It''s Back....

I don't know what colour it's back IN, but that book o' poems has returned. It has a title as well. Like, a title. An official, real title. OK, enough gawping. You look bored already.

ENOUGH RAMBLING MR COATES.

The title is:

Death, Depravity, and Demolition

Odd title for a book of poems, but it sums it up. Death? Oh, people die. Depravity? Lowest of society, madness, psychopaths, it has all that. Demolition? Oh yeah. Demolition. Got that one covered too.

So anyway, I'll have a cover after Christmas, maybe. You can never be sure the world's single most unreliable, scatty and untrustworthy person (aka. moi). Enough about me.

You're practically asleep. And I can't spell.

Wi-Fi, the Barbican, and Part I

OK, time for an update.

Wi-Fi:
Until today, we had no Wi-Fi. Now we do. I can blog more, and edit more. Yay!

The Barbican:
If you were at the Barbican Theatre on Wednesday 23 October, you may have a bunch of costumed kids humming creeplily, and talking creepily. I may have had something to do with that... no hard feelings, right?

Part I:
For four months, I have been editing Part I. It's been fun, but do I really want to keep reading that stuff? No. I've read it a dozen times or so. I've rewritten it almost from scratch. Time to move on. Of course, I will do a spellcheck, but until then, on to Part II.

So that's me. Poetry book is kind of progressing. If you have ideas, leave them in the comments below. I have to moderate and approve every single comment according to Google, so I'll see every suggestion.

You lot must hate me

Yes, here it is, another bloomin' poem. This WILL be the last. More on that later. Here is a poem:

Questions For Monsters:

What lives in shadow?
What hides at night?
What creeps in darkness?
Out of sight.

Why live there?
Why hide there?
Why creep there?
Please tell me why.

Then why come out?
To haunt and taunt,
To freak and scare,
Why be a nightmare?

Like it? Well, there's more. There's an ode to expletives, and a few other things. You won't see any of those for ages. Why? I'm horrible. Correction. I like to scrape a living off you guys.

I'm going to do a thus-far unnamed book of odd poems. There should be around 20 or so. I won't charge too much. Twenty of my poems, maybe £2.50, £2.00 if I'm kind. All poems already on the blog will be there, just by the way.

In other news, I'm closing on the end of Part I in Welcome to DROL editing.

A Poem of Sorts

I am many things. I can (just about) sing, i can (just about) act, I can (just barely) play a keyboard one-handed. I can (just about) do a lot of things. I can (apparently) write poetry. This is the topic of this post.

This morning, I wrote a poem. I made it up as I went along. It was strange, progressing from merest innocence, to a morbid end. It was quite the feeling, as the tables were turning. Here is how it went:

Just standing, standing,
Standing by the door,
Standing, Standing,
Is it worth it anymore?

I'm walking, walking,
Don't know where,
Walking, Walking,
Don't even care.

Then running, running,
Here they come again,
Running, Running,
Don't trip.

Suddenly jumping, jumping,
Here's hoping,
Jumping, Jumping,
Don't land head-first.

Now dying, dying,
Where'd I go wrong?
Dying, Dying,
'Doncha just love crash landings?

To defend my sanity, I will now announce that in Welcome to DROL, no main goodies die. Some other characters die, a lot of baddies die, but none of the goodies. That's in Book Two...

Progress, Gmail, and Bones

OK, allow me to get this straight, and explain my title:

Progress: 34 of 182 pages done from Welcome to DROL. Still WAY more to do though.

Gmail: Any questions? Message me at abcoates.mailbox@gmail.com

Bones: This is a bit longer.

Y'see, on my site, is a Google Doc. It has a sample chapter. I thought, smart as I was, that by directly uploading it to my site, everyone could see it. Y'all don't have my password, so, uh, no. That will be dealt with.

Short Version: I have a bone to pick w/ Google Docs.

EDIT: Didn't actually. T'was all fine. Poop.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday Google,
I can't thank you enough,
For nonsensical adverts!

