Just had the fiftieth five star review for GHOST IN THE MACHINE!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B007U7GQHM/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
I suppose that’s one thing I missed from the stat explosion I had this morning, but it’s the part that’s truly mindblowing for me – people with no connection to me are buying and loving my work!  Overal, I’ve had another 24 4* reviews and two 3* (though I suspect that one is a misplaced 5* but maybe the reviewer had ultra-high standards…) and it’s got an average of 4.6/5.
DEVIL is doing even better, with 18 5* and one 4* (which the reviewer says is a 4 1/2), and an average of 4.9/5.
(Note that I’ve never paid for a review!)
— Ed
Buy GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one) –
UK Kindle 77p – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle 99c – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ
other channels are available

Not quite a full year, given that I didn’t publish GHOST IN THE MACHINE until mid-April, but I thought I’d do a summary of the statistics that I’ve managed to acquire in that first year.  Bear in mind that I started with nothing but a book – I had no “author platform” and no big publisher’s marketing budget.  Everything I’ve done is off my own back – I could have used a lot of that time to write more, but I think I’ve got a good blend just now.  I’ve logged my sales on a weekly basis, though I check them hourly sometimes :(, and have done since day one.
So, where to start – ah, yes.

BOOKS

I’ve published 190,000 words over two books, plus I’ve written 82,500 of FIRE IN THE BLOOD.  That’s a shitload – and bear in mind that GHOST went through 9 drafts before I’d sorted it out, including at least two almost starting again, so there’s probably another 50,000 or so words that I’ve written and junked (though they weren’t this year!).  GHOST was picked up last Boxing Day at 55,000 words of a revised edit – I wrote another 20,000 to finish it then edited it furiously, adding another 12,000 words by the time it was eventually published.  Next year, I will hopefully exceed that with FIRE, DYED IN THE WOOL and BOOK FIVE (either DROP IN THE OCEAN or DEAD IN THE WATER)…

SALES

Okay, so I’ve had two books out for over two months now, almost three.
GHOST has been on sale for 37 and has sold 879 as of this morning – and that’s sales where people have spent money on my book (I’ll come on to freebies below).  I dropped the price to 77p in the UK and the sales have gone up a bit (with a staggered increase in DEVIL) but it’s too early to draw inferences from it.
DEVIL has been on sale 12 weeks (just shy of three calendar months) and has sold 246 copies.  Given that the price for that book is £2.95 (and equivalent), I’m gobsmacked by that number of sales.  If I’m ever going to make a living out of this, it’s selling at a high price that gets the bucks in – I’ve made £115 more from DEVIL than GHOST.  I’m pleased to report that the market does seem to support higher priced novels – the challenge I face next is how to get more people to read the first and then move on to others.  It’ll be interesting to see what knock-on effect publishing FIRE IN THE BLOOD in the next three weeks will have on the other two, if any, and whether it follows a similar pattern to DEVIL or dances to its own tune (bear in mind that DEVIL has a large cross-over with events in GHOST whereas FIRE is more standalone).

SALES CHANNELS

One thing that interests me is the number of channels an indie author can publish to these days.  There are a proliferation of eBook stores now – Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Apple’s iBooks and others.  Smashwords is a useful service to get published on the non-Amazon channels as they aggregate and publish for you.
Also, as well as eBooks, I sell paperbacks through Amazon’s Createspace Print-on-Demand subsidiary.  It has picked up a bit recently (potentially because of Christmas) but I’ve sold a tiny fraction of my books there.
Anyway, enough chat – here’s a picture.

The conclusion is stark – Amazon is the only way to go.  Bear in mind that only GHOST is available on non-Amazon platforms, it’s quite alarming how many I’ve sold.  Smashwords itself hasn’t been a roaring success – I’ve sold more in Germany than on Smashwords itself – but I only managed to get through to their premium in December (and GHOST had been exclusive to Amazon for the three months prior to that), so perhaps I’m not an appropriate sample.  That said, tracking and analysing helps me work out my focus for the next activities…
Internationally, I’ve done well – the US has a strong market for Scottish crime fiction seemingly.  I’ve had some sales in Germany, Norway, Denmark, Italy, France and Germany, too.

