The Complete Guide to iPhone 8

Since 'Complete Guides' to concept technology are all the rage these days, mostly because any idiot will read them, here's my Complete Guide to the iPhone 8, which is expected to hit stores in 2018.

Sexy new build

With components getting smaller and smaller, the iPhone 8 will likely be the same size as a slightly chubby garden pea. Thankfully eye augmentations will be a widespread fashion accessory by this point, so you'll have no trouble seeing the beautiful 0.005-inch display. Touchscreen control will be possible thanks to the included stylus, made from a gnat's chuff stuck on the end of a cotton swab.

Predictive text 2.0

One of the best new features is predictive text 2.0, which predicts what you're going to type before you even pull your phone out of your pocket. The iPhone 8 notices if you've been in the pub for more than your allotted time, and sends your wife a grovelling message, with one of fifty preset lies - from "my twatting PC crashed as I was finishing my article" to "the cock-sucking trains are done up the arse again."

Some Other Shit We've Made Up

A guy we spoke to in the pub last night reckons that Siri will be updated to recognise even the most tricky of accents, including Drunk Scouser and Camp Geordie. We also decided the camera would take shots up to 100MP, by flipping a fucking coin.

NaNoWriMo Fo Sho

More gruelling than a month-long marathon across a hundred deserts, with nought to drink but flat, hot Fanta. That's what National Novel Writing Month feels like at times. Once the first day's excitement is over, the reality of the challenge hits home. 2,000-plus words a day is a lot to get down, and come the end of the month you'll likely have wrists like soggy twiglets. However, if you've done your job you'll also have a rough first draft that's ready to be polished into the Next Big Novel.

But how to make sure you finish on time? Well, pretty much every blog out there will give you a 'top ten tips', but it's actually rather simple. Here's what you do.

PLAN Most blogs will tell you, don't make alternative plans to go out - give yourself maybe one evening a week to get bladdered with your mates, but stick to your program the rest of the time. Well, that's one school of thinking, but I find my best work flows when I'm pissed up. So I say go out and enjoy yourself, then down some coffee and get ready for five hours of action! When you wake up the next morning, drooling into your keyboard, you'll probably have 15,000 words of absolute genius that Tolstoy would be proud of.

NO DISTRACTIONS Switch off your modem and hide in a room with no other distractions - no phone, no TV, no wife/husband, certainly no bloody cats. Make a hot drink and grab a bottle of water, and plough your way through it. If your mind starts to wander, try stabbing yourself in the thigh with a biro. Your brain will associate daydreaming with pain and stay fully focused at all times.

REWARDS Have a YumYum or something when you're done each evening, but only if you reach your target word count. Otherwise, spank yourself with a piece of 2x4, while screaming "I'm a bad girl/boy!"

If you follow this advice, you might just make it. Congratulations! Time to settle in for some rewriting!

Publish your Kindle Store ebook Part Seven: Social Networking and promotion

Well, the first major hurdle has been passed and Crack is now available to buy on Amazon UK. Of course, I didn't realise that VAT is added onto the price yu set, so Crack actually costs £1.09 instead of 95p. Buggeration. Still, you can change the price through the Amazon Dashboard at any time, so no worries.

Now it's time to sit back and chortle as the millions roll in. Which sadly might take a while as I sold an incredible two copies on the first day. This is the biggest problem with self-publishing: you're responsible for all your own marketing, and if you don't promote your book, you'll barely afford a Greggs pastie with your earnings.

First Step: Pester friends into buying

This is the easiest bit of marketing. Get on your Facebook, Twitter etc. accounts and let your friends know that your book's out, and they should bloody well buy a copy. Right now. Not only that, they should tell all of their friends (or at least the ones that own Kindles), retweet or post on their own Facebook pages, and generally help to spread the good word.

Whether you ask politely or threaten them with nipple-twists, make sure you get as many people as possible to post up links and a quick bit of blurb.

The more sales you get, the higher you rise up Amazon's ranking and the more likely you are to enter the site's advertising - you know, the 'people who checked this out also looked at this' stuff. That's the real gold right there. Once you start attracting serious clicks, you'll find your sales gather momentum and your job is done.

Go forth my little birds!

If you're reading this, you must be a smart, cool and handsome/gorgeous person. If you decide to check out Crack and you like it, please tell your friends about it - I will love you forever.

See, I asked nicely - no nipple tweaks here...

Publish your Kindle Store ebook: Published!

