Tag Archives: Series

HAPPY NEW YEAR & WAZZUP FOR GARRY RODGERS WRITING IN 2021

Well, that was quite the ride. 2020, I mean, not my old ’69 428 Super Cobra Jet Mustang that I seriously regret selling. (But that’s for another story.) This time last year, there was absolutely no way I’d have thought “new normal” would be wearing a surgical mask outside the autopsy suite, lining-up in the rain—six feet apart—to score a cheap box of white wine, and applying online for a haircut then shaggily waiting to hear if I won the barbershop lotto. Thankfully, 2020 was actually a very good year for me. I’ll tell you about it, and also wazzup up for Garry Rodgers writing in 2021.

It was Monday, February 17th when I made the decision. The decision was committing to treat my book writing as a business, not a hobby. I’d been around the writing world for a while by then—going on ten years—and I’d written fourteen book publications, not to mention thousands of commercial web content pages, op eds & articles for online magazines, and blog posts.

Something changed that Monday morning, and I have to thank my friend Adam Croft for changing me. Adam and I have been friends for as long as I’ve been writing. I say it was back before Adam was famous and I still had hair. His mentorship taught me to develop The Indie Author Mindset, and that took my writing world to an entirely new plane.

The indie author mindset is a mental state. It involves changing your thinking, and I guarantee it will change your writing career. Being in the right mind frame invigorates, energizes, and inspires you to believe in yourself, show up, and do the work.

The indie author mindset works so well that in 2020 (despite universal doom and gloom) I published six books not to mention carrying on with blog writing and try to figure out this thing they call marketing. One book was historical non-fiction (Sun Dance—Why Custer Really Lost the Battle of the Little Bighorn), one was self-help (Interconnect—Finding Your Place, Purpose, and Meaning in the Universe), and four were part of a based-on-true-crime series (From The Shadows, Beside The Road, On The Floor, and Between The Bikers).

My 2020 book sales exploded—literally. Not only did I produce more saleable products, I “went wide” by publishing on Kobo and Nook as well as still duke-ing it out on Amazon. I also began experimenting with pay-to-play advertising and tapping retailer support systems. This past year, I’ve had well over 20,000 eBook downloads in 56 different countries which definitely paid back. By some standards, that makes me an international bestselling author.

I’m fine with that. And I’m happy my website and personal blog here at DyingWords keep growing. I installed a stat counter on my site in April 2019 that shows 340,000 visitors since then. My mailing list of regular subscribers and followers also goes steadily up.

Print books, you ask? I only have one print publication out and that was my first crack at novel writing. I think No Witnesses To Nothing was my best effort and I’ve gone downhill from there, but that’s not what the stats say and I have to go by that. The problem I see with print books, as opposed to electronic ones, is the return on investment. Sure, it’s the same manuscript. However, there’s the cost of producing a back cover and spine which adds about $200 to the production overhead and that requires a lot of sales to pay off. Having said this, though, I do plan on putting the Based-On-True-Crime books out on paper via Ingram Spark.

What about audio books? That’s another income source to tap into, and it’s very tempting considering the big upswing in audio sales that occurred in the year of whose name shall not be spoken. But… audio books are even more expensive to put out considering the output requires a voice-over that can run 200 bucks an hour for professional results. One step at a time…

I had a real honor bestowed in June 2020, thanks to crime writer and crow lady, Sue Coletta. I was invited as a regular blog contributor on The Kill Zone. This is a popular site (One of Writers Digest Top 100s) composed of 11 top thriller and mystery writers who cover all aspects of that industry. TKZ posts range from helpful pieces on writing craft to hard reality in the publishing business.

A fun side project was helping a friend, Christine Orme, publish an illustrated children’s book titled We Need More Toilet Paper. This was timely and sent a positive message to youngsters bewildered by life changes caused by Covid regulations. I did the formatting while Sue Coletta, my BFF, helped with editing.

July brought a pleasant surprise. I planned a “stacked promotion” for In The Attic which is book number one in my based-on-true-crime series. “Stacked” simply means I placed multiple ads on different online book promotion sites. The result? In The Attic hit the #1 Bestseller spot on the overall Amazon Crime Thriller list. I framed the screenshot.

