Paul Stephenson's Blog, page 13

From the vaults: 7 Days, Day One - Cheese

I've had a blog for a very long time. Over 20 years. Recently I've been thinking how it'd be nice to bring back some of the better old posts, once a week. I'm going to start with a series that I did back in 2009, before Blood on the Motorway was but a twinkle in my eye. I'd asked for seven one blog topics from people on Twitter and got some of my best blog material as a result. So, here's the first, a suggestion from someone called @punk_beatz, but their account doesn't exist any more. The passage of time, eh? his post was first published August 25th, 2009.

Cheese

Back in my university days, when I lived in Sunderland, my friends and I found ourselves frequenting on particular takeaway with remarkable frequency.  Back then there was only one alternative club night worth mentioning in Sunderland, and that was on Tuesdays at the terribly named Pzazz nightclub.

Opposite said establishment was an eatery whose name escapes me now, but we used to go with such frequency that when we entered the staff behind the counter used to greet us by name and immediately start our orders without questioning. Every Tuesday night, a large garlic bread with cheese.  And I wondered why I could never pull at the end of the night.

One night, however, my choice of late-night haute-cuisine actually saved my life, or at the very least saved me a beating.  Of my friends, one was a mild-mannered chap by the name of Ben, the other a slightly more fiery Scot by the name of Ian.  One thing I should mention about Sunderland is that it's pretty rough in the city centre, especially on the weekends. For these reasons, most of the non-dance nights used to take place on a weekday evening so as to avoid throwing the 200 or so alternative kids in the city onto the same streets as the ‘townies’ at two in the morning.

On this occasion, however, we stumbled out of Pzazz all full of vodka jelly and beer and mirth and into said eatery, only to be confronted by the sight of disconsolate looking staff, who all looked towards the far corner of the room as we walked in.

Naturally our eyes followed theirs and in the corner we saw five gigantic skinheads in Fred Perry tops staring back at us. Naturally, we turned our attention straight away from them and back to the counter. We ordered, careful not to turn our attention back behind us.

Once we ordered we started talking to the staff as usual, but quickly the man behind the counter retreated into the kitchen, and we heard a voice behind us.  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Turning, we saw one of the larger of the herd staring at us, malice in his eyes.

‘Um, ordering?’ I said, trying as hard as possible to show with my face a level of cowardice that would render any ensuing fight to be pointless.  Instead of retorting, he simply shook his head and walked back to his table.  We waited for a few minutes in silence before being handed our food and tried to leave unnoticed.

Back on the street, we wondered aloud what the hell that had been about, and then, foolishly, Ian looked back into the shop and made the sort of gesture that could only end badly for us.  Without a word the skinheads got up from their table and ran out to follow us.  We pegged it.

We were chased down the street, all the while scrambling to hold on to our food. We rounded a corner onto the high street and I lost control of the big box in my hand, spilling my delicious looking supper all over the street. Cursing, I turned and continued to run.

We stopped a little further along to see if we were still being pursued, just in time to see one of the skinheads round the corner and put one of his boots onto a large slice of garlic bread with cheese. He immediately lost his footing and slid backwards, falling backwards into a shop window, which luckily held, He slumped to the floor with a force that suggested he wouldn’t be immediately getting back up.

As his friends rounded the corner, they came across their leader lying stricken on the floor and stopped. Without waiting to see any more, we ran on into the night, now completely sober and with me suddenly very hungry.  And that is how one night a garlic bread with cheese saved my life.

Blood on the Motorway: An apocalyptic trilogy of murder and stale sandwiches is out now in ebook and print from Amazon and all other good bookstores.

Big Internet doesn't care about you...

Remember when the internet was all full of hope, sunshine, and promise? When little ole’ Facebook was a place to hang out with friends? When Google proudly said ‘do no evil’? When the future looked bright for creatives? All of a sudden, no matter which creative industry you wanted to be in, the gatekeepers were being removed, and nobody was in between you and your audience. You just had to find them.

