Andrew McEwan's Blog: Words Are the Gravy On the Mashed Potato of Life - Posts Tagged "paperback"

It's Sunday eve, there's beef bourguignon in the oven and I've just opened a bottle of wine. Earlier this afternoon The Toon (aka Newcastle United) got a last minute winner. See, life ain't so bad. At least it has its moments. The beef bourguignon is from the Co-op, but hey, it was reduced...

Moving on. My giveaway of The Orange Propeller went rather well and six copies were posted to the lucky winners last Monday. I eagerly await a first review. I love reviews; I just don't get enough. Thus am I planning several paperback releases this year, starting with Subvision in the not too distant future. Giveaways are great for attracting attention to a book. As an unrepresented author the biggest challenge you face is getting read. Add to that the fact my work isn't populist and you've got a steep hill to climb. Nevertheless I am determined to scale the walls and ransack the temple as it were. Noncomformity can be rewarding in many ways. And if all else fails you can always not give a fuck. Thus the many-runged ladder of freebies from myself, ebooks from Amazon and paperbacks via Goodreads, all in the name of the revolution.

An increasing number of publishers are offering ebook packages these days whereby authors pay for proofing, formatting, covers etc. These are all things you can do yourself or, better still, for free using friends and contemporaries on a show-me-yours and I'll show-you-mine basis. To some writers being associated with a publisher, however tenuously, may sound like a good idea. It's certainly not for me. I just don't believe in easy routes to the summit. The killer though is the contract. Essentially publishers are charging writers for the rights to their work, rather than the other way round. If it sinks you lose. If it floats you lose. Either way the publisher wins.

With apologies to The Beatles for the title of this post. But I just had an idea. How about a bookshop that sells only independently published authors? In paperback; with download options, but paper books in say a mobile library type affair? Now where would a person get one of those? And some money.

Beef bourguignon was nice by the way. Wine flowing. Vive la...

Greetings, friends and aliens! How are you this fine day? It's been a while. I've been busy. Okay, sort of busy. In fact, I've been holding my breath.

After four months and a full MS request I got a rejection this morning. Pah. The book was THUMP, and the agent shall remain nameless; but now that's done and dusted I feel...liberated. My last post was in September. Wow, look what I was doing in September. Not pretty. The whole depression/medication business came to nothing. I'm pleased about this. Goes to prove you shouldn't listen to other people's ideas about your mental health. You should cut down your drinking instead.

Naturally, I've taken up whiskey. There is logic in this, believe me. In terms of units a glug of Scotch is higher on the sensible scale than three cans of strong lager. There're only 28 units of alcohol in a 750cl bottle. That's like ten day's worth of allowable units and a bottle lasts me a month.

My sanity aside (and I'm feeling chipper today, thanks) I have actually been doing a lot of writing. THUMP vol. 1 is out in paperback, too. The 2nd volume is a third written and I currently have a giveaway running on Goodreads whereby you can get your grubby digits on a signed copy of Armwrestling the Dead completely for nowt. I do need to work on my profile, however. Expose myself more, if you will. I'll never be everyone's mug of choice, but my audience is there, lurking. I just need to coax you forth.

So it's back to the literary anarchist's chalkboard. Me selling out is put on hold.

Remember, you kick ass, you never kiss it.

Happy, kittens?