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.

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?

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.)

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.

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?

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

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.