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Although it’s simply staggering how quickly this year is passing by, I’m kind of excited that it’s October, because that means that my birthday is coming up! The past year has been quite amazing and I’ve come so far, thanks to all the wonderful people who’ve read my work and supported me in this effort to become an author. I feel like giving something back and so I am. I will be giving away 5 Signed Copies of Just Another Day at the Office via Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. I’m told it’s quite simple to enter, but you do need to be a Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ member already (if you’re not, it’s possible to sign up via Facebook or Twitter, which might be worth doing, assuming you love to read.) See the giveaway box below to enter, or head over to Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ directly.

Giveaway ends October 31, 2013.

See the giveaway details

at Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ.

Enter to win

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It’s been a while since I announced that part two of The Ascot Series was in the making. It took a bit longer than expected, for that I am sorry. To make it up to everyone who has been waiting patiently all this time, I’m launching it FREE for two days; today and tomorrow!

Get your copy now at

Like many self published authors, I have spent a lot of time wondering whether KDP Select is worth bothering with or not. Is it really worth signing up for exclusivity, just to get 5 Free Promo days per 90 days? When I started, I signed up for it and tried it out. It worked, at least to some extent. I was able to get word out there about my books by making use of the .

Then I finished writing my serial, Just Another Day at the Office, and decided that the first part should always be free. If you’ve ever looked into how to do this, you’ll be aware that the ONLY way of making Amazon give a book away for free permanently, is to upload it elsewhere, set the price to zero and wait for Amazon to price match. That’s what I did; I uploaded my books everywhere I could possibly figure out how, and made part one free.

Now I feel it’s time to evaluate whether branching out has been the right decision. I put my royalty income from all sales platforms over the past 1 year into a spreadsheet and was quite surprised by what I found out. Obviously Amazon is by far the biggest source of royalties, but I found unexpected stats for some of the smaller outlets.

I have been on Amazon longer than anywhere else, so this breakdown may change over time. Also, the above chart was made off of royalty income. This is an important point to note: The majority of my work sells for $0.99 which means I get only 35% royalty at Amazon. Some of the other outlets pay better at that price level, meaning that they form a larger share of my royalty income, compared to actual books sold compared to Amazon.

Another thing to note is the Smashwords segment in the chart; it represents almost exclusively sales via Barnes & Noble. My work is not yet available on Apple, but when it does, I expect income from Smashwords to grow significantly.

The two surprise entries are Google Play and All Romance Ebooks. Ever since I entered those two markets in April this year, sales have steadily been going up, seemingly unhindered by seasonal slumps or other variations. I expect that at least Google sales will continue to grow as it’s a significant potential market; just imagine what would happen if the majority of Android phone and tablet owners started to really take Google Play serious for their book purchases. I believe we’re now just at the beginning and provided they don’t fuck up, Google could become a force to be reckoned with.

BTW, if you prefer to look at percentages rather than colourful pie charts, the breakdown is as follows: Amazon 68%, Smashwords 14%, Google 10%, All Romance Ebooks 6% and Kobo 2%.

Recently I noticed some joyous announcements from friends on Facebook who managed to get their books signed by publishers. Some managed to catch the attention of a smaller press, some were signed by bigger names. While I’m pleased for them and what they’ve achieved, all of this got me thinking as well. Should this be a goal for me? Once I’ve worked really hard finishing a new story or novel, should I then send it around agents and publishers, hoping that one of them will like it and make me an offer? If I am not dreaming of being picked up by a large publishing company who will put my book into every supermarket and every big book store, does that mean I’m not serious? I came into this world last year upon learning about self publishing and getting very excited by the possibilities ahead. Seeing my book on a shelf in a store has not been a lifelong dream of mine, I just write because I’m feeling a story and there is no other logical way for it to materialise.

Sure, there are advantages to getting a publishing contract; they’ll sort out some of the practical stuff like getting a cover made, editing and proofreading. They’ll format the book for me and handle distribution. BUT: they won’t sell my book for me, they won’t put a huge marketing plan in place because I’m not a household name. While I suppose they might possibly get my book reviewed somewhere or other, they won’t make me a bestseller unless I’m very, very lucky. I’d still have to promote my book, try to get attention on social media and all of that other stuff which I’ve got to do on my own as well.