FREEBIES

I mentioned there that I’d been “exclusive” to Amazon for three months with GHOST.  What that actually means – and it sounds like I’ve got something from them – is that I’ve tied myself to them exclusively for a three month period and in exchange I get some additional promotion (and I’ve had emails from them advertising my own books!) and the ability to give my book away free for five days out of the ninety.  Now, I did that and to varying degrees of success.  I didn’t do this until September – I’d not proofed the book before publishing (lesson learned there!) – and so I’ve only done one set of promos.  The idea is that you give it away for a day or two and you get a sales spike afterwards from Amazon’s “people who bought this also bought” feature.

Day 1 & 2 –

I gave it away in early September on a Saturday and Sunday.  I did no promotion on it at all.  It got to #10 on the overall Amazon chart (there are some fragments in Google still alluding to this) on downloads of 3,064.  The very next day I sold 89 copies, then 23 and then back to the usual, although it was slightly higher.

Day 3 & 4 –

I had read somewhere that staggering it with a day inbetween is better as it gives you a spike day in the middle, so I tried that in mid-October.  Day 3 got me 1,020, more than Day 1.  But I didn’t get much of a spike the next day.  Day 4 only got 271.  If they’d been together, I would probably have repeated the same feat as Day 1 & 2.  Lesson learned there – don’t do that.

Day 5 –

Day 5 was in mid-November.  I had a horrific flu bug but I had managed to preset some blog posts and so on.  This time I promoted it.  … and I had 214 downloads.  Hmmm.

Freebie conclusion –

I think from my experience, the magic of downloads giving sales spikes has gone.  I’ve given away 4,569 books and I imagine that they’re sitting in an unread folder on most of these people’s Kindles.  I have had some nice comments from some freebie readers who’ve gone on to buy DEVIL, but I’d say that this trick has very much had its day.  My 77p price reduction has had a more positive impact – these are people who are committing to your work and generally seem to buy the second book.

SOCIAL MEDIA

I love social media.  Okay, I love Twitter.  Facebook disturbs me in a way I can’t effectively describe – maybe I just find it banal.  Anyway, if you want to chat to me, chat to me on Twitter.  Some social stats – 6,063 Twitter followers, 83 wordpress subscribers, 66 newsletter subscribers, 40 likes on Facebook.
Twitter has been great.  I’ve met so many cool and deliberately uncool people on there, and people who love my book, but also people I’ve connected with – I don’t know if friend is the right word, but people I share serious and unserious banter with.  I’d recommend it to any aspiring author, it’s the place to interact with your readers and it’s given me some good insights into my “author platform” – I’d say about 75% of my readers are female, or maybe just the ones who chat with strangers on the internet (hmm, I’m sure there’s a story in that).
I think next year, I need to focus on Facebook more.  My natural aversion to it – Facebookaphobia? – needs to be overcome!

SUMMARY

In summary, it’s been quite a journey in eight months going from nothing to all of that.  I’ve learnt some tough lessons along the way – I’m paying a proof-reader for FIRE IN THE BLOOD – and I’ve made some good cyberfriends.  Most of all, I’ve really enjoyed writing it all.  Bear in mind that, except for some time at weekends, 80+% of my writing is done on a train commute on my now trusty MacBook Air (and the old netbook, Newton rest its operating system).  That’s a heck of an achievement – I just hope I’m not damaging myself by working this hard…
Now, back to the editing of FIRE IN THE BLOOD.
— Ed
Buy GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one) –
UK Kindle 77p – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle 99c – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ
other channels are available

Had a good review of DEVIL from Julie Weight (she reviewed GHOST here) – she’s one of my very favourite book reviewers, so this is a real honour –

“I definitely recommend this series if you like police procedurals. At $3.99 for the Kindle version, this book is a steal.”

http://juliew8.com/book-reviews/review-rating/rated-5/devil-in-the-detail-by-ed-james/
If you haven’t got DEVIL yet, then what are you waiting for?  It’s got 17 5* and one 4* (4 1/2) review on Amazon UK –

And remember, it’s out in paperback too (follow the links to the Amazon Kindle pages).
— Ed