Want to be an author? No problem, self-publish and build up your audience. In a band? Put your albums up on Bandcamp, go on Spotify and start building an audience. Illustrator? There are a million places you can build up an audience online without having to be ‘discovered’ by someone who’s really only interested in the commerciality of your ‘content.’ Have an idea for scarves that you can print a book onto for some reason? There’s actually an audience for you. Hell, if you want to make custom Twilight-themed sex toys in your basement, you’ll probably be able to sell them.

The problem, then, is to stand out. Stand above the hundreds, nay, thousands of other creatives who are trying to find their audience. Not the easiest of tasks, but one made possible by the equality and egalitarian nature of the internet. It’s a long, hard slog, but you find your platform, and you build it. It’s not quite Field of Dreams, but it’s possible.

This year, however, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Big Internet, those companies that less than a decade ago were trying desperately to find their own audience, are losing patience with the little guy, the struggling artist, the haberdasher, the local band. It’s hard work, monetising this crowd, especially when there are all these big brands who’ve finally woken up to the internet being a thing, and have the marketing muscle to bring to bear.

Here are some things that have all happened in the last few weeks, all of which speak to a wider trend.

Facebook’s algorithm change: If you run a Facebook page for your ‘small-level interest’ you already know that reaching people who have liked your page is nigh on impossible and has been for a while. Well, unless you hit that ‘boost post’ option and pay Zuck the mighty dollar. Well, the Zuckster recently announced another major change, in which he really wants to focus on letting people see what their family and friends are posting about. That’s all well and good, but one suspects what he really means is that pages are dead. No matter whether people actually might want to see content from the bands, authors and haberdashers whose pages they went out of the way to click like on. Pretty soon the only way to promote yourself on what is arguably the best ad platform in the world will be to pay a LOT of money to do so. Fewer ads mean more ads by the brands who can pay the big money, fewer by small creators trying to find their audience. YouTube’s new rules for ‘content partners’:  We’ve all heard tales of the YouTube gazillionaires with a quadrillion pre-pubescent followers, who, as it turns out, invariably tend to be sociopaths of some kind. In the wake of scandals with Logan ‘I monetize dead people’ Paul, something called a Pew De Pie, and others, YouTube has implemented a radical overhaul of their ‘Partner Programme.’ The only problem is, it won’t hit any of these big accounts, but it will make it harder to join their ranks. Worse still, it punishes video creators that tend to be more niche, or who are using their channels to supplement their other enterprises (authors with book trailers, for instance, who want to be able to embed a link to their book on the video and then share that to other social media).Amazon’s rank stripping of authors: The world’s longest river has a problem with scammers exploiting their Kindle Unlimited program. This subscription model rewards authors based on page reads, rather than sales, and is only available to authors who go directly to them. A bunch of enterprising scammers realised a good way to game the system is to put a single book in the program, which is actually stuffed with dozens of books, then linking from the end of the first book to ‘bonus content’ at the very end, bypassing hundreds of pages and making it look to Amazon’s system like the reader has read 1000+ pages, instead of a few hundred. Now, this might seem like harmless gaming of a system, until you realise that this inflates the rank of the scammer’s book, bringing in more readers, pushing legitimate books down the chart. Also, authors are paid based on a single pot of money each month that Amazon deigns to pay its authors, so these scammers are actually stealing from other authors. Clearly, this is an issue. So, does Amazon try and fix the algorithm that has this huge loophole, or do they just randomly hack away at a few suspects? You guessed it, it’s the latter, meaning a bunch of very innocent authors have the added indignity of having their legitimate page reads and rank stripped away from them whenever they run a promotion, costing a lot of authors an absolute fortune. At the same time, go look at the charts on Amazon and you’ll see, the scammers haven’t even been dented. Quite frankly, Amazon doesn’t give a shit. Patreon trying to kill off its small payment patrons:  This was one of the most egregious examples of the art. Patreon, a place where creators can build support slowly, with monetisation, randomly imposes a rule change with zero consultation, screwing over both patrons and creatives (an impressive feat). It scaled back the changes and stated that it wasn't about trying to jack up the fees they received, but this was a pretty clear attempt to change from a sub $5 donation model, the model which most benefits the smallest creators. They want fewer patrons paying more money.

