Michael Jecks's Blog, page 26

Another Week!

And so another week passes.

The internet is growing to be a dangerous place, I think. In one week I’ve had three invitations per day asking me to give my money to people. Yes, they are casino operations, but I don’t care. These gambling sites are not designed to provide me with money, they are designed specifically to take money out of my bank and magically transfer it to theirs. Well, apologies, but I’m not interested. Which is why I’ve tried to “unsubscribe” from them all, why I’ve registered with sites to block their inane emails, and attempted to eradicate them from my life. Sadly, none of it works. Only today I received an email from a gentleman asking if I’d allow a casino to advertise on my blog. He wanted to pay me fifty quid for the opportunity.

I need money. Not that badly, though.

That isn’t the only scam that has hit me in the past week. I also had more invitations to use “Laranita” and save myself time and trouble over writing.

Yes, they wrote again to me, an author, in order to help me save time bothering to write on my blog.

Apparently Laranita can help people (like me) by writing blogposts for me. I won’t have to worry about thinking up ideas, Laranita will go to websites, see what’s trending, and then suck the relevant information off that site and squirt it down the line into my blog. Brilliant. So, not only is the the web full of scams, now you can be even less sure about the provenance of information provided. It kills the trust between blogger and reader. And besides, apart from a few really sick people, surely the attraction of having a blog is the opportunity of ranting on about bloody Laranita and other scams?

So, here’s another one.

Last month my family and I went on holiday. That may not sound earth-shattering to you, but for my family it was our first trip abroad on holiday, our first visit to France, and our first ever two week holiday. In the past we’ve snatched a week, no more. However, my wife and I needed a good break, so we threw caution (and bank balance) to the winds, and rented a camper van in France. And we had a wonderful time.

On returning, we eyed with avaricious jealousy all the internet adverts for campers. A few sites have hundreds of vans for sale, and my wife kept an eye on them. And she found one!

Okay, it’s more than we can afford: £6,600; but you look at all the prices out there. This is only a third of what it should have been up for.

Yes. A loud alarm was ringing.

I wrote to the advertising site. It’s a large, reputable group. They put my details on to the seller. A Mr Thomas Morrison wrote back to say that he had the camper, and that because he was a soldier going to New Zealand for ten months, he was keen to get rid of the camper urgently. He couldn’t drop below £6,000.

BEGINS

Hi Mike,

Yes i confirm that the engine size is 2300 diesel.

As I’ve said in my previous email I am in Edinburgh , Scotland in a military base, getting ready for New Zealand ( for the first time so i am very excited ). I’m doing a special training program each day and I am not allowed to get out of the unit or give calls whenever I want. The delivery will take 2 to 3 days depending on your location and it’s not a problem because I can do it at no cost for you. Because it is a large transaction, we will complete the deal only using an authorized third part like Google Wallet because I already prearranged the whole process with them, using their Google Safe Pay Solutions (bank-to-bank wire transfer) for vehicles.

The money will be sent to Google Wallet, before you will receive the vehicle. So, you will deposit the payment directly into the Google Wallet agent’s bank account in United Kingdom, either online or at most banks and they will hold and secure your money during the entire transaction. I repeat, they will hold and insure your money until receipt of the vehicle in good condition and will release the funds to us only after you decide to keep the vehicle and you register it, into your name. You will have an inspection period of 10 days. In this time you can check, test and inspect the vehicle. If by any reason (the vehicle has any hidden damages or is not like I describe it) you can reject the deal. In this case Google Wallet will refund you totally and they will deliver the vehicle back.

You can read more about Google Wallet by searching this link in your browser :

http://wallet.google.zrael.com/uk/how-it-works.htm?Checkout-Security.Store.NFC.Business&continue=1#how-works

Please let me know your delivery details (your full name, full address and home phone number) so I can open a transaction case with Google Wallet and declare you as buyer. They will contact you with further information regarding payment and delivery.

Regards,

Thomas Morrison

P.S. Hope you will be my buyer.

 

ENDS

 

Right. Read that again.

First, no Brit would say “Edinburgh, Scotland”. We all know where Edinburgh is, and there’s only the one. Second, he’s a soldier, by inference, which makes him an honest, trustworthy character. Except can you imagine a soldier surviving two seconds if he insisted on calling himself “Thomas”? Tom, perhaps, but not Thomas.