You’ll know from my biography that we’ve got more than a few rescue birds – seven hens, eight ducks (though only three hens). The biggest problem with the birds is that farmers get rid of them every when their egg yield goes down 10% (or just kill the males) and that’s why we rescue them. This happens in free range and organic egg production and is a sensible way to run a business, providing there is an appropriate rehoming going on. Having second year and onwards birds, however, still means you have far more eggs than you know what to do with.
A recent bright idea of ours is to pickle them. My main problem with hard-boiled eggs is getting the shells off. No longer – check this awesome link for a literally magical method:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omBlqW-kZ74
I’ve just done over thirty using that method and it was amazing good fun!
— Ed

… and another book over.  That’s me just finished the writing of FIRE IN THE BLOOD – Scott Cullen book three – and I’m pretty pleased, relieved and comfortable with the end product.  It got a bit hairy towards the end there – I happened down an avenue that I really wasn’t comfortable going down – but I think it’s a sold tale.  Bear in mind that it started out as a 3,000 word short story for Bloody Scotland (rassin’ frassin’ sassin’…), then a 27,000 word novella (that my alpha readers decimated), to turn the world of [well that would be telling] into a 79,647 word novel without stretch is an achievement I’m proud of.  The first two books featured some elements of the surrounding world of Cullen and did it very differently – FIRE features a blend of both and it really enriches the story and the world I’m trying to build up here.  DYED IN THE WOOL features some more of that stuff and this sets a lot of that up nicely and will prevent the sparsity of DEVIL jarring with it.
Also, I’ve pretty much written three full novels in a calendar year (given the state of GHOST twelve months ago…) and I’m just absolutely bowled over by the response I’ve had.  Given that I’m not a name writer (yet :), I’m proud of what I’ve managed to achieve – I’ve had some healthy sales, and I’m pleased with the sales I’ve had for DEVIL (especially at a higher price point).  I can only control so much, and one of the main objectives I’ve got is to get a fair few books out there.  DYED IN THE WOOL is going to follow in April or May, and the fifth Cullen book (DEAD IN THE WATER) is really eating at my synapses just now and I’m aching to plot it out.  I’m grateful to the many loyal readers who are out there reading and loving my work but also recommending it to people – it’s a really hard business this, and I’m so happy to be connecting with people on Twitter than writing in isolation and submitting to agents for rejection after rejection.  I’ve got a big plan that I hope to enact in the next few days, so watch this space.
Now it’s onto a quick copy edit over the holidays.  Then some beta reading.  Then proof reading.  Then published.  Still on track for 19-Jan, but maybe a week or so late…
Now, can I collapse and not get a stinker of a cold…?
Have a great Newtonmas and New Year.
— Ed
 
Buy Scott Cullen books –
http://edjamesauthor.com/books/

Finished the first full length draft of FIRE IN THE BLOOD this morning. It’s a touch over 70,000 words but I’d expect another 10k when I’m done editing. There’s a couple of big problems with the ending that I need to fix (one of the things I love about writing…) and some minor details to tweak, but generally I’m really happy with it – on track for Jan.
— Ed

Just a quick note to say that DEVIL IN THE DETAIL is now out in paperback, through all Amazon sites –
UK link –
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Devil-Detail-Scott-Cullen-Mysteries/dp/1481095935/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355316151&sr=1-3
Kindle edition is obviously still available. Going to get the FIRE IN THE BLOOD print version done in the same time frame as the Kindle version…
— Ed

Had a glowing review of GHOST IN THE MACHINE in the Portobello Reporter, the local paper in the suburb of Edinburgh that Scott Cullen lives in (I hope he picked up the paper and read it, but maybe his flatmate binned it, who knows):
http://www.porty.org.uk/images/pdfs/rep_winter_12.pdf

“It may be a cliché, but Ghost in the Machine by indie crime author Ed James is a page-turner. If it were a dance, this book would be a raw Argentine tango, full of frantic action with a sinister dark side and a touch of romance.”

