A Note on a Lack of Notes (And the Release of An Idiot in Marriage)

I can’t help but feel guilty that I have neglected this blog. But it’s not like I don’t blog everyday, it’s not that I don’t spend my days talking about my books. I do, and not just to myself when no one is around to tell me to shut up.

As authors we’re always told to maintain an active social media and blogging presence. I have always struggled with that, purely because it’s something that has never worked for me. This week is a good example. Today is the official release date for An Idiot in Marriage, a book I have actively promoted for many months now.

If I do what is expected of me then I should be tweeting about it and posting about it every day. But I don’t and I won’t, because it just doesn’t work for authors that are not part of the elite. The people who follow me on social media and pay attention to what I say, are the ones who have already bought my books and the ones who will buy them based on a few posts, as opposed to a deluge of posts and blogs. There’s no one else to appeal to.

That’s why I prefer to post elsewhere. So, I have been marketing my book and talking non-stop about it, but I’ve been doing it through alternative channels. I’ve been interviewed by magazines and blogs; I’ve written health pages and travel pages for major tabloids; I’ve written articles for websites like Female First. It’s all happening, it’s just not happening here.

I’ve also spent the last 6 months working on my CompulsionMedia.com brand and a portfolio of websites that goes along with it. This will all lead to something that will help more than a barrage of tweets, blogs and posts ever could. Or so I like to think, because the alternative is that I just wasted 6 months of my life.

An Idiot in Love, Kindle Offer

Just a quick note to say that An Idiot in Love is now available for just £1,99/$1,99 on Kindle. The RRP has been slashed from $12.99 (the average price was closer to $9.99) and will remain that way until the 10th of February. The promotion was created to tie-in with a BookBub eBlast, as well as some social media promotions.

As far as I know, there won’t be another promotion like this for An Idiot in Love so be sure to take advantage while you can. If you want the audiobook, this is also the perfect time. If you get the Kindle copy then the audiobook price will drop from $15 to $4, which means you can get Kindle & audiobook copies for $6 instead of $25/30.

The promotion is available on Amazon and B&N in the UK, US and many other countries.

Click Here for Amazon US

Click Here for Amazon UK

 

Press for This is How You Die by David Jester

This is How You Die has been out for a couple months now and I have done everything I can to try and push it, short of actually getting off my arse and arranging a book signing (I like to hibernate during winter…and spring, and summer, and autumn).

At the time of writing, I’m in talks with a major international news portal who want to run an exclusive interview. But I have also contributed to some editorials, arranged some polls and written some pieces that have all served to promote the book. If you’ve made it to this page, you’ve probably seen some or all of them already. But it would be weird to let those things go unannounced, so here are some links to recent promotional pieces, features and interviews:

Stranger Danger (Published by the Daily Mirror Online)

Children of Serial Killers (Published by the Daily Mirror Online)

Best Books for Halloween (Published by DreadCentral)

This is How you Die by David Jester (LoveReading.co.uk review)

Trailer (Published on Youtube, on the Mirror website and elsewhere)

This is How You Die

This is How You DieThe violent, dark, and twisted journey of an emotionless, hate-filled, obsessive young man who becomes a clinical and prolific serial killer.

Herman isn’t like other teens his age. He isn’t like the academic elite, the geeky students who get all the grades and are adored by their teachers. He isn’t like the extroverts, the socially adept and popular kids who never want for anything and always have a shoulder to cry on. And he isn’t like the bullies, the ones who taunt and beat him on a daily basis. Herman isn’t like any of his peers, or indeed anyone he knows. The person Herman identifies with the most, the person he idolizes and yearns to be, is The Butcher, a brutal and prolific serial killer.

Following yet another beating by the kids he despises at a school he hates, Herman returns home to his inconspicuous existence with his solitary, silent, and coldhearted father. But life for Herman is about to change. The shackles that have held him to mediocrity and anonymity are about to be broken. Not only does Herman discover his father has died, but on further examination, he also discovers his dad was The Butcher, the very man whom everyone had feared and whom he had worshipped.

Life had been cruel to his father and death had been cruel to his legend, but Herman decides that he will carry on his father’s work. He may not have his father’s experience, but with a little practice, Herman knows he can become the man in the shadows, the thing that everyone fears.

Now, if only Homicide Detective Lester Keats would just leave him be. . . .

New and Old Projects

I have been so wrapped up in marketing and freelancing that I haven’t had much time to write for myself. The last thing I wrote was The Online Writer’s Companion. It felt like it was completed a few weeks ago, but I actually finished the first draft in January.

The truth is, I don’t really have to write. I’ve been asked a lot of questions  about my next project, with interviewers assuming that because I signed a 6 book deal and announced 2 of those books, I still needed to write the other 4. Not true.

In April, the sequel to An Idiot in Love will be published, and that was written at the beginning of 2015. After that, Forever After will be re-published, and that was written in 2012. The Clinic (also previously published) will follow, and there is also another pen name publishing books at the same time.

It wasn’t even a 6 book deal. That just felt like a nice rounded number, so that’s what was announced in the press release. There are actually 9 books from 3 pen names, 5 of which belong to David Jester (potentially 6, it’s complicated).

These books still feel like new to me. I began writing This is How You Die in 2010, before writing the majority of it in 2013 and finalising it in 2014. It wasn’t the last book I wrote. It wasn’t even the last fiction book I wrote. But after spending so long editing it, fine-tuning it, working on the design, the marketing, and then gradually seeing it come to life, it feels new. It’s something I have always wondered about: How can an author get excited about their “latest” project when they actually wrote it close to 2 years ago and have written many more novels since? But the process helps to keep it close.

