The year in review

Pic: johnmannophoto.com

The year speeds up towards the end, like many things nearing their finish. The older one gets, the faster time goes... and it doesn't only seem that way. Time really progresses at a faster rate, it's out of our control, and I'll not go into the science to prove it. You know what I'm talking about. A saucepan lid, a spun coin, or spinning top will gather speed as it girates towards the end of its agitation.

And agitation seems to be the key word around Christmas and Year's End: we swear we won't do it again next year, and yet we fall into the same pattern. It's fun while it lasts, but goodness knows it doesn't.

So 2013 ... phew - a tough one, eh? Yes - full of a number of perplexing details and travails that are gratefully behind us now. What a hard one it was. Demanding and testing. But a lot of boxes were ticked, a number of triumphs and hurdles were gained and leaped, on the home front and professionally. Another novel out, and another one started. Covers, prices, and advertising campaigns tried, tweaked, tested and more or less set in place. Decisions made for next year. Resolutions replaced with tempered plans.

Comparisons with preceding years are inevitable when December is over its halfway mark. Calculations are not exact, but it seems book sales are more than double those of 2012, which is gratifying and encouraging. Such encouragement, of course, is accompanied by the demand to do even better in 2014, which exacts more hard work and machinations.

Careful calculations and estimates, forecasts and predictions, however, indicate that next year will be arduous like no other since, so reason and prudence hold one at gunpoint. What's the best way to proceed with the prospect of a very demanding year ahead? The answer is: slowly, and with all the sense and restraint one can muster.

Finishing the new novel is postponed until 2015. Planned novellas are on hold. Publicity and promotions will proceed at a fraction of the furious rate of 2013. Time spent online will be rationed, cleverly and with sensibility. Everything will hopefully slow to a manageable pace.

Have you made the same kind of decision? What does 2014 hold for you - agitation, or the tranquillity that comes from knowing you are in control?

Book covers - the great debate

A Cate Myers design

Many authors love their book covers so much they have posters of them made, framed, and hung in their study or office. I must admit to liking some of the covers of my books that much.

When BeWrite Books sent me this cover for approval, way back in 2005, for my first novel Death in Malta, I fell in love with it at once. My fans loved it too, and this first novel has been a nice steady success ever since. Sometimes, a cover and the content of a novel just click together, and readers sense this.

A Tony Szmuk design

I feel that typography is one of the most important elements on a cover: after all, one could dispense with everything else. The words - title and author's name - are not something a book can travel without. I like solid no-nonsense typefaces whose style seems to match with the book's content.

When BeWrite Books sent me the cover for According to Luke earlier this year I was not immediately convinced. It took me a while to see the genius of Tony Szmuk's design. Ever since the book was released, I have received any number of compliments about the novel's appearance. People praise its appropriate 'puzzle' suggestion, and the background that indicates the watery location of Venice.

It's far from easy to design a book cover. Designers are visual people - and they rarely have time to read a whole novel in order to conjure the image that might interpret and promote it best. By the same token, authors are 'word' people who rarely understand visual prompts as well as those trained to understand what makes people love a cover. Or better still, makes them buy a book because they like the cover.

A Rosanne Dingli design

When it came to designing covers for my story collections, issued independently from a bunch of out of print collections, whose rights had reverted to me, it was a steep learning curve. All the years of art school seemed not to mean much at first, but my training there - and a background working in magazines and publishing - soon put me right. My latest effort, Encore, is here on the right. It's wrapped around my latest collection, released in time for Christmas gift-giving, so I hope it is suitably festive. Apart from being merely seasonal, however, it is meant to carry a bunch of stories all written around a music theme.

To come up with what you see, it took me a fortnight of playing around with concepts, images, words and colours. I am not the fastest person on earth to make a decision, let alone the two dozen or so selections one must make to create a cover. The process was slow and deliberate this time. The opinions of a number of groups and individuals were taken into account. Now the little book is out, and I hope will gladden me with the approval of a whole lot of happy gift-buyers this Christmas.

Your opinion is required: What do you think of the covers of all my books? These are only three ... there are several more, which can be seen on my website.

A candid opinion is a rare thing - I would like as many as you can muster. Leave one or two in a comment box for me.

How to use a bookshop

You'll be forgiven for thinking this is a no-brainer. How can one not know how to use a bookstore? You go in, see a book you like, and buy it, right? Right?