As I say, this is all in the last few weeks. Individually each of these stories has caused panic in certain quarters of the internet (every author group I am in has at least one VERY CONCERNED discussion about Facebook ads going on right now), but taken together, these stories all point to a wider trend: Big Internet doesn’t care about your book. Or your album. Or your sex toys. So, what do we, as a creative community, do about it?

Well, I have one suggestion: Not to give a shit.

Being a creative in 2018 is tough work, but it’s still probably the best time in history to do it. Sure, it’s going to get harder to find an audience, but it doesn’t change the fact that your audience is out there, waiting for you. Seriously, there are nearly eight billion people out there, so the chances that you can find enough of an audience out there willing to pay enough money for you to keep doing what you’re doing. Hell, you might even be able to make a living at it. There’s even an outside chance that you’ll make good money.

They’re out there, and if you can’t use Facebook Ads to find them, find another way. It’s going to be tough, and it might cost money to get there. You know, in that way that starting a business usually requires investment. Use Big Internet. Use small internet. Finding that Twitter’s full of Nazis and trolls and authors tweeting book links a gazillion times a day? Try Mastodon. Sure, there’s not many people there, but there might just be a few of your people there. But you can find them. Facebook ads too expensive? Amazon's ad platform is pretty decent, too.

If this is where you start to fret about being 100% reliant on one source of income, then fret you should. What the above tales show is that putting all your eggs in one basket is a pretty good way to make sure that you're going to end up with your career as some kind of avant-garde floor omelette. Diversify. It's the only way to be sure.

Build your platform, as robustly as you can. Make the best art you can. If you're lucky, they might come.

Blood on the Motorway: An apocalyptic trilogy of murder and stale sandwiches is out now in ebook and print from Amazon and all other good bookstores.

All the news that's fit to print

When I first dreamed of becoming an author, back in the damp and musty days of the 1980’s, there was one image already indelibly etched in my mind about what it was that I wanted to achieve as a writer, and it came from a cinematic masterpiece.

Marty McFly has just come back to the future for the first time and found that his deadbeat parents have transformed into ultra yuppies (and weirdly moved into the EXACT same house as they lived in as deadbeats). Then Biff turns up with a package and the whole family crowds around. They open it, revealing the glory that is the proof copy of George McFly’s first book, which oddly coincides with being about the very thing the whole film was about. ‘Ooooh,’ they all crow, looking at the most generic 80’s sci-fi cover that someone in the props department at Lucasfilm could muster.

I wanted it. Not the book, per se. I wanted the unboxing, the removal of a professionally printed print book, that you have made. A book that without you, the writer, wouldn’t exist in the world.

When the first proof copy of Blood on the Motorway came back, I honestly nearly did a cry. Not because of all the hours I put into formatting the inside myself, or the two previous attempts that hadn’t been quite right. But because I finally had my George McFly moment. Sure, as an indie author I’m not going to be seeing my books in any bookstores anytime soon, and they cost more on Amazon than a traditionally published book, but they’re there. On sale. And there, on my bookcase.

Now, with the release of both A Final Storm and the complete Blood on the Motorway Trilogy, I wanted to give those first two books a revamp, which is exactly what I’ve done. So now, you can finally buy the final book in the series, or any of the books individually, or you can buy the complete trilogy as one doorstopper of a paperback. That last one might set you back a few quid, but hey, it is three whole books of murder and mayhem.

All four books are now reformatted to match each other, and new wraparound covers have been designed for the full series. The whole thing looks, well, chuffing lovely if you ask me. And the best part is that you can go and buy all of them, right now. Even if you just want a really expensive but quite lovely doorstop. 

As George says: ‘You put your mind into it, you can accomplish anything.’

From the vaults: Snow

Originally posted Jan 18th, 2013. Still holds true. Pic from today.

It’s snowing outside. Have you seen it? The Snow? Outside! Right now. Been snowing for ages! It’s all over the ground and everything.

If you look over there, you’ll find some other people taking photos of the snow. They’ll upload them to Instagram later. Or Facebook. Just like I did.