Another venture was publishing a collection or boxed-set of books. I packaged In The Attic, Under The Ground, and From The Shadows into one eBook. Sales have been so-so, but it’s part of the long-term vision that makes the core of the indie author mindset.

My book business strategy involves having as many products available for sale as possible. My tactics are to increase my inventory (backlist) and speed up my delivery (new releases). For example, one eBook on Amazon is one product. An eBook with print and audio options are three products. Multiply that by a dozen titles, and now there are thirty-six products. Expand the distribution to five separate retail outlets (Amazon, Kobo, Nook, Apple, and Google) and this gives one hundred eighty individual products for consumers to choose from.

It’s a numbers game, and the key to financially succeeding is distributing decent products (i.e. marketable stories with proper editing and professional covers) as widely as possible in multiple formats. As preached in the indie author mindset, it’s all about getting your “ass in the chair and fingers on the keys”. That’s the focus for 2021.

My plans for this coming year are to release six more books in my based-on-true-crime series. The seventh one, Beyond The Limits, is nearly done and should be on the eShelves by mid-January. After that, there are five more planned to finish this series which is doable over twelve months.

The biggest new venture, however, is taking on a podcast. Podcasting is something I’ve been interested in for the past couple of years. This medium is not a sunset industry by any means, and the plan is to increase my writing exposure, or discovery, plus have some fun. I’ve spent the past month researching how successful podcasts are properly done, and I think I have a general handle on the technology.

I don’t want to slip the bag off the cat or pull the sheep over your face. But, I’ll hint I’m going to co-host a program… PostMortemPod — Two Crime Writers Dissect Famous Murder Cases. And I’m not going to mention my BFF co-host’s name either unless she wants to leave it in the comments. What we’ll do is have video/audio chats trying to make sense out of high-profile homicide and suspicious death files like JonBenet Ramsey, Natalie Wood, and the Black Dalia. You never know… we might take on a serial killer or two.

That’s an ambitious agenda, I know. However, it’s work I love doing, and this writing gig is not just a job for me. It’s my life. It’s what I do. I also love reading and learning new things which I did a lot of in 2020. My vocabulary extended to new Caronacoinage words and phrases like Covidiot, Doomscrolling, Quazz, Sanny, Miss Rona, Social Distancing, Coronacoaster, Locktail Hour, Flatten The Curve, Miley Virus, Liquor-Lockdown, Isobar, Isodesk, Blursday, Zoombombing, WFH, Healthcare Hero, Quarrantini, and this beaut from an Aussie, “Strewth mate, the Rona bought out all the Bogan magpies, so I cracked the shits and opened a coldie”.

Thanks to everyone for supporting my work. Thank you. I truly appreciate hearing from you regardless if comments are good, bad, up, or down. That’s how life goes, and I hope your life in 2021 is full of goods and ups!

BESIDE THE ROAD — NEW BASED-ON-TRUE-CRIME SERIES BOOK #4

Dead Men Do Tell Tales

New Book Release – June 2020 – by Garry Rodgers, DyingWords Digital & Print Media Canada

Warning! Beside The Road is based on a true crime story. It’s not embellished or abbreviated. Explicit descriptions of the crime scenes, factual dialogue, real forensic procedures, and actual police investigation, interview and interrogation techniques are portrayed. Some names, times and locations have been changed for privacy concerns and commercial purposes. 

Prologue

He lay beside the road. He lay beside the road as dawn’s first streaks smeared the eastern sky and the horizon’s weak rays cast frail shadows through early mist. Songbirds introduced the day—while an owl’s screech signed off the night—as he lay on his back in death’s putrid stench… discarded and dumped down a backwoods bank beside the road.

Light spread through the rural woods where a poorly-paved path cut a meandering trail high above him, shielding his corpse from passing view. The sun unhurriedly appeared. It evaporated the overnight dew that formed in early summer, and the temperature began to rise from a tolerable chill. Predictably, the sun climbed the cloudless sky towards another afternoon’s peak of uncomfortable heat.