I lived in Portobello for almost six years, in the first property I owned.  I loved living there – it’s got a lovely sandy beach (cleaned up since the 80s), lots of nice walks, some decent pubs and cafes, a couple of great curry houses and its really easy to get into central Edinburgh.  I based Cullen there because it would be easy for him to get there, but also it’s the sort of area his flatmate Tom would have bought in when he started at Alba Bank – you can get more bang for your buck than Gorgie or Easter Road.
It’s also got a really interesting history, which this photo shows.  I’ve written about the ongoing installation of tramworks in Edinburgh – taking longer than the massive IT project that I’ve worked on for four years – but you’ll see that we used to have them in Edinburgh.  Hilarious.  Fascinating link below, but there used to be a power station to the right (if I recall, it was going to be a huge Tesco but it got voted out in my time there) and a Marine Garden leading the way to Leith on the left of the picture – it’s now a horrific row of car dealerships, which feature in DEVIL.
(SPOILER – The shot is taken from the roof of the building at the end of GHOST…)
So it feels weird to have such a good review in the local newsheet that popped through my door every quarter, but really good as well.
Check the original links:
http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/0_pcv_a/0_post_card_views_jm_portobello_kings_road.htm
http://www.porty.org.uk/images/pdfs/rep_winter_12.pdf
— Ed
 
Buy GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one)-
UK Kindle – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ

Just a note to say that GHOST IN THE MACHINE is now available on non-Amazon sales channels – Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, Sony, Apple iBooks plus a few others.  Here are some links, but check your usual site (DEVIL is still tied in to Amazon till mid-January, unfortunately):
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ghost-in-the-machine-ed-james/1113887414?ean=2940045100175
http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Ghost-in-the-Machine/book-G7XvLvSTakyeYRx8HHhOaQ/page1.html?s=rRvF4LCjXE-1vMOzGDQy0g&r=1
Do let me know if you’ve actually bought the book through a non-Amazon channel – 99.9% of my sales have come from Amazon (86% UK, 13% US and 0.9% Createspace UK), so it would be good to see if I’ve actually got some non-Amazon fans out there…
— Ed
 

Just a quick note to say that I won’t be publishing FIRE IN THE BLOOD on 19th December.  I’ve currently only written 31 of 62 scenes (over 50,000 words) so I’ve got a long way to go, what with editing, reviewing and proofing.  I’ve put it back to 19th January, which is attainable and gives me enough stress to deliver – I only thrive on pressure, which isn’t healthy but it’s how I roll.
Thanks for the interest and just to confirm that this will be SCOTT CULLEN BOOK THREE, and that DYED IN THE WOOL will be BOOK FOUR.
— Ed

Just spotted another five-star review for GHOST –

“Despite the fact that Ghost in the Machine was written by an indie author, instead of a famous one, did not have the benefit of a professional editor [yes, there are a few typos but only a few], and did not quite have enough character development for my tastes, the story was such a good read that I intend to buy the next book in the series.  I’m also putting Ed James on my Watch List because he is a young author going places. Highly recommended.”

http://acflory.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/ghost-in-the-machine-a-review/
A positive review – comparisons with Rebus and Rankin – and quite an insightful one.  One of the intentions with Cullen is to avoid starting with the cliched detective who is a DI/DCI/DCS, an alcoholic, a divorcee, who drives a classic car and who has a troubled relationship with his offspring (Rankin established the template, it’s the people who follow that I have a problem with!).  Cullen is young, idealistic and will make the mistakes and fuck-ups on the page.  Just you watch…
Buy GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one)-
UK Kindle – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ
– Ed

Had a five star review from ebookwyrm for GHOST –
http://ebookwyrm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/ghost-in-machine.html?m=0

A very well written police procedural novel set in and around Edinburgh that may well lead to comparisons with the likes of Mark Billingham and Ian Rankin and in my opinion those comparisons would be well deserved … As a first novel this was a highly enjoyable and accomplished effort.

Buy GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one)-
UK Kindle – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ
— Ed

I’ve just knocked a whopping 22p off the UK price of GHOST IN THE MACHINE, Scott Cullen book one.  It has just received its 65th review on Amazon – 41 x 5*, 23 x 4* and a single 3* – so it’s very highly regarded by the readers:
UK Kindle – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
The paperback version is still available (for £8.09 – nothing I can do with that price, sadly) –
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ghost-Machine-Scott-Cullen-Book/dp/1479124842/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1334604582&sr=8-1
Go and enjoy it, if you haven’t already.  It’s book one of an ongoing series so get it, love it and then get stuck into DEVIL IN THE DETAIL…
— Ed

This is just hell. I look like a karate instructor that’s gone to seed in a mid-90s Adam Sandler comedy. Sorry, “comedy”. One of the ones where he plays a simple redneck that’s amazingly good at a sport. I feel like Chuck Norris. Now where’s that pile of bricks to ram my hand through…?

