The Jewel in the Crown?

Mike Bodnar ponders the frustrations of gaining an endorsement for his debut novel while facing the big problem of all self-publishers...

Caution: Analogy Ahead!

I have been given a valuable jewel, a shining faceted trinket, worth - in certain circumstances - a great deal, and yet also possibly worth nothing. I am in a dilemma. But let's do a quick recap first so you can better understand where I'm coming from...

I self-published my first novel (through Amazon KDP) in April this year. It's a spy thriller in the classic Cold War genre. I may have made a mistake tying it into a popular 1960s British TV series that even today, 55 years after it first screened, enjoys cult status. The series is called The Prisoner. Why a mistake? Read on...

My book - Unity: Peace for All, Freedom for None - takes the flipside of the television series and aims to give a fictional yet plausible behind-the-scenes story to make sense of the enigmatic offering on screen. Problem is, I don't own the rights to the series, and ITV (who do) won't enter into negotiations with me. So, it's published, sadly, as a work of what's called 'fan fiction' (a term I loathe, and a major mistake).

Being a self-publisher I don't have a marketing budget (and because the work is fan fiction I'm not allowed to profit from it, so there's another mistake). Therefore my marketing to date has been limited to a book launch, and lots of social media posts. But I have tried to get endorsements from other well-known authors in the hope their encouraging words might help people decide to purchase.

Fishing for compliments

I have had limited success. Robert Harris's publisher returned the book with a polite no, sorry. Most others didn't even respond. But I did get a lovely endorsement from one of the few remaining actors who starred in The Prisoner, Derren Nesbitt (also of Where Eagles Dare fame, and more), and although he described me as 'very talented', and a 'fine writer', he felt I'd made a mistake tying the book to the TV programme (biggest mistake endorsed by famous actor!)

I have, more recently however, received a glowing testimony from an author rather than an actor, one David Pinner, who wrote the novel Ritual that was turned into a film called The Wicker Man (also a cult classic). His full summation of Unity was thus:

"Unity is very well-written and shows good political nous. A fine thriller: it is also a work of sharp prose and great economy. ‘Art is the gift of saying the most with the least’ and Mike Bodnar knows this.’ "

Author David Pinner

Lovely. From that I have chosen 'A fine thriller' as the key takeaway, and it now adorns the cover of all versions: the eBook, paperback and hardcover. (And before you ask, yes it does pay to 'know people'. One of my oldest friends just happens to be acquainted with Pinner, so he acted as a go-between for me and cleared the way for Mr. P to read the book and comment on it. I am lucky.)

My main problem however remains: I still don't have a marketing budget, nor a publisher with a distribution network, nor any major literary platform on which to showcase Unity. Yes I now have a wonderful endorsement, but all I can afford to do is continue to bombard my (very) limited following on social media with it.

I do have a few other ideas up my literary promotional sleeve: I plan to send a copy of the book to ITV with both the endorsements in the hope they'll consider Unity as a potential screenplay. (It is in fact written very much in a filmic style). On the other hand they might just take me to court on some basis of copyright infringement, but let them try; the publicity could be invaluable!

Another is to send it to mainstream book reviewers (ditto the endorsements) in the hope that David Pinner's support makes them at least take notice rather than bin it outright. Guardian, The Times et al, you have been warned.

Reviews for the asking (and paying)

Whenever I post on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) I get inundated with offers from soi disant reviewers saying they will review my book for their 10k, 100k, 250k followers in return for a certain amount of money - so far anywhere between US$30 and $45 plus cost of the book. Well no thanks; I don't hold with the ethics of paying for reviews which, to my mind, renders them worthless.

One thing I can hope for perhaps is that when I've finished writing my next novel (12k words so far but slow progress) which is not tied to any TV programme I can approach mainstream publishers with the endorsements I got for Unity as evidence that I at least know how to write. It might help.