By nine, the sun angle was right for direct beams to touch his torso through the picket-fence gaps in roadside trees vertically rising from the steeply-sloped bank. A stand of coastal Douglas fir, native to British Columbia’s central Vancouver Island, guarded his body while a canopy of Western red cedars sheltered his cadaver from the direct sear of mid-day heat. The forest floor was a pad of thorns and ferns and moss and sticks and leaves and sticky needles that slowly deteriorated along with him as part of the universal plan.

Hour by hour, as the world turned and time passed, intermittent sunlight radiated him into a zipper-like pattern. Low luminosity left a softening effect on his exposed skin while solar gain from higher scales scorched him with a dryness that turned his trunk zebra-striped in a way few deceased people present. He had a piano-key pattern and a rarity produced by alternating spectrums of electromagnetism.

Day by day, as the Earth evolved and entropy progressed, he became a unique specter—part putrefaction where light hit him low and part mummification where diffusing blows of afternoon rays parched his flesh.

He was clothed. Partly clothed, that is, with his feet in shoes and his privates in shorts. His singlet, or wife-beater muscle shirt, bunched about his upper chest. His head was bare and so were his arms. His hair was stringy strands of brownish sludge that trapped the decomposing flesh and fats flowing from his scalp. And, his left hand reached as if grasping for help while his right helplessly crooked behind his back.

His face was mostly exposed to the bone and his eyes were gone. His cranium sucked in the sunlight and left him with a bare-skull appearance where his teeth—a distinctly different dentition—gave a half-snarl and a half-sneer similar to a pirate’s ghastly flag.

He had a name. He once had a family, and he once kept some friends. He once had a childhood and he laughed and he played and he schooled and he fooled around like anyone passing through their youth and into their adulthood would. But, his life was extinguished and his consciousness had parted ways with his physical entity—his remains left on the slope beside the road to break down.

Now, he was a medical mess with nature’s creatures consuming his corpse. Insects cycled through their growth stages and carried on the continuous loop of evolution. Forest vermin feasted on their share of his disarticulating decay while circling birds apprehensively watched for their chance at a piece of the putrefied pie.

He had a past. He had a past not to be proud of that caused him to be in his present condition—a dead and discarded human body that lay in silent stink beside the road.

Chapter One — Tuesday, July 9th – 1:10 pm

Leaky Lewis sent me a text. body beside the road. prob foul play. can u attend?
I texted Leaky back. What road, ffs? There’s a thousand roads in this town.
Leaky replied. o sorry. nanaimo lakes rd. approx 6 mi west near gogos sawmill.
I typed. Helpful. Are you there now?
He responded. no. im in council meeting. thats why text and not call.
I returned. So who has the scene?
Leaky pecked. uniforms got it. forensics en route. i called coroner. she’ll meet u.

——

Leaky Lewis was my boss at our Serious Crimes Section. He was junior to me in service, but that was okay. I preferred investigating murders more than stretching budgets and scrambling resources like Leaky had to do. And, this case of the body beside the road stretched and scrambled our budget and resources to the max. We used almost every investigation tool and technique available before we finally solved the most baffling and bizarre homicide file of my long detective career.

Leaky’s name was Jim. Jim Lewis. He’s a great guy, but had a serious incontinence problem with post-urinary drip. That’s why the nickname. Leaky couldn’t venture far from the trough without Depends, but he made sure we had everything needed to do our job.

By “our” I mean the seven-person squad tasked with investigating violent persons offenses that happened around the Nanaimo area. We’re located on central Vancouver Island in British Columbia right across from the craziness and congestion of the City of Vancouver. Nanaimo has Canada’s mildest year-round weather. I’d been here on the southwest coast for years and had hit my best-before date. During that time, I’d seen a lot of serious crimes because Nanaimo had an extraordinarily high homicide rate.

Leaky looked after our entire plainclothes unit. Besides the Serious Crimes bunch, he supervised the Commercial Crime unit, Sex Offenses, Forensics, Drug Squad, and one poor prick plagued with frauds and bad plastic. Leaky also oversaw the secret squirrels in our intelligence branch and two notoriously bad-behaved boys on the Street Crew.

——

I pulled up to the crime scene on Nanaimo Lakes Road in my unmarked Explorer. Like Leaky texted, it was just over six miles west of the city limits near a small sawmill run by industrious Slavic immigrants called the Gogo family. There were two police cruisers parked on the right-hand shoulder, the north side, with their red and blues flashing. Two other vehicles sat along the shoulder. One was our forensic unit’s mobile shop. The other belonged to Global TV’s roaming cameraman.

