Life is really rather splendid at the moment. To give you an idea of my routine this week, I work 9-5 every day. Then on Monday evening, I had a Tale of Two Cities rehearsal followed by pleasant beer in the Red Lion's garden. On Tuesday, a dinner guest didn't turn up, so we had a writing evening before a pleasant beer in The Bridge's garden. Last night, I went to an audience recording of QI, wherein Stephen Fry, Alan Davies, Sue Perkins, Ross Noble and a comedian whose name I didn't quite catch were thoroughly entertaining and witty. Then we went for a pleasant beer in The Bridge's garden. This evening I have another Tale of Two Cities rehearsal, after which I think we can all agree it's the Red Lions turn.
In the middle of all this, of course, I have a bunch of other stuff to do, including promoting Something Nice (which you'll notice has a new five star review) and writing more of those car articles. But I would much rather be too busy than idle.
I came close to contradicting my earlier posts in this blog. I started considering making Killing Me Softly available on Kindle - this being my MPhil thesis on the depiction of violence in the early films of Jean-Luc Godard. I've thought better of it (again) for a few reasons. The reasons mostly revolve around the fact that it would almost certainly involve more work than I'm prepared to do.
It being quite an interesting topic to me, though, I may blog selected excerpts occasionally. Consider yourselves warned...
Amazon Associate
Thursday, 31 May 2012
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Something Nicer?
I continue to be faintly taken aback at the positive reaction to Something Nice. One reader (and fellow writer) over on Goodreads has posted a truly awesome review which analyses the first three of my stories down to the subatomic level. I'm pleased that the work so far seems to be standing up to his intense scrutiny.
A couple of short stories are now in the bag for a potential second volume, although I'm going to take a few months to send them to magazines, competitions, etc. My 'previously published' notes on the first book probably haven't made much difference to sales, but it does reassure people that I can reliably spell (and indeed spell reliably).
There's been a major obstacle to the fiction writing this week as I hit the deadline for another batch of car articles and a three page survey write-up in the day job's magazine. The survey results piece will be read by over 11,000 people. We... still need to sell a few copies of Something Nice to reach that kind of volume.
A couple of short stories are now in the bag for a potential second volume, although I'm going to take a few months to send them to magazines, competitions, etc. My 'previously published' notes on the first book probably haven't made much difference to sales, but it does reassure people that I can reliably spell (and indeed spell reliably).
There's been a major obstacle to the fiction writing this week as I hit the deadline for another batch of car articles and a three page survey write-up in the day job's magazine. The survey results piece will be read by over 11,000 people. We... still need to sell a few copies of Something Nice to reach that kind of volume.
Thursday, 3 May 2012
Feedback
The other week I published a collection of my best short stories. And now people have got around to reading it, and the reviews are trickling in:
"The short stories are perfect reading when you don't have much time or want to read something before bedtime." Faint praise indeed...
"It's an odd collection of offbeat, quirky fiction. "Throwing Up With the Joneses" sets the tone early on, establishing mundane characters and settings that are punctured by fantasy and horror elements." There are a few things about Throwing Up With the Joneses that I don't much like any more, particularly the ending (there were four different endings at one point, and the published version is the one that best fit the magazine's word count rather than being my favourite as such). But others seem to enjoy it.
"I like the one with the neighbours yokking up" As I said, others seem to enjoy it...
"All of the stories have an element of absurdity too them, mingled in with your sci-fi, romance, or dramatic storyline." Thanks for noticing, guv!
"There wasn't a single one I didn't enjoy. They were particularly well written and all had that little edge of discomfort." This is part of the loveliest review I've ever had, particularly as the writer in question was kind enough to copy it over to the American site as well, where I had precisely no feedback.
"It didn't feel like I was reading fiction. It was more like sort of reading a diary." I'm... still not sure what kind of diary this reader keeps. But am very grateful for a nice review.