Then, read that second paragraph again.”I repeat…”? Why repeat? Oh, because not many people have heard of Google Wallet. Well, I have, actually. It’s a moderately good idea for the bone idle who cannot be bothered to remove a credit card from a wallet to pay for goods in shops. And that is all. It is not, categorically, a system for holding money in escrow, and it is not provided for people to buy cars or camper vans. I know. I’ve checked.

So, what this fellow was trying to do was steal £6,000 from me. Now, if I wasn’t so hard up, perhaps I’d have fallen for it. Many, many others have, after all. If you google any number of key words from this post, “Google Wallet car scam”, for example, you’ll find lots of people being very authoritative on the nature of the fraud involved. Why? Because people are inherently trusting. They want to trust nice people who contact them on the web to chat.

Last week there was a report on the radio about several women who had tried to meet men by logging on to a contacts website. They had been persuaded, after a while, to give money to their prospective partners. One had given away over a hundred thousand pounds. These were not idiots, but intelligent women. But they wanted the story they were sold to be true, and paid the price.

For me, if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.

So I won’t be able to afford a camper van for a while longer.

Tagged: author, blogger, book writing, creative, Dartmoor, Devon, fiction, fiction writing, fraud, fraudsters, hints and tips, historian, history, Knight Templar, knights templar, laranita, library, medieval, medievalist, Michael Jecks, novelist, publishing, Q&A, questions, questions and answers, scams, scribbler, stories, story, Templar series, writer, writing

Why I have no option

writerlywitterer:

The thoughts of a friend of mine, and a man with a deep love for, and understanding of, his people and country.

I admire Quintin hugely, and respect his views, but I disagree with his conclusion.

I firmly believe that Scotland breaking away will have a negative effect on the British Isles. It will, like all divorces, be rancorous and lead to resentment on both sides of the border.

Worst of all, it is a decision being taken by people who assume in good faith that their own leaders will in some way be better than those in Westminster.

However, the people leading Scotland will be exactly the same as those in Westminster today. Malcolm Rifkind, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and all the others are Westminster politicians. They all also went through the Scottish education system, as did so many others.

Divorce from the UK won’t bring about radical political improvements. It’ll be run by the same incompetents and charlatans as Westminster.

I still remember the first vote taken by the new Scottish Parliament. It was: to increase the income of the Members of the Scottish Parliament.

Originally posted on Quintin Jardine's blog:

I was born in Motherwell, Lanarkshire, somewhere between VE-Day and VJ-Day, at the drawn-out end of WWII. My home town made steel; it was sustained by the mills, even before the establishment of the Ravenscraig plant that dominated it for decades. It was a sectarian society, make no mistake about it; the religious divide was strictly observed, with us in our schools and them in theirs, and my parents while not bigoted in any way, had been raised within that framework and were part of it. I was nine years old before I met and played with a Roman Catholic child. His name was Phil McKeown; he joined our gang during the sumer holidays and was welcomed because he was a nice kid. It was only in August when we were all returning to school that he told us that he went to Park Street. Looking back, Phil was probably the first Liberal I ever met.

Sectarianism didn’t…

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Interview!

For those who haven’t quite had enough of Jecks this week, there’s an interview up here on a great blog site – hopefully it’ll bring out something new even for readers who know me quite well!

Tagged: blogpost, interview, Michael Jecks, story reading ape

Scotland – and my own sadness.

I find the whole debate about Scottish independence deeply saddening. I don’t speak from any nationalistic point of view here, but only from a deep concern about the future, no matter how the Scots vote.

If I was a Scot, I’d probably want to be independent.

There, I’ve said it. I’ve been pretty keen to get out of Europe for a while, and why should Scots feel any different? I want to get back to a state where the Brits can decide our own future without having a different, Napoleonic and Roman system of law imposed on us by unelected, undemocratic fellows from abroad. For many years I’ve described myself happily as “English”. Although since the appearance of the appalling Tony Blair, I’m happier with “Devonian”.