At the same time, lots of other people will go on Twitter and Facebook, and complain about all the pictures of snow taken by people taking photos of snow.

Some people will also moan about the fact that nothing works any more. Because it’s snowing. Imagine if Norway acted like this, they’ll say.

The news will tell us all about the snow.

Some people will play in the snow. The snow that’s outside. In the snow. That is snowing.

Some people will argue with the people who disagree with them about whether or not to post pictures of snow when its snowing.

Some people will post status updates not about the snow, but about how cold it is, and how cold they are.

Some people will do nice things to help the vulnerable people for whom the snow is a very bad thing.

Some small people will look out the window and hope they can go out in the snow as soon as it is tomorrow.

Because it is snowing.

Outside.

Right now.

Snowing.

Top 5 productivity tips for the terminal procrastinator

When it came time to sit down and hammer out some resolutions for the New Year (or revolutions, as my daughter insists on calling them, or remevonooshuns, as my son calls them), there was one promise that I made to myself above all others: Be more productive.

I’m a terrible procrastinator. I think we all are really, endlessly finding things to do to avoid doing the thing that we should be doing, knowing full well that if the roles were reversed, and we needed to do Thing Two instead, that we’d be procrastinating by doing Thing One instead. Some peculiar trick of evolution, some fight-or-flight malfunction in our brainstems, is messing us all up, getting us to clean windows when we should be writing, or endlessly check Twitter when we have a report due by the end of the day. It’s a nonsense, really, the way our stupid squishy brains work.

This year, I decided that I would work really hard on cutting that procrastination out of my life. The reason? Well, on the one hand I work from home, have done for almost two years now. It was only meant to last a few months, but here we are. As anyone else who sits alone at a laptop all day will tell you, it’s bloody hard work staying motivated, focused, and engaged. So I need to make sure that I can keep up the same level of productivity I would in an office. Hell, there’s no reason I can’t be better than that since I don't have to actually talk to people.

The second reason is that I have another job, too. You know, the one that leads to all those books that you can buy if you follow the links at the top of the page. Being an indie publisher takes a ridiculous amount of work, admin, promotion, and other busywork, and that’s before you take into account that I need to do writing every single day. Oh, and the aforementioned kids and the rest of real life.

Hence the need for organisation. Being this busy doesn’t really work if you’re spending a quarter of your day staring into space thinking about old Babylon 5 plots, or scrolling endlessly through Twitter trying to find something to be angry about. 

So, now that I’ve been on this kick for all of *checks calendar* ELEVEN DAYS, here’s my top five tools that can help you be a more productive you. And just so you know I'm on the level, none of the below is even affiliate-linked. Man, I really should have sorted some affiliate links.

Pomadoro: I’ve been using this method of sprint working, where you use a timer to break down work into chunks separated by short breaks, on my writing for a while now. This year I’ve started applying it to my regular work, and found it’s really increased my productivity. I take one hour each day and split it into three 15 minute sprints, separated by five minute’s rest each time, and at the end of the hour I’ve usually managed to clear a huge chunk of what I need to do. Then I do another hour’s worth writing in the evening, which usually gives me around 1000 words. I use Be Focused for the Mac. Self-Control : Another Mac app, this blocks off your access to any website you shouldn’t be looking at while you’re working. You can add websites onto the blacklist, set the time for as long as you need, and hey presto, even if your mind wanders and that tiny deadened part of your soul reaches out for a Twitter hit, it can’t reach it. Not only that, but it’s impossible to turn it off for the duration. Sure does focus the mind. Todoist: There’s a hundred different to-do organisers out there, but this is my weapon of choice. You can set up different ‘project’s or subject matters (such as writing admin, work, errands, blog posts etc) and never lose track of what you’re supposed to be doing from day to day. You can assign due dates, then just track what you need to do on a day-by-day basis. I also use it to capture random thoughts or story bits that pop into my head, then assign them to a time when I’ll be at my desk so I can put them into my Scrivener file. Scrivener: Speaking of which… I’ve been using Scrivener for a good few years now to write in, and whenever I have to go back to Word or anything else it’s a bit like being Nic Cage in The Wicker Man remake, what with all the bees and whatnot. If you’re a writer, I cannot recommend it enough. It’s a steep learning curve, but get past that and you’ll find the best damn writing software on the plant. Especially with the new update, which is glorious.Feedly: This is a recent one. Well, not really, I used to have a Feedly account, years ago, when RSS was what all the cool kids were doing behind the bike sheds. I gave it up once the hardcore drugs of Twitter and Facebook showed up, because who can be bothered to read actual articles anymore when everything is GIFs and 140 characters? But I’ve become increasingly aware that my addiction to social media is both unhealthy, and unproductive. At the start of the year I deleted my blue apps from my phone, but that lasted about three days, when I realised that logging on through my phone’s web browser wasn’t exactly better than what I was doing before. Truth is, there are lots of times when I will have idle time and want to look at something on my phone. The problem is that I also spend too much time doing that when I should be doing other things. So, the thought occurred to me that I just needed something better, more productive, to look at. So, I set up a new Feedly account and followed a metric crap-tonne of writing blogs, science and technology sites, other things that might spark ideas and writing ideas. So now if I have time to kill, I can still be more productive, and I don’t have to be so addicted to the all-seeing social media eye.