And, even if I ignore for a moment that I’d get a smaller percentage of royalties from each sale, what I’d lose is my independence and flexibility. If I find a typo in one of my books now, I can simply open the file on my computer, make a correction and upload the new version within a few minutes. If I feel that the price is hindering sales, I can put it up or down at will. (If any of you disagree, feel free to let me know, but) I don’t think I have a problem with formatting in either ebook or print formats. They look professional to me (Thanks, ). If I finish a story or a sequel to a story, I can run it by some beta readers and subject to their feedback put it out into the world within a few days to a week. With a publisher, it could take a year. I can’t keep readers happy if there is a one year delay between me finishing a book and a publisher releasing it for sale, and that would stress me out.

Possibly this post is more interesting to other (indie) authors rather than readers, but I just felt like expressing this opinion. Who knows, maybe in a year or so I’ll change my mind and start searching for a publisher. But for now � as much work as it is � I’m enjoying my freedom, even the fact that I have to keep track of what version of which book I’ve uploaded to which retailers (and believe me, that gets quite overwhelming at times). I like checking my sales figures every so often and see results perhaps after doing a giveaway or interview. And I even enjoy having to do or outsource my covers and formatting. It adds to the satisfaction of actually creating something, beyond words on a computer screen.

The lovely has kindly allowed me to take up a little space on her blog today for her A Day in the Life feature. So if you’ve ever wondered what I (and the other people she’s featured previously) get up to on an average, boring old day, check out !

(A tiny little sample below:)

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UUUUUUUUUPPPPPPP!

And so I do, almost. Clumsily feeling around the bed, underneath my pillow, accidentally elbowing the hubby while trying to locate my phone to turn off the infernal Crazy Frog Alarm still ringing in my ears. There are probably less annoying ringtones I could use to get me out of bed in the morning. None of the others are quite so effective in discouraging me from simply giving it five more minutes though.

For anyone who doesn’t follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you may have missed that I did two interviews recently. I’ve you’re curious to find out more about how I got into writing and also some more information about Just Another Day at the Office, you’re in luck because that’s exactly what I’m talking about in the interviews. Please do take a look if you like.

- By the way, if you haven’t read her work yet, I can highly recommend her Memoirs of a Gigolo serialised novel!

For anyone who’s been following the blog, I was a little bit upset earlier this week about the prospect of all our internet being censored in the UK. Well since I’d complained about it so much, a friend of mine invited me to join him on his show on the to talk about it a little bit.

I won’t lie, I was a bit nervous because I’m the sort of person who � if possible � will choose to email or text someone rather than phone them. But I guess it went alright. Enjoy

`Find the full episode here:Ìý

Disclaimer: I know I am breaking my own rule of not getting vocal about politics, but hey, I couldn’t help myself. It is also about politics in the UK. I promise I won’t feel bad if everyone ignores my little rant below�

Since yesterday I’ve been having a hard time keeping quiet. In between all the excitement about a baby being born which in no way affects any of us really, David Cameron made a confusing announcement which was covered by my radio station of choice in just one sentence: “David Cameron plans to block internet porn by means of an ‘opt-in� system� or thereabouts. On my drive to and from work, I only half listen to the news bulletin usually, but this made me wake up; hang on, he’s doing what now? This deserves further research�

In short, as far as I could gather, David Cameron is trying to save our children from being corrupted by the great evils of internet pornography. Oh and to make him look like a total hero, let’s toss around the terms rapists, paedophiles and child porn a few times so everyone will automatically agree with his plans. In fact this proposed measure is not (just) about blocking access to child porn or videos of abuse. He wants the entire internet to by default be the happy, fluffy, child-safe zone it has never been. But only with regards to sex. Violence and hate mongering is still fine even for children to see apparently. He is conveniently failing to mention the occasional decapitation video which is probably quite a bit more traumatising to children than your average cumshot.