But there is a big difference between my distrust of Europe and the demands for Scottish nationhood. Scotland is already an independent nation. It has its own education system, its own legal system. It’s got the benefit of a shared currency guaranteed by the rest of the British, and full democratic representation. Yes, I know some Scottish just now are saying that they didn’t vote for the present Tory/Libdem government. No, well welcome to the world of democracy. It is the same as, in the past, those occasions all too often when Scottish votes foisted Labour governments on the rest of us. England would more often have brought in Tory-controlled governments. It’s mostly Scotland that has kept the Labour vote afloat.

My biggest fear is that with independence Scotland and England will sink into wrangles and disputes again. It’s all too easy to see a scenario in which Britain is asked (impolitely) to remove all nukes from Faslane, to stop taking revenues from oil fields, and to accept a higher proportion of the national debt than Mr Cameron or any Brit thinks reasonable. In return, two things will happen. Britain will refuse to allow Scotland to share the pound sterling (because that would mean all Britain sharing in any taxation and debt fiascos that Scotland contrives – we haven’t forgotten it was a Scot who sold off our gold reserves and spurred on the banking crash of 2008!), and Britain would repatriate as many jobs as possible that up until now have been heavily subsidised by the UK taxpayers. The jobs in the arms industries, jobs in manufacturing, jobs in banking and insurance … lots of jobs.

There are arguments that all will become sensible after reasonable negotiation. Things will calm down. Reason will prevail.

But reason will go out of the window.

When Mr Salmond bumptiously declares, “What will they do? Invade?” he shows a lack of statesmanship that leaves me breathless. He sounds as much of an international statesman as George W, playing to his own supporters and not caring about anyone else.

The rump of Britain will be hurt, badly hurt, by the Union being broken up just because of the current self-interest of about one half of the Scottish population.

Roughly fifty percent of Scots will decide this vote. That means that the majority, more than ninety five percent of the British population, are having their future decided without any input. The British will need to be involved in decisions that will flow from this break up. Divorces always end messily.Perhaps the rest of the UK will demand a referendum on whether Scotland should be allowed to keep the currency, should they vote for independence.  I would guess the answer would be “NO”. In that case, Scotland could either use the pound, but without protection from the Bank of England, or use the Euro if they wanted. That would mean a currency run and ruled for the protection of Germany, by officials even more remote than Westminster. Ask the Greeks or Italians if that is a sensible idea.

Ah, Europe.

Mr Salmond will no doubt assert that Europe will want Scotland in, and he has already laughed off the idea that Europe might force him to negotiate his reentry on the same terms as, say, Estonia. However, for all his bluster, he must know that France and Spain and Italy and other nations all have little areas that want to break away from their own nations. You only have to think of the Basques and Catalonians. Spain and other states are very nervous about allowing any form of precedent here. They will seek to make Scotland’s entry into the Europe of the future as difficult and demanding as they possibly can. France may, from the point of view of their own national self-interest, seek to aid their ancient partner against England, but that’s a hell of a gamble. Mostly, Scotland will be seen as a new entrant into Europe. That will mean joining the Euro and accepting a raft of additional laws from Europe. And England will not be in a position to negotiate better terms.

And of course England and Scotland will be badly hurt on the international stage. England’s military power has given her status. With Scotland’s departure, her power will be diminished. A nation of Scotland’s size cannot expect to have much say in international affairs. She is too small.

Scotland is a proud, strong nation. It is now, and will continue to be whether part of the UK or independent. But this rift, if it goes ahead, will cost her and its people dear. Lost jobs, an increased cost of living, and all backed up by the oil in the North Sea. But that is a rapidly diminishing resource. And the share of the national debt will be a lot. We, the UK, are already so massively in debt that we make Greece and Italy look profitable. We owe vast sums and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. After all the much-trumpeted “cuts”, we are still spending more, much more, than the last Labour government, and our borrowings are increasing accordingly.

If Scotland goes it alone, it will have to shoulder a share of those debts. A fair share. And without the Bank of England to back it up, the interest charges on those debts will be much higher than is presently the case. The UK has cheaper rates because of the strength of our finance systems, because of London, because of the size of our population. Take away less than ten percent of our population, and we’ll still be able to get the same low interest rates. A Scotland formed of under six million people, on the other hand, will find life increasingly harsh. Especially since, once Scotland does pull away, the only realistic scenario is, that the Tories will get to be in charge of Britain for many years to come. Labour depends on Scottish seats in Westminster.

