I had an email from my publisher last month to say that The Half Truth had been selected for a free-to-paid promotion and was I happy for it to go ahead. I must admit, I wasn’t sure at first. I’ve never had a book in a free promotion before and I know it’s a love hate thing with some authors. However, I decided that there was no way of knowing unless I gave it a go.
The Half Truth went free for around ten days and in that time, I’m pleased to say, it did really well in the Free chart, reaching:-
#1 Romantic Suspense
#1 Women’s Fiction
#1 Crime
#4 Overall Amazon rankings
Once the excitement of that was over and the book went back to paid, how did it do? Well, it certainly had a knock-on effect with paid sales and it definitely generated more reviews, which had been slow in coming. I also found it had another positive impact on my other titles. It’s hard to measure, but I certainly saw a spike in the Amazon rankings with Closing In and my novella The French Retreat.
So, did I think it was worth it? Yes, in this instance, I’m very pleased with how it has all panned out.
Now, though, it’s back down to business and writing. I’ve started my next Falling for France novella, The French Affair, which I’m hoping to publish by the end of February. The cover is coming together nicely.
Also, my full-length novel which has been out on submission has had some encouraging interest. I can’t say anything at this stage, but I’m hoping to have news on that soon.
Just a quick post to say thank you to everyone who has bought, tweeted, shared and generally supported the launch of THE FRENCH RETREAT. It turned out to be a busy day as I also found out that THE HALF TRUTH was earmarked for a free promotion and will continue to be so until the end of the week and I received a very nice 4* review for CLOSING IN.
I’m visiting a few blogs over the next couple of weeks – if you get time, do pop along. In the meantime, I’m starting a new writing project and plotting the next book in the Falling for France series.
Click image for Amazon link
Thank you again, I really do appreciate everyone’s support.
Today I was finally able to type THE END – book 4 has now been written. Yay!
Of course, when I say written, I just mean my final draft version. It’s yet to be seen by the publishers and editorial team but I will deal with that in due course, for now, I want to revel in the fact that I’ve completed what I set out to do about four years ago.
Book 4 began life as part of a writing course I undertook through the London School of Journalism and the lovely tutor, Margaret James. I completed about fourteen chapters while doing the course and Margaret’s advice was invaluable but, in the end, I couldn’t finish it – not then, anyway. I clearly remember Margaret’s comment that it was all very nice but nothing much was happening. Ouch. But she was right and I didn’t know how to fix it. I had, however, fallen in love with my hero (an Irish bike mechanic) and wasn’t prepared to end my relationship with him. Instead, we went on a break. A long one, granted but the three years in between did us the power of good. When I reacquainted myself with my hero and book 4, I knew what needed fixing. This was probably down to the experience I had gained over time as I developed the craft or writing and having three published books under my belt.
So, since March, I’ve been spending a lot of time with book 4 and my hero and I’m delighted we’ve got to The End in one piece. I’d like to say I’ll have a glass of wine to celebrate but having just checked the cupboards, I’m out of luck. Diet Coke it is!
Living in rural Cambridgeshire as a child for several years, while my parents sampled the ‘Good Life’, we had lots of pets and animals – dogs, farm cats, chickens, ferrets and a pony. But it’s the dogs in particular that deserve a mention. My eldest brother had a tendency to rescue, adopt or foster any four legged canine that needed looking after. Fortunately, we had plenty of land and outbuildings for our guests, which included, a Jack Russell, a Greyhound, an Old English Sheepdog, a Doberman and a German Pointer – although not all at the same time. My mum might have been easy going, but she would have drawn the line at that, I’m sure.
At the time, we also had our own family pet dog, Tramp, so it’s no surprise that I’ve grown up to be something of a dog lover and enjoy it when pets pop up in a novel. They can be a great tool for showing another side to the characters in a book. Despite my dog bias, it’s cats who have appeared in my last two novels. Okay, the first time in Closing In, Scruffs only had a cameo role but in that one paragraph, he allowed the reader see the not quite so nice side of one of the characters. Don’t worry, no harm came to Scruffs.
Snoozing Rascal
In The Half Truth, my heroine, Tina Bolotnikov had a pet cat called Rascal who wasn’t there to show another side to Tina, but he helped her solve a couple of mysterious happenings in the house. Rascal in the book was directly taken from a real life Rascal, belonging to my friend and Romaniac pal, Laura E. James. When I visited Laura last year, Rascal and I became firm friends so it was a natural choice for my character’s pet.
Rascal
My current WIP has a dog in it – he’s a terrier, although I haven’t made up my mind what breed of terrier, so far he’s been a Jack Russell, a Highland Terrier and an Airedale. He’s been really useful as my hero confides in him and tells him a few things that he wouldn’t necessarily want anyone else to know.
Anyway, I thought I’d share a few photos of my own pets, past and present.
I’ve been nominated by Mark Westfor the Lovely Blog Hop where I share some of the things that have shaped my life. Thanks for the nomination, Mark. 🙂
First Memory
I’m not entirely sure which is my first memory as I have several around the time I was four years old and we had just moved to St Neots in Cambridgeshire. The one that I remember the clearest is going with my dad and two older brothers to see my mum in hospital. My younger sister had just been born and children weren’t allowed on the ward so my mum, who fortunately was on the ground floor of the local maternity hospital, brought my sister over to the window so we could see her.
me, my brothers and sister, June 1972
Books
I’ve always been a huge bookworm. My first love being Enid Blyton, especially the mystery series. I went on to devour Agatha Christie and anything with a murder or a mystery to be solved. Thrillers and mysteries were my first book love with romance being my second. I covered this in more detail on a recent post here.
