The Time Bubble

What an awesome night out I had in Bicester last Sunday - significantly better than many of the ones I had when I was actually living there. I think this is one benefit of moving around - you make new friends wherever you go but the ones you made where you were before welcome you back with open arms when you return. The pessimist in me might suggest that people were only so pleased to see me because having been absent for almost two years they might have forgotten what a pain in the arse I am! The optimist in me hopes that's not the case and I am not actually one of those people who gets gets described as "alright in small doses" behind their back. I'm sure there is an element of absence making the heart grow fonder but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I had chosen this particular Sunday to revisit my old stamping ground after receiving an invitation to a Christening. My friends, Anne and Mark, had recently had a new baby, something that in itself had been ...

Here I am, looking at the local council election results and I see that all of the seats have been won with votes in the hundreds, not thousands by the same old party, with a mix of the old faces and some new ones. It matters not who they are, they are all from the same political party. I am not going to say the name of the party as I don't want this blog to appear politically biased, that is not the intent. Yet there are so many issues locally that need addressing. Where are the independent candidates, the ones not aligned to a political party, the ones who will stand up and say "Yes, I'm pissed off about Bicester Village, yes I'm pissed off about all the traffic, yes I'm pissed off about the new warehouses!" I think you already know the answer - they are all on Facebook complaining about it! Then I see voter turnout in the Bicester North and Caversfield ward is 27%. And I think, really? Is this how things are now? Do we sit here on our phones, ranting ...

A few eerie things have made me start to wonder just how much we are being watched by the powers that be these days. Uh-oh, I hear you say - this is not going to be some sort of wild conspiracy theorist blog entry is it? Well, yes and no... In the old days, it was pretty straightforward. You could pop into Curry's and have a browse around the fridges at your leisure without having to worry. Other than being bothered by some 18-year-old geek in an ill-fitting Burtons suit sensing a possible commission on an extended warranty for £199.99, even though the fridge only cost £250 in the first place. But it's all different now. Most of us must have realised by now that whatever we do on the internet leaves a trace. Have a harmless browse around a few DVD's on Amazon and before you know it your Facebook will be full of ads suggesting you go and buy whatever you've been looking at. OK, that's fair enough. But how do you explain this? My faithful old Panasonic bread m...

I've had a tremendous response to the last blog entry I made on marketing and selling Kindle books. One kind respondent on one of the Facebook groups I participate in even went so far as to say:  "that was one of the best blog articles on marketing books that I have ever read" Encouraged by this, and with the risk of ending up with egg on my face, I've decided to put my money where my mouth is and "go live" throughout the month of June when I'll be tracking what I'm doing via this blog. Apologies to readers who don't follow me for the book stuff but I'll endeavour to entertain too. To make it more interesting, I am going to set myself an extremely ambitious target, that target being to sell 1,000 copies in total of all my books during the calendar month - that is including borrows which pay out at just under a quid a shot, so they all count. If you'd said to me a year ago I'd ever be contemplating selling 1,000 books in a mont...

People write and self-publish for many reasons. For some, it is purely for the sense of achievement. They want to leave their mark on the world and aren't worried if they don’t sell any copies. The fact that they've written the book is fulfilment enough. Others dream of writing a best-seller that they’ll load up to Kindle and will take the charts by storm. In reality it seldom works out like that. I have seen statistics which say that the vast majority of self-published books will never sell more than 100 copies. It’s fair to say that the quality of work out there is variable. Some people will load up poorly written books, riddled with errors that probably don’t deserve to sell. But what about those who have written brilliant well-crafted books that deserve to succeed, yet sit unloved on Amazon’s virtual shelves? How do the authors of these books feel, knowing they've written a fantastic piece of work that nobody is buying? Pretty demoralised, I would imagine. Ther...

I can't believe it's barely 18 months since I published my first book on Amazon. I also can't believe how naive I was back then. In fact I almost cringe at the mistakes I made at rushing out that initial draft. I thought at the time that it was OK to paste together a set of blog entries and various other bits and pieces of writing I had knocking about, shove any old cover on it, don't bother proof-reading it and call it a book. Then try and market and sell it to family and friends without even thinking about the bigger picture. That the book sold at all was a minor miracle, but in fact it was relatively successful. However, the book's shortcomings were soon picked up on. I went back, cleaned it up, put a new cover on it, edited it into some sort of sensible format and put it back out there. That first book, Fortysomething Father has attracted more reviews than any other (well it has been out the longest), and is also the only one that has 1* and 2* reviews. ...

