Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors #3 - Matt Drabble

Today, I'm proud to bring you another interview in what is proving to be quite a popular series - Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors. In the hot seat is Best-selling U.K. author, Matt Drabble. His Amazon Author's page bio describes him as thus: 

"Born in Bath, England in 1974, a self-professed "funny onion", equal parts sport loving jock and comic book geek. I am a lover of horror and character driven stories. I am also an A.S sufferer who took to writing full time two years ago after being forced to give up the day job. I have a career high position of 5th on Amazon's Horror Author Rank of which I am immensely proud. "GATED" is a UK & US Horror Chart Top Ten Best Seller & winner of the Full Moon Awards 2014 Horror Book of the Year. "ASYLUM - 13 TALES OF TERROR" is a US Horror Chart #5 It was also voted #5 on The Horror Novel Review's Top 10 Books of 2013 & is a Readers Favorite 2014 Gold Medal Winner.
"ABRA-CADAVER" won an Indie Book of the Day award."

Without further ado, let's get in to it. Remember to make sure you check out Matt's excellent books and the other interviews in this series here on my website. 

Who are you and where do you come from? Do you think that your life experience has gone someway towards making you a successful author in your chosen genre?

My name is Matt Drabble and I am originally from a city called Bath in the South West of England. A few years ago I suffered a nasty back injury and as a result I was unable to keep on working a full time job. I have always liked writing and had many a notepad full of ideas and the beginnings of books. One day I stumbled across an article on Amazon’s self-publishing platform. With time on my hands I figured why not turn one of my half finished stories into a full book, mainly just to see if I could, so I did.

Where do you get your inspiration from for your writing and for the way you brand yourself as an author?

For me King is King and long live the King. I am increasingly working in the short story format and have produced three anthologies so for and am currently working on my fourth. Inspiration for a short story with a twist really comes from the world around me. It could be a news article that makes me think “what if?” What if the outcome was different, what if something else happened that changed the whole complexion? Normally I start at the end with a twist and work backwards from there.

If you could pinpoint one thing in particular that has grabbed readers of your work, what would you say it is? I.e. What do you think it is about your work that makes readers buy your books?

I always try and write stories with some depth to them. There is a market for the gross out horror fan, especially amongst younger readers, but my audience seem to be older readers. I’d like to think that I write with a decent pace, interesting and exciting situations, but all with three dimensional characters that you’ve come to care about.

You have enjoyed best-selling status – is there a particular moment in your career as an author that you realized that you had done something right to get where you are now? Can you pinpoint what it was that spiked your success to date?

When I first started self-publishing about two and a half years ago, the market was less saturated and you could do a free giveaway and I’d average maybe 3000 downloads a day without any marketing. Now without any advertising you’d be lucky to see 100 [downloads]. I set myself a deadline of three books to see some improvement in sales figures to give me any encouragement to keep going. Luckily, after the first two sank without trace, the third offering was a horror thriller called “Gated” which was a more deliberate attempt to produce something with more of a commercial appeal. The going was slow but with a lot of patience and determination sales started to pick up, reviews were good and I had a big free giveaway weekend which netted me around 31,000 downloads. My next book was a horror anthology called “Asylum – 13 Tales of Terror” which sold about 1600 books in the first month with no marketing. I am a firm believer that as long as your work is decent, once people see it they will buy it. The obvious problem with Amazon now is getting your book high enough up the charts for readers to see it.

Did you try to get publishing contracts for your books early on with traditional book publishers? If so, did you have any success there or if not what was it that made you decide to self-publish the majority of your work?

Yes. I sent out my stuff to every agent and publisher that accepted submissions. I did finally sign a deal with a publisher based in San Francisco who then unfortunately went out of business about four days before my launch.

Why self-publish?

The great thing about self-publishing is that anyone can do it; unfortunately, the bad thing is also that anyone can do it. I believe that a lot of readers have had their fingers burnt by poor work and can be more sceptical and less willing to give a new author a chance. Self-publishing also gives an author time to grow and breathe, time to develop and time to forge a very thick skin. The only way to get better is to write and write a lot.

