Archive
2 months after getting published – the reality!
Thank you all for following my progress.
As you know my first novel, The Istanbul Puzzle, was published Jan 19 by Harper Collins UK.
The Istanbul Puzzle cover art
The last two months have been very busy. There was great excitement in the first few weeks when the book was reviewed very positively in the UK Telegraph newspaper, The Irish Independent, The Lancashire Evening Post and The Examiner. I was also pleased to be interviewed on TV3′s AM morning television program, the Ryan Tubridy show on RTE radio and on some local radio stations. All that was great.
I was delighted too, and it makes me very hopeful, to learn that The Istanbul Puzzle has sold to be translated into 8 foreign languages: Spanish (world rights), Italian, Greek, Polish, Czech, Turkish, Serbian and Slovakian. I look forward to supporting the publishers in all these territories.
My goal is to support myself and my family from my writing. It’s a big ask. Only about 5% of published authors earn over £75,000 a year, never mind the millions that people often think published authors earn. My earnings to date are very limited, given that I only got a small advance and will have to wait until everyone has paid up before getting anything from any sales. One of things that has stuck me forcefully in this process is that with the publisher’s system of only being paid twice a year for royalties you had better have a job or a rich spouse supporting you, even long after you get a publishing deal, if you want to survive.
I expect to start earning enough simply to live on about two years after getting the three book deal, that is about a year from now. That will be the point that I have two books out, and the second is being sold to foreign languages, and I start getting royalty payments from the first and second books mid year after earning out my advance.
As I was made redundant four months ago I am living on borrowed time too. So I have decided in the next three months, before I have to go back to the nine to five, that I will write a guide book to social media, called Social Media is Dynamite.
I intend to make it a practical guide to how to get the most from social media. It will feature my experiences of how social media helped me win a three book publishing contract and some of the things I have learned that enabled me to build twenty thousand followers and many great relationships on the way. I also plan to offer social media consultancy. If any one needs help with social media let me know.
UK sales are good, The Istanbul Puzzle is selling in the tens of thousands, and it is holding up well on the Kindle charts. If you liked it please tell your friends and review it on Amazon whatever you thought of it or even just like it. I am working on the next installment, The Jerusalem Puzzle, right now. I am on the ending at the moment. It will be a multi part ending, which I hope will pull together some of the loose threads left dangling from the first book.
I will keep you posted on progress occasionally (monthly most likely) and I look forward to your comments, bad or good, in the meantime.
Here is a picture I took a few weeks ago when I was on a research trip in Jerusalem:
A monk collecting candles