But in the meantime I need to find a cheap (read: free) way of capitalising on David Pinner's wonderful words. I've done virtually everything I can using social media including even trying to give the book away for free (no takers, go figure). It's like finding a dropped diamond after a robbery of the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London: it's worth a fortune but you can't do anything with it.

Any literary gemologists out there?

On a Scale of One to Ten, How Would You Rate Your Mugging?

With the invention of the Internet and, later, social media, businesses and organisations quickly realised that they can speed up their marketing strategies and hone their online profiles by getting almost instant feedback on transactions.

You know the situation: you purchase something online from eBay, Amazon or any of the millions of other retailers, and almost as soon as the item is dispatched you receive an email or text asking how you thought the transaction went. Rate it from one to five stars. Oh, and please write a review if you would. Because your feedback matters and helps others to make informed decisions. Maybe.

I know these ‘reach-outs’ are all algorithms, but seriously, come on! Do retailers really need feedback on a packet of screws? Or a bag of paperclips? I was recently asked for my valued opinion on a pack of envelopes. They’re envelopes. You put things in them, seal ‘em up and send ‘em off. Should I have waxed lyrical about their lovely white colour and the smooth texture of the paper they’re made of? There's nothing to say.

Now don’t get me wrong; I have often read consumers’ reviews of products to help me make a decision on which product to buy, but these are usually for more expensive investments, and usually more complicated items than a packet of screws. So I understand that some reviews can be worthwhile, but I dislike being bombarded with requests to rate service, products or both for everyday items that have little worth. In the end, one paperclip is the same as another paperclip.

So I started my own mini-protest against the practice of demanding reviews on ordinary goods by writing extensively on the purchased items. Here is the first one I wrote, about a box of tealight candles I got via eBay (and yes, in my enthusiasm I made a spelling mistake in the title)…

 

I hope that helped consumers considering purchasing the same tealights to make their minds up.

Just a couple of weeks later I bought some netting to go over the fishpond in order to counter the eagle eye of a local crow (although technically a crow cannot have an eagle’s eye, but you get the drift…). Naturally a request came through almost immediately wanting to know what I thought about said netting. Not wanting to fail in my public duty I submitted this review…

 

However, I discovered that eBay had - and I’m sure this is purely coincidental - limited reviews to 500 characters since my first dissertation on the value and use of tealight candles. So unfortunately my eloquence on the lovely netting has gone unpublished. My new challenge is to write reviews using fewer than 500 characters. Not words, note, but characters, which includes letters, spaces, commas, full stops, etc. Very annoying, but since brevity is the soul of wit I shall have to be wittier more economically.

The constant demand for immediate feedback got me thinking about how it might be applied to a wider area of commerce, say, crime.

Imagine if you will a scenario where a street mugger approaches you on a dark night, asks you for the time and then grabs the £15,000 gold Rolex from your wrist and runs off into the darkness.

You are gutted. Upset. You question whether you should have fought back or cried out for help. Then you realise you should phone the police, but before you reach for your mobile it buzzes. You see it’s a text. You don’t know who it’s from but you read on, because it’s headed ’Your Rolex Experience.’

The text says:

Thank you for being mugged on High Street just now.

Thinking about the experience, would you say the mugger was:

a) Extremely polite

b) Quite polite

c) Not polite or otherwise

d) Really quite nasty

On a scale of one to ten, one being extremely disappointed and ten being extremely satisfied, where would you rate the timeliness of your mugger?

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10

Thinking about how you were so easily relieved of your Rolex, would you say you were:

a) A complete mug

b) A partial mug

c) Not a mug at all

d) In the wrong place at the wrong time?

(If you answered [d] we will return your watch as soon as possible because obviously it doesn’t work. If it did, you’d know the time and not be out on a dark street where you could get mugged)

And finally, how likely are you to recommend getting mugged by a professional to friends?

a) Extremely likely

b) Quite likely

c) Not likely

d) Don't know

Anyway, I’d better go. I’ve just ordered ten pieces of sandpaper from Amazon and I need to compose my 500-character review before they arrive. It will of course be abrasive.