Where did the first half go?

I can't believe that on Wednesday we will start the second half of the year. Where has the first half gone?
I appreciate I have been a little off the radar as far as writing has been concerned so here's an update of what's been happening and what I hope to achieve in the second half of the year, assuming it doesn't go as  quickly as the first half.
As many of you know I have been having a lot of surgery for my throat and I won't go into that in detail, but needless to say the recuperation has curtailed my writing some what.
In an attempt to get my writing kick started I have set up a weekend writing challenge on Scribophile. This challenge involves an object being left and then a story has to be written which includes the object. This is going great except I am one of the few people failing to write the story. Motivation seems to have left me along with my thyroid and vocal chords.
I have also set up a group on facebook to promote any books which are available free through Kindle Owners Lending Library and Kindle Unlimited. I am happy to say a number of people have signed up to this and hopefully they have seen their books being borrowed thanks to the exposure.
Finally for me I have decided to split my novel 'Stripper of the Yard' into two parts. Part 1 is free and part 2 is the same price as the full book (only £1.99 or $2.99). The idea is that hopefully people will download part 1, enjoy it, and wanting to know what happens next, buy part 2. So far I have had 307 downloads of part 1 and 7 sales of part 2 or the entire book. This is all in the last 2 weeks which considering I had had no sales in the last 6 months is brilliant.
The hardest part of the whole thing was getting Amazon to list the book for free. With Smashwords and Barnes & Noble you can chose to list a book for free. However with Amazon you have to list a book for at least 99p. In order to list a book for free you have to get Amazon to price match the book in line with Smashwords and Barnes & Nobel. This means listing the book with those other sites and then writing to Amazon to request that they price match. Amazon then email saying they will think about it and take a week to decide. In my case they price matched in the USA and then I had to request that they did the same in the UK, which took another week.
But the books are now listed and if you want to check them out they're here....
Part 1 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00ZAQOT2O/
Part 2 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00ZAQOHIK/

Going forwards I have 2 projects on the go at the moment, both of which need more attention than I have given them recently.
I have my 2013 NaNoWriMo winner to edit and then publish. This is the story of an East-end gangster whose wife can get pregnant and pretends she is to keep him, while at the same time his girlfriend is pregnant and pretends not to be to keep him. When his brother introduces the two women the consequences could be dire. I am hoping to have this ready to publish by the end of the year.
My second project is to write my story. In the last 7 months I have had intensive surgery and been in most of the departments in the local hospital (except the maternity ward and the mortuary) and Guy's Hospital in London. I knew nothing about my condition and have learnt as I have gone a long and I thought it would be interesting to get everything down on paper to reflect on the journey I have been through. As my treatment has not yet finished I don't know when it will be available but hopefully some time next year.

So lots has happened and lots still has to happen.
How have you coped with the first half of the year?
Do you have big plans for the second half?

Crowdfunding - Why?

My first novel was not exactly troubling JK on the best seller list but in my house it was a major achievement.

The problem with self-publishing is that while it is relatively easy to produce a book and make it available to the public, no one knows you have done it.

With my first novel I paid a professional to design my cover, based upon a recommendation from another author I had met through social media. This cost £65. I did look into using professional proof readers and editors by this costs between £200 and £500 and was beyond my budget.

I organised some giveaways with the cover design and some leaflets to hand out. This all cost in the region of £100. I then had to pay for proof copies of the paperback to be printed and delivered to me so I could proof it before publication.

Even without a professional editing service I spent nearly £200 getting my novel ready and trying to get the word out there that it existed. Not a huge amount of money until you consider that so far I have received less than £100 in royalties. Suddenly this hobby is starting to get expensive.


I am about to start writing my next novel as part of NaNoWriMo and wanted to give it the best chance I could, and give my readers the best experience I could. That's why I have considered crowd funding.

I am using indiegogo and they have been very easy to use. You set up your page explaining why you are trying to raise money and set your target. I originally was going to set my target at £65, enough for a professional cover. The minimum target is £500. Enough for a cover and a really good editing service. I then came up with the idea of asking all my twitter followers (5,000) for 10p. surely no one would mind giving me 10p. Unfortunately the minimum donation is £1. I worked on the theory £1 is still a fairly small amount and that hopefully I could find 500 people who would willingly give me £1.
Part of the idea of crowd funding is to offer perks to your contributors. I have set up a number of perks for people who would like to offer more than £1. These range from a signed copy of the book to being a character in the book.
The final thing to decide is whether to go for flexible or fixed funding. Fixed means you only get the money once you have reached your target, whilst flexible means you get the money as you go along and get to keep it even if you don't hit your target. The down side of this is that the fees on the flexible option are higher. I didn't need the full £500 so I chose this option.

So everything was set up and all I had to do was sit back and wait for the money to roll in. Only that's not how these things work. I still need to push this campaign on social media and make sure people know I need their help.

For the first three days all I got where people offering to support me if I paid them. I mean really, I am trying to raise £500 and one of them offer me a support package which cost $1,000.

Then things started to pick up. After 6 days I have had 6 people contribute to my campaign and I am 14% of the way towards my target.

I will spend everything I raise on the finished article and the more I raise the more professional help I can recruit. There is a lot further and a lot more pushing to be done to get to get anywhere near my goal.

If this story has hit a chord with you and you would like to help visit my campaign page here.

Anything you can spare is appreciated and a retweet or facebook share would be brilliant too.

Let me know about your crowd-funding stories and anything you did to push your campaign.