Back from Lundy (again)

I got back from another week on beautiful Lundy on Sunday 1st April (April Fool's Day), and what a wonderful week it was, as usual. It was the first sailing of the year. I wondered as the day approached, whether we would be sailing at all, or going by helicopter instead, as the weather seemed to be worsening, with the winds getting stronger and stronger. As it turned out, the day dawned bright and clear, with seas as a calm as a mill pond, and it was one of the smoothest sailings I have ever had. As the week progressed, the winds returned, until we got to last Friday and a gale warning for the island, which meant that, you guessed it, we ended up being helicoptered off all the way to Hartland, near the Cornish border. That was exciting then. I have been on the helicopter several times before, so it was nothing new in some ways, but it was the first time I have had to be coptered off when it should have been the boat.

I am back now and slowly getting back to normality. Paul is still embroiled in the court case re Graham Cook, who is proprieter of a self publishing company called Writersworld. The more Paul tells me about this man the more I am astonished by his business misdealings, and the more grateful I am that I had the foresight to walk in the other directon, when I sniffed a rat coming from his website.

While I was away, Richard had a call from from a television company called Films of Record, who are based in London, and have been commissioned by ITV to do a series called Web Lives. One of the programmes will be on print on demand, and that is how they found Richard, as his company is called Authors OnLine Ltd. Richard referred them to Paul. who has given them details of a dozen or so authors that he works with, myself included. Tom will check out all our websites and be in touch with those that he likes the sound of best. Fingers crossed that one of them might be me.

Paul tells me that ITV are interested in covering the Foyles book signing, which is still going ahead, although there is no confirmed date as yet. All I do know is that it is likely to be on a Saturday and some time before the middle of May. I had better get cracking on that new book cover ...

Today I am celebrating

Today I am celebrating, as not only am I off to my favourite place (Lundy) in the whole wide world tomorrow, but I have just received an extra special present from the postman - a big fat royalty cheque for the princely sum of £83.07! It may not be a fortune, but it is a lot bigger and fatter than my last one, which was for just £19.11. It will help to cover the cost of this trip to Lundy if nothing else.

Yesterday I recorded a lovely interview with Ben Ruddy from Nothing Binding. Ben is the business partner of Jerry Simmons, who is setting up the independent authors programme that I mentioned yesterday. He has a nice American accent as you will hear when you listen to the recording. I never thought I would say this, but it was almost worth missing an extra week in Lundy to be able to do this, as it could do wonderful things for my writing career. The sound is a litte distorted, but not too bad. You have to expect a few glitches with international calls. It was worth the cost of the phone call, as one never knows who may get to hear these things ...

Nothing Binding

My writing buddy, Nadine Laman emailed me some time ago regarding a programme that is being set up in the States for international independently published authors, by this I mean all those who are in some way self published, either short print run, or as I did, print on demand. The project is headed by Jerry Simmons and sounds very exciting. It could potentially do great things for me, by bringing my work to a much greater audience.

Jerry is setting up a website (Nothing Binding), which will go live on April 2nd, which will feature as a showcase for the 200 authors who have initially signed up (I should add that it is all free). We will have the chance to add links to our own sites, and various places where our books are available, add events, author bio and lots, lots more. Today I also recorded a short interview with Jerry's business partner, Ben Ruddy, which will be put on YouTube. I am free to link to this from any other website, including Jerry's and my own.

Only 200 authors have signed up for the initial stage, from all continents of the world, although mostly within the United States, since the project is based on that side of the 'pond'. Ben said that I was the first author from abroad to be recorded, so it doesn't sound like there are too many of us outside the US. Anything that helps to promote my work in the States has to be good. It is after all a much bigger market than the UK.

Feedback re New book cover

I added a new page to my website a while back and also posted on several of the writing sites I frequent, to see what peoples views would be re the proposed new book cover, shown in the post below. The feedback so far seems to be very good, with 99 percent of them saying that they much preferred the new orange cover. The one person who didn't like it said that no matter what I did he would not be interested in my book, so I am going to worry about him !

The general consensus though seems to be that they love the orange, and the idea of a bigger font. What they are not so keen on is the characters on the front cover, with most stating they needed to be more lifetlike (no one volunteered for the job of being a model though ....). One person suggested that the cross should be changed to an ankh, since this is a symbol of life whereas the Christian cross is a symbol of death - something that I may well ask the designer to look at. It has also been suggested by some that I drop the of Man from the book title, stating just Genesis: the answer to life, the universe and everything in between. An intriguing thought that does have some merit, only the bit about the answer is not really a subtitle, but a strapline. The book has been bout there now for 7 months already anyway, so not sure about the logistics of changing the title anyway, it will no doubt involve more expense for re-registering etc, something else to talk to Richard/Paul about.

Life is Change

Was it really 28th February the last time I posted on here? I find that hard to believe, yet the screen doesn't lie.

