Because I'm afraid, that's what I'm doing. If anyone's interested in Roman military fiction a-la Simon Scarrow, check out my new book Marius' Mules (ISBN 1849238901). If you don't like it, I'll eat my hat. (I had one made of marzipan for this very occasion.)

What a good idea! I tell you what SJATurney, I'll buy Marius' Mules (I love Roman-era fiction) if you buy my book Outlaw, a bloody, authentic retelling of the Robin Hood legends. It's being published mid-July and I'm working on the second one in the series. You can find out more at my website www.angus-donald.com.

Can I suggest something - all 3 of us are authors and we have all written about periods of warfare or dispute (My own is set during the year that led to the English Civil War)

I was told at the outset that my book's main target audience was males, but so far, it is most females that have bought it. Can we share this topic/thought on the main fiction page and see what readers think?
We could ask everyone to view our websites and let us know whether their interest is aroused, and this would help set the whole male/female thing straight.....I'm interested to see whether the main responses are men or women.
I am going to start a thread, so feel free to join in if you wish.....

Mark Turnbull
http://www.decisionmostdeadly.com

I would suggest perhaps that we put a link to each other's work on our own websites too, since historical fiction readers might check the others out. Mine's www.sjaturney.co.uk

Good idea!

I'm up for that. I'll recommend your books on my blog, if you'll do the same for me. Mine is coming out next week; check it out on www.angus-donald.com. By the way, I'm about a quarter the way into your book SJA Turner and really enjoying it, only one criticism, the layout is a bit odd: massive indents for each paragraph and **** for breaks between, "ok" lower case, etc. Did you publish it yourself? If you did, good bit of initiative. It doesn't affect the storytelling, it just gives it a slightly unusual feel. Still, good stuff.
I'll order your book, Mark, when I've finished SJA's.

Funny thing is, I was on your site yesterday Angus, and saying I'll have to buy Outlaw without connecting the fact that it was you I'd been in contact with on here. Damn all this social networking. I shall be buying both of yours once I hit payday. Until then I'm scrimping as usual. I shall be doing web updates on my site this weekend. Soooo busy during the week. In fact, if either of you want to put an advert/page/guest blog on either my website or my blog, feel free to contact me. Best to do that through the website rather than on here, I guess. I'll put a sales link to the books on the store page, but quite happy to put more on than that.

Si

So far I've put a link to both of your books on the store page on my website. Anything you want to put on? An advert, some blurb etc?

Mark,
Just out of interest, have you considered that women buying your books could be for the males that may be in their lives? My missus once wandered home from a car boot sale with a middle-of-the-series Bernard Cornwell Sharpe book (Sharpe's Trafalgar for 20p). It was the most expensive cheap thing she bought me as I went on to buy every other Sharpe book by Cornwell (actually, the missus bought ones she knew I didn't have on at least one occasion out of every two) and regularly buys me the upcoming Cornwell novels (Azincourt was the last) for Xmas/Birthdays, etc...

Hi everybody I thought I would just check out Amazon.uk and I was surprised and delighted to see that someone had started discussions in relation to books they have written - they are a way ahead of us across the Pond and the discussions flow on a very regular basis. First Angus I saw your book in the shops the other day and actually had my hand on it to put it in the trolly when I became distracted my the sister-in-law, however when I go shopping tomorrow I think I shall just have to sneak it into the trolly as it sounds interesting and while I have probably watched every film or series about Robin Hood (how sad is that) I have never read anything about him.
I also have written a book (surprise, surprise) entitled Red Shadow on the Moon which is set in 1866 and covers the last couple of months leading up to the Fetterman Massacre which had as profound effect on the US populace at the time as Custer getting it in the neck 10 years later did. However the book has a twist so check it out on my website (www.pruewestbrook.com).
I wish everyone good luck with their respective creations and in the meantime I shall wake the moths from the purse and tell them I am going out spending money.
Regards to you all Prue

Room for another one? I'll be looking at these books today and adding to the wishlist (Amazon postage to Spain requires its own budget heading) and briefly mention that mine is Libertas based around the last battle in Caesar's civil war, the one that Iggulden left out in his Emperor series. Scarrow/Cornwell with added extras. There, done the shameless self promotion.
Prue is right, the Americans know a thing or two about working together to help each other. I'd be interested to know what you think about tagging (see http://tagmybookonamazon.wordpress.com ), now available for UK authors.
Cheers all, Alistair, www.alistairforrest.com

I hope you like the book, Prue. It's not your usual Robin Hood tale and it's pretty violent and dark. If you want to read an extract before you buy it, to make sure it's your kind of thing, go to my website angus-donald.com. I'm going to check out your website now, your Fetterman Massacre book sounds really intriguing!
Angus Donald

Hi Angus have already bought the book and yes I did visit your website although I had already made up my mind to spend the moths. In fact I have nearly finished one of the books I am reading so I shall jump it up the queue. Honestly Angus how can you not write a book about Robin Hood and leave out the violence, as lets face it the Medieval times were not exactly rosie and light and I feel if you are going to pitch your book in any like setting then you have to be honest to the times that you are writing about. I have written a second book (which is currently being looked at so fingers crossed) and one of my characters is taken by some Kiowa Indians and it is not pleasant but then it is not suppose to be. Having read more than effort accounts of survivors, some of the detail makes you cringe and it's a definite cross your legs moment.
I am looking forward to reading Outlaw as I have no preconceived ideas about Robin Hood despite the likes of Richard Green, Errol Flynn, Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Jason Connery or Michael Praed trying to presuade me otherwise. How sad is that, and I could name a few more. Prue