Hi all, The decision over what cover to use for the book has been causing considerable angst - and not just for me. A friend offered weeks ago to help design a cover - she didn't want payment as it would be a good project for her and some other students to work on. She (and I) spent a lot of time trying to get it right and incorporate all of the elements of the plot into the cover. However, and this is where I am very much to blame - I just don't have a clue when it comes to design, fonts you name it. Certainly don't ever ask me to help choose a colour scheme for anything - it would be a car crash. We ended up with something that I thought looked pretty decent and that we could use. But I needed to be sure so I got hold of an alternative cover from another source. What many authors do is buy pre-designed covers from websites. How this works is that a site such as the one I used, http://selfpubbookcovers.com/ allow artists to upload covers that they wish to sell. There...

You know, I'm all for recycling, saving the planet, charitable causes and such like but there are times when I question the motives behind it all. What particularly irks me is when things are done "in the interests of the environment" when really they are not at all - they are done in the interests of the organisation. Hotels are a prime example. In most hotels these days you'll find various planet-saving policies in place. A common one is a complete lack of a plug in the bath - message being - don't have a bath, have a shower. If you can find any literature relating to this you'll find that it's in the interests of conserving that most precious of natural resources - water. Which I think you'll find we have pretty much an inexhaustible supply of - it's recyclable you know. Fair enough if you're in a hotel in the middle of the Sahara desert, I can go along with that policy but when you're looking out of the window of the Holiday Inn a...

I'm midway through a two week holiday in Fuerteventura. I haven't blogged up until now as we came to the same place last year and I covered it extensively then. Plus the fact that it's absolutely full on with the kids now so there simply isn't the time. Any of you finding this will be aware I'm away from facebook too. In fact I deactivated about a week before I came out here. I have to be honest, I'm not missing it at all.The novelty has well and truly worn off for me. Everything has its day. Still on Twitter though! I brought the laptop out in the hope I might get some time to work on my novel but with the kids it is all go from first thing in the morning until we get back to the room at night - normally about 11pm. I did manage a couple of thousand words one night when everyone went to bed early but that was about it. I'm really happy with what I've produced so far though and happy to give a few more details. It is a sci-fi novel (I can hear the gr...

As a new author I found it quite daunting when first venturing into the realm of selling Kindle books. How would I get noticed? How would I get reviews? And many other questions. Coming in as a complete novice with my first book almost a year ago I certainly made a few mistakes. But I've learnt a lot since then, both from experience and reading as much as I could from other writers in the form of blogs, message boards, and simply by talking to them. Quite early on, I realised there were two hurdles to overcome. It was hard to make sales without any reviews. And it's hard to get reviews if no-one has bought your book. It is all very well putting a book on to Amazon and hoping people will buy it, but this is not the equivalent of having it on display in the front window of Waterstones. In fact you have about as much chance of it being spotted as you'd have in Waterstones if they agreed to stock it, took one copy and then hid it behind the cistern in the staff toilets. W...

It's very important during all this sausage related excitement that I don't allow myself to become a "one trick pony". Therefore in my quest to write an exciting new book based on the world of culinary delights (primarily the so-called "unhealthy ones"), I feel it is vital I cover a wide range of food related topics. In our country we have a thriving range of burger chains, pizza chains, kebab shops, chicken joints and countless more. Yet all we ever hear are constant warnings and advice telling us to avoid these things, that Britain is getting too fat, and that we should all be grazing on salad and vegetables. Every time I open a newspaper it is the same old advice, re-packaged over and over again. Recommendations to only eat processed meat such as sausages, salami etc, once a week and then you are only allowed one slice. Any more than that and you're almost certainly to die a grisly death by the end of the month. A search of books on the subject ge...

I was awoken at 7am this morning by the sound of crying coming from the children's bedroom. It was Ollie, he was crying and saying he didn't want to go home. The thing is, I almost felt like crying myself. He wanted to know why we had to go, and I did my best to explain that we have to go back for work and school and that this has just been a holiday, and we have been very lucky to have had it - but it is very hard to console a little boy who has just spent two weeks in paradise. I lay down beside him and gave him a comforting hug, the kind to make you better that only a parent can give. Growing up he may be but I am acutely aware just how much he needs his Daddy to be there for him. I know him so well, all his fears, all his worries, what makes him happy and what makes him sad. I hope we never grow out of the hugs. I know I will always be there for both of them whether they are 5 or 15, or even 50 if I last that long! I think in past generations it was very much a case of...

...have been greatly exaggerated! As you know I shut my facebook account down nearly two weeks ago - something that people do from time to time for various reasons. Mine for none other than being away on holiday. However, judging by the emails and texts I have been receiving, it seems shutting down ones account can create worry back home. So just to re-assure everyone, I'm not depressed, dead, ill, or having a midlife crisis. I haven't run away to join the circus, and I'm not embroiled in some huge financial, sexual or any other sort of scandal. Hopefully not anyway! Anyway, it's none of that - I've just been on holiday! Anyway just to reassure readers I shall re-activate my account and post a link to this blog entry - however, I suggest that you stop reading at this point and go over to the menu on the left hand side, and go back 11 blog entries to the one entitled "Travelling with children" and then work your way upwards until you get ba...