So, there we go. Five tips for a more productive you. And I’m definitely the person to listen to, even if this blog post was supposed to be done three days ago, but wasn’t because I haven’t been as productive as I should have been. There’s always room for improvement.

So, what tips and tools are keeping you productive in 2018?

Blood on the Motorway: An apocalyptic trilogy of murder and stale sandwiches is out now in ebook and print from Amazon and all other good bookstores.

A Trio of Delights

Earlier this morning, as I perused the perpetual misery engine that is Twitter, I saw a message from a man wanting book recommendations, specifically from authors. Tell me, he asked, five reasons why I should read your book.

Obviously, my immediate reaction was to mourn for the poor man’s mentions, lost to the void of endlessly self-promoting authors desperate for a slather of free promotion. Then, of course, my author brain kicked in, and I screamed at my screen that I HAVE A NEW BOOK ON SALE.

So, here are the five reasons I came up with why you, dear reader, should read Blood on the Motorway: The Complete Trilogy, out now at Amazon, and elsewhere:

It's a rip-roaring apocalyptic adventure of murder and stale sandwiches.The world ends, but not in a way you've seen before.There's a serial killer on the loose, which is bad timing for all involved.The characters are pretty damn cool, and some of them can be quite funny when they’re not fleeing for their lives.My mum said it's really good.

By now I imagine you’re saying to yourself that that’s all well and good, but what do other people think? Well, how about the bestselling author of 99 Red Balloons, Elisabeth Carpenter, who said the following: "I loved the Blood on the Motorway series! Set largely in the north of England, we follow a wonderful cast of characters as they try to survive an apocalyptic event that destroys most of the population. It has everything you could want in an end-of-the-world story. Perfect for fans of 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, and ITV's Survivors."

Not bad, eh?

Now, for the first time, the full Blood on the Motorway trilogy is now available as a single box set on Amazon and all the other bookstores, and for the staggeringly low price of £6.99/$8.99. That’s cheaper than buying the first two books and getting the third for free! Not only are you getting three excellent books, but you’re getting them for roughly the same price as a bottle of wine.

As for the guy who wrote the original tweet, well, he deleted that pretty quickly. Either that or the universe took pity on him and deleted it for him before his twitter folded in on itself.

Another one down

Don't look now lest you jinx the whole thing, but it looks like 2017, the year that would not die, is about to do the right thing and fuck right off. Two days hence, it will gather up its trailing coat-tails, make its excuses about having knocked so much shit over, and go forth into the New Year's night, trying desperately to hail a taxi back to whatever hell dimension first spawned it.

And we will welcome in its successor, eyeing it nervously for any signs that it might knock off our most beloved heroes in the first few weeks, or start some kind of nuclear conflict over in some corner of the room.

