Jarek Adams: Please buy my book!

Jarek Adams: Please buy my book!: " The world of publishing is changing fast, and in an effort to be at the front of the changes I’ve decided to e-publish my novel ‘Bitte..."

Please buy my book!

 The world of publishing is changing fast, and in an effort to be at the front of the changes I’ve decided to e-publish my novel ‘Bitter Roots’.  That was the easy part.  Now comes the difficult part – building sales!

When my husband, Andy’s book ‘Killjoy’ came out in paperback we asked as many people as possible to buy it from Amazon at the same time.  Loads of you did, and we can’t thank you enough, because it meant that for a short while at least he was in the top 50 of the Amazon charts, which means that he can call his book a best seller!

We’d like to repeat the experiment this week with ‘Bitter Roots’ so will be asking anyone interested in buying a copy, to buy it on Thursday evening this week - 31^st March.

If you don’t have any kind of e-reader you can easily download a free kindle app from Amazon, and then there are loads of books you can buy cheaply or even download for free, so it’s worth doing even if you decide not to buy my book.

BITTER ROOTS is a Modern Gothic Romance. Growing up in a sinister commune in West Wales, Beth Skye’s only comfort is Matt, her childhood sweetheart. But catastrophic events tear them apart, and she finds herself on the Island of Corfu with her sickly sister and their obsessively controlling mother. She escapes from her mother’s clutches, only to exchange one unhappy relationship for another. But eleven years later she returns to the island and battles to escape her past of mysterious occult practices and tragic deaths. Only then will she be able to move on and seize the chance for happiness with her one true love. But will the past let her go? Or will her twisted family roots drag her back into the darkness?

It costs £1.71 which was the cheapest I could make it using Amazon’s system, and you can find it by clicking on the link below.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bitter-Roots/dp/B004RPWJEE

OR $2.78 outside the UK at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RPWJEE

To see if it’s your sort of thing, you can read the first chapter on my website www.jarekadams.com

I’ll update everyone on the sales results on my Facebook page, or you can look at my blog on Friday  http://jarekadams.blogspot.com/

Please forward this to anyone else you think may be interested in a cracking read for the Easter holidays. 

And finally, if you do buy it and you do like it, please leave feedback on the Amazon site as this can also help to build those all important sales.  Many thanks, Jarek/Jan

Impatience is a virtue!

OK, if patience is a virtue then I’m certainly not a virtuous woman.  My book ‘Bitter Roots’ has been doing the rounds of agents and getting good feedback, as well as high praise from the Romantic Novelist’s Association, and there is some possibility of a paper edition coming out later this year, but I’m keeping details of that under wraps so that I don’t jinx it.

But, in the meantime I’ve decided to e-publish it on Amazon. 

Doing that is not the most straightforward process, and my page on the US site doesn’t seem to show the price of the book $2.78 unless you follow a couple of links to my author page – but who’s going to do that – so will get that sorted as soon as possible.  But for anyone in the UK it is now available as an e-book download for the very good price of £1.71 which was as cheap as I could make it using their system.

Anyone who’s been to my house knows that I’m a bit of a book collector, but when I decided to e-publish I thought I’d better get to know the technology, so I bought a Kindle, and I swear that I am not being paid to say this, but in just a couple of weeks I am a true convert.  It takes up hardly any space, is easy to use, and I can download books really cheaply without having to wait for the post office to lose/deliver them.  And as I said, I am not a patient woman, so for me it is perfect.

I know that not everyone has the kit to read e-books yet, but I’m going to do the same as Andy did and ask anyone who does want to read ‘Bitter Roots’ to download it on the same day.  Probably will go for next Thursday 31^st, but will post more about that next week.  If you don’t have any kind of e-reader you can download a free kindle reading app from Amazon to see if you like it – or just to read my book!

I’ve rewritten the opening of the book, and will update my website this weekend, so if you want to read the start before committing to the whole book then have a look after Saturday, and at the new opening to ‘Brighton Sucks’, which I am hoping to have finished in a couple of months.

I’ll put up links to the book next week, but you can have a look at it by just putting Jarek Adams into search on Amazon, and you can also follow the link from ‘Bitter Roots’ to my author page.  But by next week, all will be clear and all should be linked everywhere.

Busy, busy, busy.

After attending a World Book Day event with a group of local writers, I spent the whole of last week concentrating on moving forwards with my writing, and I am really excited now.  I was feeling the need to broaden my portfolio, so I sent three poems off to a local writer’s magazine, found a competition to send my play to, and did exciting stuff on the novels.