I briefly reached the dizzying heights of 63rd best-selling paid Kindle short story collection, which is a strong indication of how many ebooks people are actually buying, in spite of the hype, and I'm busy writing more short stories, whether for a second volume or just for the heck of it. It was an experiment for me, but Something Nice seems to have worked out rather well so far
"The short stories are perfect reading when you don't have much time or want to read something before bedtime." Faint praise indeed...
"It's an odd collection of offbeat, quirky fiction. "Throwing Up With the Joneses" sets the tone early on, establishing mundane characters and settings that are punctured by fantasy and horror elements." There are a few things about Throwing Up With the Joneses that I don't much like any more, particularly the ending (there were four different endings at one point, and the published version is the one that best fit the magazine's word count rather than being my favourite as such). But others seem to enjoy it.
"I like the one with the neighbours yokking up" As I said, others seem to enjoy it...
"All of the stories have an element of absurdity too them, mingled in with your sci-fi, romance, or dramatic storyline." Thanks for noticing, guv!
"There wasn't a single one I didn't enjoy. They were particularly well written and all had that little edge of discomfort." This is part of the loveliest review I've ever had, particularly as the writer in question was kind enough to copy it over to the American site as well, where I had precisely no feedback.
"It didn't feel like I was reading fiction. It was more like sort of reading a diary." I'm... still not sure what kind of diary this reader keeps. But am very grateful for a nice review.
I briefly reached the dizzying heights of 63rd best-selling paid Kindle short story collection, which is a strong indication of how many ebooks people are actually buying, in spite of the hype, and I'm busy writing more short stories, whether for a second volume or just for the heck of it. It was an experiment for me, but Something Nice seems to have worked out rather well so far
Thursday, 26 April 2012
Something Nice Sample
Something Nice has now been available for a whole month, and the feedback has been brilliant. It's great that people are enjoying the book so much, and it's spurred on my fiction writing to produce a second volume.
As is de rigeur
these days you can of course get a sample of the first 10% or 15% of the book, depending on where you're buying it, but that seems to cut off some of the opening story for some readers.
So, please follow this link to read Write a short story about growing up. Include three apples and a suitcase. It's an early version, posted on a website I assumed had gone under years ago, and comes with a downright cryptic comment at the bottom.
And if that appeals, Something Nice is still only £0.77.
So, please follow this link to read Write a short story about growing up. Include three apples and a suitcase. It's an early version, posted on a website I assumed had gone under years ago, and comes with a downright cryptic comment at the bottom.
And if that appeals, Something Nice is still only £0.77.
Saturday, 7 April 2012
Something Nice on Kindle!
It's been a slightly crazy week. Something Nice went live on Amazon, and for a few hours I was their 63rd fastest selling short story collection.
And that was without even mentioning the release to the loyal 18 people subscribed to this blog! I'm still grappling with Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and many more, trying to strike a balance between marketing my work in an effective and joined-up way, and not getting too much sarcasm from work. I'm on Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Facebook, Myspace, just about anywhere you can think of, and not all of those platforms quite gel with my professional life as a publishing manager.
Anyway, on with the widget! If you enjoy Something Nice, please leave a review - it's looking a bit lonely there still unrated...
And that was without even mentioning the release to the loyal 18 people subscribed to this blog! I'm still grappling with Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and many more, trying to strike a balance between marketing my work in an effective and joined-up way, and not getting too much sarcasm from work. I'm on Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Facebook, Myspace, just about anywhere you can think of, and not all of those platforms quite gel with my professional life as a publishing manager.
Anyway, on with the widget! If you enjoy Something Nice, please leave a review - it's looking a bit lonely there still unrated...
Sunday, 1 April 2012
Something Nice
Further to my last post, if you would care to point your browsers at this page, kind readers, you will notice that I've published a book. An e-anthology of ten of my short stories, to be precise.