Donate to the Movember and sons cause – http://uk.movember.com/
— Ed

Had a real bump in hits to the blog today based on my previous housekeeping post about scrivener, so I thought I’d give an update on where I am with the application after almost a couple of months of being Mac bound…
First thing to note is that I’ve just bought Mac Microsoft Office ’11…
… but that’s mainly for Excel.
I love Excel and I just can’t find anything that comes remotely close to it – the open source Offices are ridiculously clumsy, I’m offline most of the time so Google Docs isn’t practical and Apple’s Numbers is just rubbish.
The writing things that I used to use Excel for were (i) outlining, (ii) tracking progress, (iii) tracking sales and (iv) tracking my characters.
Scrivener does (i) absolutely amazingly, (ii) pretty well and (iv)…   Well.
I can’t quite get my head around how I personally can use Scrivener’s character features but then I’m a spreadsheet monkey, so I’ll stick with my little Excel database for now. Feels like there’s some really good features possible in Scrivener just now (eg name generation, tagging scenes) but it could do with some tighter integration across and separation from documents – what I personally would love is a character and location database that can link to documents and act as tags.  Hopefully that will come with time.   But for now, I’ve got Excel and tags so it’s pretty good.
The other thing I would love is slightly different progress updates – just now the death bar is purely on word count, it would nice to have some scores on scenes complete, etc to motivate me through the harder bits but which is obviously customisable.
The other Office thang I’ll use is Word for interacting with editors and proof-readers. Don’t know if there are any good Scrivener proofing use cases out there but I’d be glad to know of any. I’ll be researching it anyway.
Hopefully I can break my office habit but I’ll still need it for work and my sales tracking spreadsheet.
Now, onto how I’ve been using Scrivener itself.
You’ll have seen my post last night on book three – FIRE IN THE BLOOD. It’s pretty much all been written in Scrivener, since it was a short story. It’s been a good exercise in learning the tool and adapting my process, but also in learning best practice from the app itself.
Two main points about Scrivener, really –
First, there’s a bit of a gap in it in terms of structuring and getting ideas down. The corkboard is a bit of a gimmicky way of structuring and, while the outliner is good, it is focused more around synopsis level work. Fortunately, the literature and latte guys have worked this out and have developed Scapple – I won’t bore you again, but it really helped me unpick my mistakes with FIRE IN THE BLOOD. Once I’ve got this out of the way, I’m going to draw a diagram for DYED IN THE WOOL based on my outline and check it’s good enough. Once Scapple is in full release, it will really complete it – I may be able to get rid of Mindnode in my process, or relegate it to different parts of the process.  I need to check the integration with Scrivener but I suspect it’s going to be good.
Second, it’s just a fucking amazing program to use. They’ve got what can’t even be expressed as a fraction of the budget of MS Office but have a product that is comparable in terms of stability and feel, but is perfectly honed for its main task. I’m still getting to grips with it but every other day I discover a really cool function. Someone on the forum posted some amazing background images for the full screen editor so now I’m writing on a cool typewriter… Everything about it makes it feel so much fun to write.  And it outputs beautiful Kindle files with very little effort – going to fiddle about with it to get it perfect but it is just amazingly good.
If you’re serious about writing, then check it out –
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/
— Ed
Buy GHOST IN THE MACHINE (Scott Cullen book one)-
UK Kindle – http://amzn.to/Ih2ros
US Kindle – http://amzn.to/IzknfQ

Anyone who has been looking at my blog and tweets over the last few weeks will know that I’ve been wrestling with the Scott Cullen novella WHISKY IN THE JAR.  The wrestling has been about the fact that it’s a novella and I got some “robust” feedback from Alpha readers and I’ve been working out how to rework it – remember that it was a short story before.  I’m actually pretty shit at short form fiction – I don’t read much of it and I just can’t be bothered with it.
The upshot is that it’s going to be expanded from a novella into a full novel – though probably not as long as either GHOST or DEVIL (though who knows…) – and become SCOTT CULLEN BOOK THREE rather than book 2.1.  And it’s got a new title –