For more of this fascinating interview, please visit Self-Publishing Successfully for full transcript.

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Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors #2 - Matt Shaw

Hi again, today I'm pleased to bring you the second interview in what is proving to be a very popular interview series - Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors. Today's interviewee is none other than the inimitable, best-selling U.K. horror author, Matt Shaw. His Amazon Author's page describes him as thus: "Matt Shaw is the published author of over 50 stories. Although known as being a horror author, he also enjoys spending time in other genres too - something he had always planned to do in order to have at least one book, in a wide collection, which would appeal to people from all walks of life. Shaw was first published in 2004 with his horror novel Happy Ever After - the first of his books to reach the number one slot on Amazon and the first of his books to use his trademark style of narrating the stories through the first person perspective. An extremely prolific writer, Matt Shaw is continually writing as well as keeping up to date with his readers via his (some might say) crazy Author Page on Facebook. Once Published weekly in a lad's magazine with his photography work, Matt Shaw is also a published author and cartoonist. More recently he is known for turning his stories into films."

Who are you and where do you come from? Do you think that your life experience has gone someway towards making you a successful author in your chosen genre?

Matt Shaw. Earthling. Sort of.

I was born in Winchester Hospital, down the South of England. I remember the day well. The birds were singing and the Gods were looking down upon my mother, and smiling, as she pushed me out. Then when I was past the point of no return, and spilling into the world, the Gods began laughing at her.

“Too late! He’s your problem now, wench!” they shouted in unison.

I have always been good at telling stories (don’t mind me, just blowing my own trumpet) but I’d never really found myself an audience, which was frustrating me to say the least. It was only after I was disowned by someone whom was supposed to love me, that I really pushed myself harder and harder with each passing day to prove them wrong in what their last words said of me. Had I not been disowned, I couldn’t honestly say I’d be in this position today. For all I know, I’d still be in the same dead end job that I was in before my personal life exploded.

I couldn’t tell you where the horror came from though. For all intents and purposes I had a normal childhood :S

Your stories are many things –  violent, satirical, horrific – with an obviously penchant for the dark macabre – if you could pinpoint one thing in particular that has grabbed readers of your work, what would you say it is?

I think it is the fact I don’t pussyfoot around with subject matters. I write horror, therefore you need to expect a full-on experience which will - in places - sicken you. Too many ‘horror’ authors are out there now who like to pull their punches for fear of putting the readers off. Horror fans do not want to have things diluted. They want the full experience. Once word of mouth gets out about what I write, they tend to give my work a go and then fall for the writing style (the majority of my books being in the first person perspective).

You have enjoyed best-selling status on Amazon recently and have also been the recipient of book contracts and even a movie deal – is there a particular moment in your career as an author that you realized that you had done something right to get where you are now? Can you pinpoint what it was that spiked your success to date?

My ‘success’ came about after the release of my first Black Cover Book (black cover books are the extreme horrors). The book - ‘sick b*stards’ - came out and just instantly took off. I was surprised to be honest. The whole thing was written in an attempt to shock and sicken people but they lapped it up. After that, it was all about pushing more Black Cover Books out. I believe there are ten now and that is since February 2014. I have another three written and due out over the next few months too: “Don’t Read”, “ASHES” and “MONSTER” - the latter being co-written with ART co-writer Michael Bray.

Did you try to get publishing contracts for your books early on with traditional book publishers? If so, did you have any success there or if not what was it that made you decide to self-publish the majority of your work?

I decided to self-publish immediately and have never looked back. Funnily enough now, I am getting knocks on my door from people interested in publishing me but - at this stage - I am not interested. I am doing okay by myself and the publishing companies hitting me up can’t offer anything I am not doing already. Self-Publishing doesn’t really carry the stigma that it used to anymore but I will tell you this - to be noticed, it is extremely difficult. More and more people are turning to writing to make money now thinking they can write the next 50 Shades. It doesn’t work like that. It’s hard to find readers, especially those who have the potential to turn your fortunes around. This is not a short-term get rich quick scheme!

