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!
Everyone has their heroes, writers perhaps more so than other people because it’s our personal heroes that inspire us or perhaps even make us want to write. I come from a working class area of Manchester called Wythenshawe and when I get a bit down and look at my pile of rejected screenplays, essays and novels that seems to get bigger monthly, I wonder if I will never make it to the big time as a writer. That’s when I think about four working class northern men who did make it big, who worked hard at their craft and had incredible success. They weren’t authors but musicians; the Beatles!
One hundred percent northern through and through, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr became the Beatles and didn’t just make it to the top of the hit parade they reinvented the pop music industry and their genius as both writers and performers will live on as long as music is listened to.
Many moons ago when I worked for a cigarette vending company I used to visit a small pub in Woolton and the owners of the pub were two retired ex shell tanker drivers. They were both friendly guys but one in particular was outgoing and talkative and if he was on duty at the bar we would always have a good chat while I sorted out the cigarette machine. One day we got onto the subject of the Beatles and Lennon’s working class background and I was surprised to hear that Lennon’s house was just around the corner. Woolton is a very pleasant middle class suburb of Liverpool and I remember thinking what? This is where Lennon was brought up? John Lennon always struck me as a typical working class guy and his image as a sort of working class hero led me to assume he had a background in a rough and tumble area of Liverpool, like the Dingle where Ringo was brought up. The truth was different. Perhaps Lennon fermented the working class hero thing, perhaps the fault was mine, I just assumed something without knowing the facts.
Driving round the corner I found Lennon’s old house, 251 Menlove Avenue. This was where Lennon lived with his aunt Mimi from the age of five. He was living here when he started his first band, the Quarrymen and also when he met Paul McCartney. Lennon’s life was one heck of a journey taking him around the world with the Beatles and finally to New York with Yoko Ono where he was shot and killed in 1980.
This blog is about personal heroes and I’ll introduce you to more of them in another blog but for now I’d like to finish by wandering off the subject and returning to that pub in Woolton.
I’m not totally sure but I think the pub was the Derby Arms and the owner, whose name I cannot remember told me a story about the death of his father. His father was an old chap, a veteran of the first world war and had picked up a habit in France of always having water with his meals and he would always raise his glass and toast ‘bonne sante’ to whoever he was with.
My friend went to visit him in hospital on his deathbed and asked the nurse how his was. ‘OK’ they replied ‘but a little dehydrated. Try and get him to drink a little water’
In the hospital ward the son passed a glass of water to his father’s lips and the father murmured ‘bonne sante’ before passing away.
So to all you who are reading, let me wish you ‘good health’ and if you enjoy my writing why not take a look at my book. Click the links at the top of the page to buy or for more information.
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!
Letters from an Unknown Author! 