A uniformed cop with a paddle-board stop sign directed traffic around the entourage. She pointed to the left lane and gave me a “get-going” motion. I didn’t recognize her. Likely a new recruit. I hit my grille lights and she startled. Then, she smiled and pointed to the steep bank beside the road.

I parked, got out, and walked toward the marked car at the front of the pack. Already I could smell it. It was that unforgettable stench—somewhere between reeking ammonia in ripe rotten eggs and the putrid aroma of deeply-decayed roadkill. It was the smell one never mistakes.

A senior officer guarded the scene. He’d been with the patrol division for a long time. The patrolman introduced me to the stop-sign gal. I was right, she was a brand-new hire.

“What’s happening?” I was matter-of-fact.

“Body down the bank.” The old harness bull thumbed to the thick stand of Douglas fir trees rooted to the slope and standing tall. Western red cedars loomed overhead. “Been there a while from the look and smell.”

“What do you think?” I stood at the edge. It was loose gravel beside the road’s crumbling pavement. I did not want to slip and take a tumble.

“At first I thought it was a deer.” He scrunched his nose. I could see the young officer kept her distance. “That’s what the guy who reported it thought, too. He was riding his bike up the grade and caught a whiff. So, he stopped and looked over and saw his dead deer wore running shoes.”

“Witness guy still around?” I looked about. The only civilian seemed to be the TV man rolling film.

“No.” The patrolman shook his head. “I got my cadet to take his statement. Gotta start somewhere, right? Then we sent him on his way.”

“Great, thanks.” I paused to look around and take in the scene.

It was bright sunshine and getting uncomfortably warm. The early afternoon sun was south-southwest and high enough to shine over the bank and flood its light on the slope. The site was at the leading edge of a tight left-hand bend, and the road was sharply inclined toward the west. It led to a double-S curve with a cautionary slow advisory sign—not the sort of place to safely pull off.

The traffic was light. A loaded logging truck approached and followed the young officer’s direction. It chugged up the grade and disappeared through the curve. A smaller silver SUV arrived. Instead of bypassing as the officer indicated, the SUV came to a stop behind my Explorer. I saw the new cop frown as the driver put it in park and shut off the engine.

I knew who it was. The door opened and a silver-haired lady with a silver clipboard matching her mane got out. Honey Phelps, our coroner, walked toward me.

“Hi, Honey. Imagine meeting you here.” I smiled. Honey. I love the name. It perfectly suited her. She’d been with the Coroners Service for years, and I’d worked with her at countless death scenes. She was always the consummate professional but with a black humor tinge.

“Is that you?’ Honey whiffed the air like a bear. “Or is that my client?”

“Probably a bit of both.” I chuckled. “I haven’t had a look yet. Waited for you to get here.”

“Looks like Forensics beat me.” She nodded toward the big rig that looked somewhere between a SWAT team’s truck and an indie rock band’s Winnebago.

“Yeah. I think they’re inside suiting up.” I motioned toward the Forensic Identification Section vehicle. “Let’s go have a chat with them.”

Honey looked at my Explorer and then at me. “You alone? No Harry today?”

I grinned. “Nope. I’m batching it. She’s tied up in a court case.” I referred to my usual partner, Sheryl Henderson who we called ‘Harry’ after the Bigfoot in the movie Harry and the Hendersons. Sheryl was a large lady with large hair and an even larger personality.

Honey and I walked up to the Forensics vehicle just as Sergeant Cheryl Hunter stepped down. Her understudy, Matt Halfyard, stayed inside. We called him Eighteen Inches.

Cheryl was dressed in her bunny suit. It’s the white Tyvek coveralls that CSI people constantly wear. I’m sure she slept in that thing.

“What do you think?” I asked Cheryl much the same thing I’d asked the senior patrolman. It was usually a pretty good opener.

“Not sure yet.” Cheryl had her digital Canon ready. Matt was loading a video camera. The first thing Forensics always do is film the scene before they enter it. That step was non-negotiable, and the guarding officers made sure no one went near the body before Forensics began their painstaking thorough task of recording the overall scene. Examining the body beside the road would follow.