While I guess most people might agree that children should not accidentally be able to stumble across (child) porn, his plans of making ISPs implement a filter which is meant to block access to anything and everything adult in nature is ridiculous. Not only has he gone around calling his wonderful idea an “opt-in� system which if you don’t pay attention sounds great. Only if you listen carefully do you realise that you don’t “opt in� for the filter, you get the filter by default. You need to “opt in� to porn. Great. So you will need to contact your ISP, tell them you’re a pervert who likes to look at adult material, and ask for the filter to be turned off. Dave, you cunt, that’s called opting OUT, not in! Also, I like to think I’ve seen my fair share of the internet, starting from when I was young, impressionable and still in school. I can’t recall often finding myself in the situation where I’m looking for say a recipe or a book review, and accidentally encountering a video of someone getting it up the ass. If I want to see that sort of thing, I specifically search for it.

The first thing that crossed my mind was: wonderful, so every ISP will have a neat little record of all the deviants who asked for the filter to be turned off. How handy, since more than likely any potential rapists or child molesters are likely to be amongst those who would like their porn back, so those can perhaps more easily be monitored. The second thing I thought was, but filters don’t work, do they? As clever as technology has become, even Google can’t figure out how to eliminate false positives and adult content with seemingly innocent descriptions being misclassified by child safe filters. What hope do the mere humans at the ISPs have? (On a side note, would you like to see a wonderful example of filtering gone wrong in action? Open up Tumblr on your mobile and try searching for “gay� or “bisexual�. Yep. No results.) Also, does anyone think it would take the average horny teenager more than 5 seconds to bypass the filter? I think not.

Of course mentioning the phrase “child porn� is getting especially Daily Mail readers very excitable. Why and how can anyone oppose such a thing when child porn is so very obviously evil? Listen up, dickheads, child porn is already illegal to watch, possess and distribute. We do NOT need any more laws to ban it! And remember when we hear those stories, of those shitty totalitarian regimes we’re so pleased we don’t have to live in, banning random things they don’t like online? How Google in China for example only gives you the squeaky clean version of how Tibet isn’t actually Tibet but has always been part of China and the locals just love it that way? Remember how we feel relieved that we in fact have a free, uncensored internet which doesn’t just represent the assholes who happen to be in charge on the country? Yeah. Not for long. The slippery slope argument gets dragged out for a lot of things nowadays, but is it really so far fetched to think that what our wonderful government stands for today might change a few elections from now? What if they’d like to filter out a little bit more then?

This whole situation is a big clusterfuck, and I’m not even going into the fact that while Cameron has been out congratulating himself for being our moral protector, his government is responsible for cuts to organisations which support victims of abuse.

Fucking Tories. Screw this, I’m going home.

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It has been ages since I published Ladies� Day on Amazon; well that’s how it feels to me anyway. Last October, I took the plunge and unleashed my first story onto the world; a short erotic tale set against the backdrop of the busiest time of year in British horse racing � Royal Ascot. Although it hasn’t been as popular as stories I published after (Just Another Day at the Office, most notably), still I’m told people would like to find out what happens next for Claudia and Peter.

Ladies� Day tells the story of a chance encounter between Claudia � just your ordinary girl next door with a wild side to her � and Peter, who happens to be parked along the route Claudia takes on her way home from work. Despite their differences in background, social status, and even their significant age gap, they can’t deny the attraction they feel for each other.

Fast-forward four months, and it looks like Peter will be in Claudia’s neighbourhood once more. He invites her to accompany him to yet another horse racing event; British Champions Day. But can they just continue where they left off, or has their moment well and truly passed? Furthermore are the differences between them just too great to overcome?

Oh my, I’ve really been rubbish at keeping the blog up-to-date, I’m sorry!

Today though, I do have something new to say. It’s Romance Trope month during all of July at and I’m honoured to be one of the authors guest blogging about it. My entry has gone live today and I’m saying my bit about the Ugly Duckling trope, or at least my perhaps unusual interpretation of it in Just Another Day at the Office (which as many of you will know is available in full on ).

Check it out here: