A Cut Limbo sample & it’s FREE on Kindle… adults only!

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Peter

 

Cut Limbo FREE on Kindle… adults only!

Yes, it’s true, this weekend Cut Limbo is FREE on Kindle…

As I continue to promote my novel Cut Limbo via social media, I wondered if the FREE on Kindle offer would also be a good idea to get this fast moving, satirical crime thriller to a wider audience.

Why is Cut Limbo adults only? Because the action, and there’s lots of it, moves from the salacious streets of Amsterdam’s red light district to the exotic girlie bars of Manila, what more do I need to say? Basically, it’s a sex, drugs and rock and roll story and it is very violent, as crime thrillers often are. However, more importantly to me as the author, it is funny and I hope it’s the humour and not just the plot itself, the bizarre characters and the exotic locations that make it stand out as a very original novel. (I should mention that the YouTube soundtrack makes it pretty original too!)

Crime thriller Cut Limbo: FREE on Kindle

As an erstwhile marketing man I know that FREE products can be good and they can interest people, but they can also devalue a product, Cut Limbo’s not exactly expensive as it is, right? The BIG question is, will Cut Limbo benefit from being FREE on Kindle for a few days or not? I guess we will see.

If I don’t try to reach a wider audience, I’ll never know. I’m not expecting to make massive amounts of money from Cut Limbo as a novel anyway, that was NOT the reason I wrote the book in the first place. The reason I changed Cut Limbo from my original screenplay to a novel over a 10 year period was for fun; I wanted to tell the story of what went on a Schipol Airport, near Amsterdam, back in the 90′s. It was a totally surreal situation and it offers a superb beginning to a great adventure story.

Being just a tad uncertain about the real value of being FREE on Kindle, it seemed a good idea to ask my friends on Goodreads if it really will increase the audience for Cut Limbo. I’m awaiting their response. If you’re not a member of Goodreads and you love books, reading and the world of writers, I suggest you join me there as soon as you can.

Cut limbo the punk crime thriller

Here’s a sample of Cut Limbo, because I’m a responsible blogger it’s one of the less outrageous scenes.

Panky has just arrived in Manila and the two girls he took back to his hotel room from the bar on his first night have totally and completely ripped him off – they even emptied the mini-bar, they didn’t even leave him an ice cube!!

Panky in Manila. Cut Limbo FREE on Kindle

Panky sat dejected, watched the yellow battered Datsun Cherry fight its way back into the traffic. He looked at the door of the cab, shook his head and looked again. He saw the words ‘Ding-Dong’ scrawled in red letters.

He stood up panting as the taxi gained speed and pulled away slowly. It was Ding-Dong for sure! Panky started to run as fast as he could, the hot sun in his face, the scorching pavement tingled his feet as he chased through the traffic, he dodged Juicy Fruit and Marlboro vendors. He kept running.

Pedestrians and drivers stopped and stared. The crazy looking, half naked foreigner sprinted through the hot dusty streets screaming “Ding-Dong, Ding-Dong, Ding-Dong!”

Panky kept running and screaming, gaining ground, winding his way around cars, ignoring the stares from bewildered old ladies, running hard, gaining ground and doing good. Then bosh! His foot found a deep pothole and he tumbled to the ground. He fell hard on his face, tasted the road, blood streaming from his nostrils. He grabbed onto the nearest car, ignored the exhaust fumes in his face, the heat of the metal on his fingers and pulled himself back onto his feet. He watched the Datsun pull away in the distance. He couldn’t give up now, no way; the battered cab and its weary old driver were his only chance of survival. He wiped the blood from his face with dirty fingers and continued running, shouting “Ding-Dong, Ding-Dong, Ding-Dong!”

He could still see the car as he sprinted along, as he continued to run, getting closer and closer. He was going to make it!

The Datsun stopped abruptly at traffic lights, Panky ran faster than ever, convinced this was his only chance; dodged more vendors, wiped the streaming blood from his face. He made it to the car and collapsed on the hot tarmac road gasping. His dirty bloodied fingertips curled over the open window, he slowly pulled himself up onto his knees, panting hard and desperate; blood streaked his face, sweat soaked his hair, stuck to his unshaven face. As Panky’s laboured breath filled the cab Ding-Dong turned his head towards the window, studied Panky’s face, saw the blood and the sweat, heard his panting exhaustion.

Their eyes met.

Panky smiled, wiped his face and sniffed at tears of joy.

Ding-Dong smiled too. He said, “Hey British, Mr. Panky! How you doing my fren? You havin’ a good time?”

Manila Cut Limbo: FREE on Kindle

Manila, like Amsterdam, is a great place to visit if you like exciting cities, but like all cities you have to be very, very careful about where you go and what you do!

I hope the Cut Limbo sample encourages you to check out Cut Limbo while it’s FREE on Kindle and if you like it, please review it wherever you can and share it on Google+, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Digg and all those other great social media platforms. Thank you…

Posted in Amazon books, BLOGGING, Crime thriller, crime thriller novel, Cut Limbo, INTERNET MARKETING,, Kindle, Social Media Marketing, YouTube, YouTube marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Amazon reviews! 5 star reviews.

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Peter

 

Amazon reviews!

It’s pretty obvious that any Amazon reviews can make a major difference to the success of any author, self published or otherwise, and make a significant difference to the sales of his or her novel. This week I have received some more 5 star reviews for Cut Limbo and in total contrast, I’ve also received some not quite so constructive criticism from a new follower (read complete stranger) on Twitter.

Ultimately, all writers, painters, actors and performers must understand that if you put yourself out there, you will get critics, you’re bound to. You will potentially get comments from experts and professionals, from the jealous, and, of course, from the moronic. What you do with these comments, and how you cope or react, is entirely up to you.  If you can’t handle the pressure, the solution is simple: write, sing, paint or create your stuff, good or bad, and keep it all in a box like J D Salinger. (Actors will find this more difficult, acting alone, without an audience can seem pretty pointless)

Catcher in the Rye, J D Salinger

J D Salinger loved to write, not to publish

I guess poor old J D just couldn’t cope with either the fame or the potential criticism. This photograph proves that he certainly didn’t appreciate journalists much, the poor guy looks terrified and I remember first seeing this photo and reading the story of how J D had accidentally been tracked down. It wasn’t nice, it was pure sensationalism and very paparazzi.  Maybe J D put too much of his soul into his writing to have ripped apart by strangers?? We’ll never know.

How would J D Salinger have coped with Catcher in the Rye’s 429 Amazon reviews? We can only wonder. Maybe he wouldn’t have cared? Even after 50+ years the book seems timeless and it has seen generation after generation claim it to be a classic. Nice work J D.

Here’s couple of quotes from J D Salinger, they offer a little insight into the man…

“I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting.”

“If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then you’re not as good any more.”

OK, Catcher in the Rye was written in the 1950′s, but what of the brave new world of contemporary literature: the self publishing, the Amazon reviews and the social media commentary? We can easily guess what J D would have thought about the effects of the Internet and the social media narcissism it encourages, but how’s it all panning out for contemporary writers?

It’s not all good I’m afraid to say!

But reviews are just reviews, right? Even Amazon reviews, (usually) are just other people’s opinions, right? It’s all very subjective and often it’s important to look into the reviewers motivation for his comments.

A growing number of self published writers seem to think they can easily find fame and fortune by ‘knocking out‘ a few thousand words of exploitative dross addressing the ‘plat du jour’, whether it be exciting adventures with hobgoblins, vampires, extra terrestrials or suburban S & M yummy mummies. Fortunately, these ‘jump on the bandwagon’ types are usually hammered in Amazon reviews, either for their spelling and grammar or simply because of their lack of originality. Nevertheless, these damning reviews must hurt just a little, even to the toughest and least sensitive of writers? Even those writers out for 100% financial gain and with no real love for their writing, for their craft, even these guys must wince just a tad with Amazon reviews like these:

This book was absolute trash, nothing but a black man’s fantasy about a curvy and promiscuous white girl and her tawdry sexcapades with different brothers. It’s obvious that the writer knows nothing about women and has a racist view of white people. As a black woman I was offended in reading this novel as I felt it had a narrow-minded approach to EVERYTHING and lacked both a plot and character development.

Ouch! Now that’s just got to hurt, right? And here’s some more about the same book…

This author obviously missed a few grammar classes as well as a few appointments with a therapist. Even if I could get through the horrid grammatical errors the author, reviewer and publisher allowed to be printed, I can’t believe how sick this person is. I’m glad it was free because I’d be in civil court trying to get my money back if I’d paid for this nonsense.

Call me traditional, but if I received a couple of reviews like these, I’d forget putting ‘pen to paper’, I’d just take up jogging.

But, here’s another Amazon review for the same book…

Omg, couldn’t put this book down…. I recommend this book to those who love a good book…… it’s a good read…..

So much for reviews, like I said,  you will probably get comments from the experts, from the jealous and, of course, from the moronic.

Here’s some comments about Cut Limbo from Vinny a new follower on Twitter, he’s part of ourawesomegang… (read from the bottom to the top)

Cut Limbo comments

This was an interesting experience…

1. Vinny (a stranger) tells me it’s not the fault of Social Media that I haven’t sold that many copies of Cut Limbo

2. He tells me the Cut Limbo cover stinks, apparently it’s like a child’s colouring book. (I guess Vinny’s never heard of the Sex Pistols? And he doesn’t appreciate the concept of satire. It’s punk Vinny, it’s supposed to look like that.)

3. Vinny goes on to tell me that he’s looked inside Cut Limbo and page 1 reads as one long sentence and needs more paragraphs. (It’s actually 5+ paragraphs, so I’m not too sure what Vinny was actually reading.)

4. Vinny gave up the 107,000 word novel after 4 paragraphs and he suggests a lot of other people probably do the same.

5. Vinny asks if Cut Limbo is a British punk phrase? (It’s about cutting limbo Vinny.  Panky’s life is in pieces, he’s in limbo and his old mate Chris suggests it’s time for him to Cut Limbo, like people cut class or cut school. It’s an American expression.)

6. Vinny goes on to explain that he is trying to help me and that lots of people have come through his site. (OK, Vinny, not too sure about your somewhat direct approach, but thanks for your attempt to help me.)

Vinny O’Hare has his own book published on Amazon, it’s called Animals in Zoos A-Z and it includes lots of animal photographs. Vinny doesn’t have any Amazon reviews so far.

As I said, reviews can come from many directions, not just Amazon reviews.

But here’s some good stuff about Cut Limbo: (CLICK to enlarge)

5 star Amazon review for Cut Limbo

That was my very 1st review and because Molosser has also lived in Amsterdam and The Philippines he found the story particularly amusing and that’s great news for me as a writer. Authenticity means everything, Cut Limbo is all about culture clashes and being a fish out of water.

5 star Amazon review for Cut Limbo

Dan Purvis was kind enough to recommend Cut Limbo as a Laugh Out Loud, perfect holiday read, with some real emotion.

5 star Amazon Review for Cut Limbo

Here’s another review and I’m delighted that these comments approach the story from a totally different perspective, no mention of the humour, but an appreciation of the intensity of the situation and the Cut Limbo soundtrack.

So writers beware, the good, the bad and the lovely are all out there waiting for you. But you really shouldn’t care, only write what you love and don’t write if you don’t enjoy writing.

I’m sure readers can tell if a novel has been thrown together as a quick earner (ha!), or if there’s no passion in the story and no thought in the plot. It takes a long time to produce a decent novel, from initial idea to published book Cut Limbo took more than 10 years and despite the odds and comments of obsession, I got it finished.

If anyone likes it, that’s a bonus, it was the best fun to write and as the dedication suggests, it was written for my old punk mate and drummer Chris (who I still miss) and for my old partner in grime B A, who loved the book, laughed out loud a LOT and uses the numerous Cut Limbo one liners, but still hasn’t written a bloody review!

If you like this please share it on all your social media platforms, Twitter, Google+, Triberr, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Tumblr etc and once you’ve read it, please review Cut Limbo on Amazon reviews.

Posted in Advertising, Amazon books, Crime thriller, crime thriller novel, Cut Limbo, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Google +, INTERNET MARKETING,, Marketing Mix, punk sound track, SOCIAL MEDIA, Social Media Marketing, Tumblr, Twitter, Video, Video marketing, Web 2.0 Marketing, YouTube, YouTube marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The very BIG Social Media test!

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Peter

 

The very BIG Social Media test! (Or should that be the VERY big Social Media test??)

Can Social Media really promote products and services quickly and successfully without major expenses and resources? I used to think that it could, but can it really??

The results achieved so far promoting Cut Limbo with Social Media have not been that impressive. I should add, that I know there’s a market for satirical crime thrillers (check out Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiassun etc), I know that Cut Limbo is both ‘laugh out loud‘ funny and thrilling, so the product isn’t the issue. Like I said, the results aren’t wonderful and I’m very well connected and established on Social Media; it’s got to be much, much harder for a complete Social Media novice, right?

To make things 100% clear, when I say major expenses, I really mean time, because despite the far reaching aspects of being online and being well connect via Social Media, time is still money, right?

My novel Cut Limbo is being ‘officially’ launched today and the entire budget has been about $30 on Fiverr, a little (more) time and the use of my significant social media connections. So as far as Cut Limbo and Social Media are both concerned, this really is a BIG test!

It wasn’t too many years ago that I was involved in Social Media 24/7, some people called me a Social Media maven or Social Media evangelist, I wasn’t too bothered what I was called, apart from Social Media guru. To me, in such a developing and multi-faceted concept, it’s pretty tough to be a guru.

Back in 2011 the words ‘Social Media’ started with capital letters and many, many people lived and breathed Social Media. I know I did. People like Seth Godin, Brian Solis, Guy Kawasaki and Michael Stelzner were considered heroes and legends, and maybe to some people, they still are. What was new and exciting then, is now considered by many as being fairly predictable and commonplace.

Seth Godin all action marketing hero

Not all Social Media guru’s are available on eBay

I remember being thrilled by a response from Brian Solis on a comment I’d left on his blog and equally as excited about getting a Tweet from Michael Stelzner. Social Media was very exciting back then and because I worked from 6.00 am to about 9.00 pm 7 days a week, my blog posts were both prolific and very well received. I quickly realised that Social Media was only good if you’re super social and I was just about everywhere worth being. It was very tiring, but a lot of fun!

I published 12 good quality blog posts in August 2011: one post focusing on major social media disasters, namely BMW’s dreadful performance on Empire Avenue and Nestle’s YouTube protests. I blogged about the so-called ‘Social Media’ riots in London and how London’s Mayor Boris Johnson reacted to them and I also wrote about my old Social Media mates from Buffer and their very successful meeting with Guy Kawasaki. Social Media seemed so BIG and relevant and revolutionary back then, my blog received over 10,000 views in August 2011 alone and that’s pretty good by any standards.

The MarketingM8 blog

So what happened? Why the jump to satirical crime thriller writer?

Well basically, first I got hacked and then I got hacked off. Working 24/7 isn’t healthy and I wasn’t earning anywhere close to enough despite my efforts. I was so focused on blogging and being sociable on social media that I lost sight of the fact that I needed to earn real money, spend time with my family and have some real fun. (not just virtual, social media fun) Twitter followers and Facebook friends are great, but sadly, unless you do business with them, they don’t actually earn you anything. Being the highest traded UK business ‘stock’ on Empire Avenue is fantastic, but sadly it’s not real money and of course, blog viewings are wonderful, but unless you have millions of adverts you won’t really earn even close to a decent living.

But now, I have a product!!

Cut Limbo the novel

If you haven’t read Cut Limbo yet, you really should get a FREE copy on Kindle, or better still go to Amazon. Just read, review it and spread the word!!

But can social media (ALL lower case) really provide me with the results I’m looking for?

Over recent months I’ve done everything social media I could think of and social media offers a lot, right? I’ve published 27 good sized blog posts, Tweeted about 4,000 Tweets, added 27 blog posts to StumbleUpon, Google+, Facebook, Tumblr, Digg, Posterous and various other social media platforms and yet Cut Limo sales still haven’t exactly hit the roof.

I have also added posts to The Carnival of the Indies and Blokube and added untold Cut Limbo photographs to Flickr and Pinterest, again with minimal success as far as I’m aware.

I’ve added #HashTags to Cut Limbo and Tweeted #CutLimbo many, many times, that’s good Social Media sharing too, apparently.

I’ve created a YouTube Cut Limbo soundtrack because, as I’ve said before, Cut Limbo was written as a movie script originally and because Panky and Chris, the 2 main characters, were punks in their youth and because I was very involved in the punk/post punk scene, it seemed only sensible to use classic punk songs. (How many movies have had punk soundtracks? Not many, right??) To me YouTube is social media royalty, but will it help promote Cut Limbo?

I’ve also had a couple of interviews, one with my old mate Dan Purvis from back in the Social Media days and another with Michael Brookes a Goodreads buddy and fellow author. I’m not sure if these interviews have helped, I know Dan read Cut Limbo on holiday recently and he tells me he found it funny, with genuine LOL moments and some genuine emotion! I’d like to thank him very much for his kind words and his 5 star review on Amazon!