“I’m not sure what to think.” Cheryl was always careful with opinions and cautious with conclusions. She was like all forensic examiners. They work with facts. Not fables. It was the nature of the beast.

“I haven’t been down to the body yet.” Cheryl looked to her left and over the bank. “It’s about twenty-five feet downslope and looks like it’s hung up against tree trunks. I have no idea if he… it looks like a he from the size and style of running shoes… that’s all I can really make out from here… if he was hit by a vehicle and sent flying over the bank or if he was driven out here and dumped.”

I looked around. The TV camera guy looked back through his viewfinder. “Doesn’t look like a suicide type of scene.”

Cheryl and Honey agreed. We’d all seen a lot of suicide scenes and this one didn’t fit. My gut feeling said dumpsite.

“Let’s just take this step-by-step till we see what we’ve got.” Cheryl was the voice of reason. “One thing’s for sure. This isn’t a recent scene. From what I can see above the shoes is bare-bones with putrefied flesh partly attached.”

“Been here a while, then.” Honey observed.

“Yeah.” Cheryl looked up at the sun. “But it doesn’t take long in this weather.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Honey smiled. “Let’s have a better look at who’s down there beside the road.”

*   *   *

Beside The Road — Book 4 in the Based-On-True-Crime Series by Garry Rodgers is just released  — June 2020 — and now downloadable from these leading EBook retailers:

 

 

 

 

RACHEL AMPHLETT—A CRIME THRILLER/INDIE AUTHOR GOLDEN GEM

Every so often, golden writing skills shine through to the surface. Raw storytelling rocks become polished gems. They combine memorable words into unforgettable stories of espionage tales and detective adventures that captivate our imagination. Page by page, we follow twists as they totally tangle—then shock us with stunning solutions. And today, no crime thriller writer shines brighter at this than internationally acclaimed author, Rachel Amphlett.

Rachel Amphlett isn’t one to watch for. She’s already here. Rachel is the creative mind behind her Dan Taylor espionage and Kay Hunter detective series. Both are wildly successful as indie publications. Rachel Amphlett is also an amazing example of entrepreneurship. She’s both writer and promoter—a true hybrid business person who knows what truly works in today’s hyper-competitive indie writing and publishing worlds.

Rachel also has a great sense of humor. Otherwise, we’d never be friends and she wouldn’t be silly enough exposing her busy self in a DyingWords chat.

*   *   *

Hi Rachel! Why do you write crime thrillers… what do you see in the genre?

That’s an easy one—it’s what I grew up reading! I started reading before I began school, so I was devouring the Famous Five series by Enid Blyton by the time I was five or six years old.  By the time I was about 12, I’d outgrown what was available for that age group, and so my parents and my grandparents let me loose with their bookshelves. Before long, I was discovering books by Jack Higgins, Dick Francis, Ed McBain, PD James, Elizabeth George and the like. I haven’t stopped reading crime thrillers since!

Why do crime thrillers affect so many people? Is it like why ordinary people can’t resist gawking at gory accident scenes? I just read something that people only pay attention to 3 things—food, attractive people, and danger.

Personally, I think crime fiction is a good way of exploring social issues, and for me as a reader, I like to see the bad guy caught in the end – of course, that doesn’t always happen in real life!

I always liked catching bad guys, too. Back then it was job security and some got away… Setting that aside—what are the basic crime thriller craft elements?

I studied screenwriting a couple of years ago, and that’s definitely helped me hone my craft. Essentially, I divide up any story into a five Act structure rather than three – that helps me keep the pace moving rather than worrying about that huge middle part otherwise.

I read an interview with author Peter James a year or so ago, and he recommends having what he calls a “gosh, wow!” moment at the end of each of those points in the story – something happens that keeps the reader turning the pages. It might not necessarily be another murder, but the detective might discover something that turns the story on its head and hooks the reader.

Research is important, but story must come first – if I don’t know something, I’ll put a marker on the page (simply, “XXX” or “[find out more about decapitated heads and post mortems]”), and get on with hitting my word count. Then, I’ll find out as much as possible about the subject, and return to fill in that detail.  Not too much, though. You don’t want your readers getting bored. I reckon about 90% of what I know doesn’t go into a book, but it does inform my writing better.