Of course, it's damn folly to anthropomorphise arbitrary markers in the passage of time, but we all do it. Unless you don't, in which case, well, I dunno, have a biscuit or something. But these markers exist, whether we ignore them or no. As I get older, I tend to lean into them more, seeing them as a great excuse to recharge the batteries, draw a line under mistakes made and set goals for the arbitrary marker ahead. Call them resolutions if you must, but I think of New Year as a great big reset button for bad habits, and in that regard, I don't see it as a bad thing to raise the glass as Jools Holland farts his way through another boogie-woogie piano solo and dare to hope that this time, this year, you might be able to do things better.

So, what were my goals for 2017? Well, I wanted to be more productive. I wanted to keep a diary, keep track of my writing better and be more productive at the day job. I also wanted to move house, and attain the physique of a sculpted Adonis. I also wanted to get the full Blood on the Motorway trilogy on sale.

How did I do? Well, I did achieve a modicum more productivity, got all three of those books out on sale, moved house to a lovely little cottage in the middle of nowhere (with a proper office and a desk and everything), and I managed to keep a diary pretty well. The productivity could have gone a lot better, and I completely failed to turn myself into a modern-day deity through the power of rock-hard abs alone. In fact, I'm still not even sure there are abs there. Still, I did get the two orange tags in the image above, rising briefly to the top of the Amazon charts for British Horror and Horror Comedy novels. That's not nothing, right there.

Not too shabby, then. So, what for 2018? Well, not a lot different, really. I've been thinking a lot over the last few days about this coming year, and what I need to do to take my writing career to the next level. On the one hand, I have that aforementioned full trilogy out now. On the other, I likely won't have a new novel out in 2018. I mean, I might, but I need to give this new story the room it needs to reach its full potential, and it doesn't feel like that's going to be an easy or quick process. It's easily the most ambitious thing I've written.

What I'd really like is for the writing to move to a break-even point. 2017 has seen a massive growth in readers, with over 2000 books sold, and as many again given away. This is beyond my aspirations for the year. But I've still put more money into this writing malarkey than I've taken back. That's fine. I'll likely be putting a lot more money into it over the coming year on advertising and miscellaneous other costs. But I'd like to see that ticker move into the green, even if anything I do make will be ploughed back into the business.

So, that's the aim. But in order to do that, I think I need to redress my use of social media, the internet in general, and address what is a huge lack of productivity at times. I had a huge spike in sales in August and completely failed to capitalise because I hate promoting. So I'm going to get a lot smarter about using my blog, using my mailing list, engaging with readers (hopefully that's you) about my writing, about the stories. I'm so bloody proud of the work I've done, I need to give it its best chance to succeed.

Lastly, I've decided to retire the music writing completely. *Cue dancing in streets* No more alt. school. I might even take the Rolling Stone Challenge book down. The Musical Waffle section has already been removed from this site. I love music, and it will always be a huge part of my writing, but I won't be writing about it anymore. For now, at least.

Beyond that, it's the old chestnuts of productivity and health. And, while I'll be concentrating on a healthy body (or trying to) I'll also be looking at my mental health. In 2017 I became too sucked into following events that have little to no impact on me, following the nerdiest American politics podcasts, refreshing the news as the first thing I do in the morning, and it's just not healthy. 

I've muted a lot of politics related words on Twitter, deleted news apps, and even deleted my facebook and twitter apps off my phone. I've done this for the last few weeks and it's improved my general outlook on the world no end. While I understand the immense display of privilege that this displays, I've come to the conclusion that being immersed in world events does nothing to aid your understanding of them. It's like watching and supporting a football team, except that you're not celebrating a goal, you're celebrating decisions that have an impact on millions of people in ways that social media is nowhere near nuanced enough to explain.

So, here’s to another year. May its coat-tails bring less wanton destruction than its predecessor, and may your days be merry, and bright.

See you on the other side.

Blood on the Motorway – An apocalyptic trilogy of murder and stale sandwiches, is available on Amazon , iBooks , Kobo and more besides.