Ah, um, er... not really. Everything about the books industry has changed, and I don't just mean the introduction of ebooks and the advent of hand-held reading devices, either. The book selling industry has been evolving rapidly for some time, and learning how to use a book store is vital for a number of reasons.

Image via WikipediaThe first is because you like them - you love bookshops. The whole world is debating whether they will survive and everybody cries when one (or one chain) closes its doors. There are other reasons: bookstores make malls varied, make gift-buying for the person who has everything easier, and gently persuade, with smells, colours and textures. They attract youngsters to reading. They fulfil cultural, social, educational and economic roles. I am sure you can think of a dozen more reasons for having bookstores.

But learning how to use them in the new book-buying climate is essential. It's not as simple as enter, browse, buy. Oh no.

Buying books is personal, subjective, and can be expensive. Browsing, impulse buying, and whimsical purchases are all right for the very wealthy, or those with infinite space to store on either real or virtual shelves. But mistakes can be frustrating and costly. Learn how to purchase wisely. First, learn what kind of a reader you are, and also the reading likes and dislikes of those you know and love. Learn how to list what you have read so far. Also list your favourite authors and those you will not willingly read again. Look for "If you liked this, you will like that" lists on the web and at your library.

Examining your reading habits will make you a better user of bookshops, but that is not the most important thing to know about them. Here it is: it is physically impossible for bookshops to carry all the books available in print. Chances are they will not have what you are after. That author you spotted on a blog, that great book everyone at work was talking about, that title you overhead on the street, that paragraph you read over someone's shoulder on the train, from a book whose title now escapes you ... No - they won't be able to guess at the bookstore. No, it won't necessarily be on a bookshop shelf. Amazon.com has about seven million books on its shelves - can you imagine the size of shop needed to take that many books - even just one of each?

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So how are you going to find the books YOU want to read rather than what the store manager has selected for you from the millions available? How will you find that elusive novel people are buying in some other country, but not where you currently live, shop and work?

You can do it by learning how to put a bookshop to better use, and ensure its survival. Do your homework. Make some intelligent searches online, find those valuable hints. Make a list of overheard titles, books found on newspaper reviews, authors whose names elude you. Then march down to your favourite bookshop and MAKE AN ORDER.

That is what bookshops are really for: taking your orders and finding the books you want on their catalogues, which are enormous, but searchable. They access huge databases looking for the titles you seek, when you bang your fist on their counters! Bookshops are merely a portal to your reading material: all you see is the entrance. The contents are too big to keep in one shop or one location, so you need to ask for what you want. Place an order for any book on the Books in Print catalogue. If it's there, they should be able to get it for you.

Learn how to make your search for books a concerted effort between searching online, storing books on your eReader, downloading, keeping a good TBRL*, and ordering paper books. The result will be a rewarding variety of reading modes, materials you have actively chosen, and very fruitful book-buying experiences.

Leave me a comment on your book shop experiences: are you often disappointed in your search for a specific book? Have you examined how you shop? Are you willing to tweak your buying habits to help ensure the survival of bookshops?

*To Be Read List

What publicity means to an author

"What - we need an article on this? We all know how important publicity is. We write and write, and want as many people as possible to read our books."

I hear you - I feel the same way. What does publicity mean, though - and how much thought do we give it as we go about our authorly business? It used to be that we sent off a book to a publisher, waited for the day of release, and then sat back to wait for various reviews to show up. We would snail-mail media releases out, and wait to be interviewed.

Image:blog.gcbm.com.au

It is much faster now, and getting interviewed online is a snap. Reviews too pop up after the various book bloggers receive ARC copies your publisher sends out. It's wide-spread. It's easy, yes. But what does it really mean to you, the author?

"It means there's a lot more for us to do."

You got it. The onus of acquiring exposure is almost wholly and solely on the author's own desk. Interviews are time-consuming. Making lists of people to approach - ditto. Promotions are your concern, and you are either going to take it on, and face all its daunting tasks, or risk a black void. The dreaded black-out where no one knows about you, your name, your work ... no one will buy your books. It is a cliched truism: no one can purchase something they have no idea exists.

Pic courtesy zazzle.com

Publicity means hard work to the author: raising awareness that your book exists is no mean feat. Getting those books into shopping bags is easier said than done. And there are more places than shopping bags: you need to get eBooks onto digital appliances. How are readers going to download your novel if they have no idea you have written it?

