Okay 2015 - Bring It On!

I did write a draft blog entitled 'Goodbye 2014...and good riddance' in which I went on a bit of a rant about how abominably shitty 2014 has generally been for the reasons those who have been regular followers of this blog will be all too aware.
But I've decided not to post that because I'm determined that the dark times of the year that is thankfully drawing to a close will in no way cast a shadow on the countless fantastic possibilities of the year ahead.
2014 was crap. There's no denying it. But there's also nothing I can do about it, so let's just box it up, put it in the garage, and turn our attention instead to the year that will soon be upon us.

I've set myself a number of objectives for 2015 (because I'm that sort of guy) and I'd like to take the opportunity to share them with all you fabulous people out there in Blogland...and I've added some pictures to provide a bit of visualisation of said objectives!

So here goes...

Writing

1. To have 'Red Plus Zone' available in print form both on the internet and in bookshops, and to achieve at least 250 sales (and yes, you can all help with that one!).

2. To complete 'Deus Magnus' and 'The Curious Case of God vs. Pratt' and get both of them published.

3. To get 'Callum's Quest - An Adventure in the Great Land of Rhyme' published.

Walking

4. To climb the remaining 29 Lakeland Fells that I have yet to conquer and in so doing complete the set of 214 Wainwrights (and get a badge to prove it!)

4a. And maybe bag a Munro or two...

Reading

5. To read at least 15 of the SF Masterworks books (I've got 22 on my bookshelf to choose from!).

Fruit

6. To eat one piece of fruit a day (it's all about staying healthy...)

And oh yes, there'll probably need to be something about my new business earning enough money to make all of the above possible...

So, best foot forward and all that.

Oh, by the way - I hope everyone who's been kind enough to show interest in my inane ramblings over the last twelve months has themselves a fantastic 2015!

Red Plus Zone - it's here!

Well, folks, I am utterly delighted to announce that it's finally here...and even if I do say do myself, it is well worth the wait.
Red Plus Zone is my latest, certainly my darkest, and dare I say my best sci-fi novel and it's now available for download to your e-reader from:

RED PLUS ZONE on Amazon UK

RED PLUS ZONE on Amazon US

And hopefully, in the early new year, Red Plus Zone will be available in print - I'll keep you posted on progress.

So, dear friends, get Red Plus Zone downloaded, get it read and then get that 'Oh-my-God-this-book-is-simply-incredible' review posted on Amazon, Goodreads and Shelfari.
You'll not regret it, I promise!!

Spooky!

Sometimes things happen that seem to be a little more than mere coincidence.
Take this morning for example - the good lady was in the play-room sorting out some of my late Dad's stuff to take to the charity shop, when she came across a copy of 'The Practical Home Handyman'.

Nothing special in that, I guess - my Dad had collected hundreds and hundreds of old books and signed books from charity shops and the like over the last few years and stored them in the back bedroom-cum-library - but what's worth bearing in mind is that the choice of my wife bringing these particular books home a week or so ago was completely arbitrary; my wife and my Mum needed to clear some space to get at some stuff in the cupboard above the stairs, and these old books were in the way.

Anyway, as my wife is putting all these old books into bags to put in the car, she happens to open up 'The Practical Home Handyman' - no reason really, she just suddenly felt a compunction to look inside it (interestingly, page 43 tells you how to make a wooden clothes horse).
Inside the front cover is written, in pencil:

NOV 1948
J.Simpson
85 Preston Old Road
Cherry Tree

Again, nothing special in that - people are always writing their name and address on the inside covers of books.
Except...John Simpson (of said address) is, somewhat spookily, my wife's grandfather!

Cue the following:

Book Review - Ragged Souls by Ernest San Giacomo

The Book on Amazon UK

Of the three stories which Ernesto has included in Ragged Souls, I enjoyed the final one, Cactus Valley, the most. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the first two, though I felt that with regards to the first story in particular, A Purveyor of Odd Things, there is actually a much better, bigger story in there, fighting to get out. There's a sense of the plot and the character development having been 'squeezed' into a short story, resulting in some elements of the narrative (particularly the burgeoning relationship between the two main characters) feeling rushed. I also felt that this story, perhaps more than the second and third ones, needed the 'bizarre' element to be more fully explained.
Story number two, Martha's Kitchen, is quite heavy on dialogue, which may not be to everyone's taste. However, the backstory and the two main characters, Martha and Jillian, are developed to a more satisfyingly level. The plot twist, when it arrives, is pleasingly sudden. The final scene, in my humble opinion, would have more impact if it were considerably shorter, but that doesn't really detract from the overall tale.
Story number three, Cactus Valley, as I mentioned earlier, is my favourite. Ernesto creates two interesting, though not entirely likeable, main characters and engenders a good sense of isolation and peril around them. There is an almost comedic element to this tale, based on a clash of ideologies, which is the most satisfying of the three 'bizarre' twists.
Overall, three very readable short stories that I'd certainly encourage people to have a look at.

I know it's not about the money, but...

Well, the day has finally arrived!
Hoorah!!!!
All three parts of my magnum opus are now available on the world-wide-web for the delectation of discerning readers everywhere - links to the right, folks!
Initial feedback has been very positive, even from those for whom sci-fi is not normally a genre into which they would venture.