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It's time... for A Final Storm

It's Halloween, and that means just one thing. That's a lie, actually, Halloween means lots of things. Pumpkin carving, sexism in fancy dress costumes, kids at their cutest, sugar overloads, and the best Buffy episodes. But for the sake of this announcement, it means one thing: A Final Storm, the final book in the Blood on the Motorway trilogy, is on sale now! You can buy your copy at any of these fine retailers, at the click of a button.

So, what's it about, you may ask? Well, six months have passed since the storm laid waste to humanity, and life is approaching something like normality once more.

In Birmingham, Burnett's new Government is trying to stand on its own feet, while Lydia tries to find some peace. In London, Max is trying to keep his new family together and away from the psychotic gang leader making a play for the ruined city. Out on the road, Tom and Mira are grieving, just trying to stay alive, when bandits come to tear them apart.

But the sky is full of lights once more, and they'll need more than dumb luck to get them through this storm.

Who will survive, and who will thrive, in this heart-pounding finale to the Blood on the Motorway saga?

Find out for yourself, by picking up your copy of A Final Storm, today!

An interview with... Me

A few months back I was talking to a fellow apocalyptic author, and they were arranging a load of interviews with other authors for their blog, with the slightly odd theme of what to eat during the apocalypse. They sent me over a few questions, which I duly answered, and I never heard anything more. I think, judging by the tone of their questions, that they may have retreated to a survivalist bunker somewhere. After a few months of emails unanswered it seems they’ve forgotten all about these interviews, so I thought I might as well post it here;  because what is more indicative of an author’s ego than them posting an interview they did with themselves? Enjoy!

How long have you been writing post-apocalyptic fiction?

I started writing the Blood on the Motorway series about six years ago, primarily off the back of reading the Walking Dead comics and thinking it was a really good idea to see what happened beyond the initial outbreak. Zombies were everywhere at the time so I decided to take a similar look at a world-ending event without the flesh-eating part, because I was more curious about just how people react to the extreme pressure. Being English, I was also interested to see a British take on what has predominantly been a more American genre.

What kind of apocalyptic event do you find most interesting?

As much as I love reading invasion stories, zombie hordes or nuclear apocalypses, what interested me was an event that dramatically reduces the population, but leaves the tools of civilisation unharmed. That way there’s an abundance of food, weaponry, vehicles, at least to begin with, but then it’s interesting to see people trying desperately to hold onto what they can of their old lives, and how people will use any excuse not to face up to reality.

What kind of apocalyptic event do you fear the most?

In terms of my personal fear, the threat of nuclear war has weighed heavily on my mind since I was still a young kid, reading a magazine that showed just how many warheads were out there. This was still during the tail end of the cold war, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared. I think the fact that to survive that in any way you’d have to completely isolate yourself and live your life in perpetual fear… it doesn’t bear thinking about.

Are you a prepper? At what level do you consider yourself? (e.g. beginner, moderate, hardcore)

If there’s a stage before beginner, that’s me. I’d like to think I’d be a bit like Shaun in Shaun of the Dead in the event of a crisis, but I’d probably stumble into a zombie horde while desperately checking Twitter to find out what was happening, and end up live tweeting my grisly demise.

Where do you think the ideal place to live is prior to an apocalyptic event? (e.g. a farm, a beach, an urban sprawl)

If living above ground after the event is a possibility, I’d be inclined to go more for farmland. Find a nice farm, board it up, and wait for it all to blow over. At least, that was my thought until I saw 28 Weeks Later. I’m based in the north of England, where you’re never more than an hour’s walk from some open land, and I think that’s probably the best place to be.

Shelter-in-place, or bug out?

I can’t think of anything worse than being trapped in a shelter, not knowing when you can leave, what’s going on outside. Unless it’s kitted out with a decent bookcase, and a functioning Netflix connection, in which case I could probably survive for a little while.

What do you plan to eat in the apocalypse?

Given my diet of pizzas and pastried goods, this would be my biggest struggle. I’d make my first priority learning how to hunt and cook the nearest available wildlife, but I’d probably just end up roaming from house to house, checking the cupboards for tins of beans for as long as I could.

What foods do you regularly stock in your home that would be adaptable to a post-apocalyptic situation?

