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Living Books - A Real Phenomenon

Over the weekend I decided to take a look at my Kindle sales to see what, if anything, was selling.  

As an author it’s always great to know someone has taken the trouble to look at my book and been inspired enough by what they’ve seen to pay actual money to download and read it.  I was surprised to see my oldest book, Under Verdant Skies, selling as many copies as my newer titles.

To be honest, I've been considering taking the title down lately, because (with a little personal growth and distance) I can see the book is not up to what I would consider ‘standard’.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the story and the characters, but some of the elements and the writing just make me cringe. 

An alternative to scrapping the book completely - which is not something I want to do, but would, rather than sell something I’m not happy with - is do a rewrite.  Well, a major rewrite, to be honest.  That’s a shame for all those people who’ve already bought the book, as they’ll miss out on the scintillating new version (ahem). 

But wait. No.  Amazon do this amazing thing called a Kindle Whispersync update. It means any new versions of the books we buy for our Kindle get automatically updated once Amazon have confirmed there are new updates.  Hooray! 

Oh, you knew that?  Okay.  Fair enough.

I knew it too. 

 Just saying.

But mulling over this whole ‘to scrap or rewrite’ thing has brought to mind an aspect of the ebook industry I hadn’t considered before.  Books – ebooks, anyway – are more alive these days than they’ve ever been. The book you download today could be different tomorrow, if the author changes something overnight.  It could have scenes added or removed, the dialogue could be different, the ending could change.  There could be any number of alterations, subtle or not-so from one version to the next, all without the mind-boggling process of going through the dozens of processes a print book requires.  An ebook could easily evolve from mediocre pulp to a masterpiece, or vice versa, bit by bit, over the course of days, weeks, or even years.  In fact, it might never stop.  The author might just keep going, forever rewriting, honing, shaping, perfecting.  A never-ending series of rewrites.

Is that a good thing? Shouldn’t a book be something dependable, unchanging, fixed?  Doesn’t that make it just a big web page that we have to pay for?  Also, would someone honestly reread an entire book just to see what changes the author has made since the last time they read it?  Probably not.  And if not not, then they should probably get a life.

The advantage, really, is for the author. So he/she can improve their work, put the best possible version out there, either in the hope of recognition (at long last) or just as a matter of principle. So the reader wins, too.

At present, Kindle allows authors to change their book content as often as they like, for no fee.  From an author’s point of view, that’s brilliant.  Personally, I’ve never reached the point where I’m a hundred per cent happy with a book I’ve written. There’s always room for improvement. Although I also believe there’s a point at which an author should just stop and say, ‘That’s it. Finished.’

Whispersync is good for readers because, for no fee, they’re automatically provided with the latest version of any book they’ve bought. True, they may not want the update, or they may not like the new version as much as the previous, and, once it’s updated, the original version is lost forever, which could easily become a downside. Thankfully, Whispersync is something you have to opt into, rather than out of, so the choice stays with the reader.

This new version malarkey is another poke in the eye for the print industry and I’m trying figure out whether I care or not.   Print books are as traditional as Christmas and there will always be those who prefer them, but in terms of storage, speed of delivery, ecology, and convenience, ebooks out-perform printed books, hands down.  The fact that ebooks are alive and evolving in a very true sense is just another plus.

So what are the minuses?  Well, for a start, I need to get on with that rewrite.

It's Complicated - A review of One Big Beautiful Thing by Marie Flanigan

It’s Complicated

Just when Kate’s life looks to be perfect, tragedy strikes. The man she loves is torn away in a tragic accident. A year later, still crushed by grief, her life shattered, she moves back to Arlington, where she grew up, in the hope of picking up the pieces and moving on. But moving on is harder than it sounds. Moving on means leaving Robert behind and that’s just too painful. 

Unfortunately, her heart has other ideas. Despite her best efforts, she’s drawn to Aiden. And that’s a problem. Because both of them are unattached but neither of them is free.  

Yes. It’s complicated.

One Big Beautiful Thing centres on Kate, a bright, talented young woman who life and its heartbreaks have convinced is undeserving of happiness. Despite the sadness and low self-esteem her warmth, compassion and intelligence make her a compelling and engaging character.  Contending with the judgemental attitudes of her mother and the Catholic community she’s surrounded by, and fighting her desire for Aiden, she embarks on reinventing her life, and discovering who she is and what she wants. 

