Farewell Dracula: Death of an Immortal

If you’d read any of my blog tour guest posts, you’d know how I feel about the current state of the vampire in popular culture. The vampire is now a simpering, glittering emo turd who spends his days mooning after adolescent girls and not ravaging their necks and drinking from their shredded jugulars. He is instead applauded for hanging onto his bloody virtue and abstaining from indulging in his base nature. What a boring load of stinking shit, right? Or at least I think it is. I was brought up on demonic, decadent vampires with little if any regard for human life. Vampires aimed at an adult audience like Lestat de Lioncourt and The Lost Boys’s David. This was the sort of vampire I wanted to create and was what I had in mind when I wrote Dunraven Road and Jinn Nation.

Therefore, it upsets me somewhat when readers expect my novels to read like yet another Twilight rip-off. Fictional vampires do not live and die with Stephanie Meyer, people!! (Well, they may well have died…) I’ve now received at least three reader reviews slating me for not providing troubled, sensitive vampires who gnash their blunted teeth over their unrequited, practically pre-pubescent loves. I didn’t and would never set out to write this kind of simple, first-person narrated slush disguised as a loving tribute to self-denial. Real vampires don’t do self-denial.

I know that not everyone will love every novel ever written. Some people will downright hate my work and that’s okay with me; having different tastes and different opinions is all part of being human. What really pisses me off though are those readers who hate me precisely because my books aren’t Twilight clones. The sentiment I especially love is that my vampires should be glittery and tame (and boring!) because that’s just what vampires are, right? WRONG! Did Count Dracula sparkle? Did he weep and wail because it was so hard to abstain from drinking blood? No, he tore through virgins like Edward Cullen tears through a nutritious nut loaf on Christmas day. Yet, I still get comments like this: “I would presume the author has aimed this book at the YA audience but I would have problems passing this on to my fourteen year old daughter to read.” Why would you presume this? Because all vampire novels are Twilight?! My novels are NOT suitable for fourteen year olds; they’re full of swearing, drug use, violent death and nasty sex. They are written for adults, because grown-ups are allowed to read about creatures of the night too. To be fair to this reviewer, her review was honest with well thought out opinions (if inaccurate presumptions). It could be worse. I recently enjoyed being reviewed by a teenager who hated my book so much because it was “nit what I thought” (sic), she wished she had the paper version so she had something physical to throw against a wall. Or burn.

Well you can all congratulate yourselves, Twilight freaks, I give up. My hands are in the air, I’m backing away. I had entertained the idea of writing a sequel to Jinn Nation, of breaking Dylan out of his coffin at some point in the future and sending him out to tear his way through the world again, but at the moment I just don’t think I’ll ever have the energy to write it. Fighting against what Stephanie Meyer has done to one of my favourite literary characters is exhausting and ultimately soul destroying. People expect glitter, they expect tortured souls and joyless teenagers with all the rebellious spirit of a dried out slug and when they don’t get it, they leave you rancid reviews all over the internet.

Farewell dear Count Dracula, your reign is over.

"So is Bella a zombie? She's always just like standing there with her mouth open and she acts like she's dead." ~ Beavis & Butthead

Art or Business? My Take on the John Locke Method

As you may or may not know, I’m currently halfway through my very first blog tour with my new release, Jinn Nation. As well as being a marketing strategy in and of itself, running the tour and getting people to read my guest posts and enter the giveaways has required a lot of marketing and promotion (ie. a lot of social networking). Although I’ve loved doing this and have met some fantastic people along the way, I’m almost looking forward to next week when the tour’s over and I can get back to what I (hope I) do best: writing (I can’t actually manage both, it’s too hard with a 4-month-old!) This mad marketing has got me thinking about the ‘John Locke method’ of selling e-books, a method I wouldn’t personally adopt because for me it means coming down on the side of writing as business rather than writing as art, and this makes the English Literature graduate in me a sad panda.