And that is what leads me to my inevitable conclusion.

Scotland will try to make the best case for itself that it can. England and the rest of the UK will fight hard to limit our exposure to a free Scotland. Whereas in the past shipyards in Portsmouth, Plymouth, Appledore, Chatham and elsewhere have been closed in order to protect Scottish jobs on the Clyde, in future Britain will protect her navy by reinvesting in Britain, not Scotland. Men and women wanting to go into banking will go where the money is, to London. Big companies, such as Standard Life, will migrate jobs and investments to where they can be protected by the Bank of England. All that will bring about anger and resentment on both sides of the border. The more Scots demand all revenues from oil, the more the English will resent the way that Scots have taken disproportionately from the national purse in the past. And so national tensions and rivalries that were buries hundreds of years ago will be brought to the fore again.

I have to admit, I am not surprised by all this. Indeed, I predicted that the Scottish parliament would lead to this, in the same Cassandra-like manner as Sir John Major. It seemed inevitable that if a concession was made, then determined politicians would carry on demanding more and more. The demand for full independence was the logical final step.

However, I think it’s going to be a disaster. If the Scots vote “yes”, it will leave the rest of Britain feeling rebuffed and insulted, after all the funds pushed north of the border over the last half century. It will lead to increasing bitterness.

But if they vote “no”, I’m not sure that it’ll help now. Because the English will resent additional powers going to a tiny percentage of the population. No one appreciates being blackmailed.

As I say, I find this whole scenario deeply saddening. Like John Major, I think that the UK has been the most successful partnership in history, and it’s going to be broken up by a group of self-serving politicians looking to the main chance. In this case, they happen to be Scottish politicians. But of course it was Tony Blair and Donald Dewar who started the ball rolling.

They have a great deal to answer for.

Tagged: Scotland

I’m Back!

Okay, I’m sorry not to have warned folks that I was taking some time off, but that’s why I’ve been quiet and not responding to emails and comments. I’ve been away. The first two-week holiday my family’s ever had, and it was wonderful.

I have had the ambition of travelling to France for a long time, to see the location for my next book (set around the battle of Poitiers), and also to fulfil a long held desire to see some of the Great War cemeteries. However, there’s a lot of France to see. So we chose to rent a camping car (camper van to the Brits) from a firm in called France Motorhome Hire in Véron just outside Sens, and started driving.

France Motorhome Hire – and no, I don’t get a cent for mentioning them!

Now, first, we all know French roads are rubbish, don’t we?

I wish. My old Subaru makes so much noise that we’ve been thinking about selling it, just so we can chat in the car. Except in France, with their smooth, well-tarmacced road surfaces, we could chat at 130 kph perfectly easily. The roads are a delight. Of course there are French drivers … but I wish more English drivers were as generally courteous and careful as the French. In all my driving there (and I drove about 2,000 miles in total) I didn’t experience as much bad lane-hogging, undertaking, incompetence and rudeness as I’d see any afternoon in two junctions on the M25. French driving is very good (I should just add the rider that I didn’t drive into Paris. My opinions may be altered by that kind of experience).

However, we drove first from the port to Béthune, where we spent a night, and next morning drove on to the lovely old city of Arras. This is one of the cities that has always enjoyed (if that’s the right word) and adventurous life. It has been a battlefield in many wars, and as a result has a magnificent old fortress that is being renovated now. However, right next door to the fortress is the grand memorial designed by Lutyens to honour the dead of the Great War who fell near that city. In the cemetery there are some 2,650 graves. A shocking sight. However, on the walls of the massive monument are carved the names of almost 35,000 young men who died in this area, as well as a further 1,000 airmen who were lost. These 35,000 and 1,000 airmen have no known grave.

Some of the 2,650 graves at Arras.

It was a very humbling sight. My wife had not realised that the British Empire had volunteers from all parts of the globe, and the sight of Indian and Sikh graves, all looked after with the same careful dedication as the English, African, Canadian and other graves, was very touching. As was the little group of German graves.

I will not bore you with details of the whole journey, but there is one last stop that is relevant.

In the past I have mentioned the strange coincidences that have affected my life and career. Well, we had another this time while on holiday.

