David Roy's Blog, page 11

Bookshops

I had a purge on Twitter yesterday. I had followed five times as many people as had followed me, so apart from the ones which I felt were of particular importance to Hobart Books, I began thinning out. After all, if people don't see my posts then what is the point?

A couple of things became clear to me. Firstly, other small publishers didn't follow back. That's fair enough I suppose given that we are rivals but I am still interested to know about their books and authors.

Secondly, independent bookshops didn't follow back. Of 185 bookshops I followed, only two followed back. I had assumed that a natural affinity existed between small publishers and small bookshops but this appears not to be the case. Independent bookshops sell the same books as the chains. The small publishers can fend for themselves.

Or, that is how it seems.

Netflix

I had more or less given up watching TV until my children bullied me into subscribing to Netflix. Being an essentially shallow type, I have discovered a new love for TV now. On occasions the lure of Netflix is enough to drag my children down from their bedrooms to sit with their parents and watch a show.

The problem is that we all like different things. My younger daughter likes horror, the elder likes true crime, whilst my wife and I like Scandi-noir.

We've watched 'em all: Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Icelandic... not sure if Norway has joined in much. For whatever reason Scandi-noir is a phenomenon. It's dark, broody, sometimes cliched (chases in underground car parks and people tied to chairs with only a huge knife to cut their bounds etc.) but unlike British crime, there is often humour. For instance, I was watching Deadwind the other night and someone smiled. Really.

Hoping to capitalise on the pre-eminence of this genre, I wrote a series of Scandi-Belfast noir books, featuring Sam Painter. Sam takes on the jobs the police reject - you know the sort of thing. These were among my least successful books. which proves that you CAN have too much of a good thing.

Ideas

I keep having ideas for books or just bits of dialogue. Sometimes I write them down and use them later and sometimes not. I try to create multi-dimensional characters and situations, hoping that this broadens the appeal of the book in question. My character Ted Dexter for instance isn't a James Bond type, rather he is an introvert, unsure of himself and not at all confident of his own abilities. He is well aware of the fact that he relies on luck.

The other thing about Ted is that he is not always successful, or more accurately his success is measured in his ability to get back home safely. It's not always a case of 'mission accomplished' with Ted Dexter.

In truth, Ted is a bit like me but braver. A lot braver in fact.

Home

I drove to Scotland a couple of nights ago, in preparation for a ferry crossing to Northern Ireland, the land of my birth.

Because of the weather, all ferries were cancelled.

The End.

Reviews

Reviews mean a lot. Bad ones are devastating and good ones are validation that your efforts are heading in the right direction. The main place for reviewing books is of course Amazon. If a book has six billion five star reviews, then you can assume it is fairly good. There is probably some sort of manipulation at work in some cases but it is hard to prove.

Goodreads is another place to review books and here I have spotted a couple of poor reviews for some of my books. These reviews were written by my next door neighbour. We don't get along.

But at least he read the books.

Didn't he?

Amongst the complimentary reviews for Smoke Without Fire is one in which the reviewer rips me to shreds and disputes the accuracy of the content. I worked out who the reviewer is - one of the book's main protagonists. He doesn't come out of the story well.

So, that's reviews. A double-edged sword.

Review

https://number9reviews.blogspot.com/

I didn't write a blog yesterday, so to make up for that unbearable disappointment here is a link to a review for one of our books by Judy Upton.

Adoring masses

Morning adoring masses,

You should write about what you know, hence none of my main characters are police officers, for instance. Many of them - probably most of them - are soldiers and that's because I was a soldier.

Brought up on a diet of improbable war stories told to me by my dad, and living in Northern Ireland with troops on the street etc, it was little wonder that I joined the Army. But I must point out that living in Bangor, we rarely saw any troops. Day trips to Belfast however gave me the opportunity to gawp at soldiers and so the wheels were set in motion, the library of experience established...

Sunday

I work every day except Christmas Day. Today, I will write and post of social media. The latter has become more important because, as a small publisher, this is the only way to stay in touch with readers and to bring more readers on board.

I used to write at least a thousand words a day, although it was often much more. On one particular day, I wrote six thousand words and then five thousand the next but that was exceptional. I wonder how many people ever read those words.

Waterstones

https://www.waterstones.com/book/x-tr...

Not everyone is keen on Amazon, although I have few complaints myself. However, for anyone wanting to buy a book from another source, then I suppose Waterstones' click and collect service is a pretty good alternative.

Bookshelf

On my bookshelf alongside numerous Ed McBain, Alistair Maclean, Spike Milligan and Colin Bateman books, there now sit eight books published by Hobart Books. This time last year, although I knew it was going ahead and Adam was well advanced in the preparations, that space on the bookshelf was unoccupied. More truthfully it was occupied by different titles. No matter, to have produced eight books in such a short time is remarkable to me.

And the strange thing is that the ones written by other writers please me as much, if not more, than the ones I wrote myself. Even better, there is much more in the pipeline.