But, if I'm honest, the gloss of my success has been besmearched just a little by the antics of those 'nice' people at Amazon (the non-corporation-tax-paying commercial behemoth).
Put simply, Amazon are the only retailer of e-books that levy a charge for the download of an e-book. That charge is based, apparently, on the size (in kilobyte terms) of the e-book. Now, because Part 3 of 'The Book That THEY...' contains a lot of appendices which have tables and graphs and stuff like that, it is fairly hefty in size, to the point that, if I am to sit in Amazon's 70% royalty bracket, they will charge £2.38 for the download. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to work out the following:

£2.99 - 20% VAT - £2.38 download charge - 30% Amazon cut = fuck all for the author or the publisher.

As a result of this, my publisher has had to put Part 3 in a different royalty bracket where there is no download charge - unfortunately, this particularly bracket only pays 30%, which gives us the following equation:

£2.99 - 20% VAT - £0.00 download charge - 70% Amazon cut = £1.12, of which I get 85%.

Not exactly a fortune, is it?
But, then again, it's never really been about the money, has it?
I mean, let's face facts - if I wanted to find a time-effective way of making oddles of dosh, spending countless hours writing a novel that has little chance (in spite of the fact that it is fucking brilliant!) of becoming an international bestseller (which is the only time the author actually gets oodles of dosh) would not be high on your list.
It would certainly be below:

• dealing drugs
• becoming a gigolo
• robbing a bank
• working in the financial services sector

No, my writing is about something more than money.
It's about experiencing the satisfaction of being able to look at one's own creation and, yes, it is about enjoying the warm glow that comes with positive feedback from my peers.
It's about realising an ambition.
So, I guess I shouldn't let those bastards at Amazon dim the glow of triumph that I should feel as I bask in the knowledge that something which I have written is being read (and, by all accounts, enjoyed) by people all over the world.

A bit of extra dosh wouldn't go amiss though...

Interview with a tw*t

That's 'twit'...with an 'i'...not with an 'a' as, I suspect, you were thinking...it did make you look, though, didn't it? Clearly there is value in putting suggested obscenities in the titles of my posts...
Well, dear reader, now that you're here, why not read on a little more...

As a recently published author, I've been dabbling with a variety of different marketing techniques to increase my 'visibility' and thus increase those all important sales figures - some have worked...and some, it has to be said, haven't.
This blog, for example, now has a steady following of fantastic people who are spreading the word of its wit and wisdom (I am confident that my target of 1.5 billion pageviews a week will be surpassed before the end of the year) and in so doing are also spreading the word about my books.
My Facebook page 'IveReadItHaveYou' has just reached the dizzy heights of 20 'likes', and I've just orchestrated a serious membership push to double that number (though the jury is still out on whether that will work, especially given the confusion and perplexity caused by Mr Doyle's posting on Facebook last night!).
I've contacted local newspapers to see if I can arrange an article, but alas, to-date no-one has had the courtesy and good grace to even respond.
I recently contacted a local book club to see if they would be interested in adding my book to their reading list - still awaiting a response on that one, but fingers crossed. More positively, the book club at work has indicated that they'll look at putting Part 1 on their list...thanks Mags, you're a star!
There's a couple of little posters in my car (which have QR codes on them for fast access via smartphone to my book on Amazon...which, you have to admit, is pretty techno-savvy of me) though I doubt whether anyone's ever used them; there are some mugs at the office with the same QR codes, and a bunch of 'I've Read It Have you' business cards which are being randomly handed out by the faithful.
And then there's good, old-fashioned word-of-mouth, still the most successful technique I've found (apologies to those who know me whose tits I have probably bored off in the weeks since my book went live! Your tolerance of me is truly commendable.)
And then there's Twitter.
Hmmmm.
What to say about Twitter.
Well, on the positive side, it is through Twitter that I linked up with Indie Author Land who were kind enough to conduct an interview with me (though it was more of a questionnaire to be filled in than a Frost-Nixon face-to-face conversation) and then publish the results on their web-site and promote through Twitter and Facebook (shame the first tweet had a link in it that didn't work):

Read the interview for yourself at:
http://www.indieauthorland.com/archives/3212
There are actually some quite funny answers, even if I do say so myself!
On the negative side, though, I'm coming to the conclusion that Twitter is just not for me. Yes, I have 109 followers, but I'm not entirely sure whether they are following me because they are interested in what I have to say, or simply because by following me they know there's a good chance I'll reciprocate and that will boost their own number of followers, and it's the number of followers they have that's important to them.
And there's just so much noise on Twitter. How anyone with 10,000 followers can even begin to sift through the banality and desperate 'Read Me'-ness of it all to find something really interesting, I have no idea at all.
I suggest most of the people on Twitter just simply don't bother reading what other people tweet because all they're really interested in is what they themselves have to say!
If that's true, then it's just a question of trying to get as big an audience to shout at...and where's the point in that, when no-one's actually listening?
So, once again, my sincere thanks to David Njoku for taking the time to put my rambling nonsense on his web-site - you are top-notch!

ps Am I the only one who's had a little smile at the way the much vaunted, ITV-presenter-orgasm-inducing 'Spanish Flair' has been ruthlessly crushed by German Footballing efficiency in the two Champions League semi-finals?