"Isn't that what publicists are for?"
Yes, but publicists cost money - a lot of it. You might find some that advertise low-cost packages, but they are inundated with thousands of requests, of which yours will be just another one. You will be dealt the same deal as thousands of others, which is almost the same as not doing anything, if you have so much competition. You need something unique to you and your books, something only you can obtain for yourself, in a different kind of mix or 'package' from every other author out there. The clamour is such that what you devise needs to be select and tailored to the genre, subject matter, theme and purpose of your book.

"And only I can do that!"

Image= www.financetrails.com

Exactly. You do, however, have help. It comes in the shape and form of other writers, the fans you already have, your list of perfect outlets on the Internet, (what - you haven't made one up yet?) and the media kit you so lovingly put together. Oh yes - you have a lot to do. Your publisher seeks publicity too, so you can ride along on that for a while, but your publisher will love you to pieces if your publicity works along with theirs. Their objective is to make money selling as many books as possible, which matches your drive, enthusiasm and motivation, with one major difference.

"They do not only want to sell mine!"
You're getting good at this. Quite right - their objective is to sell as many of their books as they can, by all their authors, not just you. Only you are as passionately interested in your success as you are. So what this means to you is simple. You need to attract likely customers. Find links that will match your particular, special, important unique latest release to readers who are actively seeking something just like it.

"It's too late now - my book has been out for some time."
Don't give me that - it's never too late. Technology has developed to the point that many books now will never go out of print. So jump to it - to a reader looking for a good read, any book they have not heard of yet is a new book. This means your market is huge: a whole world of readers who have not yet heard of your book. And when you find them, they'll have found you.

Let me know if you have discovered any publicity outlets or recipes that work. What's your favourite kind of promotion? What works best for you? If you are a reader - what kind of publicity confirms that a particular book is right for you?

Still in Time to Enter the Draw

themorningglorivine

You have to be in it to win it. 

The draw for a free mailed paperback copy of Death in Malta is on in earnest - I have been receiving entries every day since I announced it.

What's this draw for?

Well, I thought I'd celebrate Death in Malta coming out on Kindle on October 2. That's reason to celebrate isn't it? I am a firm believer in eBooks. This, my debut novel, has been available digitally since it came out with BeWrite Books in 2005.

This Kindle launch, however, has given it a good boost. So I thought I'd give away a paperback to the first drawn name out of the hat.
There's still all weekend to enter. the draw takes place on November 1.


All you have to do is email the address where you'd like it mailed if you win to:

rosanne.dingli@gmail.com

If you would like a taste of the mystery, why not read Chapter One?

Click HERE, make a cup of whatever's your favourite, and sit back and enjoy. 
 

Good luck!

Death in Malta is on Kindle!

                                                        Image via WikipediaMy first novel, Death in Malta, was first published in 2001, in paperback and eBook, by Jacobyte Books.

This small South Australian publisher then amalgamated with BeWrite Books, who took me on in 2005. The novel has continued to sell, sometimes more slowly than others, but for a book that has been out there for some time, it's a nice little runner.

This month, it's been launched on Kindle, and to celebrate this new avenue, I am holding an old-fashioned raffle. And the prize is an old-fashioned paperback! Yes - Death in Malta as a paper paperback! Delivered by post to you, with real stamps and all, wherever you live in the world.

All you need to do to enter is send an email to rosanne.dingli@gmail com , giving your mailing address. Only entries that write to this email address are eligible. The draw will take place on November 1, so the last entry will be accepted on October 31.

To read a bit more about this book, you are very welcome to visit its own website.
 

Why I love Interiors Magazines

Courtesy House to Home

Come into my study, my bedroom or my lounge, and you will be astonished at the number of interiors magazines that are stacked, filed or simply lying around, waiting to be read. There are British home decoration magazines, American interiors journals, and of course Australian residential style periodicals.

Is it a covert passion, is it wishful thinking? Have I missed my calling and secretly desire to be an interior stylist, rather than a novelist? Why is this creative writer so taken up with the fine detail that goes into the furnishing and equipping of a home?

The answer is a simple one. Interiors are very good indicators of the character and life-attitude of the occupier of that space. Displayed belongings, kinds of books, colour, design and style are things that tell us a lot about the person who lives there. So I mentally choose the rooms the characters in my books might live in, and think of them in those spaces. Levels of tidiness are not as important as what a particular protagonist chooses to place on a shelf, or what colour to have the walls of a kitchen, or what kind of crockery to place food upon.