Well, it's been emotional. Right now I'm logged into the Kindle Direct Publishing site (using my normal Amazon logon deets), about to submit Crack to the fountain of untold wealth that is the Kindle Store.

Let's get it up there

If this is your first time publishing on the Kindle store, you'll need to click a 'user details incomplete' message in the top right corner and fill in your address and how you want to gets your cash moneys - you can be paid by cheque (not 'check' as the Yanks would have it) every time you make $100, or EFT when you raise $10 - you'll need your IBAN and BIC numbers for this, which can be found on your statements.

Once that's done, go to the dashboard and hit 'add a new book' on the bookshelf. Wahhhh, exciting!

More forms??

Okaaaay, after waiting bloody ages for the page to load, I see it's another big ol' form. Shocker.

Right, name is easy, but then comes the description. This is the bit you need to think long and hard about, as it'll play a huge part in swaying potential readers to buy your book. Make it juicy, keep it succinct, and big up your book without sounding like an egotistical mentalist.

Also, I've included some bonus content at the back of Crack (that sounds wrong somehow), as an extra incentive to buy - a making of article, interview, sneak peek of my first book etc. I've made a quick note of this in the description.

The rest is fairly obvious - choose two best categories to help fans of your genre to find the book, etc. You can also upload your cover, and then the book itself!

You should then (hopefully) get a message saying 'Upload and conversion successful'.

It'll cost ya

Not time for a beer just yet though, cos you've still got to set the price.

If you want 70% royalties you'll have to price the book between $2.99 and $200. If you want to charge less, you can only get 35% royalties. However, there are loads of stories out there of authors who sold very few books at $2.99, lowered their price to 99 cents, then sold thousands every month. If people are even vaguely interested in your chosen genre, they're likely to pick up a book for less than a quid.

I'm selling Crack for $1.50, or 95p, because that's how I roll y'all.

Done and done

That's it! Amazon will publish your book within 24 hours, and then you can enter the murky world of marketing (i.e. begging people to buy your book).

See you next time kiddies, time for that beer...

UPDATE: Crack can now be purchased at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Marketing your book with no cash, contacts or help

Since Bat Boy was published a couple of months back, I've been wracking my brains on how to promote the damn thing. I seem to be stuck in a marketing limbo. Bat Boy was published by an independent publishing house which doesn't have a budget for promoting their titles, so the responsibility lies squarely on my own shoulders. Unfortunately my own marketing budget consists of a plastic container full of 5p pieces.

Browse the web and there are tons of websites that are happy to review and promote indie ebooks, but Bat Boy is paperback only - sending out review copies is bloody expensive, so I have to be really selective. But the big boys (regional newspapers and national mags) almost exclusively review the 'big name' paperbacks, sent in by the major publishers. Short of stalking Richard and Judy, I'm a bit stumped on how to get decent coverage. I've tried all the same, but have experienced Torres levels of success so far.

I've contacted and done interviews with local papers, but need more coverage to start selling copies. Even my charity appeal, donating 25% of my royalties to the RNIB, doesn't seem to be helping. So, has anyone out there had a paperback published and managed to successfully promote it, on a tiny budget?

Good Bookshops, R.I.P.

Once upon a time, I used to love going to bookshops. To a geek child like me, they were better than any sweet shop - a million different adventures, all fresh and new and featuring that great 'new book' smell.

But when I walked into my local chain store yesterday, that feeling was long gone. What greeted me could be summed up by the following categories:

> Inane crime 'thrillers', where a bland serial killer murders people for no real reason and has some random callsign, like leaving a packet of Skips on each body. The killer is tracked down in an inept fashion by a grizzled detective who drinks, smokes, takes drugs and beats small dogs with a cane.

> Autobiographies of 17-year-old footballers, celebrities I've never heard of, and people who should have died decades ago.

> Cook books. Millions of sodding cook books.

> Chicklit. I've admittedly never fully read a chicklit book, and have read some highly entertaining chapters from writers on sites such as Authonomy, but the ones that line the bestsellers shelves just look eye-gougingly awful.

Now I get my books from the library, where titles from lesser-known authors can often be found. The only problem is, sniff them all you want, they don't have that new book smell any more...

Getting Published For Realsies

I've just guest blogged on the 80k Challenge website, about how to get your work published. Thanks to the wonderful invention that is the interwebs, writers no longer have to waste months or years writing to agents begging for representation.

If you're participating in the challenge, how's it going? I'm already lagging after 23 days - the aim is to write 80k words in 80 days, and I've only got 10k so far. Problem is, I keep reading back over what I've got and realising it's balls. By the time I've finished dicking around, I've got less words than I started with. Not a good strategy.