FIRE IN THE BLOOD

I got really fed up with WHISKY IN THE JAR as a title – it’s cheesy as hell and sort of makes a mockery of the SOMETHING IN THE SOMETHING title system I’ve got so far.  FIRE IN THE BLOOD is much more in keeping and works really well with the final story.
I’ve been bashing through it this week, getting a third of it done in a week.  A lot of that has been editing the previous stuff and I think I’ve got the bulk still to write, but I’m confident of a pre-Christmas release.  Having three novels published in the same year is quite a mental idea.  (I don’t think this will have much impact on DYED IN THE WOOL which should still be roughly April next year).  I’m pleased with it so far – it’s a direct sequel to DEVIL in a lot of ways (some of the subplots and character arcs mainly) but it’s very much its own story as well.
Anyway, if you were waiting on WHISKY IN THE JAR novella coming out then I’m sorry but have a little patience and you’ll get something really good next month.
— Ed

Just a quick update based on the post from the other day. I’ve got both alpha readers comments back now – the second was somewhat less … robust, but pointed out some good plot holes (or bad if you’ve written them).
So the upshot is that I’ve re-outlined and resequenced the whole thing – looks like it’ll go from 27,000 words to about 60,000. And tomorrow I start writing again.
It’s just moved DYED IN THE WOOL to book four…
— Ed

This is absolute agony. 18 days left.
— Ed

So…  I have this process where I send my “finished” drafts to alpha readers (this is similar to software development, where you have alpha testing by a very small group of people and then a wider beta test) and they should destroy the work.  This is very different to final proof reading and is more about checking that my story is good, what stupid mistakes I’ve made and so on.
I had been hoping to publish WHISKY IN THE JAR next week (19-Nov) but the feedback for it is not great… Not enough humour, the ending is a bit rushed and generally it’s all very rushed.
So, I’m being brave and taking it back to the drawing board.  I’ve got a load of ideas based on some work today and I’m replotting the whole thing.  Looking through it, it is rushed and lots of the details aren’t followed through on.  It was an experiment in using Scrivener and it showed a lot of the power of that tool – but it also showed that I need to plot things out properly beforehand and Scrivener isn’t the tool for that.  That said, Literature and Latte (the guys behind Scrivener) have releaseda beta of Scapple, a sort of free-form ideas tool, similar to a mind-map but more right-brain and less hierarchical (I do still see a valid use for Mindmap programs).  I’ve been using that to structure my thoughts before I rearrange the manuscript.

Bear in mind that WHISKY started life as a short story of 3,000 words and is now a novella of 27,000 words – and DEVIL went from 22,000 to 105,000 – you can see where this is going…  WHISKY is likely to be uplifted from novella 2.1 to book 3…
I’ll have to put the release of this one back – I should be able to get it out for a little Xmas present to yourselves, say 19-Dec-12.  It does mean that I won’t be starting DYED IN THE WOOL for a wee while, though it does have the benefit of 1) the ideas in DYED can percolate a bit and I can take pressure off of that, while still maintaining April as a release date, and 2) you’ll get a proper book with much good quality.  Christ knows what I’ll do with ALL IN A NAME, though…
— Ed

(Image from http://stylecrave.com/2009-04-03/most-expensive-whiskies-in-the-world/)

I did a blog post linking to an article where Ian Rankin wrote about writing.  Last night, I watched a documentary about him actually writing his new novel, STANDING IN ANOTHER MAN’S GRAVE –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nw51c/imagine…_Winter_2012_Ian_Rankin_and_the_Case_of_the_Disappearing_Detective/
Fascinating insight into his writing process, which seems very chaotic and organic.  He basically starts writing and then sees where it takes him – I’ve tried it and I am shite at it.  My anal retentive nature means I plan the whole thing out before I start tapping away.
His new book came out yesterday, patiently waiting for Amazon to deliver my hardcover – got 65pp of a Jim Thompson left to read as a stopgap.
— Ed