A lot has happened in that time. I have started to work as a volunteer for the National Trust, I have done some more invigilating work, but perhaps the biggest news is that I have temporarily left the Internet discussion site that I lauched, together with three friends in November last year. I will not go into full details as to exactly what happened, since these blogs are read by people who are still on there, and I do not wish to ruffle feathers, but suffice to say there were what is commonly known as "creative differences".

At the same time, Coran, my partner, who was acting as webmaster was unceremiously sacked after some outbursts on the admin forum which left both us quite literally realing. It was this more than anything that led to my leaving the site, as I needed to have a long hard think about what I wanted from the site and whether the direction it was and is going in is compatible with my own ideals.

It is difficult to walk away from something that I helped create, but life is change. The fact that this has now happened four times leads me to question whether I should be doing this whole forum thing at all. It seems to me that being involved in these sites as admin or a moderator leads to nothing but trouble, as the moment anyone starts to have different opinions the bitching starts, and before you know where you are words are being misconstruded and it all ends in tears. That is the nature of the beast, for the simple fact that Email and Internet forums are not a valid means of communication, but a short cut where 80 percent of communication that is non verbal is missing, so for the moment at least, I need to sit back and let the dust settle. As for my friends on there, well, if they are the true friends they claim to be then they will understand my need to do this, and still be there for me if and when the time comes to go back, if not, then I guess we will all know where we stand.

On the writing front, I have been busy, or rather, Coran has been busy redesigning the book cover. I have made a lot of changes to my website and added several new articles, plus a press and publicity page and also a page asking people to vote for which cover they like best, the old white one, or the new orange one which Coran has designed. Most people so far seem to prefer the new one, but some have said that the figures need to be changed to look more realistic, so it may be back to the drawing board to ask my original designer, Sandra, to redo them. One person also suggested that I change the cross to an ankh, as he said that the cross represents death but the ankh represents life. There is much to think about before I make the final decision. I would like to have it done before the Foyles book signing, which looks if it will be put back to some time in May.

The other thing that has happened is that I had a call from the organiser of the local WI (Womens Institute) to say that my name has been added to a list of people interested in auditioning to become one of their approved speakers. So, continue to watch this space ...

Making Contact

It has been another interesting day. I don't normally write this much more than once a week, since there is not really a need for this. This morning though I was invited to a fairtrade coffee (and tea) morning, and met some people who may be very useful indeed in the months to come. The first of these and possibly the most exciting was a freelance photographer who works for the local paper. Quite apart from his usefulness for the newsletter that I shall very shortly be Editor of, he also sounded interested in my book and promised to talk to the staff at the office re contacting me with a view to doing an article. I may even suggest getting people to order copies through the paper, at say a couple of pounds off or something like that, or even get a competiion going where the first one to correctly answer a question wins a free copy and everyone else gets a coupon for money off a copy. It would be be easy enough for me to drive down there once or twice a week and pick up the entries etc, but will as always have to see what they say ... I have already been mentioned in one edition as the soon to be Editor of my own village newsletter ...

The other lady I met was the organiser for the local WI group. Apparently you have to 'audition' to be accepted as one of their speakers, but once you are on the books as it were, receive invites to go and do talks all over the area. There are loads of WI groups all over this part of Surrey, so this could be a good opportunity. We exchanged contact details and she will also be in touch, unless I contact her first ....

The other thing I have just done is to add an events calendar to the events page on my website so that people can click on it and see straightaway what I am doing. I have seen this on a number of other sites and it seems to work well and should be a useful addition. I have also upated the aforementioned events page with PDF's of the psychic fair this weekend and the craft fair at the end of May, as well as jazzing up the existing PDF's on earlier events with some snazzy clip art images. It now looks very good then.

Water and Wine .....

Since we moved to our new house just before Christmas, I have been amazed at just how much there is going on around the area - loads of groups and fairs etc all over the place - all potential venues for selling and promoting books. You would have expected the opposite, since it is not a large town, about a third the size of our old one, if not smaller. There is though a real community spirit here, plus the fact that so many of the residents are either retired or semi retired and therefore have much more time on their hands to enjoy leisure pursuits, and also the fact that all the little villages around here have their own halls with various groups etc.

The village newsletter have agreed to let me have a free advert for the next advertising year, which starts in June, around the time that I take over the Editors reins. This seems only fair considering that I shall be volunteering my services for free. This should though help me to make me much more well known on the hill and within the local community. The wife of our Chairman, and current Editor, runs a women's group who meet at the village hall once a month, and she is going to book me in at some point to do a talk there as well.

In the meantime though, I have confirmed my place at the psychic fair this weekend (Sunday) at Burgess Hill and I have today booked a table for a craft fair which is taking place at a local vineyard. This wiill be at the end of May and promises to be good. The table is only £10 for the day (10am-6pm), so I should do really well. Naomi, who is one lof the members in My Writers Circle, a writers forum that I a member of, does these things all the time and says they are brilliant, as her books are always one of the cheapest things for sale, and she therefore sells a lot of them. For £10 then it has to be worth a shot.