I think you can’t go wrong with some pasta and some tinned tomatoes. Who doesn’t love a hastily-prepared pasta meal in the face of apocalyptic mayhem?

What is your preferred preservation method for post-apocalyptic foods? (e.g. canned, vacuum-packed, powdered, freeze-dried)

Tinned or canned foods are going to be a staple of your diet, but they’re bloody heavy if you’re on the move. I’ve had a few of my characters raid their local camping stores and get packets of the astronaut food you see on sale there, but I’ve no idea how edible that really is.

What's the primary factor for you in deciding on a survival food? Taste? Weight? Nutritional Value? Ease of preparation?

Probably a combination of all of the above. If you’re on the move you want lightweight but not oversized food that’s easy to prepare. If you’re holed up somewhere nice, with a wine cellar, you’re probably more focused on what goes well with a nice Shiraz.

What's the worst "survival food" you've ever tasted?

I’m not sure if it’s really a ‘survival food’, but we British seem obsessed with pickling things and putting them in jars. I’d imagine that’d come in quite handy in an apocalypse, but I think I’d rather die before I find myself eating pickled cockles.

What's the best?

After what I wrote before, I’m going to go with wine. I don’t think you could get through the end of the world without it.

Any special survival recipes you have up your camouflaged sleeves?

Spice up your generic pasta dishes with some wild mushrooms, for a fun three-way Russian Roulette game of ‘will this be tasty, will it lead me to trip off my tits, or will this kill me before the bowl is finished?’

What's the best survival food tip you've ever heard? (e.g. using a concrete surface to grind open tin cans)

In doing the research for the sequel to Blood on the Motorway, Sleepwalk City, I found out that if you’re not sure what kind of fuel you have, pour some out. Diesel will burn, but petrol won’t. Could be useful when you’re fleeing the zombie horde in an unfamiliar car.

Blood on the Motorway – An apocalyptic tale of murder and stale sandwiches, is available on Amazon , iBooks , Kobo and more besides. The sequel, Sleepwalk City, is available on Amazon , iBooks , Kobo and many more.

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Welcome to Discovery Park – the chronicle of my increasingly frustrated attempt to listen to every album on Rolling Stone's Top 500 Albums of all-time list, is available now on Amazon Uk , Amazon.com , iBooks , Kobo , and many more.

One year of Blood

In a turn of events I would term ‘a bit of a surprise’, I looked at my diary this morning and realised that Blood on the Motorway, my first novel, came out one year ago. Time sure flies when you’re shouting at strangers to buy your book every day.

It’s been a hell of a year. I mean, obviously, but I’m thinking about my book here. It’s been read by hundreds of people, all willing to take a punt on a new writer, something that makes me eternally grateful every day. There have been a few dozen reviews, too, scattered across the various buying platforms. It’s all been rather splendid. Once again, if you’ve been one of the people to take the time or the chance to read the book, or its sequel Sleepwalk City, thank you.

There’s nothing that means more to a writer than to know someone’s out there reading your book. It’s like heroin, which is the only real explanation for any of us writing more books, to be honest. Oh, and if you read it and then took the time to leave a review, you are a sainted and wonderful person and may all of the good things come your way.

Anyway, for the first anniversary, I have news. Blood on the Motorway has a brand new cover! Look!

I love the original cover of Blood on the Motorway, designed by the incredible Dominic Sohor, but with the cover for Sleepwalk City and the final book in the series, A Final Storm, being so different, I wanted to bring it in line with the rest of the trilogy. So, I’ve retained the artwork of Dom’s original, but tweaked it to reflect the rest of the series.

Of course, this means that if you bought the original version in print, you now have an incredibly rare collectible first edition, so congrats to the three people who did that. I have two at home, so maybe I’ll save them for when I’m rich and famous and I’ll sell them to make myself even more rich, and even more famous.

To celebrate this relaunch, of sorts, I’m offering those of you who haven’t had a chance to read Blood on the motorway yet the chance to get their hands on the ebook, completely free! So, if you like apocalyptic horror stories with serious shades of dark humour, why not pick it up today? Just click on the box below, and tell me where to send it.

Free book, you say? Gimme!