I am writing a book about Poitiers next, and while in France naturally I wanted to view the site where the battle took place. So I dragged a partly reluctant family all the way down to that famous city, and started trying to learn where the battlefield was.

Now, you may think it would be easy. But a battlefield from the middle ages is all too likely to have been built over (in Britain, anyway – we don’t have enough space to celebrate victories, let alone disasters). And there is the little detail about being in a foreign country and asking about a major catastrophic defeat for that nation. It could be considered … insensitive.

Inside the Church of Notre Dame, Poitiers

Still, the lovely ladies in the tourist office were very happy to find out all they could about the battle (“Which battle of Poitiers?” they asked – they had thought I meant the 800AD battle during which Charlemagne held back the Muslim advance and stopped Europe from being swallowed up by Islam). Having a little time to kill, I wandered into the beautiful church of Notre Dame, and was blown away by the medieval paintings. It was stunning!

And then, while meandering round taking photos, I saw a face that I instantly recognised. Well, I should do. I’ve drunk many beers (and wines) with him and his family over the years. Yes, it was Ian Mortimer, who lives only a few miles from me, and who had also decided to holiday in France, and who had picked that day, by sheer coincidence, to visit the same church in the same city!

Ian Mortimer and I outside the great doors to the church

Coincidences like that would be rejected by any self-respecting copy editor.

But there was one more thing that I must mention about Poitiers.

This was a disastrous battle, leading to the Treaty of Brétigny, which gave up almost a quarter of France to add to the existing English territories. In all, England held almost half of France after this battle. It was a terrible battle, with thousands killed. And now, if you go to the site of the battle, you will find a memorial. The French have put this up to honour the “Barons, Knights and Men-at-arms of the armies of France, Gascony and of England” (my italics) who died on that day. It is hard not to admire a race who can be so generous, and I confess I found the memorial enormously touching.

And now I am back in the saddle and ready for the next book. Wish me luck. I need it!

The Poitiers memorial

Tagged: Arras, author, blogger, book writing, creative, Dartmoor, Devon, fiction, fiction writing, first world war, France, Great War, hints and tips, historian, history, Hundred Years War, Knight Templar, knights templar, library, medieval, medievalist, Memorials, Michael Jecks, novelist, Poitiers, publishing, Q&A, questions, questions and answers, scribbler, stories, story, Templar series, writer, writing

The First Casualty is Truth

This, you may have noticed, is the centenary of the beginning of the First World War. I think generally, so far, it has been handled quite well. After fifty years of denigrating those who wanted to celebrate the fallen in two world wars, even the BBC decided to get on message.

I have always had an especial interest in the wars. The day on which the dead and injured are supposed to be remembered happens to be my birthday. From a very early age I was aware of and studied warfare, particularly the Great War. Not from any ghoulishness, but because I felt very strongly, and still do, that it was such an important forge of English and British nationhood.

Britain and France stood alone in the Great War for so long. If it were not for the British Navy preventing the Germans from leaving port, it is quite likely that the two allies would have been starved into submission. In the Second War it was Britain who had to go it alone for many hard months.

Many lies have been advanced about the wars. Many of them were deliberately invented by radical socialists to support their aim of an emasculated Britain tied to the Soviet Union. Whilst it is no doubt true that some officers were complete clots who were unqualified to drive a car, let alone a wedge into the German front line, it is also undoubtedly true that most officers and men lived together, fought together and died together. They knew mutual comradeship, as so many accounts demonstrate. I think it’s likely that troops felt great empathy for their young officers. After all, the casualty rate for officers was greater than that for the common soldiers. They were deliberately picked off by German marksmen.

More recently a horrible slur has been cast over the allies, in particular the French. In the Second World War they were derided for their swift surrender. More recently they were given the ludicrous sobriquet of “Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys”, as though France has always, through history, submitted without fighting. This was a ridiculous insult. Since the time of Charlemagne, France has been a beacon of civilisation and power, and has had more than her fair share of courageous leaders and brilliant commanders. It is largely for that reason that, for the last eight hundred years, she has been most commonly Britain’s enemy. Only since Bismarck has Germany attained that special position.

