The publisher of a book supposedly written by a convicted serial killer has asked Amazon to remove the book from sale.

Published by Outskirts Press, a self-publishing service based in Colorado, Pickton: In His Own Words was written by Robert Pickton. He was convicted of the murders of six women in Vancouver and is currently serving multiple life sentences in a maximum security prison.

Outskirts Press said it had a long-term policy of not working with or publishing works by incarcerated individuals. It has also said that it will discontinue publishing the book.

According to CBC news, the book is listed as having been written by Michael Chilldres, but Outskirts claim Pickton used him to get the manuscript published via Outskirts. 

What length should be book be is often a question writers ask – and we always say, when it comes to book lengths, the shorter the better.
 
A shorter book is more attractive on several levels – booksellers prefer shorter books because you can fit more of them on a shelf. A large book by an unknown author could be taking up room which could be used by someone else. Someone more famous, for instance.
 
Readers prefer shorter books. Your book is more likely to appeal to more readers if it is short. If you are an unknown author, readers want to take less of a risk, and having fewer pages to read makes your book less risky.
 
Finally, for the self-published writer the incentive is financial. If you’re sending out a book via Royal Mail (for example), you can save a lot of money sending out books that are classified as large letters, rather than small parcels. At the time of writing, a large letter costs £1.68 to post (UK only), whereas a small parcel costs £2.80.
 
The large letter classification is under 25mm thick. In practice, this means anything of 300 pages or fewer will qualify – and that extra £1.12 is purely the author’s saving. 

​For a guide to word counts for books, see this Writers Digest post. 

Join us for a little Friday creativity via the Friday flash fiction website! 

Every Friday, we invite you to submit a 100-word story to the website (or join the Friday Flash Fiction group on LinkedIn) - just make sure it's well-written and original. 

Once it's published, you can Tweet it using the #amwriting and remember to tag us in - @FridayFlashFict

Comely Bank Publishing author Jane Tulloch discussed her "shelf life" with Blackwell's Edinburgh book shop this week.

Jane launched her book Our Best Attention at the store last month and it became that week's Scottish best-seller! 

​Read the interview with Jane here (and see a cute picture of her Maine Coon cat). 

Eva Lesko Natiello’s The Memory Box achieved number one bestseller in the psychological thriller best-seller list, knocking the traditionally published The Girl On The Train off the top spot.

In an article written for the Huffington Post, Natiello says her time in the number one slot lasted only a few days, but it had felt miraculous at the time, commenting in the article that any self-published author knows how difficult it is to compete with other indie books, never mind competing with traditionally published novels.

Natiello says buzz is an essential factor in the success of a self-published novel and that marketing needs to take a different form for the marketing used for traditionally published books, because most self-published authors do not have sales teams talking at conferences and trade shows to bookstore owners and librarians promoting the book.

The self-published author recommends leveraging all of the benefits of being self-published – such as running price promotions, giving books away to get visibility, publishing out-take chapters or alternative endings and accessing readers through newsletters and social media.

A Dunstable author is on his way to making his first million through self-publishing.

Featured in this week’s Luton Today newspaper, Adam Croft, 29, is making £500,000 through his self-published crime novels, with his latest book Her Last Tomorrow selling up to 1,000 copies per day.

Market research has revealed that the majority of Croft’s readers are middle-aged women, which he admits surprised him.
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The author aims to write 2,000 words a day. He keeps 80 percent of the profits because he self-publishes his books, but admits that it requires marketing skills. He does a lot of promotional work through Facebook, which can generate up to 300 comments a day.

This week’s Guardian Money section featured a piece about the writer Tracy Bloom and her self-publishing career.

Bloom used to work as a commissioner for rollercoasters for theme parks until she moved to Connecticut with her family. She began writing romances and her first e-book, No-one Ever Has Sex on a Tuesday became an Amazon best-seller and she now makes a living from her self-published books.

Bloom took a creative writing course and drafted a romantic comedy. The book was signed up by one agent and the rights sold to a number of different countries, but she couldn’t find a British publisher.  

Having written a second book, changed agent and yet still been unable to find a publisher, she decided to self-publish, encouraged by the success of Nick Spalding. She spent three months analysing what makes books successful on Amazon.

To help her book stand out, she commissioned an agency to create the cover and then went after influential book bloggers in an attempt to publicise her book, which was launched in April 2013.

She appliued for the book to be featured in Amazon’s monthly promotion and was accepted. Three months later, it was at the top of the e-book romance category and had sold 200,000 copies. Her second book was launched in July of the same year and it became an Amazon best-seller within a month.
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Since then, she has launched two more e-books and has been published by Random House.
 

It's Friday - so it's that day of the week where we ask you to consider writing us some Friday Flash Fiction.

All we look for is a 100-word, original story that isn't offensive. Easy hmm? This week's efforts by the Friday Flash fiction crowd have been amazing so far:

In A Question of Degree by Barney MacFarlane, Joe learns a lesson about sharpness, while Reynold Junker's The Promise warns of the perils of immortality.

In a Future World by Comely Bank Publishing's founder Gordon Lawrie,explores the issue of mountains of data, while Eric Smith's Attrition is about mysteries - and their name. 

​to submit your own story, visit the site here.