So why are some crime thriller writers are so successful?

They don’t give up 😉

Ah-haa… *suddenly gets it, nods & winks* Okay. What are your writing skills? I mean your writing process and quirks. Also your writing tools. Like, why are you so…freaking… good?

My skills are improving all the time – I’m constantly reading interviews with my writing heroes to learn more about the craft and how they sustain their writing careers. It’s like going back to school. My own writing process in a nutshell is that I’ll have an idea going round and round in my head for a few days, then I’ll start to flesh out the initial scenes. I guess I’m lucky, in that when I get an idea it appears to me as if I’m remembering a scene from a movie, so all I have to do is write it down.

I’ll spend a few days developing a basic framework around that five Act structure, and this includes a few bullet points for about 30% of the book before I dive in and start writing. That basic outline keeps me on track against any deadline, while allowing organic growth from my characters and a few surprises along the way.

I’m an advocate of Scrivener for writing rather than MS Word – for the first draft, at least because it’s so easy to organise scenes. If I can’t get into one particular scene of a morning, then I can simply start working on another one to get my word count target smashed. I’ll export the first draft into MS Word though, and work in that until the manuscript is finalized, and sent off to my editor.

Why’d you choose to go indie? How does your indie process go and how does your writing/editing/publishing team operate?

I got rejected by a number of agents and publishers who, although they provided some fantastic feedback about the original m/s for WHITE GOLD told me that “there wasn’t a market” for that sort of book. Reading between the lines, what they meant was that vampires were big that year, and they weren’t interested in anything that wasn’t in that particular genre!  However, the great feedback about the story gave me the confidence to try another route, and when an Australian mystery author emailed me suggesting I try indie publishing, I jumped at the chance.

It was a very steep learning curve though, and that’s why I like to do these sorts of seminars, because there’s so much bad advice out there, and I want to help people avoid the sort of mistakes I made when I started out.

Currently, my indie publishing process operates as a proper business— once the writing is done, I become the project manager. I hand over the editing, cover design, and blog tour organising to others while I take on the marketing effort required to successfully launch a book. That’s why I detest the term “self-publishing”. None of us does this on our own.

My PR person contacts book reviewers/bloggers to sort out a blog tour a week either side of the book’s publication date and she also arranges for them to do a cover reveal about 6 weeks out from publication to drum up interest. She also organises a Facebook online party on publication day and between us we write to other authors seeking prizes to give away to readers during the hour the party runs.

I manage all the advertising, including paid ads and social media for my business, as well as doing the book-keeping (although I use a chartered accountant to manage all the tax stuff).

On top of that, I work with distributors and aggregators to ensure my books are reaching as many people as possible worldwide, and also work with them to promote my novels through their platforms, such as Kobo and iBooks.

Wow! No wonder you’re killing it! Your marketing plan—what works in indie book marketing & what’s a waste of time?

I recommend that people find a template business and marketing plan online and tailor it to their book business needs – there are plenty available if you Google them, and it’s what I did when I took the decision to make this work for me two years ago. I also recommend that writers don’t simply make that plan for the next 12 months and then forget about it – you need to be constantly reviewing and updating what you’re doing to make this work.

My own business and marketing plan runs for each calendar quarter, as well as providing me with an overview of where I want my business to be in 1, 3, 5, and 10 years.

As for what works in marketing and what doesn’t, that’s an ever-changing beast. I’d recommend signing up for free updates from online publishing news sites such as Publishing Perspectives, and listen to podcasts such as Author Biz and The Creative Penn to find out the latest trends.

At the moment, it’s all about advertising through Amazon Ads, Facebook Ads, and BookBub Ads, but that could all change in six months. The important thing as an indie author is to be agile and open to change.

Hmmm… Your views on social media platforms…

A must for writers – it’s the only way to get visibility for your work. My own strategy is to have a website and Facebook page (not a personal profile) as my mainstays and then use Twitter and Instagram as “outposts”. However, a writer of YA fiction might find that something like Snapchat and Instagram works better for them. You have to be prepared to spend time experimenting.

Best publishing outlets? AZ, Kobo, iTunes, etc?