France and the French are as brave as any other nation. However, by the beginning of the Second World War, she had been invaded too often. So many French men died in the war of 1870, so many were slaughtered in the hideous grinding machine that was Verdun, leading to 7,500 deaths per month for ten months. It was largely in order to liberate the French army from that wholesale slaughter that the British began the Somme campaign, leading to 20,000 dead on the first day.

I used to read about the battles of Flanders when I commuted to school on the train at the age of nine and ten. I read Lyn MacDonald’s “They Called It Passchendaele”, Martin Middlebrook’s “The First Day of the Somme”, and many many more. My library today is still populated with the books I purchased as a rather dopey young geek who was interested in wars and warfare.

But the world seems now, one hundred years after the First World War, even more dangerous than at any time since the end of the Second World War. Russia’s Putin is rattling his sabre. A man desperately keen to put his mark on history, is running ever greater risks to impose a tyrannical regime on the Russias, bringing about the bad old imperial days of the Soviet Union once more. At the same time the fiasco of failed war and diplomacy in the Gulf has led to the sudden appearance of the Islamic State, threatening the stability of the entire region. The dangers inherent in these two areas can be explained quite simply because both have knocked North Korea from its previously unopposed position as leading lunatic at large.

So the centenary is upon us. How sad and ironic it is, that all those who died, so many thinking that they were helping to stop the threat of foreign invasion and damage to the nation they served and loved, would see, were they to view the future and perceive these modern days, only a still more heavily armed world – with still more arrogant, aggressive and dangerously belligerent leaders.

Tagged: author, blogger, book writing, centenary, creative, Dartmoor, Devon, fiction, fiction writing, first world war, hints and tips, historian, history, Knight Templar, knights templar, library, medieval, medievalist, Michael Jecks, novelist, publishing, Q&A, questions, questions and answers, scribbler, stories, story, Templar series, war, writer, writing

Another Folk Festival Gone

It’s a serious shock when you sit down and realise another year’s gone.

The brilliant Lady Maisery

Only a little while ago I was sitting down and thinking this year I’ll take the boy onto the moors, sleep over under the stars, have a decent walk. Then again, he was determined to get me fit once more, so his New Year’s resolution was to make sure that I took him out on the pushbike more often. We could, he thought, go for a little ride. Unfortunately, my 10 year old’s view of a short ride and mine seem to be radically different. I was promising myself a good walk over the moors, and I thought I’d have time to catch up on my reading. There was so much to be done.

What have I achieved? Diddly, basically. My last book was a little late on deadline, so all through this summer I’ve been working my bits off, trying to get things done while children make a lot of noise all around me.

Hannah James dancing with Matt Gordon

Still, there have been some moments. I always insist on taking off the first weekend in August, because that is the Dartmoor Folk Festival, and for that weekend I indulge my every gluttonous desire for folk music, folk dancing and ale. Lots and lots of ale.

Dartmoor is a lovely little festival. It is small, with perhaps a thousand people coming along, and yet it always gains some of the best bands in the country. This year we had Lady Maisery, three lovely females with voices that meld perfectly; Matt Gordon and Leonard Podolak; the New Rope String Band; Greg Russell and Ciaran Algar and many more. A superb festival, put together with great skill.

But where, oh, where did my summer go?

Tagged: author, blogger, book writing, creative, Dartmoor, Devon, fiction, fiction writing, folk festival, Folk music, hints and tips, historian, history, Knight Templar, knights templar, library, medieval, medievalist, Michael Jecks, novelist, publishing, Q&A, questions, questions and answers, scribbler, stories, story, Templar series, writer, writing

Hachette/Amazon

Thesetwo companies are really going nuclear just now. Amazon wrote a letter to all its Kindle published authors, asking them to write to Hachette for being nasty, and Hachette’s boss has written to all of those who have written to him (be interesting to know how many) with a fairly straightforward response.

So who is right?

Amazon is saying that they want all books to have their prices reduced. Who will that help? Perhaps it’ll do something for publishers in terms of additional sales, but I rather doubt it. The additional sales will be more than outweighed by the reduced amount paid.

I have to say that from an author’s perspective, I do not understand why Amazon should deserve such a large cut of my money. They are trying to impose retail prices, which is fine – but they are fully entitled to charge what they want already. If they want to discount further for the benefit of their customers, I am perfectly happy for them to do so. But not if that means reducing my income still further.