Something Nice is a diverse collection. There's a bit of supernatural fiction with a haunted photocopier. A bit of horror (with tea and cake). A bit of gung-ho SF. And some quieter stuff where sixth formers talk about literature, and parents struggle to deal with a child who's a little different.
There are competition winners in there (including last year's Cyberstalking), and a few which have been published in magazines which have long since gone to the great dentist's waiting room in the sky. Many people will have read a couple of these stories, but no one has read all of them up to now.
Each story is credited with the name of the pub in which some/most/all of it was written (people still think I'm joking about that), and the cover photo was taken in the Red Lion in Barnes last weekend (the not-quite-visible writing are my original scribbles for Cyberstalking).
Please enjoy Something Nice.
Something Nice is a diverse collection. There's a bit of supernatural fiction with a haunted photocopier. A bit of horror (with tea and cake). A bit of gung-ho SF. And some quieter stuff where sixth formers talk about literature, and parents struggle to deal with a child who's a little different.
There are competition winners in there (including last year's Cyberstalking), and a few which have been published in magazines which have long since gone to the great dentist's waiting room in the sky. Many people will have read a couple of these stories, but no one has read all of them up to now.
Each story is credited with the name of the pub in which some/most/all of it was written (people still think I'm joking about that), and the cover photo was taken in the Red Lion in Barnes last weekend (the not-quite-visible writing are my original scribbles for Cyberstalking).
Please enjoy Something Nice.
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Self-publishing
I've joined the self-published throng. As we speak, an anthology of 10 of my short stories is awaiting clearance on a popular platform. Now, I've scorned self-publishing many many times online, so why have I done it? Again.*
Not because I've lost faith in "traditional" publishing after numerous rejections, that's for sure. The stories include four which have been published professionally (for a given value of "professionally"), two competition winners and, well, what more do you want, really?
It's not because I'm particularly captivated by the opportunities afforded by the new wave of e-readers either. I like my Kindle, but the bottom line is that I'd have probably done this via POD sooner or later, and before that as a photocopied zine.
There are two reasons. One simple and practical, and one more aspirational.
1) The practical. I've written a bunch of stories, some of which have been published, read, apparentky enjoyed, and then have disappeared back into obscurity. All the rights have now reverted back to me, but there are even fewer markets for a reprint than there are for original short stories. And no market at all for anthologies. I've got independent verification that the stories are of a publishable standard, so why not?
2) The aspirational. Fiction, I have neglected you. There was a time (roughly 2004-2008) when I was producing a short story, whether fan fiction or original, every couple of months. People were genuinely interested in reading the next story. I was building an audience.
Then I embarked on an insane undertaking to novelise the Time War from Doctor Who, because a lot of fans were doing the same thing and I felt that they'd all rather missed the point by removing all humour and making it all about joyless space battles. Then I translated Casanova's Histoire de ma Fuite into English, under the [mistaken, as it turned out] impression that no one had done this before.
Then I discovered that I could churn out non-fiction web articles in ten minutes and earn money for them. And as this was around the time of the credit crunch, well, what would you do? I made a lot of money, but it was at the cost of my fiction writing. In February 2011 I wrote Cyberstalking, a 400 word piece of flash fiction, and realised it was my first full story in three years. I'm doing this to try and get my head back into dealing with writing fiction on a regular basis again.
Dusting down each story made me remember how excited I was when I first started writing it, how relieved I was when I finished, how thrilled I was when it was accepted for publication, how I spent the cheque... Then of course, I had to spend many hours formatting paragraph styles for Word files that in some cases were almost a decade old and the enthusiasm faded.
So here's the thing. When I self-publish a collection of short stories, it shouldn't be taken as a comment on publishing (an industry I work in and love), or the rise of 'indie' authors (barely literate morons who confuse Twitter statistics and Amazon ranks with indicators of writing quality). And it certainly shouldn't be taken as a get rich quick scheme - I'm going with a $0.99 price as the lowest option: partly because of the length of the book (about 23,000 words), but mostly to reach the widest possible audience without giving the book away.
