Compare The Mere Drat Dot Com

Drat! Drat! And double drat! What is that your are Muttleying about Dick Dastardly? Ah, I hear you. It’s as impossible for a new author to sell his e-books on Amazon as it is to win a Wacky Race.

Yep. It’s drat time of the month again. No sales. Yet in the overall scheme of things “Rewind” has outsold “Trouble Cross” (if you discount the 108 free downloads of the latter which was meant to tempt people into recommending it to others and/or buying the other one.)

Let’s compare.

“Trouble Cross” I wrote between 1996 and 2000. My challenge to myself was to write a comedy novel but as my type of reading and therefore writing usually concerns the godly against the ungodly, it had to be a comedy thriller. It is a fast moving plot which someone likened to a spoof James Bond which as it happens is apt because there is a spoof James Bond story within the book. See my W7 page on this Worst Blogsite Ever.

“Rewind” I wrote between 2004 and 2008 – notice the 4 year gaps, not planned and a bit spooky. The reason behind this is because of my constant hankerings to be able to turn back time and start again. I thought as this was impossible why not write about it so I did. What happens when you get to inhabit your eight year old body again knowing everything for the next thirty odd years – not what you might think. It was my intention to write another two books – provisional titles “Play” and “Fast Forward” – but as it never took off neither did these.

Both books have humour although TC is supposed to be more of a laugh fest. If though as the writer I had to split the two I would have thought that TC would appeal to guys more and “Rewind” girls. This seems to be the case because of there were three persons in my office who bought both quite early on – two females and one male. All three read “Rewind” first but only the guy read TC and he thought that was better. The ladies couldn’t get into it.

A very arbitrary split but what about geographically. Well, when it was up for free the split between US and UK for TC was 53 to 42. “Rewind” hasn’t been offered for free yet so there is no comparison there. Yet the website Readers Favorite were sent both to review and these are not allocated but are left available for any of their reviewers that want to select them “Rewind” was reviewed – did I mention that it got 4 stars – but TC has not been selected yet. Conversely, the UK publisher who had both has only offered me a contract – even though it is a contributory one – on TC. Does that mean “Rewind” appeals to Americans and TC to Brits? Who can say?

Why not do your own comparison. Samples!

REWIND
http://www.amazon.co.uk/REWIND-DAVID-A-WARDLE-ebook/dp/B00ANX65M6

or

TROUBLE CROSS
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TROUBLE-CROSS-David-A-Wardle-ebook/dp/B00ANXF5CC

The decision is yours.