The basic problem is, authors have already seen incomes slashed by 29% in the last seven years, partly as a result of Amazon’s aggressive policies towards suppliers.

Amazon are keen to say that the publishers and authors should share 35% each, and let Amazon take 30%. They are most kind. The reason for this is to drive a wedge between publishers and authors. Actually, it would seem to make more sense to me to see 70% to authors and 15% each to publisher and retailer. Or maybe 90% to authors, or … But that would be greedy.

However, there is a point to all this: who does all the work to get a book to the reader?

The author does rather a lot. The story is the author’s, the characters, the plots, the excitement, the sadness, the humour – that is all the author’s.

However, as you will tell if you spend much time glancing at the free books on ebook, authors on their own often don’t always come up with particularly good ideas. Editors are not a luxury, they are essential to the publication of good books of any sort. And once the editor’s had her say, there is the copy editor, and the proofer. They all have crucial jobs that help make your reading experience more pleasant.

And then there are the artists, and the designers, the folks who make sense of my hand-sketched maps, the poor benighted devils who try to take my lines and turn them into decent PR material … and they need the support services of computer experts, the electricity that feeds the computers and the lighting systems, the buildings that house the photo-copiers, and there are the receptionists and telephone operators, even the security chaps on the front desk.

Publishers have all these expenses. And they are valid. And they also produce books on paper which may not make much money. And sometimes some publishers will still take on new authors for no other reason than that the editor sees something in that book, and perhaps the second book, and sees a developing skill that is worth nurturing, some basic talent that just needs a little money and practice for a couple of years, and then the author might turn into another Ian Rankin. Good publishers take risks.

Authors take massive risks.

We have no say in how much our books sell for; we have no say in discount structures; we have no control over our income at all.

Retailers have staff and buildings too.

Perhaps it is time for publishers and retailer (Amazon is effectively a monopoly now, after all) to sit down and argue terms and conditions together.

And authors should be present to make sure our interests are not thrown away.

Lots of lovely books!

Tagged: author, blogger, book writing, creative, Dartmoor, Devon, fiction, fiction writing, hints and tips, historian, history, Knight Templar, knights templar, library, medieval, medievalist, Michael Jecks, novelist, publishing, Q&A, questions, questions and answers, retailing, scribbler, stories, story, Templar series, writer, writing

Alternatives

South Tawton

Every business needs to have alternatives, don’t they? We’re all told we should diversify. Farmers should break into providing mini-breaks for bed and breakfast guests, while bookshops should sell coffees and restaurants should provide wifi. Diversification is good, clearly.

Well, no it ruddy well isn’t for me!

As an author, I regularly have to spread myself too thinly. I have in the past been a happy visitor to festivals, libraries, bookshops and acted as guest speaker at a wide range of events. Most of them very good fun. I’ve taken on additional jobs, such as the two year stint with the superb Royal Literary Fund, and I’ve even done that most hideous of stupid things … yes, I’ve worked for the good of other people on committees to help other authors.

Up on the high moor near Belstone

And what was the result of all this activity?

Mostly, it’s cost me a lot in terms of time, money, and effort, that could and should have been better spent looking after my family and our income.

I know that working at Exeter University cost me somewhere in the region of three books. I know that working on committees within the CWA, especially when I was Chair, cost me another book. The thing is, all these things are expensive in terms of time.

If they all paid, that wouldn’t be a problem, of course. But I’m self-employed, and when I’m late on a deadline, or when I don’t negotiate a new deal, that hits me in the pocket. And that is hard for a man as old as me and with a mortgage as large as mine.

Am I whinging? No! All those jobs were my own choice. And now I’m doing things more for myself.

I’m diversifying big time. And really enjoying it! As you can see!

Triple row on Cawsand

Earlier this year, to get me out of my house, I built myself a lovely little prototype paintbox. It’s simple, it’s as well constructed as a box made by someone who has never, and I do mean never, worked with metal before, but it’s delightful for me to use it. I love it. And because of this, I’ve started painting again.

I had forgotten how much pleasure could be derived from merely sitting still and analysing scenes. However, it’s already helped me in terms of thinking about scenes and locations for my books (you can see more about this on my YouTube channel – it’s called writerlywitterings, imaginatively enough). And what is a real, genuine delight, is the fact that some lovely people have already bought some of my paintings.