What do you see as your most innovative promotional strategy?

I don’t sell the book, I sell me.

I am turning myself into a brand. Someone people want to check in on, over on Facebook. That strange little horror author who keeps doing silly strip videos, or videos putting condoms over his head. I act the fool to keep people watching. They are then more likely to invest in my work. There are a lot of authors who just continually push their books in the shape of adverts or shout-outs. Really, this isn’t the way. They get lost in a sea of publicity and all read the same and smell of desperation. Whatever you try, the most important thing is to be original! Do not copy someone else, do not rip off a style that you’ve seen work elsewhere. You will highlight yourself for the wrong reasons . . .


For more of this fascinating interview, please visit Self-Publishing Successfully for full transcript.

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Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors #1 - Mark Edward Hall

Hi everyone - hope you are all well and enjoying life as much as possible. For those of you readers who sometimes wonder what all the hullabaloo is about self-publishing vs traditional publishing, this is the first in a series of exclusive interviews with best-selling self-published authors. The interviews will pretty much reveal all you need to know (plus more!) about why some authors choose to publish their work independently (as opposed to traditionally). For authors (and prospective authors) thinking of self-publishing, or wondering similar questions, I hope that this series of interviews will offer you some valuable tips and advice from these best-selling self-published authors, that you can use to navigate and hone your own adventures in today's exciting digital publishing world. Without further ado, let's kick it all off with this fantastic interview with best-selling author Mark Edward Hall.

Where do you get your inspiration from for your writing and for the way you brand yourself as an author?

As a writer my inspiration comes from the world around me. I’m a news junkie and I like to use current events as inspiration. I’ve also done a lot of reading in my life and use historical events in the mix. My unique author branding comes from a mix of genres. For the most part my novels are hard to categorize. They’re a mix of crime, scifi, horror, fantasy and apocalyptic. Some say this is the kiss of death but it’s been very successful for me. There’s always a little romance (and sex) in there as well, because to me it can’t be real without the tensions of love, the single most important driving force in human history. You have to remember that love and sex were here long before money and greed. I do write some straight horror, and I love it, but the supernatural thriller is where I’m most at home.

Did you try to get publishing contracts for your books early on with traditional book publishers? If so, did you have any success there or if not what was it that made you decide to self-publish the majority of your work?

My first novel, The Lost Village, was completed in the late nineties. At the time the Scott Meredith agency in New York had something called the Discovery Program. You send them four hundred bucks and they promised to put your book at the top of the slush pile and get back to you within a few months. They were a major agency with a great reputation, so I said, why the hell not and sent it along. They were true to their word. Within sixty days I heard from a kind editor who told me the book was amazing, that I had a promising future as a writer, but The Lost Village was too long and therefore unpublishable. He said there wasn’t a publisher on the planet who would publish a 258,000 word novel from an unknown. He said if I was King or Patterson, no problem. But I wasn’t King or Patterson. Please send something else along that’s at a more appropriate length, say 90 to 110 thousand words. This was in 2002 and I said screw it and published it myself. Back then, there weren’t any kindles or nooks so I went with one of those vanity presses. The book came out quite well. It was in hardcover and paperback and I was happy with it. I joined the New England Horror writers, did some group signings and actually sold quite a lot of books.  To the chagrin of some of the other members who were all traditionally published authors.
     I was the only outlier. I did a tremendous amount of self- promo and soon I was receiving fan mail, some from as far away as Australia and the UK. By 2004 I had written two more books, The Haunting of Sam Cabot and The Holocaust Opera, both horror stories. I self-published them both. In 2009 I got an email from a new small press publisher called Damnation Books who wanted to publish my work. They subsequently republished all three of my novels. I signed away my rights for five years. I wish I never had. The royalty rate was a little higher than most traditional publishers but still terrible. That was about the time kindle exploded on the scene. Damnation did very little for me other than put my books out there and let them go stagnant. I was sorry I’d given my rights away.
    In the meantime, I wrote three more novels and several novellas. These I self-published. No way was I ever going to let another publisher have my books. Apocalypse Island came out in 2012 and has done amazingly well. Soul Thief, its sequel, came out the following year and is doing very well also. I’m publishing the third in the series (Song of Ariel) as a serial novel simply because my readers are demanding more now.
    I know this is a long answer to your short question. The simple answer is, this is my publishing history. I never sent out queries to hundreds of publishers like so many other writers did. I’m independent and love going it alone. Damnation Books was my one fall down and I’ll never let that happen again. By the way, I received the rights back to The Haunting of Sam Cabot last September, and have sold more copies in five months than I did in five years with a publisher. I get the other two books back this year. That’s it, unless I am offered millions of dollars from a major publisher, I will never ever consider signing with one again. And I will never sign away my digital rights for any price. This is the future and any author who doesn’t retain his or her digital rights is a fool.