A customised song for Google's 15th. The last line is because, a while back, Google decided to start using our Google searches to show us the most ideal advertising. I just get random stuff. I don't even use Incognito Mode in GOOGLE Chrome. No you cannot borrow my Google+ login to check my passwords.

Anyway, I'm doing some sprucing up of the Blog, spring-cleaning really. Basically it should look a lot more  aesthetically pleasing, without the Bulgarian. Don't worry, my whole GOOGLE is in Bulgarian. And Google Translator don't do much a good for that.

In book news, I'm about 1/6 the way through, and will be doing more throughout the weekend.

The Innocents Aren't

Odd title, huh?

Let me explain. In 1961, the year of glorious colour on your cinema screen, 20th Century Fox made a black-and-white flick called The Innocents. It is the epitome of all horror movies. Some say that's rated PG, and that it's actually rated 12 ... all we know is I can't impersonate Jeremy Clarckson.

It is SCARY. Let's leave it at that.

A way around

Hi.

Looks like I don't have a problem after all. Y'see, I decided, 'who needs Amazon and Kobo?', so, I decided, that, while I scream a few naughty words, I'll keep Mean, Median, Mode and Murder. Oh, and here it is:

Mean, Median, Mode and Murder

Short Story Written By A. B. Coates

I dragged myself lazily towards Mrs Anderson’s class, sleep filling my eyes. I was a bit of a daydreamer and I sometimes fell asleep in lessons. OK, maybe not sometimes. More like I couldn’t remember a single lesson I could stay awake for the whole time in. I didn’t know why.             Slowly, I pushed the door open and threw myself into my seat. Mrs Anderson sat at the front of the room next to the blackboard.

            “Welcome students, to today’s lesson: Mean, Median, Mode and Range. Now who would like to explain the definition of the first word: ‘mean’?” she began. As usual, her long, bony finger moved randomly around the class and it ended up pointing at me. “So, Maximillian, what is the definition of the word ‘mean’?” she asked.

            I shrugged. “Ugh, Miss, ‘mean’ means cruel or horrible to something,” I blurted out, knowing it was wrong but not knowing anything else. I didn’t remember being awake for our lesson on maths vocab, I didn’t remember us having it. My mate told me about it at lunch that day.

            “Correct in English, however this is Mathematics…” I didn’t hear the rest, my eyes and ears shut for ages. If the world had ended, I wouldn’t have known. Luckily, well not very luckily, actually, it did not end. That’s sort of how I’m telling you this.

            Finally I woke up again, just in time to hear this: “Mean, Median, Mode and Range. I shall drill those words into your heads!” Everyone laughed. “I’m serious!” she yelled back. Everyone laughed again. Little did they know, she truly meant it.

***

After the lesson, Mrs Anderson asked me to remain seated.             “Maximillian, you slept quite a bit of the lesson; therefore you must stay behind after school. Be here tomorrow at 3:15pm sharp,” she told me.

            “OK, Miss,” I replied with a nervous, shaky voice.

            “Good, so get out of here. It’s lunch period, remember?” she snapped. I left my seat and hurried to the canteen.

            I ate lunch with my best friend, Will. We both had the same thing: pasta salad and oranges. “You are so doomed,” Will teased for the hundredth time.

            “So what? I fell asleep. She’s not going to kill me or anything,” I replied.

            “Oh yes she will. You slept through an entire lesson, you didn’t do any of the work,” Will jeered, “Oh, and you missed the homework. Write ten different maths problems using mean, median, mode and range.”

            I cursed, “Any other homework?” I pulled out my diary and began to scribble.

            “For French, you need to conjugate dormir and choisir in present and past tense, for History you have to research a type of gladiator and create a model …”

            We went through the list of homework and due dates. There was a lot of homework.