I’m not Picasso. I’m not even halfway to being as good as James Fletcher-Watson – but I do get a real buzz from attempting to render something sensibly on paper. And getting a little money for it too is just lovely.

So many thanks to the buyer of my last picture. I hope you get many years of fun from it!

The house that inspired the books: Simon Puttock’s house: West Henstill near Sandford – now sold!

Tagged: author, blogger, book writing, creative, Dartmoor, Devon, fiction, fiction writing, hints and tips, historian, history, Knight Templar, knights templar, library, medieval, medievalist, Michael Jecks, novelist, painting, publishing, Q&A, questions, questions and answers, scribbler, stories, story, Templar series, watercolours, writer, writing

Spam – how do you recognise it?

Sir John de Sully’s arms from St George’s Chapel, Windsor, where they stand at his stall for the Order of the Garter (photocopy courtesy of the Lancaster Herald, College of Arms)

First, many thanks for all the comments yesterday about my losing a reader. I am very glad to say that the guy is not only very sensible, he’s a deeply honourable fellow as well. I exchanged a series of messages with him during the day yesterday, and he’s changed his mind. He hadn’t seen the comments about author incomes and how badly remunerated authors were. As a result (and because he really does like my books, thank God), he’s going to continue with them. Thanks to all my friends here who were so supportive, though. I really appreciate your comments and messages.

And while I was thinking about those messages I remembered a nice comment from last week. For some reason which I cannot fathom it got sent to my Spam folder. Anyway, I thought I should share the contents with you.

Nobody likes spam, do they? My blog gets about 40 spam messages a day. There are some inventive ones (“I know this is a little off-message, but…”), the whimsical (“While walking on the beach with my daughter …”) to the plain dishonest (“I love your blog. I keep getting spam, do you know of a good spam filter …”). Occasionally the spelling is atrocious, but that is apparently intentional. I’ve heard that spammers like to have awful spelling because they know that it’ll irritate the more intelligent, and thus they’ll filter out those they can’t fool and only morons will respond, giving them a better chance to commit ID theft or another form of fraud.

However, rarely do I get an honest one like this.

So: how can you tell when spam is spam?

Well, when the spammer has an entire library of potential spam messages, that is a help. And when the spammer has usefully brought in a complete, unmitigated cretin to run their messaging, you may get not one message, not two, but all the spammer’s carefully hoarded messages. With their cross-out lists.

I am assuming someone got fired for posting this one. Store up all the comments here, dear Reader, and you will know when you are being scammed in future.

Read this and weep. Yes, it is genuine. This is the one comment to beat all comments on WordPress!

 

Submitted on 2014/08/04 at 6:52 pm

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{I will be|I’ll be|I am} {coming back to|returning to}

{your blog|your site|your website|your web site} for more soon.|

I {always|all the time|every time} used to {read|study} {article|post|piece

of writing|paragraph} in news papers but now as I am a user of {internet|web|net} {so|thus|therefore} from now I am using net

for {articles|posts|articles or reviews|content},

thanks to web.|

Your {way|method|means|mode} of {describing|explaining|telling} {everything|all|the whole thing}

in this {article|post|piece of writing|paragraph} is

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{nice|pleasant|good|fastidious}, {all|every one} {can|be able

to|be capable of} {easily|without difficulty|effortlessly|simply} {understand|know|be aware of} it, Thanks a lot.|

{Hi|Hello} there, {I found|I discovered} your {blog|website|web site|site} {by means of|via|by the use of|by

way of} Google {at the same time as|whilst|even as|while} {searching for|looking for} a {similar|comparable|related} {topic|matter|subject}, your {site|web

site|website} {got here|came} up, it {looks|appears|seems|seems to be|appears

to be like} {good|great}. {I have|I’ve} bookmarked it in my google bookmarks.

{Hello|Hi} there, {simply|just} {turned into|became|was|become|changed into} {aware of|alert

to} your {blog|weblog} {thru|through|via} Google, {and found|and located} that {it is|it’s} {really|truly} informative.

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{Either way|Anyway} keep up the {nice|excellent} quality writing,

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{Is this|Is that this} a paid {subject|topic|subject matter|theme} or did you

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