I have discovered a wonderful new game that feeds both my paranoia and my ego as a writer in a dizzying succession of highs and lows – it is called “The Amazon Roller coaster”. My addiction to chart-watching no longer satisfied with the weekly fixes provided by publications like The Bookseller and The Sunday Times, (more or less identical charts with a few minor adjustments by the ST to try to level the playing fields when television heavyweights and the Highway Code come on to play), I can now get fresh highs and lows every few hours by logging on to Amazon and looking up “The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride” or any number of other titles.
Like all drugs you take your first hit out of curiosity, thinking that you can handle it. You see that your ‘sales rank’ is pleasantly high – let’s say you are at number 1,000. Thinking this is a good omen you go back the next day to see if you have climbed any higher – you have, you are now down to three figures. Now they’ve got you.
The next time you tune in you have plummeted, maybe in the space of just a few hours, to number 150,000. How can this be? You are filled with angst. Has your publisher failed to send them a new order? Has a bad review appeared somewhere and halted sales in their tracks? Or are you simply doomed to a future of abject failure?
You tentatively go back in a few hours later and, miracle of miracles, you are back in three figures. You are high again, thrilled with yourself and the world. Now you are Amazon’s slave. It will now only be a matter of time before you are unable to stop yourself from checking in almost every hour. It will become a new distraction from the job of writing as irresistible as making another cup of coffee (each cup a little stronger than the last, but that’s another story).
To purchase a copy of The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride for a discounted price of £6.00 (inc p&p) please call John Blake Publishing on 0207 381 0666.
Showing posts with label book charts publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book charts publishing. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Steffi McBride is in the Shops
“The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride” is published today, and so far everyone who has read advance copies has been incredibly kind. Below is a lovely review by a young writer called Eliza.
Writers’ Forum magazine has also published an article I wrote about the whole experience of making a promotional film for the book with the actress, Olivia Grodd, playing Steffi, and putting it up on YouTube and on the website www.steffimcbride.com. So far we have had over three thousand viewings of the film, which seems more than healthy considering the book is only out today.
In the same issue of Writers’ Forum there is an article by the great writing guru Alison Baverstock on how all authors have to expect to do their own marketing as publishers just don’t have the time, (I paraphrase but that is the gist and of course she is absolutely right).
Eliza’s Review:
This is a read-it-in-one-sitting modern-day fairytale - princes, villains and ogres included. Bridget Jones put those pants on and move aside! There is no swanky media job here; Steffi is, for most of us, the modern day young woman.
A pot washer from the wrong estate with a junky boyfriend and family who would rather you snort a line than read a book, Steffi has a dream and no one, not even her dad, can stop her.
When talent scouts spot Steffi the ultimate young girl’s dream starts to become a reality. Steffi, a lifelong fan of The Towers, is overjoyed at the chance to work on the infamous soap.
Nothing can prepare her for the tidal wave of fame that hits, but has Steffi too many stars in her eyes to see that the wave is in fact shark-infested?
A truly gripping read, Crofts encapsulates the rocky road of today’s vulnerable celebrity status. A tale we have witnessed so often in the media, told fascinatingly from the other side.
Narrated by Steffi, this story should be a textbook for all budding wannabees. Crofts’ style ensures Steffi is a lovable character, making you love and despair alongside her. You find yourself willing her dreams to come true. Now that I have finished reading the book I feel bereft and cheated that she is not real.
The princes, fairy godmothers and villains are all there just as in every good fairytale. There’s boy band has-been, Luke, a pin up for Steffi since her early teens. And Gerry, every mother’s dream son-in-law, you love him but is he Steffi’s prince or just another knight destined not to get his princess? And we mustn’t forget fairy godmother Dora, the chain-smoking agent - but does Steffi really need another mother?
Enjoy the emotions as Steffi grows from a girl with a boyfriend living in a squat, to the nation’s sweetheart. Live the dream alongside Steffi and experience the highs and lows. Have the tissues to hand, sit back and indulge yourself in a truly beautiful read.
Many thanks Eliza
To purchase a copy of The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride for a discounted price of £6.00 (inc p&p) please call John Blake Publishing on 0207 381 0666.
Writers’ Forum magazine has also published an article I wrote about the whole experience of making a promotional film for the book with the actress, Olivia Grodd, playing Steffi, and putting it up on YouTube and on the website www.steffimcbride.com. So far we have had over three thousand viewings of the film, which seems more than healthy considering the book is only out today.