***

The next day went like a blur. I shifted through Art, Religion, French and PE, forever thinking about my upcoming detention. My sleepy-headed nature wasn’t helping, and I got another strike for falling asleep in Religion and French. For both subjects I was one strike away from staying after school. I wish Mrs Anderson hadn’t added a day between me sleeping and the detention. Dread and foreboding feelings haunted me all day and all night. It wasn’t any fun having something to dread for ages.

            At lunch, Will ribbed me again. “You are sooo dead,” Will jeered.

            “Enough!” It was the second day of torture, and I lost my marbles. I lifted up my plate, with half a pizza still there plus the dessert of the day, and slammed it against the table. Craack! The plate split in half. Custard leapt out of the paper bowl that all desserts came in and splashed Will’s own pizza, and he stared at me in shock. He wasn’t the only one; every living creature with eyes was pointing them at me. All over the canteen, people dropped their food and gave me shocked stares. For once, the canteen was utterly silent.

            Five seconds later, the world recovered. People didn’t touch their food, they simply joined the chorus of muttering to each other and gossiping, which, at this rate, was going up in a steady crescendo.

            I was dead. The caretakers would make me clean up and I’d be suspended. And before all that happened, my school’s umpteen bullies would turn any part of school into nightmare-land.

            Callum Smith was the main bully. Big, beefy and downright stupid, Callum was your average cliché delinquent, with eleven suspensions under his belt. He didn’t wear school uniform, because nobody, not even Mr Jones, the PE teacher with a black belt in Karate, would dare prosecute him. He’d once nearly killed a teacher for complaining about his gung-ho attitude. After returning from several months in hospital, it was agreed that the teacher should take early retirement at forty-eight. And guess what? He bumped into me on the way out.

            Now I was face-to-face with the meanest, toughest kid on the planet. You never knew what nasty surprise he had in store for you. Would he hang me from one of the basketball posts? Or tie me to a tree and beat my guts with a baseball bat till I puked up my breakfast? As school psychopaths go, Callum was the number one.

            I could tell he was here to bring terror to me after I broke the plate and spilled gooey yellow custard everywhere. As Year Elevens went, Callum was the only one that scared me one bit.

            “Yo, turd!” Callum greeted everyone like this.

            “Callum, I’m not in the mood. I’ve a detention with Mrs Anderson and now the caretakers are giving me a two-day suspension, for God’s sake!” I realised I shouldn’t have told Callum this.

            “Vell zen, it ish time dat I varmed you up for zat, turd,” this was Callum’s evil voice. I think it was meant to sound like Hitler or somebody, but it just sounded dorky. Not that I’d tell him.

            I expected a punch, so I ducked. Big mistake. Instead, Callum kicked me. He got my head, arms and legs at once. At least he didn’t hit anything painful, like my broken ribs. Callum lifted me up and dragged me away.

            “Y’know, Maxine, I’ve always wanted to do this to you,” I hated it when people called me Maxie or Maxine.

            ‘What was wrong with calling me a turd?’ I asked, deciding on the lesser of two evils. Callum didn’t hear me.

            Callum dragged me to the wildlife area. He thrust me against the gate. At first I thought this is what he had ‘always wanted to do’, but I realised he had something millions of times worse planned when the door swung open. The ridiculous thing about the wildlife area was that the gate was locked by a chain. The chain could be shaken out with very little force. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I saw a junior caretaker use a key. Callum’s Physics level being anywhere between G+ and E-, I dared myself not to think how he worked that out. Come to think of it, he would have done it by experimentation.

            Callum shoved me inside. He then dragged me to a tree leaning over a pond. I now realised why Callum was wearing wellies. He slung my feet onto the tree and waded in, dragging me along. After a few steps, he simply tied me up and pushed me along. He stuck a sponge in my mouth and gagged me. Then he left, locking the door behind him.

***

I knew getting out would be the hard bit. I was gagged, and if I did get the filthy sponge out of my mouth, the caretakers wouldn’t come after me. They would have lost their marbles all the way on Mars, and wouldn’t care if I was going to end up with at least one detention for messy uniform and maybe another in Geography for being late. Mr Stevens, my Geography teacher, wouldn’t take any excuses for being late. Unless you couldn’t get to school because of something severe, you landed yourself in a tough detention. So I wasn’t looking forward to that.