This complex story follows Kate’s difficult and painful journey from despair to hope.  It explores the well of human emotions, with some truly touching moments and sparkling dialogue. Beautifully-written, it’s one of those books you’re glad has chapters. Otherwise you’d never be able to put it down!

If you liked ‘The After Wife’, you will love One Big Beautiful Thing.

An interview with Martine Lillycrop by Writing Ink Reviews.

WIR:      Hi, Martine.  Thanks for taking the time to talk to me about your latest novel, High Tide in the City.

ML:        No problem. I’m looking forward to it.

WIR:      High Tide in the City is a cyberpunk novel with a distinctly ‘noir’ atmosphere.  Several people have commented on its Chandleresque feel.  Do you read a lot of Raymond Chandler?

ML:        No.  Sorry, but I don’t.

When I started writing this, and in those days I was calling the book Persona, I wasn’t aiming to sound like anyone.  Nix’s voice was in my head and I just wrote him.

I’d never read any of Chandler’s work. Sad to admit, I’m a sci-fi geek, which might explain why everything I’ve written is in that genre.  I don’t tend to read outside of it, so when someone compared the style to Chandler’s, I must confess I felt a bit put out.  Now I’ve read some of Chandler’s work, I have to agree with the comparison.  Chandler is the master, though. I wouldn't put myself up there alongside him.

WIR:      The opening chapters appeared a few years ago on YouWriteOn.com, where it joined their Bestseller list as one of the highest-rated books. Is the current opening the same as the one published there?

ML:        There have been a lot of changes, partly due to there now being an ending.

I’m not a planner, I tend to go with the flow and see where it takes me.  That means I end up with a lot of extra stuff in the first draft. Some of which turns out to be useful and has a place in the finished piece, the rest gets dumped. So some of the scenes and details that appeared in that early incarnation have now gone, or have been replaced with an alternative.

WIR:      Presumably those changes are an improvement?

ML:        (laughs) Well, that’s the idea. It means the story’s not bogged down by irrelevant details or scenes that have no purpose. It makes for a cleaner book and a better story.

WIR:      As a prize for achieving such a high standard on YouWriteOn, Persona earned a free professional review.  How did it feel, having a well-known editor look over your work and give it a thumbs up?

ML:        Well, what can I say? Amazing!  An incredible opportunity.

 I get the impression the reviewer – Michael Legat – was a little puzzled by some aspects of my story. He didn’t let that stop him, though and delivered some really sound points to help me improve what I’d done so far. Sadly, he has now passed away, but I like the idea that some of his advice found its way into the pages of my novel.

WIR:      That’s a nice thought. 

Where did the inspiration for High Tide in the City come from?

ML:        That’s a difficult question. For a writer like me, things percolate subconsciously, so a lot of comments, articles, news reports and memes were probably working on me beneath the surface, and continued to do so while this novel was getting written. I often feel a novel writes itself.  Okay, yes, the writer writes it, but given free rein the end result is often vastly different (and superior) than the initial idea. At least, that’s my experience.

Part of it, I guess, was that I love Bristol as a city. It’s a beautiful place full of history and diversity. I suppose I wanted to ask myself what would happen if.  What would happen to Bristol if the sea levels rose to such a point that half of it was under water half of the time?  It already has a tidal range of 13 metres. That’s a lot of sea! That, plus the anticipated scarcity of fossil fuels in 2070, and the predicted rise in sea levels, was the perfect setting for my man Nix. 

WIR:      I love the fact that you’ve taken an ordinary, everyday city, transported it to the future and made it contemporary.   There are obvious differences – technology, environment -  but it isn’t far-fetched.  How did you strike a balance between making it futuristic and keeping it real?

ML:        If anything, I’ve underestimated the rate at which technology will move forward.  At its present levels, I think things will be far more advanced than I’ve envisioned for the 2070s. I endeavoured to restrain myself for the simple fact that I didn’t want it all to be too ‘glass and chrome’ and living under domes. I wanted gritty. I wanted things to be mean and nasty. I didn’t want laser guns or robots (although they’re there).  I wanted the people to be people, just like us. Not cyborgs or AIs (though they’re there, too). They’re there, but not evident, if that makes sense.

WIR:      I’m intrigued by these bracers.  They’re these computer/phone/passports gadgets that everyone wears on their wrist. An obvious progression from the mobile phone.  How did you get the idea?