Libraries
When I was a teenager my family moved to West Sussex and I had to start a new secondary school in Year 10 (that’s 4th year in old money). Although I never had any real issues with school, I neither loved it nor loathed it, I found myself often skiving days off school, or bunking as it was called in West Sussex. I would seek refuge at the local library and hide myself away in the upstairs Reference Rooms. Rather ironically, it was there I would actually do my school work. I liked the solitude, the autonomy and the silence. I’m not sure what drove me to take days off school and, Mum, if you’re reading this … sorry for all the times you asked me how school was and I said it was great. I actually meant the library was great. 🙂
What’s Your Passion
Other than my family and writing, I suppose it has to be sewing. My nan was a seamstress and pattern cutter in London, I think I inherited my love of fabric and creating things from her.
Learning
My day job sees me in an educational environment with 16+ year olds, I have school and college aged children and I have, in the past, undertaken studies through Adult Education and the Open University – I’m surrounded by conventional education and I do really enjoy learning. In fact, I am currently on an 18 month course through my work so, perhaps, I’m making up for all those days I sat in the library when I should have been learning at school or maybe the solitude in the libraries and self-educating was the forerunner to my independent distance learning with the Open University?
Writing
Having always wanted to write, one of my first collection of stories was when I was 10 years old. It was all about twin sisters and their adventures – I used to love free writing at school, aka, teacher needs to get on with other stuff. I continued to dip in and out of writing, beginning lots of things but never finishing them. It wasn’t until I had my youngest child and I had time at home that I actually completed a full length novel. Of course, that manuscript will NEVER see the light of day and I know I’ve improved since then, but then writing is all about learning – the two themes compliment each other in a continual circule. Write – learn/develop – write – learn/develop.
I had a great day out today visiting Harper Collins’ new premises in London. I had a meeting scheduled with my editor, Charlotte Ledger, and she kindly arranged for my son to meet Stuart Bache, Managing Designer at Harper Collins. My son is studying Graphic Design and Product Design at school, so it was an excellent opportunity for him to research the career in more detail.
My meeting with Charlotte went well and we discussed the way forward with my writing and, in particular, my current WIP. We also chatted about my new novel The Half Truth which is published next week, 19 March.
It was a long day but definitely worth it.
The amazing wall of books at Harper Collins’ offices.
View from the 14th floor of St Paul’s CathedralLeaving a copy of Closing In at Victoria tube courtesy of Books on the UndergroudAnd a copy of United States of Love on the northbound Victoria line.
I’m delighted to reveal the cover for my third Harper Impulse novel, The Half Truth.
There’s also a book trailer which is narrated by my uber talented sister-in-law, Angela Rowland, who I’ll be interviewing her next month about her voice over and acting work.
The Half Truth is out on 19 March, paperback 4 June. It’s available to pre-order from Amazon now.
As 2014 closes, what a great way to end withCLOSING IN hitting the number 1 spot on Kobo for Romantic Suspense.
I’m looking forward to 2015. My new novel THE HALF TRUTH is due out in the spring and I have a four part mini mystery series being published throughout the year. More details of that later. Hopefully, I’ll be able to share some covers soon.
Thank you for all your support – Happy New Year and I hope that 2015 is fantastic for everyone!
Everyone knows that when you’ve written something, try as you might, you can’t always spot your own mistakes, typos, sentence construction issues or general grammar problems. When I finished my first draft of Closing In, I needed someone with a keen eye to look over it for me before I sent it to my editor at Harper Impulse. I knew just the person to ask – my friend and fellow Romaniac girl, Jan Brigden.
Jan really does have an eye for detail. She meticulously went through my manuscript and found all the little, and not so little, errors I had made. She was able to give me solid feedback and advice on how to improve my manuscript, not just technically but she also spotted a few plot holes and continuity issues. I was so grateful, her proofreading really gave my manuscript a boost, making it so much more professional and polished.
Jan has also proofread other manuscripts and I know everyone has been delighted with her work. I would whole-heartedly recommend Jan to anyone who is looking for a proofreader. Over at The Romaniac blog, Jan has now put together a page, please pop over to have a look in more detail at her proofreading service and testimonials from previous clients. Click HERE.
After several good intentions over the past 3 or 4 years, I’ve finally signed up for NaNoWriMo. I’m a complete novice at it so if anyone wants to hold my hand along the way here’s the link for my profile.
I’m going to use NaNoWriMo to finish my novel Where It All Began. I’m 60k words in and think another 50k should do it for the first draft, then I will be able to edit it down to around 90k. That’s the plan anyway.
I’ve also have an Open University short course starting with their FutureLearn programme. I’m doing the Start Writing Fiction one. I know it seems a bit mad seeing as I’ve already written two novels, but I’d like to complete my degree which I started with the OU many years ago and this is a nice way to get back into studying.
I’m hoping that edits for my third novel, The Half Truth, don’t pop back into my in-box for a few weeks. Although, I am looking forward to seeing the cover which is being worked on at the moment. I might even be able to give you a sneak preview soon.
Good luck to everyone taking part in NaNoWriMo this year.
I had an email from my publisher last month to say that The Half Truth had been selected for a free-to-paid promotion and was I happy for it to go ahead. I must admit, I wasn’t sure at first. I’ve never had a book in a free promotion before and I know it’s a love hate thing with some authors. However, I decided that there was no way of knowing unless I gave it a go.
Once the excitement of that was over and the book went back to paid, how did it do? Well, it certainly had a knock-on effect with paid sales and it definitely generated more reviews, which had been slow in coming. I also found it had another positive impact on my other titles. It’s hard to measure, but I certainly saw a spike in the Amazon rankings with Closing In and my novella The French Retreat.
Now, though, it’s back down to business and writing. I’ve started my next Falling for France novella, The French Affair, which I’m hoping to publish by the end of February. The cover is coming together nicely.
Suzanne Fortin | Sue Fortin 