I'm trying to prod myself into writing more stories and just get a bit of excitement back about my writing. At the moment I'm writing about a kid and his alien friend hiding in his garage (and stayed until the kid was 38). And a story about computer games which I know will need severe editing because I think I'm being clever with it (never a good sign).
So there's no link on this post, this is not a 'buy my book' pitch, but... there's one on the way. And I'm very excited about it!
* In the interests of full disclosure, I also self-published my MPhil thesis on the depiction of violence in the early films of Jean-Luc Godard back in 2004. That was much more about getting my own bound copy of the book than it was about sales, or about being published. It's no longer available, and I have no current interest in offering it for distribution in any format. If you're that bothered, head to the main library stacks at University of Birmingham and look me up.
Not because I've lost faith in "traditional" publishing after numerous rejections, that's for sure. The stories include four which have been published professionally (for a given value of "professionally"), two competition winners and, well, what more do you want, really?
It's not because I'm particularly captivated by the opportunities afforded by the new wave of e-readers either. I like my Kindle, but the bottom line is that I'd have probably done this via POD sooner or later, and before that as a photocopied zine.
There are two reasons. One simple and practical, and one more aspirational.
1) The practical. I've written a bunch of stories, some of which have been published, read, apparentky enjoyed, and then have disappeared back into obscurity. All the rights have now reverted back to me, but there are even fewer markets for a reprint than there are for original short stories. And no market at all for anthologies. I've got independent verification that the stories are of a publishable standard, so why not?
2) The aspirational. Fiction, I have neglected you. There was a time (roughly 2004-2008) when I was producing a short story, whether fan fiction or original, every couple of months. People were genuinely interested in reading the next story. I was building an audience.
Then I embarked on an insane undertaking to novelise the Time War from Doctor Who, because a lot of fans were doing the same thing and I felt that they'd all rather missed the point by removing all humour and making it all about joyless space battles. Then I translated Casanova's Histoire de ma Fuite into English, under the [mistaken, as it turned out] impression that no one had done this before.
Then I discovered that I could churn out non-fiction web articles in ten minutes and earn money for them. And as this was around the time of the credit crunch, well, what would you do? I made a lot of money, but it was at the cost of my fiction writing. In February 2011 I wrote Cyberstalking, a 400 word piece of flash fiction, and realised it was my first full story in three years. I'm doing this to try and get my head back into dealing with writing fiction on a regular basis again.
Dusting down each story made me remember how excited I was when I first started writing it, how relieved I was when I finished, how thrilled I was when it was accepted for publication, how I spent the cheque... Then of course, I had to spend many hours formatting paragraph styles for Word files that in some cases were almost a decade old and the enthusiasm faded.
So here's the thing. When I self-publish a collection of short stories, it shouldn't be taken as a comment on publishing (an industry I work in and love), or the rise of 'indie' authors (barely literate morons who confuse Twitter statistics and Amazon ranks with indicators of writing quality). And it certainly shouldn't be taken as a get rich quick scheme - I'm going with a $0.99 price as the lowest option: partly because of the length of the book (about 23,000 words), but mostly to reach the widest possible audience without giving the book away.
I'm trying to prod myself into writing more stories and just get a bit of excitement back about my writing. At the moment I'm writing about a kid and his alien friend hiding in his garage (and stayed until the kid was 38). And a story about computer games which I know will need severe editing because I think I'm being clever with it (never a good sign).
So there's no link on this post, this is not a 'buy my book' pitch, but... there's one on the way. And I'm very excited about it!
* In the interests of full disclosure, I also self-published my MPhil thesis on the depiction of violence in the early films of Jean-Luc Godard back in 2004. That was much more about getting my own bound copy of the book than it was about sales, or about being published. It's no longer available, and I have no current interest in offering it for distribution in any format. If you're that bothered, head to the main library stacks at University of Birmingham and look me up.
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