Not that the John Locke method doesn’t work of course; it works very, very well. If you don’t already know, John Locke is the first indie author to sell 1 million e-books for the Amazon Kindle, an accolade that was previously only held by bestselling traditionally published authors such as Stieg Larsson, James Patterson and Lee Child. One of his latest projects is a how-to guide to marketing and selling your self-published novel called How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months!; the blueprint for the ‘John Locke method’, which seems to basically comprise of pricing books at $0.99 and utilising Twitter. There’s nothing wrong with that (although I often wonder how people view $0.99 novels, whether or not they think they must be crappy because they’re so cheap; but then John Locke has sold over a million books in just 5 months doing this and I definitely have not), but it was the line “my books may not be great literature, but they certainly don’t suck… I no longer have to prove my books are as good as theirs [traditional publishers]” from the book’s sample that put me off purchasing it.

I can’t help but believe that books shouldn’t be a ‘paint by numbers’ affair, written only to make money. I think they should be loved and sweated over, whether it’s a novel about a vampire dating a high school cheerleader or an opus dealing with the stuff of the soul. I know writers don’t aim to live in poverty and it would be weird if they did. Marketing and promotion will always be necessary if you want people to take notice of your work, I just feel that as an indie author it can be all too easy to find yourself focusing solely on the marketing, hopped up on success stories like John Locke and Amanda Hocking. Before long you’re studying the bestseller lists and adapting your work to copy what is selling instead of being true to your own interests and inspirations. But maybe that’s just me. After all, didn’t Dickens often write just for the money? He wrote his novels in segments to be published in magazines, each one ending on a cliff-hanger, and I’m sure I read somewhere that he wrote A Christmas Carol to make some quick cash for the festive season, little knowing how popular and influential it would become. I suppose Charles Dickens and John Locke might have made good Twitter buddies if they’d lived in the same century.

There’s still time to follow my blog tour if you haven’t been doing it already (and if you have, you rock!) Vampires.com have already kindly posted an interview with me, and later today they’ll be posting my guest blog about why I created my vampire character, Dylan (although to be honest, he snuck into my brain fully formed and demanded to be included in the completely different story I was writing; there wasn’t that much ‘creation’ involved, it was more of a hold-up on his part). There’s also still time to read my interview and enter the giveaway to win an e-copy of Jinn Nation in any format of your choice (I’m not formatist!) over at Oh, for the Hook of a Book!, or head to Donna’s Blog Home to read a guest blog about my inspirations and check out the best review I’ve ever had I’ve also been leaving exclusive excerpts of Jinn Nation all over the web (I know, I really should clean up after myself…) So if you fancy reading a snippet from my novel that isn’t included in the bog standard Kindle sample, have yourself a look at these wonderful blogs:

No Trees Harmed
Donna’s Blog Home
Oh, for the Hook of a Book!

Look out for more giveaways, excerpts and blog posts towards the end of the week!

The Jinn Are Coming…

Finally, I have a publication date for Jinn Nation! I’m officially setting it for a week’s time – Saturday 2 July, although you’ll probably be able to purchase the Amazon Kindle version a lot sooner. I’m planning to cover the other major ebook readers too, so don’t feel left out if you own a Nook or an iPad. It will also be available as a paperback in the very near future. So if you like novels about sadistic vampires with a vulnerable streak, unhinged psychics and beautiful goddesses with a penchant for megalomania, all set against a global stage, like my Facebook page or follow my Twitter feed to be among the first to know where and how to buy it. You can read an exclusive extract at my website.

Here’s the cover I’ve been so excited about:

This is so much better than anything I could have come up with on my own; I’m so glad that the rather excellent Andy Isaacs agreed to do it for me (my knowledge of graphic design is painfully limited).

As happens with most things I attempt to do within any sort of sensible timeframe, the publication date is a little later than I’d planned. Most days I’ve been working with the Sprogling firmly tucked into one elbow, leaving me with only one hand to type with. I love that she’s a cuddly baby, but the fact that she usually hates to be put down for any length of time does make life interesting. Especially if you desperately need to do the housework or take a shower. She’s also started to smile properly now (she’s 9 weeks old today), so obviously every time she does it, all work has to stop while I marvel at how gorgeous she is.

Proof! (or just an excuse to show off more pictures of my newborn, you decide).