The gap from writing to publishing will be even bigger with Forever After. By the time that hits the shelves, it will have been 5 years since I finished the first draft. But that’s one of the books I’m looking forward to the most. We already have a great cover and although the editing hasn’t started yet, everything about that book is still fresh in my mind (it was always one of my favourites).

So that brings me to my latest project, the first fiction I have written in what feels like a lifetime, but is actually just a year or two. I’m very excited about this novel, but because we have a full schedule ahead of us, it could have a long wait. If I finish it this year, it might be another 3 years before it hits the shelves, and 2 years before we even start editing it.

You need a lot of patience to be an author, and it’s a completely different world to the self-publishing one that I left behind. But you can’t beat the feeling of seeing your book in print, of holding those copies in your hand and knowing that all that waiting and all that work was worth it.

 

Press for An Idiot in Love

The promotional work is ongoing and I have some big things lined up for This is How You Die, but An Idiot in Love is doing well too.

In recent weeks my story, and the book have been featured in all of the following local/national publications:

Yorkshire Evening Post

Dewsbury Reporter

The Press

You can buy An Idiot in Love on Amazon and other major bookstores, and This Is How You Die will follow shortly. It’s a little harder to find in the UK than it is in the US, but it’s in the system so you can order it from your local bookstore and you can also find it online.

 

Update: 1 Release In

I don’t update this site nearly enough as I should, so this is a somewhat belated update.

An Idiot in Love was published a few months ago and is doing rather well. It is available in paperback, ebook and audiobook, and should be in most bookstores. It didn’t get as much attention in the UK as it did in the US and I’m still trying to remedy that, but it’s available wherever you live.

Next up is This Is How You Die, which was not previously self-published (unlike An Idiot in Love). Of the half-dozen books I sold to Skyhorse, this is the one I am looking forward to the most and I have a lot planned for it.

Around the same time I will also be releasing a non-fiction book under my real name. I won’t give too much away on that one just yet, but I’ll announce it closer to the time.

Quote from This Is How You Die:

“As the night wore on, I realized that I was correct in my initial assumptions: he was a prick of the highest order. He was a narcissist, an ignorant fool, and he was also a terrible liar. Not only did he drop several names and contradict himself on stories of meeting celebrities—most of which I had never heard of—but he also told me that he had been single for ten years, even though he accidentally dropped the name of his wife, and what I assumed were his kids, into the conversation. He was apparently an “openly gay” man who was actually so far in the closet he was one step away from Narnia. He also told me that he was a self-help guru, a yoga master, and a student of insight meditation, when it was obvious that the only insight he got came in crystallized form and could be traded for a blow job.”

Release Day!

It has been 2 years since I gave up on self-publishing and 18 months since I began working with Skyhorse Publishing to republish all of my books. And the wait is finally over. An Idiot in Love is released today in the US.

It hasn’t exactly flown by, as I’ve been freelancing throughout and there has been a lot of editing, discussions and promotions, but it’s worth the wait.

My editor, Nicole Frail, has also been fantastic throughout. Moving from self-publishing, where I had complete control, to traditional publishing, where I had very little, was difficult. But she was fantastic. I’m sure it’s not easy dealing with a curious author who asks endless questions, forgets the answers and then asks them again. I also owe a lot to my agent, but I’ve already gone through that in the acknowledgments and won’t bore you again.

The promotions have begun for An Idiot in Love and I have been featured in a few local and national publications, with more on the way. WinitForHim are currently featuring a promotion where you can win a first edition copy and I’ve also done some interviews elsewhere, which I’ll link to shortly.

For the next few weeks freelancing will take a backseat and I’ll be whoring myself out to any publication, book shop or radio/TV show that can help me sell books.

This should be interesting…

 

Promotions

We’re getting closer to the release date for An Idiot in Love (23rd June in the UK; 7th June in the US) and I’ve done a handful of interviews. Hopefully, there will be more to come as there I’m working on something with my publicists, but for now An Idiot in Love is generating some interest in Northumberland and Yorkshire, two counties I have close connections to.

An interview was posted in the Dewsbury Reporter (http://www.dewsburyreporter.co.uk/news/local/david-s-books-get-thumbs-up-from-the-usa-1-7923394) and in their sister newspapers in Batley, Mirfield and a couple of other places. I grew up in Dewsbury, so I was very happy with this. The Morpeth Herald also published a piece and a local radio station asked me to be part of their show, which I had to turn down, unfortunately.

A few independent book stores have also requested that I drop by and sign some books. If you run a book store yourself and want me to pop in and scribble on some books, or if you run a publication and need to fill some pages, let me know. You can find me on Twitter (@DavidJester) or FaceBook (https://www.facebook.com/David-Jester-817605431660055/)

Endorsements for An Idiot in Love

Everything is coming together well for An Idiot in Love, and my editor, who has been fantastic throughout, has found a couple of authors willing to endorse the book. The interior is done, the final edits are being made, and once we get these endorsements on the cover then the book is more or less ready to go to print.

“Jester had me at the title, since when it comes to love, are we not all idiots? An Idiot in Love hilariously brought back every romantic mistake I ever made—and many I thank God I didn’t. If you’ve ever loved, been loved, yearned for love, fantasized about love, or been arrested for love, you will love this highly entertaining book.” —Mark Miller, author of 500 Dates: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Online Dating Wars

“Raw, raunchy, laugh-out-loud funny, and surprisingly affecting, An Idiot In Love is a deeply relatable page-turner. The honesty, candor, and humor of David Jester’s prose is something to be admired and enjoyed. I loved this book!”
—Davy Rothbart, author of My Heart is an Idiot and creator of FOUND Magazine

 

http://www.amazon.com/Idiot-Love-Novel-David-Jester/dp/1510700013