A character whose belongings are retro, say... sixties, would dress, think and behave in such a different way from another whose rooms are decked out in carefully chosen Regency antiques, with furniture that looks like it's been dipped in honey, and expensive curtains and carpets that reflect the era. A reader would know exactly how to mentally conjure these two different persons. A reader would imagine them accurately right away: simply from a description of what their houses look like on the inside.

Courtesy Best Home Design

When creating a 'baddie' I could put him in a house that is totally meticulously and scrupulously tidy, decorated in ultra-modern, sparse urban chic, in shades of beige, grey and dull white, with black and white steel-framed pictures on the walls. Here and there are highlighted objects in bright red: a cushion, an ornament, a vase. You can see him already, can't you? His hair is sleeked back, and he carefully adjusts a single tall ornament to precisely the correct position after his housekeeper has left. Then he takes the keys to the safe, which is in plain view in the bare office, where one sheet of paper lies on the desk. It's all sterile, and exact, particular and ... deadly.

All this from seeing a minimilist interior in a magazine! It is a visual metaphor: the steel is a precursor of his gun, the red splashes are of course blood.

Interiors: they can be so important in fiction. And my magazines provide the personality of every single character I create.

Keeping Track of What I Do !!

Image via Wikipedia
Each new day is a haze of words: blogging, commenting, and reading the works of other fascinating writers. The pile of books in my room is growing, and my 'to read later' bookmarks increase. They seem to multiply on their own.


It cannot be too different for those of you who have a finger in a number of Web pies. One day is not enough to read all you want, visit all the sites you follow, and put in a decent wordcount of original writing as well.

But we have many aids to help us keep track of who to follow, what not to miss, what to keep an eye on, and hopefully, where to take up on our current work-in-progress. That's the hardest one, I think. The distractions available to take an author away from writing are so numerous and so fascinating, it's hard to pull yourself back into the discipline you swore you would observe.

It's not hard for YOU to keep track of ME. Simply click on follow, over here to your right... yes, right there! And you can find my new posts by going to your Blogger Dashboard. Remember to keep your dashboard up, so you can check on all the changes taking place on the blogs you follow. It's simple really.

All you have to do now is find the time to read everything. Easier said than done.



Wish me luck - I'm doing exactly the same thing.
I'll keep track of what I do... or what I need to do. Accompanied by bill-paying, repair-making, family guiding and housekeeping, it becomes a daily juggle that requires energy and staying-power. 

Historical Fiction and Religious Culture

                                              Image via WikipediaI have been asked a number of times what my new book is about, and I say it's a puzzle thriller because I like the term. It does deal with religion, however, and does touch upon history. How Justinian had two dreams that bade him build two places of worship in distinctly different places. How he owned a great number of religious scrolls: a library that was added to with increasing passion and scholarship.
I also wrote about the Fourth Crusade, and the great translocation of knights, soldiers, weapons and supplies that took place between Venice and Constantinople. It was a time when history and religion were very tightly woven, when events resounded on civilisations in more than just a social way. It was often hard to distinguish the effect on society of certain events whose resonances were religious, politcal, or very often both.
I discuss the way various writings were made, and how scribes were employed at various stages to copy, collate and disseminate the scriptures. 
I have touched upon all these things, in a necessarily light way, without too much unnecessary detail - in order to give depth and colour to a thriller that takes place in contemporary time. My protagonists use mobile phones, computers, and modern means of conveyance: down to a fast waterbus in Venice, very fast trains, and planes between the various destinations to which I sent them hurrying, in mad pursuit of each other.
Religious fiction is popular: it can also be controversial. But if an author is sensitive and respectful, a number of very interesting things happen when books of this nature are published. People tend to look things up, to 'check' if they are real, to 'check' the authenticity of the various details that are mentioned and used in the story. A visit to my website will provide more: I list a number of similar books within the genre, and give a lot of background information about the facts I used while creating this story.
What also happens with books like this is that people do tend to debate and discuss the subject, and do return to the scriptures to refresh their memories. No matter what one thinks about religion, this kind of research can never be bad. Going back to address in a fresh way the tenets and perceptions that we gathered in the past helps us to see them through new eyes. When put inside an entertaining and exciting story, they become an ingredient that goes beyond the ordinary.