The play ‘A Grey Area’ is a comedy about an older couple, and their daughter who arrives home early from a gap year with a man in tow.  To the horror of their daughter the older couple are outrageously open about their unusual sexual activities, but the boyfriend has a few surprises of his own in store.  I had a read through with my writer’s group and got really good feedback.  But more importantly there was laughter as we read it out, and when I suggested we should stop reading, there was a unanimous Nooooo!    

And now the novels - Brighton Sucks.  I spent a day in Brighton this week, visiting all the areas it’s set in, and writing copious notes about the plot and characters.  I wanted to attempt a new take on vampires, and to set them in a very English seaside town.  I’ve loved writing it as it’s got lots of sex and violence, which I really do enjoy writing.  I’m not even going to think what that says about me.  But anyway, it’s nearly finished and I aim to get a first draft completed by the end of the Easter hols.  I’ll put the new opening on my website as soon as that’s done.

And there will be exciting news in my next blog about Bitter Roots.  An interesting development will hopefully move things forward.

Jarek Adams: A Friday Fable - This could be...

Jarek Adams: A Friday Fable - This could be...: "Brenda was not dying. At least not in any diagnosed way. She was growing older and creeping ever closer to her eventual demise, ..."

A Friday Fable - This could be...

Brenda was not dying.  At least not in any diagnosed way.  She was growing older and creeping ever closer to her eventual demise, but she had no solid reason to believe that her end was imminent.

     Sitting in the café she sipped her macchiato.  She savoured the aroma, the flavour, even the idea of being able to enjoy intense pleasure.  Brenda experienced it as if it was her last because she was hyper aware that any moment could be just that, and she didn’t want it to go uncelebrated.

    

     Throughout her life there had been so many lasts that she hadn’t acknowledged, moments she couldn’t recapture - things that at the time had seemed so unimportant, but in hindsight had altered the course of her life for ever.  Like the last time she’d seen her friend Mandy.  They’d been eleven years old, and had gone to different high schools.  They’d promised to keep in touch, but one day they simply hadn’t bothered.  And yet at their final meeting neither of them had been aware of the end of their friendship.  There had been no falling out, simply no getting together again – ever. 

     Brenda knew there was always the internet to rediscover lost friendships, but that wasn’t the point.  The point was that every day she did a thousand things, and amongst those things were hidden so many things that she may never do again. 

     She’d gone several years without tasting horseradish.  She hadn’t gone off it.  She simply hadn’t thought to eat it.  So at some point there had been a last time.  Of course that was an easy one to remedy.  She could simply order a beef and horseradish sandwich and eradicate that last, but what about all the other things she hadn’t eaten for a while?  She would have to constantly eat everything, or simply work her way through every flavour she wanted to treasure and savour each mouthful, filling her sensory memory with lasts. 

     Brenda knew she was spiralling into a dangerously impossible area.

     Looking along the street, she glanced at all the buildings of her home town.  There had been so many changes over the years.  Could she remember the last time she’d bought a bag of pick and mix from Woolworths?  If she’d known it was the last time she’d have taken more time to lock the moment away in her ‘last moments’ file, but it had seemed like any other day where she just wanted a cheap sugar rush and a packet of self-stick Velcro.

    

     Brenda was exhausted.  If she had a shrink she knew he’d have told her to stop obsessing about the past and to get on with living, but she didn’t believe in therapy – that was for mad people.

     Picking up her bag, she stepped out onto the street.  And then came a first for Brenda - she was hit by a bus.  An orgasm of past experiences rushed through her mind.  All her lasts came back to her in a wave of beautiful clarity.  Brenda’s last moment of life was her happiest.

A satisfyingly successful experiment

OK so it's now the middle of February and not the middle of January, but my experiment was a pretty ambitious one.  I did write my play, and I'm really happy with it.  It feels really good to have a completed project under my belt.

So what now?  

Well, I found that writing just dialogue helped to clear my brain, and allowed me to develop a story really quickly.  It also gave me a set of really interesting characters, and I now realise that what I've got is a story that I could develop into another novel.  

So now I've got four novels on the go!

Bitter Roots has just been sent back from the RNA with the comment that is would be publishable as a third novel, but not a first.  I'm still trying to work that one out.  Aaargh!  But some suggestions for revisions that I'll have to mull over.  

No news from M&B, but I'm taking that as a good sign - it helps to be positive.

So it's back to Brighton Sucks.  My goal is to get that finished by the summer.  Wish me luck.