Buckle in, this could be a long one. It will be fun and educational, but could be painful in parts, as no Bishop ever said to an actress. I’m going to post something no author should probably ever post, but I always want to be honest, including in my blog on my writing and publishing process. So, in relation to my recently published and still hoping to sell it novel tEXt me, here’s a post on what’s wrong with it and all the mistakes I made. I’m about to break every marketing rule that exists but hey, you love me because I’m a rebel, right?
Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love this book myself, and it has some very hardcore supporters who adore it too (hopefully you’re one of them), but the simple fact is that it isn’t as appealing, popular, or in terms of pure stats hasn’t sold like the first two did. The cover is great, the story is solid, I think the characters stand up to scrutiny so the reasons either lie in the marketing, the writing itself or in the structure. With this book I think the fault lies in all three. The most devastating, but wonderfully honest and valuable feedback I got recently from a trusted Beta Reader is that they wanted to let me know the content of my next book (Hope is a Six Letter Word) had actually stuck in their mind when they were trying to get to sleep two weeks after reading it, but, in the spirit of being candid, they could barely even remember what tEXt me was actually about any more. Ouch. So the story wasn’t as good as I thought either.
The novel began life as a short story, inspired by real life events and flirts, and those wonderful and also horrible times when you genuinely can’t tell whether a message is a tease and innuendo, or whether you just have to admit that you’re imagining things and personally have a really dirty mind and see smut where none exists. That’s me, obviously. It seemed a no brainer to expand this to book-length and tell a bigger story, particularly when I got inspired by the film Brief Encounter, but rather than helping, this was an unnecessary distraction. So, the bits I cocked up in the writing –
- I need to stop being such a smartarse. I adore weaving links, plots, puns and allusions into my work, some so convoluted that even if I explained them to you, they wouldn’t make much sense. In tEXt me it would be possible to do an academic essay on the allusions, shadowing, dialogue nicking from Brief Encounter for example, but do they actually add to the enjoyment of the reader? Very doubtful. Some bits of the novel only exist because I wanted to include then from the film and that means I was too focused on what I wanted to do rather than what the Reader needs or wants. That’s not to say an author shouldn’t be true to their vision, but that I need to learn the relative values of a tight, engaging narrative and going off on flights of fancy (My previous novel The Raven Sound also suffers badly from this too).
- Tied to this point, I also have a tendency to use maybe too many personal inspirations and references in my writing. I’m really pleased for example to have included a character based on someone I used to know who has passed away, pleased to include the refences for me and for them (and I did something similar in The Raven Sound) but is this for me or for the reader? I think some of my tendencies to include elements that are important to me may distract or detract from what the book itself needs.
- Target audience. I’ve written before about the difficulties of building a following when each book is a different genre, but I think, initially at least, I missed the mark. I’ve changed the blurb which has given me a little spike in interest, but I’m maybe just not familiar enough with romance-type novels, and deep down tEXt me isn’t quite sure if its meant to be a romance, Lit Fic, general fiction etc, and if my book (i.e. me) haven’t properly identified my target market, I can hardly expect my marketing, such as it is, to be effective. I am also rubbish at marketing (though I’m getting better).
- Here’s a biggy. A large part of the driver and plot for the book is in old style emoticons. 🙂 😉 :-O etc and even in early feedback, quite a few readers found this hard to follow. But I ploughed on regardless as they’re fundamental to the novel and I personally love those bits. It means I’ve probably excluded or alienated a big chunk of my potential readership though. Those that are familiar and can follow those texts parts (in general) really liked what they brought (as I did) but for a wider demographic and potentially bigger readership, I missed the mark. I’m not sure how I could have presented the novel without them, but the fact there were so many clearly put some people off. I also knew it could be problematic in e-book formatting, and don’t know how well it worked on different e-readers. So I may have been on a sticky wicket from the outset.
- The ending. Following feedback from previous works where more ambiguous ending annoyed some people, I tried to create a rounded structure where the ending mirrored the beginning and brought the characters lives to a neat conclusion. But as has been flagged in feedback, this slows the ending, and the final chapters maybe aren’t needed at all. I think I prioritised what I saw as completing the circle and planned structure over readability, which is… well, it’s pretty daft really isn’t it? Silly Kit!
I’ve had a low confidence period over my writing this week, but I think there can be a value in that, in identifying weaknesses, and I’m being quite honest here about what I think might be the lessons I need to learn. Hopefully my next work (Hope Is A Six Letter Word – out in Spring) will improve on some these, though I wouldn’t count on it as pigeons learn faster than me.
I’d be interested to know what anyone else thinks though, and in the worst marketing move ever, following trashing myself, I’d invite anyone intrigued to have a read or a buy mybook.to/tEXt_me
And see for yourself. Hopefully you’ll disagree with me and recognise it as the greatest work of fiction ever reading. Or more realistically, I hope you might enjoy it and ignore the flaws!
Stay safe
Kit