As an indie writer, you learn a lot as you go along from trial and error. Actually, that’s life in general, isn’t it? Anyway, it’s true to say that, like anything else you might do regularly, you find yourself improving. In writing, the other thing that starts to emerge is your ‘voice’. The style and tone you like to create with your writing. It’s certainly happening to me.
In March 2012 Pandora’s Pitbull was published. It’s fair to say it hasn’t set the publishing world alight! I think it’s a good yarn (I would say that…) but it needed a spruce up to try and get it to sell better. With this in mind, I asked for some opinions on the cover. The majority of folks seemed to think the first cover was perhaps a hindrance to sales. This month, we’ve changed it and… I love it! Bolder, more colourful, less aggressive, a more intriguing background and the font is a vast improvement. I hope others agree – feedback from Facebook has been very positive so far.
With the Off the Page event looming, I really wanted to make it available in paperback. This meant an excuse for a full re-edit. That’s when it struck me how much my writing voice has developed over the past year. I’ve radically pruned, restructured and rebuilt the prose of the book. I’ve altered little, if anything, of the storyline, plot or characterisation but I’m far happier with the content now. I hope this might also encourage a few more positive reviews.
There is a potential difficulty with this alteration though. It means that folks with the original version might feel a bit hard done by. Was their version not as good? Well, if I’m being brutally honest, no, it wasn’t. I think I’ve made the prose tighter, punchier and flow better and we have a new jacket. With this in mind, I’m really happy to say you can update your version via the kindle and Amazon without any further charge. However, if you’re struggling to do that, please let me know via email or the comment box, and I’ll gladly send you a free replacement copy. I’d be especially grateful to anyone who found the time to review it afterwards.
This is the first of many exciting writing things going on in my life this Summer. Stay tuned for more announcements – including a brand new Adam Stark novel called ‘Stark Choices’.
Right, write, right?