Thanks to a fellow author!

I scraped together a couple of reviews for Bat Boy from existing authors before we went to print, and would like to say a special thanks to Holly Howitt, author of The Schoolboy. She was kind enough to read the entire book in PDF form and had the following to say:

"I thought this was a fresh and well-voiced story with a real depth of character. Joel is well-drawn - both witty and hardened, but still naive and boyish at the same time. His voice is absorbing and clear, and the wry saracasm in Pat's voice is a good counter-balance.

"The story really does yomp along but is intriguing and articulate from page one. Joel's blindness is originally described and the whole story is awash with sensory descriptions that bring his world to life."

Thanks again Holly, much appreciated :) You can buy Holly's book, The Schoolboy, from Cinnammon Press.

Bat Boy is out!

At long last, it's here - my debut novel, the award-winning Bat Boy, is available to buy on Amazon.

It feels like the end of a long, loooong journey, but in the words of Mrs Carpenter, it's only just begun. I'm hoping to do some interviews and guest blogs in the coming weeks, and see where it takes us. If anyone has any marketing advice, it'd be much appreciated!

Oh, and I'm donating 25% of my first year royalties to the RNIB, who do a fantastic job providing care for the blind community. This way at least my book can do some good, even if people think it sucks :)

Are you the Next Big Author?

Got a great idea for a novel, and waiting for an excuse to start the damn thing? May is your month.

Prospective novelist site YouWriteOn is hosting a major new comp called the Next Big Author, which aims to find and crown an exciting new literary talent. Breathe easy, cos you don't have to bash out a whole book in May - just write and post up 5,000-7,000 words before the end of the month.

Each entrant must then review competing entries in June, receiving a review of their own in return. The five highest rated entries come the end of June win a free critique from the likes of Random House and Bloomsbury.

The prize is a good one, and it's free to enter the competition, although having writers assess their competitors' work is no doubt going to lead to controversy. I wouldn't be surprised if this one descends into a popularity contest, or some entrants decide to hurt their competition by dishing out one-star reviews, with the argument that they 'didn't get it'.

Oooh, sunshine...

Holy dingleberries, Batman. After what seemed like twelve years of constant darkness, the sun has clawed its way through the haze and graced us with its warming rays once more. I was beginning to feel like Viggo Mortensen in The Road, haggard and weary, accepting that the world was at an end. The moment the clouds shifted, I balked like Nosferatu, afraid my translucent skin would burst into flames and my flailing body would collapse into ash.

Problem is, my motivation to write has now evaporated, like the murky puddles that graced my balcony for so many months. My glossy-screened laptop means I have to stay indoors, when I'd much rather be skipping down the street and waving merry welcomes to the chavs and their pastie-munching offspring.

The solution? Shagloads of coffee and all-night binge-writing sessions. They kill your head just like all-night vodka sessions, but with none of the self-loathing. Genius!

Right, time to top up the sunburn...

A worthy challenge

This blog right here has issued a new challenge to authors - can you write an 80k word novel in 80 days, starting in May?

If you email the writer responsible, Sally Quilford, with details of your intended book she'll stick a post up promoting your idea. There's no prizes for completing the novel, just the satisfaction and presumably some very sore wrists from constant typing.

Actually, 1,000 words a day is definitely doable, and a lot more friendly on the social life than the 'write an entire novel in November' challenge, which demands that you shut yourself off from the world for a month, emerging only to feast on dry crackers.

I might try this for my next novel, although the end result will probably be a mess of drunken ramblings and terrible prose. No different from normal really.

The Hedgehog Stared, Menacingly

Something I was recently called out on was a scattering of adverbs in my writing - in other words, those words ending in '-ly', such as slowly, grimly, painfully...

I admit it's a cop out and a classic case of telling instead of showing, but I didn't realise how much I did it until someone pointed it out to me. Now every instance is like a giant turd staring out of the page at me, like some horrific obscenity - the literary equivalent of a kick in the knackers.

And I've started noticing the damn things in other people's writing too. Even esteemed authors use the occasional quickly or deftly, and each time it's like smashing your car into a brick wall - I crumble to a painful halt and have to start again from the next sentence.

Sometimes all these writing 'rules' are a pain in the arse. I'm off to make a cup of tea, quickly and expertly of course.

PSP Phone hands on

Phones are used as much for gaming as calling or texting these days, and you can't use public transport without knocking elbows with someone playing Angry fricking Birds. Hence, Sony's latest venture - the PSP phone, otherwise known as the Xperia Play.