In the same issue of Writers’ Forum there is an article by the great writing guru Alison Baverstock on how all authors have to expect to do their own marketing as publishers just don’t have the time, (I paraphrase but that is the gist and of course she is absolutely right).
Eliza’s Review:
This is a read-it-in-one-sitting modern-day fairytale - princes, villains and ogres included. Bridget Jones put those pants on and move aside! There is no swanky media job here; Steffi is, for most of us, the modern day young woman.
A pot washer from the wrong estate with a junky boyfriend and family who would rather you snort a line than read a book, Steffi has a dream and no one, not even her dad, can stop her.
When talent scouts spot Steffi the ultimate young girl’s dream starts to become a reality. Steffi, a lifelong fan of The Towers, is overjoyed at the chance to work on the infamous soap.
Nothing can prepare her for the tidal wave of fame that hits, but has Steffi too many stars in her eyes to see that the wave is in fact shark-infested?
A truly gripping read, Crofts encapsulates the rocky road of today’s vulnerable celebrity status. A tale we have witnessed so often in the media, told fascinatingly from the other side.
Narrated by Steffi, this story should be a textbook for all budding wannabees. Crofts’ style ensures Steffi is a lovable character, making you love and despair alongside her. You find yourself willing her dreams to come true. Now that I have finished reading the book I feel bereft and cheated that she is not real.
The princes, fairy godmothers and villains are all there just as in every good fairytale. There’s boy band has-been, Luke, a pin up for Steffi since her early teens. And Gerry, every mother’s dream son-in-law, you love him but is he Steffi’s prince or just another knight destined not to get his princess? And we mustn’t forget fairy godmother Dora, the chain-smoking agent - but does Steffi really need another mother?
Enjoy the emotions as Steffi grows from a girl with a boyfriend living in a squat, to the nation’s sweetheart. Live the dream alongside Steffi and experience the highs and lows. Have the tissues to hand, sit back and indulge yourself in a truly beautiful read.
Many thanks Eliza
To purchase a copy of The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride for a discounted price of £6.00 (inc p&p) please call John Blake Publishing on 0207 381 0666.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Addicted to the Bestseller Charts
It’s time to confess; I have become as addicted to the bestseller book charts as I am to wine, caffeine and emails; desperate all the time for a new fix, even though I know it will inevitably lead to another painful come-down.
I can completely understand why ego-crazed pop stars are driven tantrum mad when some giant selling track from a rival act squats at the top of the charts for months on end, forever depriving them of the ultimate glory they believe to be their right. To be number two or three is great, of course, but to be able to label your book merely “a Sunday Times bestseller” is never going to be the same as being “a number one bestseller”.
So many times I have ghosted a potential chart topper, only to be held off the top spot by the mega-selling likes of Jeremy Clarkson, Bill Bryson, Richard Hammond or Russell Brand, (the literary equivalents of the Beatles, Whitney Houston, Bryan Adams and Ken Dodd).
I know my addiction is illogical, that a book which sells a thousand copies a week for twenty years is an infinitely better earner than one that surges out of the starting gate with a ten thousand sale in the first week and has completely petered out by the end of the year. I know it because I have had those too, but I am still addicted to the adrenalin rush of the quick number one surge. The pleasures and rewards of sensible moderation are subtler and require a degree of patience that I am having increasing difficulty in mastering as the addiction takes hold.
Time to seek help, I think.
I can completely understand why ego-crazed pop stars are driven tantrum mad when some giant selling track from a rival act squats at the top of the charts for months on end, forever depriving them of the ultimate glory they believe to be their right. To be number two or three is great, of course, but to be able to label your book merely “a Sunday Times bestseller” is never going to be the same as being “a number one bestseller”.
So many times I have ghosted a potential chart topper, only to be held off the top spot by the mega-selling likes of Jeremy Clarkson, Bill Bryson, Richard Hammond or Russell Brand, (the literary equivalents of the Beatles, Whitney Houston, Bryan Adams and Ken Dodd).
I know my addiction is illogical, that a book which sells a thousand copies a week for twenty years is an infinitely better earner than one that surges out of the starting gate with a ten thousand sale in the first week and has completely petered out by the end of the year. I know it because I have had those too, but I am still addicted to the adrenalin rush of the quick number one surge. The pleasures and rewards of sensible moderation are subtler and require a degree of patience that I am having increasing difficulty in mastering as the addiction takes hold.
Time to seek help, I think.
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