People have asked how I find the time to write when I have a full time job as a police officer. If you have a passion for something and you want to follow your dreams, you will find time. In my case, I write on my commute into London which takes just under an hour. I like to get 1000 words written on the commute in, then 1000 words written on the way home. Anything above that is a bonus. Then I have a ride on the tube where I get the chance to read on my Kindle and catch up with all my favourite authors and whatever new ones I discover.
So there's always time if you really want to do something. Stop putting problems in the way of your goals. I think that's true for anything in your life, not just writing. I'm a great believer in the Law of Attraction, that if you focus on your goal, opportunities will present themselves to you. If you're in the zone, you'll recognise these opportunities and you can grab them. My goal was to get a book published. I've already done that and at the time of writing, I've four books out with a fifth due out soon. If I continued with that goal, I'd never progress beyond publishing more books. It's made me realise I have to alter my goals, so now I'm aiming to sell 100,000 copies of my books. You can't just sit back and repeat the process. There are indie authors who are making a good living from this and I've made it my mission to see how they are doing this. Sure, there's talent and a good book people want to read, but there's also one key element I've always overlooked:
Marketing.
If people don't know about your book, how can you sell 100,000 copies? I've started reading a few books on marketing books and I've learnt a lot already. By doing some simple tweaks of my published books, running a deal and a cheap Facebook ad campaign, it got Dead Again briefly in the top 100 British Horror Books on Amazon.
There's a lot of competition in the book world, but you can't let that be a block to what you want to achieve; believe in yourself. I'll do another blog on how I'm marketing in more depth and hopefully some of my fellow indies can learn from this as I am learning.
Now to the progress of my next novel...
My second book in my Dead series, Dead Twice, is now finished and with my editor. It's taken around six months for this to be completed and 6 drafts. It took that many to decide on which ending I wanted! What's this one about? Like in Dead Again, the main character, Paige, is murdered and returns to life to try and figure out who killed her. This time she finds her own body and hides it, covering up her own murder. For those who read Dead Again, there's an explanation given for why these people are coming back, but you'll have to read Dead Twice to find out. For readers of my first novel, Father's Song, you'll find a return of an ancient evil from that book, but I'm not going to reveal too much here.
Here's an outline for Dead Twice, release dates coming soon:
What happens when Paige is murdered and returns to life, finding her own dead body a few feet away? What else can she do but hide the body and hope she can find her killer before it's discovered?Has she just covered up the killer's crime? What is the roaring she keeps hearing after returning to life? Is it a symptom of life after death and what are the Water Voices?Someone wants Paige dead, but her best friend has gone missing and she knows she's also in trouble from the same killer. Could it be her friend's boyfriend? Why did Paige's ex run out on her and what secrets could her sister in law be holding?Time runs out as her killer learns she's back and events get darker for Paige as she follows the trail of her killer until she learns the past can return with a vengeance. A crime thriller that goes beyond death and questions the very fabric of reality.