 

This beast looks like a standard Xperia smartphone, except you can slide the screen up to reveal a familiar-looking gamepad underneath. It solves the problem of carrying a bulky handheld gaming machine with you, and allows you to play games such as Fifa instead of those damned infernal 'casual' titles.

 

We checked it out at a press event last night, and first impressions sadly aren't great. The racing game Asphalt stuttered on almost every turn, which as you'd imagine isn't too helpful when trying to overtake slow-moving traffic. The random Bruce Lee fighting sim ran more smoothly, but looks like a slightly polished PS One game and didn't exactly have our blood pumping.

 

There's still a couple of months before release, so maybe Sony can sort out the slowdown and produce a more exciting line-up of games, beyond recycling their (frankly tired) back catalogue. For now, it's back to Bejewelled...

Guilty pleasures

I've set myself a target of reading at least two books a week this year, and so far I'm doing okay, although I did cheat and read Hemingway's Old Man And The Sea, which is only 100 pages. That was a trippy book, not helped by the head cold that had struck me at the time, which threatened to liquidise my brains.

To compensate for that book's short stature, I'm reading my second Lee Child book in a fortnight ('61 Hours' if anyone cares). This one is 500 pages, while his other ('Gone Tomorrow') was around 550.

Despite the thickness, I'm ploughing through them like a tramp through White Lightning. They're so damn easy to read, and actually quite enjoyable. Main hero Jack Reacher (what is it with action heroes called Jack these days?) is likeable, in a don't-f**k-with-him-or-you'll-be-eating-your-own-arse kind of way. The plots are silly but fun, and Child does a good job of withholding information to build suspense.

Plus it never gets boring reading about dumb-ass terrorists having their skulls splintered apart.

If I could only breakthrough...

All budding novelists should know that the Amazon breakthrough novelist competition is open for submissions. They're only accepting 5,000 entries ('only' seems like the wrong word there, but hey ho) in the general fiction category, so best get a shift on if you want to enter. I threw Dead Dogs in, so various appendages are currently crossed. Hey, there's more chance of winning this than the sodding lottery...

Page Turner Prize

Got some great news today, folks. I've been shortlisted in Contact Publishing's Page Turner Prize.

I entered my novella 'Crack', a thriller set in a violent London estate, which I wrote around two years ago. There are only ten shortlisted entries, and the winner receives a three-book publishing contract with Contact Publishing.

If you'd like to check out a sample of Crack, I've shoved one up on Circalit. It's what hacky critics would probably describe as 'gritty', which means the characters use awful, repulsive language. Things like the F word, and yes, even the C word. I know, I'm a terrible person.

Super psyched about making the shortlist, shame that Sunderland couldn't boost my mood by caning Chelsea for a second time this season.

The story so far...

In 100 words, so I don't waste too much of my own life or yours:

Born, grew up, nerd at school, discovered alcohol, discovered projectile vomiting, toned down alcohol consumption, worked in retail, it sucked, switched to tech journalism, discovered alcohol again, won UK Author writing competition with first novel 'Bat Boy', wrote second novel, sent it to evil agents, pile of rejections, said 'f*** it' and played Playstation instead.

That's pretty much 28 years to date. I'm about to try the evil agents again with my second novel, 'Dead Dogs' - I'm a sucker for pain I guess. The book's a darkly comic tale about a Polish family who are persecuted after moving to Albania, narrated by a 14-year-old boy called Mikael. He's got a sick sense of humour, kind of like me, and I'm really happy with the way the characters and the story turned out. Now I just need to convince someone to publish the damn thing.

You can read a sample of Dead Dogs on Circalit.

Blog of an aspiring author #327,645

Greetings! This here's my first ever blog post, on my first ever blog. How terribly exciting. I don't know about you, but I feel just wonderful.

First off, hi, I'm Chris. I live in London, although I'm a mackem by trait - go Black Cats! I'm a wannabe author, like seemingly half the fricking populous of the UK at the moment (or at least that's what agents and publishers will have you believe). I've written two novels and two novellas, and if you'd like more info on them you can check-ch-check out this link:

This is the stuff what I've written already

I'm also a tech journo, writing primarily for What Laptop, as well as Future brands such as TechRadar. This basically means I play with gadgets all day, and drink all evening.

I used to post random crap on my website, but it was rather untidy, so now I'm gonna blight Blogger.com with it all instead. I'll try and post informative or at least vaguely interesting stuff up, but I ain't promising anything.