On Angel Mountain (Angel Mountain Saga 1)

Hello guys! I'm up for some shameless self-promotion too. My own Angel Mountain Saga (six novels so far, and counting.....) has a nice following from all over the world. Once the novels had become best-sellers in Wales, Transworld picked up the first three, and published Corgi editions. But sadly, promotion work and effective marketing did not figure in their plans, and they told me in the end that there had been NO publicity budget for the books at all. Ah, the joys of being a mid-list author! So I have now recovered the rights, and continue to publish my own editions. Sales of "On Angel Mountain" (all editions) are now up to 15,000, which is something I'm pretty chuffed about. The point of this contribution is to point out that self-publishing can be highly effective, if you know your market and are prepared to work at selling. More info here: http://www.brianjohn.f2s.com/angelmountain1.html. My first novel has an Amazon sales rank of 190,763, which is crazy for a book with my level of sales. But that sales rank is based upon EPOS records -- and the great majority of my sales come from non-trade outlets -- cafes, garages, tourist info centres, post offices, and newsagents etc. So the "sales rank" can be hugely misleading. My own advice, for what it is worth, is not to have high expectations of the big publishers, and to accept that small publishers and "alternative marketing" can sometimes be more effective.

Attention to all those fellow authors that were not aware of the following:- did you know that you can claim Public Lending Rights everytime your book is borrowed through a library. It works the same way as royalties on music i.e. everytime someone borrows your book from the library you get paid. Check out the website www.plr.uk.com its quick and easy and takes about four days to register a title as you have to send them some form of I.D. like a bill.
As the meerkat says - it's simple. Oh I forgot you'll have to do your own silly noise.
Prue

My books are not yet in book shops, but they are available on amazon (mostly on www.amazon.com) but I do notice one is here on amazon.co.uk Casca: Halls of Montezuma albeit at a hugely inflated price! For more realistic prices best either look on amazon.com or on my website www.casca.net where all 6 of my novels so far published can be found.

Briefly, the series concerns the Roman soldier who speared Jesus on the cross and is cursed to immortality for his actions. His story is told down throughout the ages, where he partakes in many campaigns and battles.

Okay, I seem to be the exception here.
I am not an author, I have no manuscript pending, no book deal, and only half-finished ideas in all of your historical areas.
Good luck to you all in your writing - and in all this social networking and self-promotion. You've done a lot of hard work, so now get out there and market market market.
But, as a consumer of historical fiction products, I grow increasingly wary of many reviews I read in papers and that I see on bok covers. Author A is quoted on Author B's book saying "this the best thing since sliced bread", and vice versa. I am sure that this is often now part of writers' contracts with their publishers that they will help cross promote each other's work. It does make commercial sense.

But for us readers, we have to discount a lot of this. Because I have read novels, enthusiatically reviewed by emminent academics, that are not up to much critically - and that if that academic were peer-reviewing an other academics ACADEMIC work - such a gushing review would never have been written at all. Indeed, let's face it, in academe it's a dog it dog world and some of the most vicious attacks are by one don going after another....

All of which is not me wishing any of you ill. I really don't. It's just.... regretfully, experience has taught me to be very wary of much promotion.

Can I please join in? Being with a small publisher I have to 'prostitute' myself by self-promotion. My debut novel 'Blood on their Petticoats' is about a young lady who goes out to Scutari with Florence Nightingale to nurse the sick and wounded from the Crimean War. It is not predominately a woman's book, many men have read it and given me some good feeback. I've tried to show how difficult conditions were. My next novel is about the women who went out to the Crimea with their soldier husbands. In both cases, I have researched extensively. I wish all self-promoting authors much luck, as we desperately need it!

[Deleted by the author on 4 Nov 2009 12:35 GMT]

Just thought I would let you know the comments I got when I posted ' would you read a self published novel'.
As you can guess, I got a mixed bag of comments. What became clear was that a lot of readers would like to read a chapter of a book when the novel is self published, before committing to it.

Therefore get a chapter of your book available. I have just done this with my first novel, Blood Money, which is set in 1641 and follows an assasssination atempt on Charles 1st. To view the chapter, please visit anovelexperience.co.uk.

Good luck and stick with it.

Hi Brian
That's a pretty disappointing tale about Transworld (but par for the course, it would seem) but a mighty impressive sales figure for self promotion. You can't keep a good Welshman down, eh?
And since I'm pretty rubbish at blowing my own trumpet, I'll just mention that my first action-adventure novel 'Walls of Jericho' is the story of two unlikely friends, set at the very beginning of the Peninsular war. You can read the first 3 chapters at www.cavalrytales.co.uk.
Good luck to all the other authors posting here - what we really need is a dedicated Self Published Historical Fiction Author's site. Dream on.
Jonathan