Once upon a time...

Image via Wikipedia
Once upon a time, there was an art conservator who was given a new job. At first, it did not strike her as different from all the other jobs she had done. She restored large numbers of paintings, and holy icons that bore the likeness of saints were nothing new. What was so special about this one? The curator in charge of the picture needed everything explained to him. Why did they send a novice with this important-looking artefact? Everything about this job was strange, including the x-rays they took and the technical images that popped up on her computer.


The conservator  soon found out what it was: another picture, hidden for many long centuries, was stuck underneath the one she could see. Why was it hidden, and by whom? She needed some explanation for this mystery, and the curator could only come up with answers she could find for herself. Or so she thought. Finding symbols that needed deciphering was not rare, but these were very unusual. And it seemed that there was someone else who thought so too. Someone, perhaps, whose footsteps could be heard following hers as she walked home through the silent winding streets of Venice, at the dead of night.


Telling a story to describe a story is the perfect way to describe how my forthcoming book starts. Even though you can access Chapter One and read it free on my website, telling it in this way brings a new kind of excitement to me too. Is it possible to be excited about a book that has shared my days for the last two years or so? It dogged my waking moments, baffled my efforts to plot it neatly, defeated my struggle to tell the story smoothly... but I got there in the end.


I re-wrote it several times, and even had to add a whole character one time, with the almost impossible task of weaving him seamlessly through the whole book so no one would notice he was an afterthought!

The book is now out of my hands, and instead of feeling baffled and defeated - which was something that went away when I found that the several re-writes had worked - I feel deflated and bereft. I can't play with it any more. I can't fiddle and re-work and re-write and edit. It's gone off and is in the hands of others as they design, collate and format it for the first print. The characters are what the characters are. The locations are there. It's going to be set in the concrete of publication.


So the story will be told, and readers will, I hope, benefit from the telling. I have striven for a satisfying ending, one that - with some effort - ties up all the ends. And there were many! Entertainment was my aim: and the creation of atmospheres, for readers to enjoy a vicarious trip through some romantic locations and startling situations.


Now one problem remains: how do I conjure the same feeling in my next book? Where shall I find my characters? And where shall I put them? What story shall I tell?

The Puzzle Thriller

Image via Wikipedia

The following is a reproduction of the blog on my website. You might prefer to visit this place to view and respond.

If you liked the Da Vinci Code, you must have an idea what attracted you to that kind of thriller. Was it the breathless chase? Was it the mention of well-known pieces of art? Or was it the locations, described in a way that made you feel you were there... and made you recognise them when you actually went?

Different readers like that kind of book for different reasons. Some are disappointed with the writing, but persist because the story is such a good one. Some keep reading because - although the characters are a bit unrealistic - they find enough that is entertaining and thrilling. Some are absolutely fascinated by the conspiracies and historical threads that lead into the present. Many find the political detail overwhelming, or the historical facts boring, but like the concept of the modern discovery of old mysteries.

How much of it is true, we ask ourselves? Writers in this genre often weave in a lot that is authentic, genuine and verifiable, which makes us wonder about the rest. If there is really a chapel at Roslyn in Scotland, and it is really full of mysterious carvings, then the rest of the story seems plausible. If there are other books about the Merovingian line, and a lot of the material in the thriller can be looked up, then perhaps there is some foundation to its premise.

Dan Brown used a lot of material that can be looked up, and there are other fiction writers like him. I am such a one: I find a premise that could conceivably happen, if the circumstances are right. I use props that exist in the real world: these can be paintings, music, food, artfacts and tools. I also use medical conditions, procedures and scientific tests that also exist in the world outside my books. It can all be researched and verified, which is great fun.

The story feels all the more realistic and plausible if it is built on these kinds of verifiable blocks. Adding a story that is intricate and woven in and out of these real and true aspects is very difficult but also great fun.

According to Luke is such a story. I have used a perfectly feasible premise and found locations, tools, artefacts and pieces of art that exist and used them together in an inextricable weave. The resulting story may seem controversial to some, astounding to others... and merely a good story to the rest.

Whichever kind of reader you are, According to Luke should supplement your reading matter if you already like the genre, or lead you onward to discovering other writers who create this kind of story. It is a controversial book similar to others in its genre.
For more on this subject, see my blog about controversial books.
Happy reading!