For more of this fascinating interview, please visit Self-Publishing Successfully for full transcript.

 

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REVIEWS, NEWS & VIEWS

Some days, you wake up thinking the day will be much the same as the previous one  . . . and then you see that someone has liked one of your books enough to leave a positive review on Amazon or Goodreads et al. These days I live for. Not so much for the kudos and a back-pat (although, undeniably, an ego massage never goes amiss, when you're wondering if anyone is actually reading the stuff you've slaved over) but for the fact that someone has read something you wrote and enjoyed it. Bringing pleasure to my readers, even if it is a macabre fear-filled type of pleasure, is why I continue to write and I thank you for it. Yes, you - the reader. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your patronage and time and I hope that I can continue to surprise and satisfy you with my words.

Here is the review in question that I woke up to today:
 

 

"5.0 out of 5 stars A Book You'll Read More Than Once!  

January 18, 2015 by Mary Genevieve Fortier

Format:Paperback

 

Dreams of Thanatos: Before we open the cover let us explore the title and the origin of the name. In Greek mythology Thanatos was the demon personification of death. Latin translates the name simply as Thanatos. In Greek mythological poetry, Thanatos is the son of Night and Darkness, and had a twin- Sleep.

Interesting, huh? Well, my dear readers the title of this book is not all that defines a creative mind at work.

William Cook is an author and poet. At times, his stories however dark they may appear, are quite poetic in flow and form. The words are collected and assembled to create beauty. Cook does so masterfully. As a poet, he produces horror fiction with the finely tuned eloquence of words. His plan appears, to draw you in and do more than scare the hell out of you. No, Cook wants you to sit back and think. With great success, he achieves just that.

So, now that you have an idea of what lives beyond the simple words etched upon the face of this uniquely, artistic book; a glimpse into this superbly imaginative mind, let us delve in. Fifteen stories house this collection of terror; giving you a whole new perspective on death, or shall we say, Thanatos. Each tale reaches the recess of the creative mind, painting a picture of death in ways the average reader couldn’t possibly, ever imagine.

“The Reader”- The story of a man with an insatiable desire to read. We witness as he neglects life, his family and all else, to quench his uncontrollable obsession for the written word. This unreasonable fixation grows without conscious thought. The voracity, as a deep seeded hunger, plagues the character relentlessly. Dare you find yourself engrossed in a great book again, once you discover the horror that awaits, “The Reader.”?

Another tale to lure you beyond the fine line between reality and a waking nightmare;

“The Night Terror”- This story glides as a poetic piece of literature with a horrific twist. An elderly scholar witnesses a nightmarish creature destroy the world around him. Helpless, despite his vast emporium of knowledge, the scholar can only bear witness to the senseless destruction and its terrifying genesis. What do you fear within the dark? This reviewer is certain, the terror that lurks here, is beyond your worst nightmare.

