Swimming Upstream

​ Last week, I wrote about why I write short chapters (if you missed it, you can find it here: link  ) and announced that you can sign up for my newsletter to get an exclusive excerpt of Book 2 , An American Treasure . ​I sent the newsletter out to all 106 subscribers on Tuesday, and of course, there was a problem. Nothing is simple when you do things yourself and learn as you go! The link to the landing page didn't work. It was frustrating because it worked perfectly fine when I tested it before pressing "send." ​Since I was at the sports center for roller hockey, the problem had to wait. I sent a correction email the following morning with an apology and a working link, so that problem was rectified... I hope. ​📉 The Newsletter Dilemma I use MailerLite for distribution, and I find the newsletter process to be the hardest part of building my author brand. Everywhere you read stresses how important newsletter readers are, but I struggle with what to send them. ​I try t...

  I've been asked on more than one occasion: "Why are your chapters so short?" ​Honestly, it never hit me that this was something unique until people pointed it out. I just used to write. I have a scene in my head, and I write it. If that scene is only two pages long, then so be it. What's the point of stretching a scene just for the sake of making a chapter longer? Once I’ve explained what I need to explain and the action is done, it’s time to move on to the next beat. ​I don’t really call them chapters; I call them scenes . In my head, that is what they are—like a movie or a TV series. A scene tells a specific part of the story, and once it's complete, the camera moves to another part of the story. That is how I write, scene by scene. I've been asked on more than one occasion: "Why are your chapters so short?" ​ ​📏 Short Chapters and Word Count My father-in-law was the first person to mention it while I was signing his copy of An Irish Mystery. ...

  This is the view as I finally start typing this late blog post—a view I’ve earned after a rough week. For those who follow me, you know I’m heavily involved with my local roller hockey club . Today was our first EC1 (Eastern Counties Division 1) seniors game day, but the season has delivered some tough hits. We managed a hard-fought goal with twenty seconds to go in the first game I coached, pulling us out of a 2-0 deficit. But the joy was short-lived: two of our players picked up injuries that weekend, and we later found out one has a fractured thumb and the other a broken hand (huge sympathy to Jake , the barber, who can’t work for a while). With another player injured in our first Premier league game of the season and another player already serving a ban, our game this weekend is canceled . It's tough news for the club, but it unexpectedly frees up my weekend for writing and reading! ​🎨 The Long-Awaited Cover Transformation Next Monday, the company I chose will finally start...

  This is my second blog this week! I normally post every Wednesday, but I thought an end of the week update was necessary. Since transferring to my website, Swimming Upstream feels like it's becoming more of a personal diary that now and again, a few curious people open and read. ​So why two blogs in one week? Because I am having a new cover designed, and the complications involved are endless! Quite frankly, the things I’ve been researching and contemplating get me down as I keep making mistake after mistake—mistakes that cost me time, and sometimes money. As I've said before, hobbies sometimes cost a lot, and we all spend money on things we later regret, thinking, "Why didn't I think this through first?" 📏 The Publisher's Legacy: Size and Paper ​I paid a 50% deposit for a new book cover designer last week, and I have high expectations based on our initial discussions. The only hold-up? My book's existing formatting. ​I used a self-publishing service ...

  In a past blog post, I admitted that I am a Pantser —someone who does not outline anything and simply writes, taking the story chapter by chapter to see where it leads. Yes, that's me! I have a vision in my head, and I go with it. It's my way of "painting by numbers." ​I have each scene in my head as I write; I can see the room, the city, and the atmosphere, and I know the personality of the characters. It might sound strange, but it's like watching a movie in my head, and just like a movie I haven't seen, I don't know where it's going next. ​🗺️ The Genesis of An Irish Mystery An Irish Mystery was born during the pandemic. I started by writing about a man in an 8x4 cell. Why Arizona? I'm not sure, but it was in my head. Why a German man? I had been learning German again, a language I first encountered as a young boy when my dad was stationed with the Royal Green Jackets in Minden, Germany . Learning those words made me want to use them in my ...

  I look at a lot of other blogs, and they all have titles like How I Increased My Viewers in 3 Weeks or How to Make $10,000 a Month with a Small Blog. I’ve never wanted my blogs to sound like that. If it were that easy to write a blog, make lots of money, and give up your day job, everybody would be doing it! I'm not saying it's impossible, but it takes an incredible amount of work, know-how, and even a little dash of luck. ​My blogs are just me, behind a keyboard, telling anybody who dares read my ramblings what it is really like to publish a book, balance family life and work, and, ultimately, trying to sell more books. 🎨 The Never-Ending Book Cover Quest My attempt to get a new cover made for An Irish Mystery is proving to be a serious challenge. It just isn't going well at all. ​I first approached a professional on Reedsy (which I’ll explain more about below). They turned me down, stating they only do horror or fantasy books now and their price starts at a hefty £1,...

This might be the first week where I’ve seriously wanted to quit. It’s been a frustrating week, or let’s be honest, a frustrating month. Some of it is probably my own fault—I thought moving my book onto more sites would be a simple process, but it has been anything but. I still haven’t managed to get my book on any new sites, and Draft2Digital has been constantly stuck on "PUBLISHING." ​Then there's the new cover, which I’ll get into below. I even tried to give my book away for free, but only one person took a digital copy. It just makes you wonder what you're doing wrong. ​🕵️ What's Happening with An American Treasure? The short answer is: not a lot. The story is written, a few ARC readers have read it, and I have some minor edits to do. I really do need to get Book 2 out into the world, but An Irish Mystery is still taking up all my time and, more importantly, my money. ​After saying Book 2 was coming out with a set title, I realized something was off with ...

  I posted my blog last Wednesday and for the first time, I didn't really know what to write. If you read it, you know I mentioned using Pinterest to help drive traffic. While on the platform, I came across a few other blog posts giving tips on how to do exactly what I wanted: get people to read my posts. The Move to My Website 💻 The post that helped me figure things out was an old one from 2020, but it felt still relevant today. After reading it, I went on the search for other tips and decided if I was going to make my brand a success, I needed to centralise everything. I spent a lot of hours transferring all my old posts onto my own website, moving away from Blogger. It was time-consuming, but I hope in the long run it proves to be the best idea to make my blog more professional. Swimming Upstream 🌊 Why did you chose blogger in the first place? This is a good question and no different from anyone starting out in any business. I chose Blogger because I thought people would fi...