            Then I realised something. Callum had been able to slide me along while tied. There must have been enough slack in the rope for it to be possible to move me along. Without doing it so hard as to break the rope or branch, I jerked myself sideways. I kept doing this until I could do it no more.

Now came the hard bit. There was a foot or so of water left, so I couldn’t free myself easily. Instead, I flipped myself on top of the branch and spat out the sponge. I laid into the knot with my teeth, and, after some thorough biting, destroyed it and slid away.

            If he thought I would just lie there and not outfox his lazy strategy, then Callum was wrong about me in every single way. Apart from me lying to sleep in the bushes, where he’d left some thumbtacks. Damn, those hurt.

***

After school, I headed towards Mrs Anderson’s class. It was difficult. My last class of the day was Science in E-Block. Mrs Anderson’s classroom was in A-Block and getting from one to the other was always a challenge, especially after school. First, you had to pass through the tennis court without disturbing the after-school Tennis Club. Then, you had to pass through C-Block out via the correct door, then go past the running track. This was no easy task, because it was the place children went to while they waited for clubs to start, or because they wanted to loiter. Then it was easy because Mrs Anderson’s class was the first on left from the A-Block door onto the running field.

            Mrs Anderson was waiting for me at the A-Block door. She led me to her classroom. On her desk I saw something covered by a tea-towel. She silenced me before I could ask about it.

            “It’s time,” she said. She motioned for me to go to my seat as she strode towards her desk. Mrs Anderson’s detentions were notoriously long and dull, in fact so long and dull. In fact, their longness and dullness was the rumoured reason for several odd deaths over the years. I pulled out my water bottle should I near the lethal limit of boredom.

            She picked up the object I’d noticed. Now I could see what was. It was a drill. I swore. That was new. I hadn’t sworn before. It felt weird.

            All the hairs on my body stood up on end. My muscles tensed instantly. My hands became tight fists. My eyes flew around the room, searching for a way to escape but I couldn’t find a single route. I was trapped.

            I should have listened in class, and now I was paying the price. My pessimistic thoughts were backed up by the evil smile on Mrs Anderson’s face.

            There was something strange about the smile. So strange my blood boiled. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I worked it out. The smile was moving, like a singer at a concert failing to lip-sync. Strangely, no words were coming out. Then I heard it. In my mind an evil laugh so evil it couldn’t exist in even the devil’s mouth. I began to drift into insanity.

***

After five seconds or so, I exited the daze and snapped back to reality. Mrs Anderson moved closer, getting ready to spray my brains all over the place. Her finger twitched and suddenly the drill started spinning, the tip aimed for my skull. I cried out as I recoiled in my chair, throwing it backwards. The teachers were wrong. Every once in a while, it is good to rock in your chair, so you don’t get hit by a big cordless drill.

            The table came with me. The drill fell from Mrs Anderson’s hand and flew straight at the back wall. It hit it side-on and merely fell, not a scratch in sight. I dived past the chairs and desks dominating the ground, heading straight for the drill with Mrs Anderson hot on my heels.

            Her foot flew forwards, straight into my back, sending me flying straight for the wall. I crashed into it, my eyes flashed shut, as my hand tried to reach the drill. I merely touched the deadly weapon, I couldn’t grip it. I flew backwards as the force of the impact sent my body recoiling.

            By the time I managed to re-open my eyes, Mrs Anderson already had the drill. She loomed over me, the drill floating towards my head like a pendulum.

            Then, my eye caught something – my water bottle. I’d put it on the desk. When my feet hit the table, it must have rolled off. If I could reach it, I could squirt the water at the drill and damage it. My hand flew out faster than a lightning bolt. It gripped the bottle and shot back in.

The drill was now centimetres from my head; I realized I had to act fast. I ripped off the lid and aimed. My hand crushed the bottle. Water flew out in all directions. Then I heard two noises – the whine of a wet mechanism shutting down – and another – Mrs Anderson screaming with fury. Good and bad news at once.