This comes down to the individual author. Some writers prefer to lock into KDP Select (Kindle Unlimited), whereas others like me prefer to “go wide”. Something like 30% of my sales come through Kobo Canada; another 20% through iBooks Australia, so there’s no way I’m going to lock something like my Kay Hunter series into KDP Select!

If you’re just starting out though, go for KDP Select to find your feet, and then expand using an aggregator like Draft2Digital to reach a wider audience. Again, test, test, test!

Is there a place for print/audio/foreign?

Absolutely! I have audiobooks for both my series, and print for every book I’ve published. Foreign rights are another pillar to your business, and I have sold rights to publishers in Italy and Germany so far for my Dan Taylor series – all without an agent!

Rachel, what you see in book sales/genre/marketing trends?

This goes back to what I was saying with regard to marketing plans—it changes all the time, but I would say take what you see in the press regarding eBook sales declining with a pinch of salt. A lot of indies who are making six figure salaries don’t use ISBN codes, so their sales aren’t factored into a lot of the reports, which skews the data of course.

Romance is always going to be a popular genre to write in, but crime thrillers have an attentive audience, too – it’s about finding a niche you like writing in (and that you read in) and checking out what those successful indie authors are doing that you can emulate.

Getting personal… What’s your dream where you want to be in 5/10/20 years? Yes, this means sticking your neck out.

I’m a traveller at heart, so I want to be in a position where my writing enables me to work anywhere in the world. That’s the five year plan. I expect to have at least 20 books out by then, and to keep learning the craft so I don’t become stagnant in my writing.

Advice for new and old writers?

Don’t be afraid to experiment, but DO analyse the results – whether that be a Facebook ad you’re testing, or a new genre you’re writing in. Don’t spend more than you can afford to, either. And, be easy on yourself. We’re all guilty of comparison-itis, but you must enjoy this to make a career out of it.

And some advice from now to give the future Rachel Amphlett?

Remember to come up for air every now and again!

What stops writers from being superstars like you’re becoming?

They refuse to learn and/or give up.

If you could start over, what would you do differently?

Well, when I started I only wrote for myself so becoming a full-time writer hadn’t even crossed my mind at that point – I just needed to get the stories out of my head. It was only when I was approached in 2014 for the Italian foreign rights to WHITE GOLD that I realised I might be onto something and immediately took a long hard look at what I needed to do to make this work for me. I don’t think I’d do anything differently – you’ve got to remember that back in 2012, indie publishing as it is now was very much in its infancy.

Who are the best crime thriller/indie authors today? Besides you and me. What were their journeys? What did they do right and wrong

Ooh, I wouldn’t like to comment on what they did right/wrong – we all make mistakes, after all. Some of the people I look up to though are writers such as Mel Sherratt, Caroline Mitchell, and Louise Ross—all very smart cookies when it comes to their writing businesses.

Your takeaway for DyingWords followers?

Find out by attending our FREE thriller writing and indie publishing seminar at Literary Central Vancouver Island. It’s at 2 pm Saturday, October 21, 2017 in beautiful, historic, downtown Nanaimo, British Columbia across from the Van Isle Conference Centre. Seating is limited so make sure you pre-register at garry.rodgers@shaw.ca.

*   *   *

*   *  *

Rachel Amphlett is the bestselling author of the Dan Taylor espionage novels and the new Detective Kay Hunter series, as well as a number of standalone crime thrillers.

Originally from the UK and currently based in Brisbane, Australia, Rachel’s novels appeal to a worldwide audience, and have been compared to Robert Ludlum, Lee Child and Michael Crichton.

She is a member of International Thriller Writers and the Crime Writers Association, with the Italian foreign rights for her debut novel, White Gold, being sold to Fanucci Editore’s TIMECrime imprint in 2014, and the Dan Taylor series sold to Germany’s Luzifer Verlag in 2017.

Get access to exclusive competitions and giveaways by signing up to the author’s Readers Group at rachelamphlett.com or keep in touch through:

Facebook (on.fb.me/TN7rpu)

Twitter (@RachelAmphlett)

Instagram (@rachelamphlett).

And Buy Rachel Amphlett’s Books at:

Amazon.com

Amazon.uk

Kobo