Monthly Post: July 2019 A quick guide to self-publishing ebooks

Big Bona Ogles, Boy! (Send for Octavius Guy, #3) by Michael Gallagher
Current average rating: 4.67 of 5 stars

Welcome, kind reader or perhaps fellow writer! It’s July, and first up I’d like to tell you about an interview I’ve just done with Twitter’s #1PM Chat, a manically interactive account that is fabulous fun and definitely worth following and joining in with. If you’d care to learn a little more about me, you can read the interview here.

So, you’ve decided to self-publish. I won’t pretend it’s a walk in the park, but the easiest way to self-publish is with Kindle Direct Publishing through Amazon. First you need to create an account. It’s a hassle, but you only need do it the once. If you followed my advice from June and kept to a minimal format, you’re now in a great place to format a copy as a Word .docx file for Kindle. Read on…

This month’s special offer is a free download of Big Bona Ogles, Boy!: Octavius Guy & The Case of the Mendacious Medium (#3). This time young Gooseberry investigates a shadowy Spiritualist medium only to discover that somebody wants her dead. Offer ends on July 31st 2019.

“My favorite Victorian boy investigator sets off to solve a new mystery…Words cannot describe just how much I enjoy Octavius.”—Bethany Swafford, Goodreads Reviewer (5 stars)

Happy investigating!
Michael

Find me on my website Michael Gallagher Writes and on Facebook, and make sure to follow me on Twitter @seventh7rainbow.

Lethal White

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For my hundredth review on Goodreads I wanted something very, very special, and I certainly struck gold with this, J. K. Rowling’s fourth outing as Robert Galbraith.

So, what’s in store for Cormoran Strike and his business partner Robin Ellacott this time round? A year after Robin’s disastrous wedding ceremony, a mentally-ill young man comes to Strike’s office with a tale about a murder he thinks he witnessed as a child. Realising the police have been called, he flees, though shortly after Strike is offered a lucrative job by the Minister for Culture, who is being blackmailed by the young man’s dodgy brother. A coincidence perhaps? Or something more?

Rowling admits that this is one of the most challenging books she’s ever written and one of her favourites. Mine too. It’s with sheer writerly delight that she taunts us with Robin’s failing marriage, which Robin tries at all costs to keep from Strike. The increasingly annoying wild child Charlotte turns up, hell bent on inserting herself back into Strike’s life. Let’s be quite clear here. This is a series of cozy mysteries, and thwarting the readers’ desire for the two of them to become more than just business partners is an important part of the template, of equal significance, I would argue, to the whodunnit element of the book.

The whodunnit element in this case twists and turns back in on itself (perhaps a little too often), and quite which crime we’re meant to be looking at (and there are potentially many) is never very clear. That said, I was thoroughly happy to be taken along for the ride. On several occasions I was put in mind of Agatha Christie in the nature of the clues and the way they are delivered. Robin twice gets to go undercover—both of which are a joy to read—and Strike is tight-lipped about the theories he forms, preferring his partner to work it out for herself.

As personal added bonus, and one which really made it come alive for me, I happen to live very close to two of the locations in the book. The Minister for Sport and her husband live a mile west of me, near The Blue, and the house Robin and Matthew rent is barely a couple of miles down the road. Even before Rowling named it, I knew which one it was.

If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll love it. If you’re a fan of whodunnits, you’ll love it. If you’re a cozy mystery armchair detective, I’m sure you can guess just what I was about to say.

View all my reviews

Monthly Post: June 2019 Simple ways to improve your manuscript

Octopus (Send for Octavius Guy, #2) by Michael Gallagher
Current average rating: 4.23 of 5 stars

Whether you plan to self-publish or go the traditional route, there are some basic things you can do to help yourself that don’t require shelling out money.

1. Identify your grammar weaknesses

If there’s something you have a problem with, go online and get it sorted out. There is help out there for practically everything. Is it “stainless-steel” or “stainless steel”? The answer is… Read on…

This month’s giveaway is a free download of Octopus: Octavius Guy & The Case of the Throttled Tragedienne (#2). When the leading actress dies in mysterious circumstances during a performance of The Duchess of Malfi, Gooseberry feels duty-bound to investigate. It is, after all, a great deal more exciting than the last case he was assigned to: the tracking down of a rich old lady’s errant cat! Offer ends on June 30th 2019, and no, there are no strings attached and no review is required. Phew!

“Here is a sensational historical fiction who-dunnit that gives nothing away until the very end. To me, it reads like an old time radio show. It leaves you breathless.”—Connie A., LibraryThing Early Reviewer (5 stars)

Happy investigating!
Michael

Find me on my website Michael Gallagher Writes and on Facebook, and make sure to follow me on Twitter @seventh7rainbow.