***

I leapt for my bag, grabbed it and charged out of the room. I raced out of A-Block and charged straight for the Reception Block. I raced through the halls and corridors and made it to the bicycle rack. I snatched my bike off the rack and leapt on top of it. I momentarily praised my expensive racing bike.

            I pedalled faster than I ever had, powering toward the open gates. I shot onto the road; it was faster home along the road than the pedestrian way.

            But, to my horror, blocking the road was Mrs Anderson’s car!

            I turned on to the walkway and shot past at maximum speed. I knew I was being chased but I thought I knew what I was doing. I pedalled hard, constantly moving left and right. I went off the path home and headed in another direction – towards Scratchwood, and in particular, a service station.

            First though, I had a call to make.

***

The race was a mad run. I jumped fences, twisted around corners, doubled back to trick Mrs Anderson … Every trick in the book was being played out at once. It was the scariest moment of my life.

            My front tyre hit a small mound, throwing me over the handlebars. I crashed head-first, and for a few dire seconds I was seeing stars. I heard brakes whine behind me, and adrenaline brough me back into the zone. I leapt back on my bike as Mrs Anderson’s car slowed to a halt. I was off.

***

It must have been an hour before I got to Scratchwood. But I hadn’t felt a bead of sweat on my skin. 100 metres away was my target. It was a risky plan, I knew, but I was ready for anything. I headed straight for the service station.

            Suddenly I heard firing and tipped my bike over, narrowly missing the rain of lethal ammunition from the guns of HMS Belfast. Mrs Anderson’s car, though, had no escape. I watched the torrent of bullets hit the car. Windows shattered, leather seats were torn, sparks flew from the engine …

            The sight made me wonder what it’s like for soldiers in the armed forces.

            Barely a minute later, the firing stopped. I stared through the cracked windscreen. But I didn’t see Mrs Anderson. All I saw was the lifeless, mutilated body of Callum Smith and the remains of some cash.

            I still don’t know Callum’s part of the operation, but I think she might have paid him to block my escape. I snuck back the way I had come and rode home, happy and safe.

***

One hour earlier

“Hi mum,” I panted, struggling to keep my mobile to my ear.

          “Max, I’m still at work,” Mum snapped, “why can’t you call Dad?”

          “Because I need help from you in particular,” I said.

          “What can I possibly do Dad can’t?” Mum almost growled down the line.

          “When do you clean the Belfast’s guns next?” I asked.

          “Forty-five minutes, why’s that important?” Mum asked.

          “Good,” I panted, “Listen, Mum, I’m being chased. I’ll be in Scratchwood in an hour, can you fire off the guns?”

          “I don’t get what you need them for, and you’ll owe your whole life, but I’ll try,” Mum hung up.

          I looked behind me. Mrs Anderson was closing. I quickened my pace, outmanoeuvring her.

***

That was how I cheated death. Unfortunately I had Maths the next day and everything went downhill from there. I’ll leave that for later. That was just a bit gory…

I'll also be a adding a copy to my site, but I need to scream a naughty words at Google Docs first, so hang in there, OK? Amazon and Kobo are next.

Problem

I'm from many a minority group. These groups are rarely liked, and, believe it or not, those bureaucrats pushing for equal rights haven't got to us yet.

And so, because of my dismal lack of rights, I can't upload Mean, Median, Mode and Murder just yet. It will be in the back of Welcome to DROL (eBook and possible paper edition), so yeah, I should have that sorted.

I had a fight with my editor recently (not about editing), so until I have more material, I sitting on Mean, Median, Mode and Murder. I'd rather have a chair, actually.

Self-Publishing: A World of well...