“Dead Memories”- a man’s descent into madness is given rise by the apparition of his former girlfriend. Cook takes us through the glass of time in this disturbing and heart wrenching chronicle of the sour taste of love, when it compels the human psyche to refuse release. Oh, love and madness… the symbiosis created here is unforeseen and startling!

These are but a few spine chilling treats awaiting your final nerve. Each story will draw you deeper- deeper into the creatively, creepy mind of William Cook and Death far more disturbing than your nightmares. “Dreams of Thanatos” is one you’ll read more than once. You’ll have to - it keeps calling…"

This review is from my first collection of horror stories - I have nearly completed the first draft of my second (print) collection which should be ready by late March (this year). If any of you are interested in reading the book mentioned above or any of my other titles, please visit my Amazon Author Page. Also, if you'd like a freebie - my short story 'One Way Ticket' is free on Smashwords in any ebook format you desire.

Anyway, back to the keyboard for me. Once again, if any of you would like to comment or contact me I'd love to hear from you. What's your favorite horror story? What kind of books do you read?  What's your favorite genre? What kind of story would you like me to write next? Always love to chat about books and writing.

Take care.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A big shout-out to my readers and viewers of this website (hopefully you are one and the same *wink*), wishing you all the best for 2015 and beyond. This year is going to be a big one for me - for the first time in my short writing career, I have put together a publishing schedule. I know - Shock! Horror! 

2015 publishing schedule is as follows:

March - 3 x eBooks, 1 x print + eBook

June - 3 x eBooks, 1 x print + eBook

September - 3 x eBooks, 1 x print + eBook

December - 3 x eBooks, 1 x print + eBook

I've looked at my progress as an author and feel that this schedule is completely achievable (knock on wood) unless I happen to lose a limb et cetera. At least two of the print titles will be full novel-length works, one of which will be the sequel to my first horror/thriller novel 'Blood Related.' There will be a fresh collection of short fiction (horror-based, similar to 'Dreams of Thanatos'), a collection of non-fiction essays (related to art & literature), a collection of short 'literary fiction' and a new series of short horror fiction, plus some short thriller fiction also. So, lots to do, lots to write - very excited, I think this year will hopefully see my back-catalog grow and (hopefully) my readership, as a direct result.

As you may have noticed, the website has a new more minimalist look and feel. I hope you like it and that it makes your visits easier on the eye. As always, any suggestions you may have regarding the look of this website and the content are always welcome (use comments link beneath posts). 

I have a relatively new title that is available #FREE for all new subscribers - so, if this is your first time visiting, please take a second to subscribe now so you can grab a free copy of 'One Way Ticket' and stay tuned for exclusive news and info regarding new releases and posts and subscriber give-aways in the near future.

Fast Train To Hell . . .
From the belly of the swamp issues forth a visit in the middle of the night from a force as dark and unimaginable as hell itself. Poor pig-farmer Abel Laroux, must battle the demons of his past as well as the nightmarish reality of the present, as he confronts a devilish visitor who has come to collect on an outstanding debt, inherited by Abel from his forefathers.

Bonus Features: Includes an excerpt from the author's novel, 'Blood Related' + the long poem 'The Temper of The Tide', in its entirety.

Warning: contains adult content + themes of supernatural & psychological horror.


'One Way Ticket' is a gothic supernatural horror story set in the bayous of Louisiana/New Orleans. It was originally published in the anthology 'Terror Train' by James Ward Kirk Fiction (see link at foot of this page for link) and is also available as an audio podcast. (If you want to skip the preamble and go straight to the story it begins at 5:40.)

One of my New Year resolutions is to post a lot more content here so please make sure you're subscribed to stay in touch. I'd love to hear from any readers out there too - especially in regards to any future works you might like to see from me or just to say 'hi.' Anyway, all the best for 2015 to you - may it be a year filled with prosperity, laughter and good health. Thanks for reading.

Will.