I’ve just realised that I’ve laid all the blame for my own slackness on my child. Shameful. Well, my next project shouldn’t take me so long to finish. I’ve just reacquired the rights to my first novel, Dunraven Road, and I’m planning on republishing it with a shiny new cover and bonus material in the very near future. After that I’ll be continuing to write my new novel – one-handed no less, with a smiling Sprogling curled against my arm

Independent Hell

Everyone is always telling readers and authors to support their local bookshops. ‘They’re run by people who are truly passionate about the written word!’, they cry. ‘The large chains are evil, corporate monsters who only care about screwing profit from writers and publishers’. Well, I’ve tried to support my independents, I really have, but apart from a few notable exceptions, I seem to be hitting a brick wall.

Eager to get my book into more brick and mortar shops, I pitched up at a local independent this week, my bag full of pristine copies of Dunraven Road. Now, I don’t expect every bookshop to kneel before me and beg to stock my novel. Besides the fact that would be both disturbing and inappropriate, I am fully aware that I’m an unknown, first time author trying to distinguish myself in a world crammed to the rafters with unknown authors. Give me a cheery thanks, but no thanks, and I’ll be on my way. Simple. But what happened at this particular shop has left me reeling.

After asking what my book was about, the owner took the copy I offered her (practically between forefinger and thumb), before announcing, “It contains the words ‘bitch’ and ‘fucking’”. (After flipping through some more pages) “We don’t stock this sort of thing”.

At this point, I would have been happy to leave. Ignoring the belittling fact that she called my work “this sort of thing”, I can appreciate that Dunraven Road isn’t for everyone. There’s gore. There’s sex. Swear words are sprinkled about with wild abandon. My uncle told me he needed a stroll in his garden after reading some particularly distressing passages (which I took as solid proof that I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do!) I was therefore not offended by the shop owner’s rejection. That was, until she continued…

“What genre is it?”

“Well, it’s categorised as dark fantasy.”

“Hmmm (still peering at my book and riffling through the pages), we don’t stock dark fantasy. I would only stock what I’m comfortable with and I can’t even watch horror films. My customers like the fact that any book in here can be read by anyone of any age.”

“So you don’t stock vampire fiction?” I asked, rather incredulously.

“Oh no, no, nothing like that,” she retorted with the sort of superior smile I assume she reserves for customers asking to order The Big Book of Breasts or Blowjobs For Dummies (okay, I made those up )

She then launched into a lengthy spiel about the sort of book they do stock – mysteries (“They have to be well written. Style is important to me because I was an English teacher for thirty years”) and children’s books that can also be enjoyed by adults (i.e. Sir Harry of sodding Potter). While she was talking, I was still finding it hard to reign in my shock over her disregard for vampire fiction. She obviously didn’t know about the current Twilight madness gripping the entire planet, or the fact that two major US TV shows have debuted this year, both based on bestselling vampire fiction (L.J. Smith’s The Vampire Diaries and Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire Mysteries). But she knew about Harry Potter. Sheesh, nothing gets past her! I wonder what she would make of these novels seeing as the Twilight series and The Vampire Diaries are both written for young adults. There may be no ‘fucking’ or ‘bitch’ involved, but the frankly disturbing birth of Bella’s child in Breaking Dawn would probably give her nightmares for weeks – yet these books were written by a mormon and are hailed as a shining literary example of how to hang onto your virtue. Would the shop owner have told Stephanie Meyer they “don’t stock this sort of thing”?!

Just as I was about to ask for my book back, turn on my heel and run like the wind, the shop owner noticed the £11.99 retail price. Cue another lengthy spiel about how people don’t like paying that sort of money for a book. All this while looking as if I’d just hopped up on her counter and dumped a load next to the till. That sort of multi-tasking is a genuine talent.

Seeing as she was shocked to hear that I’d found the address of her shop on the internet, I should have told her: If you’re worried about staying competitive against the major bookshop chains, I’d be less concerned about price and more concerned about not having a web presence (let alone an online ordering system), or not keeping up to date with current trends in fiction. If you don’t stock “this sort of thing”, I suppose that also vetoes Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Anne Rice… I could go on and on… All extremely successful, bestselling authors. How is this shop making money?!

Just as I was losing the will to live – the shop owner pulled one more gem out of her sleeve: “Would you consider writing something more suitable for the shop?”

What?!

Yes, certainly. I’ll go home right now and whip up 100, 000 words of nice, fluffy mystery story starring annoying middleclass children with ridiculous names, convince someone to publish it, wait for it to be printed; and run it up to your shop just as fast as I can.

Idiot.