I think I mentioned this before, but I'm a self-published author. This means a few things:

-I don't have to have a manuscript accepted by a publisher
-Without a publisher, I have to arrange my own cover, editing, translations etc.
-I have to market my own work, unassisted, by myself

Now, the main point of this blog post is to highlight services and tips I find useful, since I started working on Welcome to DROL in October. I'll break them down into sections. Here's my contents:

1) Writing your book
2) Editing, covers, and finalisations
3) Getting your book on the market
4) Marketing your book

1) Writing your book:

Writng a book or short story you know will be self-published, you know you will not get a professional editor (unless you know people and want to cough up the cash, which I'm not talking about). You also know that your cover, unless you pay, is not done by a professional artist. Again, this tutorial assumes you have a budget of zero.

This stuff is worth keeping in mind as you write, even though it isn't important until Part 2. It is pretty much hypocrisy (no other way to put it) to assume someone high up will find your book, decide it's a diamond in the rough, and get you properly published the old-fashioned way. That's unrealistic. You hear about it all the time, like bestselling authors, but both are minority groups and counting on getting into either, or both, is hazardous.

For Welcome to DROL, I did a lot of self-editing. Because my self-editing at one point turned into a rewrite, it is relevant. Self-editing is a great skill, because it helps outline flaws in your plot you don't want people seeing, or get rid of silly mistakes that are just embarrassing. During my rewrites, I have found a plot element I forgot about, and then had to go through a fix a lot of things. It is hard work, but it's necessary.

The only way I know to be rejected in self-publishing is inappropriate content. Now, this means whatever crappy story you come up with is in the wild without being tamed and told by a publisher it's terrible. High standards are essential. A novice writer like myself can't always (possibly ever if I'm unlucky) achieve the high standards of bestselling, published competition. My best hope, and yours too, is to dump something that smells, and move on. Have say, a OneNote file full of categorised ideas you can come back to decide what you want to do next. If a story smells bad but you think you can improve it, try, but not too many times. I have DOZENS of unfinished, horrendously awful manuscripts on my hard disk.

Listening to myself in my head, I might sound a bit commanding. But, to be fair, you are not being stopped by anything, so it is imperative you self-edit, you consider quality, and you don't plan for the best. It's a painful way to a painful end.

2) Editing, covers, and finalisations

So your book is done, right? Do a proofread. Read it out loud, take all the time you want. My first proofread (copyedit) took over a week, maybe two. This is key. Before you find someone to edit, make sure it's something YOU would pick, buy, and read. That's what I do.

An editor can be hard to find. Well, not really, but one who does the job well. Family is not always the best idea, but sometimes (for me) it works, if someone is prepared to stamp the word 'crap' on your manuscript. When I finished proofreading Welcome to DROL, I got a least a dozen people to edit it. Not everyone has the time, or remembers, or ever gives you feedback, but someone hopefully will. Don't jump of the fastest of your editors (if you get lucky and have multiple) because I can tell you now it gets confusing.

Your book needs a good title, and a good cover. Titles should come first. It has to make someone do a double-take if they see it in the Kindle Store, like Welcome to DROL, which is confusing, because your reader won't yet know what the heck DROL is, or Mean, Median, Mode and Murder, which is odd because I swapped 'range' with 'murder'. I don't know much about the quality of my titles, but they are at least quirky. Yours should be too.

Once you have a cool title, you need a cover to match. I happened to have previoustly bought an Adobe package with Fireworks, so I had pro software to do both covers with. However, if you don't have that sort of budget for a £200 Student licence for Adobe Web Premium, try Paint.NET. It's awesome and it's free. When making a cover, I recommend using a stylus on a touchscreen device. When I did my covers, I did them on an All-in-One PC with no stylus, and used my mouse, but on my current tablet I do have a s stylus, and it's really useful.

I wouldn't worry about a back cover. This tutorial is really for ePublishing, and I haven't seen anything much about back covers. So don't worry.

Getting your book translated is something that is very hard. I am a fairtly fluent multilingual, but my French and my Bulgarian couldn't even cover me for Mean, Median, Mode and Murder. If English is your second language, you may find it easier. You may need a Languages degree to do a quality translation of a novel, and that's a lot of effort, and money. A pro translator is cheaper.

