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UNFINISHED BUSINESS #Excerpt by @Ted_Tayler #AmReading #Thriller #Fiction

Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2014

There are so many different avenues through which you can promote your writing; blogging is a useful way of getting your name further up the pecking order in the search engines. It is a relatively inexpensive way of getting people to at least consider buying your books.
If you have a marketing budget (lucky you!) then virtual book tours can speed up the process of getting readers to visit your site; while they are there you have the opportunity to grab their interest with what you have written in your latest post. Personally I don’t fill my blog posts with things about my novels or short stories; I write about everything else in my life as well. The reason for this is that I want them to know that I’m a ‘real’ person who has all the same highs and lows in my life as they do. I chat about the weather, my family, events in my local town, my holidays, and the death of one of my closest friends. I cast my net as wide as possible to find a few items that will interest them.
I attempt to engage them enough to want to come back time and again. Perhaps it will take them one visit, perhaps it will take several but eventually I want them to trust me enough to believe that if they move around my website and finally take the plunge and buy one of my books, they won’t be disappointed.
I came to blogging in a roundabout fashion. I had my book of memories published in 2011 and then I invested in a website and joined Twitter. This was an afterthought! I was selling all the paperbacks I had had printed and I wondered whether I could sell the kindle version of the book as well. Writing a blog chapter every few weeks was suggested to me by the designer of my site; I didn’t know what a blog was! I’m glad I followed up on her suggestion because it was those blog chapters that I wrote over the next twelve months that reminded me how much I enjoyed writing and gave me the courage to start ‘The Final Straw’ and then self-publish my first novel. I haven’t stopped writing since.
My Twitter followers were initially music lovers and musicians, because of the content of the first book. I hit fifty thousand followers by the end of 2012; today I have around ninety five thousand. A large percentage of the latest recruits are book lovers and other authors.
Naturally, I direct followers to my site so that they can read the blog and maybe buy a book; there must be something about my tweets that keeps them coming and staying in such large numbers but there’s no guaranteed correlation between followers and book sales I can assure you! If I could crack that I’d be a happy man. On balance I’d rather be blogging and attracting more readers than giving it up as a way to promote my writing. For me it will remain an important tool as an author.

The sequel to the award winning ‘The Final Straw’ sees Colin Bailey return to the UK after almost a decade abroad. With a new name and a new face he still has scores to settle. His meticulous planning takes him ingeniously across Scotland and the North of England ticking names off his list with the police completely baffled. 

DCI Phil Hounsell pitted his wits against Colin before and so he is sent to Durham where he teams up with super intelligent young DS Zara Wheeler; together they track their man to Manchester and then eventually south to Bath. 

The final scenes take place on the streets of the Roman city; Phil Hounsell’s family is threatened and in a dramatic conclusion reminiscent of Holmes and Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, the two men struggle above the foaming waters of the historic Pulteney weir. 
Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords
Genre – Thriller
Rating – PG-18
More details about the author
Connect with Ted Tayler on Facebook & Twitter

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