Practically every lunch hour since last January I’ve ‘traded’ on Empire Avenue and I’m fast becoming one of the wealthiest ‘players’ again, but have these 80 lunch hours produced the interest in Cut Limbo that I was hoping for?? Maybe not, maybe I should have just had lunch and Tweeted a bit more?

My blog posts have received varying degrees of popularity, ironically the social media blog posts have been the best received; in April I saw 2,284 views, which isn’t too bad. The post about StumbleUpon was super popular on Triberr and the Cut Limbo soundtrack post about YouTube’s very average channel design options provided totally amazing results!! YouTube’s post despite the negative headline was very, very well received!

The YouTube Cut Limbo soundtrack

Cut Limbo The YouTube soundtrack

 Waiting by Spasmodic Caress on YouTube

Was it the actual content of the post that made it so popular? I can’t be 100% sure, maybe it was the presentation? So it appears that social media on social media does get results! My blog posts about books, book covers and writer type stuff don’t seem to attract so much attention.

It’s tough for writers to devote time and energy to promoting their books, novels, stories, call them what you will, whatever genre they are. Writers like to write and although I do enjoy the blogging process, finding suitable artwork, considering adding videos where appropriate and all that good stuff, I’d much rather be working on ‘Panky Goes to Hollywood’ my sequel to Cut Limbo.

But when is enough as far as marketing a novel is concerned?

Social media has helped, I know I’ve made sales because of my contact with people on Facebook and Google+ and maybe even through Tweeting. Without the blog I wouldn’t have any content to Tweet, so the blog and Twitter, and to a degree Triberr and StumbleUpon are 100% essential, but is all the other stuff?

Conclusion: Should writers depend on social media or is Social Media only effective if you have a blog, thousands of Twitter followers (I have 4,015 and I’ve sent 35,881 Tweets), lots of well established contacts on Triberr, Google+, Empire Avenue and the time, the social media savvy and the inclination?

Writing Cut Limbo was an absolute pleasure, despite the fact it took about 10 years to get published and frankly, I just can’t wait to get cracking on ‘Panky Goes to Hollywood’ but what now? Have I done enough marketing??? Will sales comes naturally? Should I try alternatives to social media? Do I need a big budget?

Maybe the $5.00 I spent on advertising wasn’t enough??

Viral Body Art from Cut Limbo

Can social media do it for me? Can social media really help promote Cut Limbo? Maybe it just isn’t easy? A lot of ‘new’ writers have surfaced recently thanks to the self publishing Amazon/Kindle revolution and to me this is all good, but maybe now we’re starting to see where publishers, their contacts, their experience and their budgets can make a massive difference to any book, regardless of quality, content and genre. Having said that, not all the books put ‘out there’ by publishers over recent years have been that great.

I recently read a satirical thriller (my genre) and the writer was likened by an Observer critic as Britain’s answer to Carl Hiassun. Carl is a truly great writer and hilarious, however, the British equivalent was a massive disappointment.

The same writer was claimed by a Times critic to be ‘Surreal, satirical, irreverent, violent and immensely funny’, however, to me, he was satirical, a bit surreal and irreverent, but NOT that violent really and certainly NOT that funny.

I guess that when the Times, The Observer and other quality newspapers start looking seriously at self published novels and not just the odd one or two published by their friends or friends of their friends, the whole novel writing/self publishing playing field will finally start to level out, but until such time (and it could take a while) I am confident that having a publisher and/or a literary agent still gives you the edge.

If you like this please share it, let’s see what social media or should I say Social Media, can really do for novelists, authors and writers. If you like satire, that is surreal, satirical, irreverent, very violent and incredibly funny, check out Cut Limbo, it’s on Amazon and Kindle.

Posted in Advertising, Amazon books, BLOGGING, Crime thriller, crime thriller novel, Cut Limbo, Digital Marketing, Empire Avenue, Facebook, Google +, Google Circles, INTERNET MARKETING,, Marketing Mix, Posterous, punk sound track, SOCIAL MEDIA, Social Media Examiner, Social Media Marketing, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Twitter, Twitter tools, Video, Video design, Video marketing, Web 2.0 Marketing, WordPress developers, YouTube, YouTube marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment