Book Pimpage

A return to book/writing subject matter this month with a blog about ‘Book Pimpage’.

Now before I begin, I must credit the title of this blog to the very excellent Mark Billingham who mentioned it in a recent tweet and I thought that it was the best writer’s expression in the history of Twitter. He may not have been the first to coin the phrase, but I am giving the credit to him unless otherwise corrected.

Before I go on to do some Book Pimpage of my own, I wanted to talk about the importance of the practice, both to established author and independent authors such as myself. Established authors have many routes to this practice, such media interviews, newspaper/online articles, book festivals (in person or, as more common recently, remotely) and their Social Media platforms. Of course, this is how these authors make their living so it is understandable that they will use all the avenues available. It can be a big risk to take the leap to full time writer, so I wish them all well.

For the independent author, it is more of a challenge. Once all your family/friends/colleagues have been politely asked to consider buying your book, you need to try other ways to reach out. Social Media is awash with Book Pimpage, and unfortunately most people just keep scrolling. Some try other methods such as book blogger tours or (ahem) blogging on their own website. I may do a blog in the future about book bloggers/reviewers as this is something that I have considered approaching before but need reach out to the right people first.

So, here follows some Book Pimpage of my three, self published, independent novels –

1 – ALIVE

Alive is my debut novel, written via the diary of Steve Hamilton, a 30 something ordinary guy living in Edinburgh. He receives an anonymous letter that states that he is to be killed that year.

I came up with the idea as I wanted to do a different crime novel – not police or detective led and not from the point of the killer. I decided to write from the crime’s ‘target’ perspective and what it resulted in was a Who’s Doing It/Why Are They Doing It/Will They Do It…

2 – CHRISTIE’S EARLY CASES

I decided to write a traditional crime series with a strong, young, female lead. Rather than go for a full novel, I started writing short stories to introduce the character and her colleagues. With a classic rock obsessed sidekick, the stories were named after the track list of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 Rumours album. The book contains 10 short stories, concluding with a novella.

3 – FIVE AGAINST ONE

A few people who read the first Christie book mentioned that they would like to read a full novel with the characters. Five Against One was born out of an idea I had of two linked cases running side by side – a present day murder that DI Joanne Christie had to investigate that was connected to a crime her sidekick had investigated previously.

Keeping with the classic rock theme, the book’s parts are named after the track list of Pearl Jam’s second album Vs. The original name of the album was to be Five Against One, hence the novel’s title.

There are two reasons for my book pimpage. Firstly (most obviously) is to sell copies of my books. Now, I do not write books for the money. I get around £1 for every sale regardless if eBook or paperback. To date, I have not earned enough to cover the cost of this website, but that is fine by me. I just love writing and do so as a hobby with no pressure to have to feed my family with the proceeds (I work a full time job to help with this).

The second reason (and the most important) is the joy I get when someone has read a novel (or all of them) and tells me how much they enjoyed them. I do get constructive feedback too, and that is equally good, but when you spend months writing a novel it is nice to hear when someone has enjoyed it. In that respect, if you enjoy a novel – let the author know, either via their Social Media or by leaving a review. I know many established authors say they don’t read reviews so, if that’s the case, do so for the lesser known authors.

Perhaps, you might just make their day…

All novels are available on Amazon in eBook and Paperback format. Links are available at the ‘Books’ page of this website.