ML:        Because they’re an obvious progression from mobile phones. (laughs)

WIR:      (laughs)  Oh, okay.

ML:        That’s what they are. It makes sense, right?  We already have bracers, just about. It’s just that no one’s got around to combining a wristwatch with a mobile phone and strapping it to their arm. In High Tide in the City, bracers do a lot more than phones, even todays’ phones.  But essentially, that’s all they are.

WIR:      The book is set in the UK, yet the protagonist, Nix, is an American. How does that work?

 ML:       This relates to the whole global warming, fuel scarcity thing in Nix’s world.  The United States has become a third world nation, due to a fifty year famine striking the American ‘Breadbasket’. They’ve run out of oil, they have no food, half the country is now desert. All that’s left are the coastal districts, which are under severe pressure to cope with the new Demographic. Anyone without squeaky clean paperwork is deported, and Nix’s mum (who was a single parent) was a Brit working in the States. So he’s actually English. Unfortunately his mother died when Nix was 14, and he was deported as a foreigner, even though he was born and raised in the states.  Thus the accent and the attitude.

WIR:      Will we be seeing more of Nix in the future?

ML:        I’m working on a sequel right now.  Don’t hold  your breath, though. I’m not what’s called prolific when it comes to churning out tomes.

WIR:      In the meantime, anyone who hasn’t read High Tide in the City can check it out on Amazon Kindle.

ML:        And it’s being released as a paperback on Amazon in the next couple of months.

WIR:      You can also get Martine’s other works, Blightspawn, and Under Verdant Skies on Kindle too, right?

ML:        That’s right.

WIR:      Thank you Martine, I’m looking forward to the sequel. Hurry up. Get writing!

High Tide in the City by Martine Lillycrop

I'm really pleased to have finally published my latest novel - High Tide in the City. This book's early incarnation won me a free professional review through YouWriteOn.com.

At the time it was entitled 'Persona' and the opening chapters reached the top 5 highest-rated for well over a month. It still remains in their bestseller charts.

High Tide in the City is a noirish cyberpunk novel set in the 2070's, in a world where fossil fuels have finally expired and global warming has raised the sea levels.  But that's not the story.

"When ex-cop Matt Nixon is called to a murder on the wrong side of town he thinks it’s business as usual. He couldn’t be more wrong.

But who’s going to believe he’s chasing a killer who’s already dead? And how will Nix stop him when he doesn’t know whose body the killer's wearing?

When the tide starts rising, it’s a race against time. And the clock is ticking." 

High Tide in the City is available on Amazon Kindle to either purchase or loan through Amazon Prime.
Paperback copies can be purchased through lulu.com right now, and will be available on Amazon in the near future.

The book is currently available for a low launch price. Buy now. High Tide in the City Kindle version.
or High Tide in the City paperback version.

For a quick taster, here's the opening few pages:

High Tide in the City

By

Martine Lillycrop

Chapter 1

Always knew there was a chance I’d kill someone. It was bound to come down to it one day: me killing someone, someone killing me. When it finally happened, the penny came down in my favour. Can’t say I’m sorry, though there’s those who might wonder why, given this is me. There’s some who’ve seen and done the things I’ve seen and done and come through it feeling nothing any more. So I always hoped I’d feel something, taking my first life.

As it happened, I did.

Couldn’t have been happier deleting the fucker’s ass.

*

Seem to remember it starting out on a night pretty much like any other. But back then, for me, most nights tended to be pretty much like any other. This one adopted the standard format - it was busy and it was raining.

Most cases are easy. Some, not so.

I already knew this wasn’t one of the simple ones. I knew because when I swung my hydro-job into the car-port, the ambulances were already there but the sense of urgency wasn’t.

This was my third call tonight - one rapist, one joy-riding senior citizen and now this. Which brings me to my job. What I do.

There’s this Native American saying.

‘Don’t judge a man till you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins.’

These days that mile can get a person arrested. But it doesn’t stop them. If you’ve never tried it, you might wonder why. You might wonder what makes someone want a digi-chemical cocktail injected straight into their brain.

They say it’s for the experience - taking on a new persona, becoming someone else. Escaping themselves for a while. To an extent it’s true, but often it’s just for the needle. The cold, sharp stab at the base of the skull which gets colder and sharper as it goes deeper. Until your brain fills with stars like the universe has just been born inside your head and the endorphin rush hits, making you feel invincible. It fades as the squirt comes on. But some people do it, all of it, for those few seconds of feeling like God.

