am gravely concerned.

FBK1 is now being read by 20,208 people, I figure the maximum download will be around 25,000, if that.

FBK2 is still selling well, 12% (rising by about 1% each day) of readers have bought part 2 and the numbers are still rising; alas not enough to keep it at the #1 spot. Back to #2 but hey, I did it for two days and there is still time to go. At least I can now say ... “by the number 1 selling author of the Facebook Killer.” Like I really care?

FBK1 is still getting some outstanding reviews but also some strange ones. One reader today complained that FBK2 wasn’t on Amazon? Another slagged it off badly, “amateurish and pathetic”, when I checked their other reviews they had sung the praises of some cookery book and also a padlock. A f+cking padlock? Now let me be honest here but someone who buys a padlock on Amazon and then writes a review about is not the sort of reader I want. Jesus Christ! Who invented man?

Regular blog-watchers of mine, and I thank you for your continuing support, the salary checks for this month are in the post, will be aware of my strange ways and the fact that I am a method-writer (get in the mood, become the character) but I neglected to mention the music. What is the arsehole talking about now? I hear you cry. Well put it this way, let us take the now world famous Bridgwater Twins as an example. Could I have written that with a cat sitting on my knee, purring away and a cup of Earl Grey on the desk? With a wife calling from the kitchen, “would you like spaghetti or chips with your tea darling? No f+cking way! You can’t torture and then skin two young boys when Mr. Fluffy is snuggling into your crotch and you can hear Beethoven coming from the kitchen.

Think about it. It’s like Adolf Hitler trying to invade Europe when he’s stoned... “Poland, where? No, fucking leave it alone I used to have a Polish girlfriend, she rolled the best spliffs man.” Get me? When I skinned, tortured, poured salt over them before they died (and believe me it was I that did it, not Dmitri or Kalif, they were only pawns in the game) I was wearing headphones and listening to Rage Against The Machine’s “Killing in the name of”, Dermott Madison was reminiscing about his time with Anna and Laura to the sounds of REM’s “Everybody Hurts”, Marilyn Manson helped me kill Adela in Pakistan with his “Fight Song” and Chumbawamba’s “Tub Thumping” brought the rage back each time.

This is why I receive comments like

“well done one of the best books i have read in a long time brilliant brilliant brilliant !!! might have to read again !! please keep them comming x”

“i read part 1 and 2 in no time just could not put it down . kept going back on pages just to let it sink in !!!! ohhh cant wait for your next book never normally right reviews on here but this is an exception you should be very proud of yourself a new author too . congratulations x”

“Must say, though pretty gory in parts and some of it was read with one hand over mouth in shock ;),”

“... thats exactly what i did ,,, hand over the mouth thing .... and a lot of OH MY GOD !!!”

So remember my fellow new authors, you are what you create, live it, breathe it and more importantly feel it. We are making movies where the screen is inside of your reader’s brain. You must immerse yourself in your story, become each character, feel how they feel, if they are drunk then get drunk (but don’t forget to check your spelling and grammar the next day:) If you have a scene where your hero punches someone in the face, then go out and do it, but be careful and don’t get caught (MLS recommends that you enrol in a legal boxing class). You can’t write about something of which you have no knowledge or feeling. I have been stabbed twice and shot once and you know what, you don’t feel it in the slightest, so when I see a movie when someone reacts in the wrong way, it tends to get on my wick. Have you ever been in a car when a gun has gone off? Of course not! You become deaf for days afterwards.

It’s not just about spelling and grammar, although these are important, it’s more about emotion.

OK the neighbour’s men are on a break. Back to work for MLS.

Take care readers and remember the name “Adolf” is not in the spellchecker.

ml.stewart@yahoo.co.uk

Under section 14/ 23A of the European Treaty this website is temporarily unavailable.

ML Stewart, Still The Number One Horror / Thriller Writer In The UK.

And you know what the funny thing is? I didn’t intend the FBK to be so gruesome; I just got carried away with myself. It started out as a crime thriller, and then something just took hold of me.

My next Ebook should be ready for release in around two weeks, and no it isn’t FBK3. As a fledgling, experimental and anarchist author, I have to test the market. The next book will be horror / thriller / fantasy / war.  It is set a few years from now, but like the Facebook Killer, deals with very current issues and it is set in the UK.

As of 19:00 Big Ben Time I have a readership of 22,000 people and steadily rising.

Follow on sales of FBK2 from the free edition of FBK1 have risen from 8% to 11% and now stand at 2,050 and rising. I am earning around £60 per day from the royalties. Take off my accountant’s bill and the charges from my offshore accounts and it would make more sense if I telephoned each one of you and personally read you the story, long distance.

Sarah Pearson sent me the comment which was posted on a Daily Mail article about self-publishing. Thanks Sarah, it went like this...

I have been reading kindle books on my pc for about a year now and I must say that many of the "Indie" books are complete tosh, spelling and grammar mistakes abound, but now and again I find some real gems like the Facebook Killer series, it still has mistakes and probably would not pass through an agent but the books like that which are available for free and under £1 make the errors bearable.
- Julia, Cardiff, Wales, 25/9/2011 10:41

ML Stewart says this: (Full of rage) What chance do the rest of us have when these boys who have been to private school together or ex-journalist bum chums can pull a stunt like this?  That article was written by an author who used it as a vehicle to try and punt his own Ebook, shame on the Daily Mail for allowing it. The people he quoted and publicised within said article are probably sitting around a dining table in the Ritz right now, toasting their coup. Well it’s fucking bullshit! These mutherfuckers are trying to control the market but we can’t let it happen. When someone like you or me turn up they try every trick in the book to put us down and regain their crowns. They are old, they are on paper, and they are scared, as are their crumbling agents and prehistoric publishing companies. That’s why they are dipping their toes into the Kindle Pond, in the hope to pay off the pre-recession mortgages on their extravagant (keep up with the Joneses’) apartments.

Rant over but at least we all know where I stand.

MLS

ml.stewart@yahoo.co.uk