Tag Archives: new writing

When the Holiday is Over

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Forget the blue skies and the swimming pool
Your desk is all ready so don’t act like a fool.

Forget the pavement cafes and Mademoiselles
As your computer fires up with a thousand e-mails
Enough to numb the pain
And the nagging desire for a glass of red wine;
Act cool.

Briefings, meetings and folders to review
Memoranda and consultations to plough through

Forget the camembert and French bread
Close the door on the plat du jour
Its not even lunch and I can’t resist
The thought of a cool aperitif;
As if . .

Revised protocols need to be sorted
And I see the new software is unsupported

I’ll enjoy my lunch in the works canteen
A ham sandwich and a cup of tea
And the memory of a French bistro won’t even arise
All bustle and chatter and joie de vivre
No, not for me . .

Does size really matter?

Posted on by Steve Higgins

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Well, actually it does, especially when we are talking about paperbacks. Paperbacks that we want to stuff in our beach bags for a good holiday read, or the novel you have in with your sandwiches for a lunch time read.

When the parcel came from http://www.createspace.com I was over the moon and couldn’t wait to look. Pity I’d cocked up on the self publishing front as that guy from the Reginald Perrin sit com might say.

Oh well. My book comes complete with a notes section at the back to explain some distinctly 1977 terms, TV shows and some now forgotten events so while I was trying to keep the page numbering intact it looks like I’ve made the book too big!

Oh well, back to the drawing board!

New writing

Posted on by Steve Higgins

Its hard work getting your work published!

Well, you might know that all ready but if you’re new to the publishing game you might have thought -like me- that after so many rejections (actually three) its time to self publish. I’ve used the easy option at amazon.co.uk and started off with a kindle book and now I’m waiting for the proof to come through for the paperback version. Easy? Actually yes, pretty easy. the thing is I thought foolishly that that was it! Woof, there it is, large as life on the amazon kindle page, now sit back and wait for the sales and the royalties to come piling in. No, no, no. eight days later and there has been one sale and that was one of my old friends who was doing a sort of mercy buy to make me feel better. No, its not enough just to self publish, you need heat, lots of heat on your product to make people buy it.

One difficult thing when self publishing is the genre. Click on the drop down box and choose a category. Fiction, yes, easy. Action and adventure, not really. Coming of age? yes, in a way. Humour? yes it’s humorous but not Spike Milligan. Adult issues, yes but is it a memoir? Is it this is it that? I actually wanted to file my book under kitchen sink drama but no, no such category exists! Well, there’s always general fiction I suppose!

On twitter I have become someone who in the past I have always hated -yes, one of those people who friend me because I tweeted about a new cd I bought then suddenly I got 50 tweets from cd shops and record stores. Now I am tweeting and plugging my kindle book endlessly on twitter and just to further annoy people; here’s my kindle book link!

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