For others it’s the surrender. Because you have to, to get it in you. It’s impossible to upload a squirt yourself, get the needle just right so it goes in at the right angle, the right depth. Get it wrong, you’re blind or a vegetable. Or dead. So someone else has to do it. Usually the same someone who just sold you your black-market fix.

Handing your life over to a stranger, a criminal - letting them do something to you a qualified doctor would baulk at - it demands something of you. Gets to be a thrill, that total surrender, that flirting with death or coma.

Just so you can ‘Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’.

That was the tagline, back when it all started. Everyone wanted it then and everyone did it. Until it was found to be addictive, caused brain tumours, then suddenly doing it was illegal.

Then the trouble started for real, and black-market squirts aren’t clean - you can never be sure what you’re getting. Dirty squirt. The users mostly come off badly and their victims, worse.

Rain greyed out the street lamps like vertical smoke, but it hadn’t deterred the onlookers huddled outside the address. The night flickered white as two dozen data-cams strobed across me. Looked like someone had cashed in with a call to the Media Desk.

Media. I could almost read their minds: Photo opportunity - some guy stepping out of a car. They didn’t know who I was, why I was there, but they had to have me. Just in case there was a tasty morsel waiting there to be plucked over.

I might even make it onto the morning download again.

At least I’d shaved. Mind, eight hours later is long enough to make it look like I hadn’t bothered, but even so. Plus I always seem to miss that bit, just under the jaw - the bit the other guy never misses when he’s throwing punches at it.

Fuck ‘em, anyway. Wasn’t like I had to keep Public Relations sweet these days. With any luck the black stubble and sour face’ll keep me off the splash page. Ugly don’t sell.

I heeled the door of my converted Ford shut, blinking at the after-image scored across my retinas. Turned my collar up against the downpour and glanced round for whoever was in charge.

They saw me first.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’

The voice came from behind - what I call clean British, not the cut-glass type, just clean. Barely any accent. The whip-crack tone made me wince.

‘Nixon. I forgot you worked nights.’

Yeah. Course you did.

I didn’t need to see the face to know who was standing there. My shoulders tensed anyway. I breathed it out before turning.

Rain had given her panda eyes. It dripped off the bun she’d pulled her hair into, turned escaped strands into slick dark lace which clung to her cheeks. The coat she wore fell to just below her calves and a stream ran off the bottom like a Japanese waterfall.

‘Need an umbrella?’ I asked.

She rolled her eyes. ‘My night’s already turned to shit. And now they send you? Who did I piss off this time?’

I managed a grin. ‘You look fantastic, by the way. Done something with your hair?’

She gave a sneer, but her bracer jangled before she could add anything. She flipped back the sleeve of her coat, turned away so the front fell open, showing me a tantalising glimpse of curvy figure beneath the fitted suit she wore. She twisted her wrist, so the screen lit her face, and gave the facia a brutal stabbing.

I sucked my teeth, feigning indifference while she answered.

Maybe I should explain. This was Lian. Detective Inspector Morrison. We used to be partners. Friends. More than friends. Before I got hooked. Before I got fired. Nothing like getting kicked off the Force for squirt addiction to turn a girl against you. But we’d been a team once. A good team.

Yeah, okay. Her approach and mine had always been different. Psychological profiling was her special skill, her strength. All very well for regular crims, but once we’d been assigned to the sparkling new Persona Task Force, all that extra schooling was pretty much redundant. Not according to her, though. I never understood why she didn’t get it. How can you profile someone who’s playing out a fantasy through another persona? Soon as the squirt dies, they’re different people - model citizens.

Me, I’d always gone for the suppliers. The sack-of-shit hard-asses who sold the squirts in the first place, after downloading them from some sad fuck arrogant enough to think other people wanted to be like them. So I went undercover. I entered that world. Did my best to turn it upside down.

I walked a lot of miles in that time, wore out a lot of different shoes. Closed down a few shoe-shops, too. Before it got out of hand.

I’d always known there was a price to pay - there usually is. But it was more than I’d counted on. Wasn’t the first time I’d heard that excuse from a user.

Pretty pathetic when I heard it from me.


Thanks for reading. I hope you like it enough to want to read more.

Don't forget there are other titles available : Blightspawn on Kindle or through lulu.com