Marketing cock up

Readers,

Ahead of the publication of my second novel The Brent Street Haunting, I thought I'd share with you the marketing disaster that was my first novel The Scorpian Visitant.

TSV took me about twelve years to write, 150k words - in itself the length is not a good idea for a new novelist.

I wrote and re wrote TSV and it changed and improved with every draft until I thought I had something of industry standard - naturally the idea was that the book would be offered around the traditional publishers.

But my reluctance to let the novel go saw the project overtaken by events - the e-book revolution. So after one rejection I decided to put the story up on Smashwords

Of course with hindsight I didn't know what I was doing, but here is a list of the mistakes I made.

1) I changed the name of the bloody thing at the last moment. Yes folks, this tome was to be called and always was THE PRISM. But then I got this crazy idea in my head that I could make a series of stories. I roughed out plausible plots to several other tales and then I was away - the first story was to be called The Scorpian Visitant. This refers to the male protagonist - teenaged arsonist turned time shifted medieval hero - Robbie Higgins. Regardless The Scorpian Visitant is an awkward name. Moreover Scorpian is not a word recognised even in word processors, being the adjective of all things Scorpio. In short a poor title.

2) The cover. I had the idea that a simple 'Dark Side of the Moon' prism disintegrating light would be a good idea. But with the change of name decided to focus on the burning barn - Jade Finn's mother's barn, which arsonist Robbie set ablaze almost the moment he arrived in Medieval Oakwood.
Again another howler.

3) Make it Free (at least for a while). Never. Never. Never. TSV had taken so long to write. It was (and still is) 150k words for God Sake. Surely you should be compensated. Well not really. Who in their right mind would buy a 150k tome from a new writer?

Funnily enough TSV has sold a number of copies on the usual platforms, but I wonder what might have been had I done what I originally intended for it.

One day, I may revisit this story, for in my heart I believe it worthy. I will change the name to the The Prism, and as this epic fantasy lends itself to a professional book cover I guess that will be in order too. Oh, and when I re-launch it - I'll probably give it away for a while.

Unfortunately, none of the above will  happen any time soon. When I move on I move on, and I am knocking out new stories now. The lesson that I have learned is don't fall too much in love with anything you do - after the one you're with there'll be others - and the more you do the better they get.


Best wishes

Saul