3) Getting your book on the market

In this section, I'll discuss services I know of that can help with the self-publishing of an eBook. Here are a few:

-Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) - if nothing, start here. Kindle is the biggest eBook store in the world, and the service is easy to use, and has a crazy amount of tutorial pages. Depending on pricing, you can get a 35% or even 70% stake on each sale, and that's a good deal. KDP is no-fuss and offers DRM.

-B&N PubIt - This only applies to Americans, but Barnes & Noble's service could be for you, if have a US tax ID, US citizenship, a US address and a heck of a load of other US [insert text here].

-iBooks - This is another one I don't qualify for (I live in London). You need a tax ID, and if you don't do everything by Apple's damned book, you're in an exclusive, which sucks. Otherwise, the (stupid for buying them) iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch users can read your book at an elevated price, because this is Apple.

-Kobo Writing Life - At last, something I qualify for. Kobo Writing Life is as easy and no-fuss as KDP, but you get paid every 6 months. At least the statistics available with ease are good.

Now let me throw something out there that isn't for eBooks:

Amazon CreateSpace is a POD (Print on Demand) trade paperback self-publishing service. Because it's on paper, it's fiddlier, and there's no specified royalty. Whatever it is, it's not much. It's a great way to get paper books out, but's a lot of fuss.

4) Marketing your books

I have a blog (as you well know) and a Twitter. This is all for publicity. The idea is someone finds me on Twitter, or sees my blog, and then they find and buy my books (when they're out). I've started way early to make sure I can cover ground, and you should too. I may only have 4 followers on Twitter, but at least I have them now, and they know who I am and what I do (if they aren't creepy zombie accounts) and so may buy my books.

Advertising requires money. A Google Site, Twitter, Facebook, and a Blogger don't. So do social networking instead.

Another trick, which I haven't tried much yet, is talking to people and getting the word out. Basically, it's an overglorified way of saying 'tour', do signings (if you have paper books), and do talks and public readings to attract attention. It's also a great way to meet your fans (if you get any).

So yeah, my lengthy tutorial on self-publishing. Thanks for reading.

My Big Announcement

A few days ago on Twitter ( www.twitter.com/abcoatesbooks ) I said I would announce something that will come out BEFORE Welcome to DROL. That, I will now announce.

Anyone reading this, I give you...

Mean, Median, Mode and Murder

This was a short story I wrote a few years ago, and the first thing I ever wrote I was ever proud of. I will be selling it for £0 on Amazon Kindle and Kobo, and may add a download link on my site once I learn to attach DRM to a PDF.

Here is the cover:

And here is the synopsis:

Hi, I'm Max. I am a sleepyhead. That's maybe not such a good thing. I reckon I learned that lesson the hard way.

Maths lessons are boring. Kids don't always remember stuff, or they sleep through the whole lesson, like me. Every once in a while, teachers have to drill mathematical understanding into kids' heads. And when that happens, well, let's just say it gets a bit violent...

I will be releasing it on 3 September. It will, as I said before, be a free eBook. It's not worth doing a paper version, because it's not even ten pages long. And that's why it's not worth charging for either...

I might quote it later on the blog.

First Post

Oh hello,

My name is A. B. Coates. I am a self-published writer. I have an upcoming novel called Welcome to DROL. I've got a few links below, one will tell you what you need to know about it.

Website: https://sites.google.com/site/abcoatesbooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ABCoatesBooks

Anyway, I think I might do something interesting in my first blog post. How about show my favourite quote (which is longer than 140 characters, by the way).

Here it is, from the end of Part I:

"            I’d never felt so insecure. I guessed it was the fear of the unknown, the inability to prepare for what the future would hold, that scared me the most. Whatever was to come, whatever calamity, I wasn’t ready."

So yeah, that's my favourite quote. The book will be coming to Kindle and Kobo people in late September/early October, by the way. I may release a paper version if I get enough people looking at the eBook.