David Roy's Blog, page 13
November 10, 2021
Routine
Now, I am a full-time publisher and author. It's not how I pictured it. I don't wear tweed and hang out with Bohemian types in pavement restaurants smoking a cheroot, drinking espresso. It's all a bit more prosaic than that. I still get up early each morning for the thought of wasting time, especially when making Hobart Books a success is so important to me, is abhorrent.
When I started out, over a quarter of a century before, I never pictured myself doing this: assessing manuscripts, proofreading, editing, publicising. The world has changed greatly since then of course. For one thing, the internet is a massive influence in our lives and I can write this and make it available for you to read in mere moments.
Well, onwards and sideways.
When I started out, over a quarter of a century before, I never pictured myself doing this: assessing manuscripts, proofreading, editing, publicising. The world has changed greatly since then of course. For one thing, the internet is a massive influence in our lives and I can write this and make it available for you to read in mere moments.
Well, onwards and sideways.
November 9, 2021
Publicity
Building a publishing house from scratch requires masses of publicity. So far we've done okay, with magazine articles, radio slots and so on. Hobart Books is definitely on the map.
I have tried 'reaching out' (hate that phrase) to some of the people I met when I won my tribunal but this has been met with resounding silence. I was news then, today I am not, even though Adam and I have started Hobart Books from scratch with a view to becoming a force in publishing.
After publishing a few home-grown books, the next phase was to attract other writers and this has been such a success that, at the time of writing, we can't take anyone else on. Once we've got our current crop of authors out there, this will change.
Adam and I both knew we were fortunate when we received a copy of 'Out of The Frying Pan' on our e-desk. Written by Judy Upton, a prolific and successful playwright, this was a cosy crime thriller in the British tradition and quite beautifully written.
https://www.hobartbooks.com/product-p...
I have tried 'reaching out' (hate that phrase) to some of the people I met when I won my tribunal but this has been met with resounding silence. I was news then, today I am not, even though Adam and I have started Hobart Books from scratch with a view to becoming a force in publishing.
After publishing a few home-grown books, the next phase was to attract other writers and this has been such a success that, at the time of writing, we can't take anyone else on. Once we've got our current crop of authors out there, this will change.
Adam and I both knew we were fortunate when we received a copy of 'Out of The Frying Pan' on our e-desk. Written by Judy Upton, a prolific and successful playwright, this was a cosy crime thriller in the British tradition and quite beautifully written.
https://www.hobartbooks.com/product-p...
November 8, 2021
Missing blog
I could hear the howls of anguish when my army of fans realised that I hadn't 'blogged' yesterday. My elder daughter had to go to media village for her drama workshop, so we spent the day there as a family, hanging out with the stars.
Oddly, no one recognised me, despite the fact that I am a writer, publisher and former TV personality. Maybe I am stretching a point with the last claim...
Not many writers become known in such a way that they would be recognised in the street and mobbed by fans. Thus I will be assured of a life free from 'selfies' taken with strangers, which can only be a good thing. And so my journey to reclusivity continues.
Reclusivity doesn't appear to be a word. Well, it is now.
Oddly, no one recognised me, despite the fact that I am a writer, publisher and former TV personality. Maybe I am stretching a point with the last claim...
Not many writers become known in such a way that they would be recognised in the street and mobbed by fans. Thus I will be assured of a life free from 'selfies' taken with strangers, which can only be a good thing. And so my journey to reclusivity continues.
Reclusivity doesn't appear to be a word. Well, it is now.
November 6, 2021
David Roy
This isn't a very light-hearted post, I'll tell you now. My grandfather, after whom I was named, was a soldier in the Great War. In 1934, when my father was four, he killed himself. I have always assumed that his experiences in the war caught up with him but the truth of the matter is now lost in history. I will never know what prompted him to take his own life.
However, without ever having experienced anything like he must have been through or having been so distraught that suicide seemed like the only solution to my problems, I have always had a 'feeling' about what was going through his mind and how despairing he must have felt. It had always seemed as if I have inherited some fragment of the bleakness and desolation he experienced. I can't explain it any better than that.
Whatever it was, real or imagined, it gave me the idea that there must be something which could only be termed 'genetic memory', i.e. the experiences of a forebear could somehow alter their DNA in such a way that subsequent generations inherited parts of their lived experience. It might explain the idea of reincarnation too, or it might just be a fanciful notion that sprang from nowhere into a writer's brain.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/abse...
Whatever the truth, I was prompted to write , Absent Victim', in which a young, wealthy women asks a private investigator to find about the person she killed. The problem is, there is no body, no motive, not one single piece of evidence to suggest that she killed anyone.
However, without ever having experienced anything like he must have been through or having been so distraught that suicide seemed like the only solution to my problems, I have always had a 'feeling' about what was going through his mind and how despairing he must have felt. It had always seemed as if I have inherited some fragment of the bleakness and desolation he experienced. I can't explain it any better than that.
Whatever it was, real or imagined, it gave me the idea that there must be something which could only be termed 'genetic memory', i.e. the experiences of a forebear could somehow alter their DNA in such a way that subsequent generations inherited parts of their lived experience. It might explain the idea of reincarnation too, or it might just be a fanciful notion that sprang from nowhere into a writer's brain.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/abse...
Whatever the truth, I was prompted to write , Absent Victim', in which a young, wealthy women asks a private investigator to find about the person she killed. The problem is, there is no body, no motive, not one single piece of evidence to suggest that she killed anyone.
November 5, 2021
Smoke
Smoke Without Fire, the book I wrote about my experiences as a sacked teacher, was the piece of work which prompted Adam to begin our publishing enterprise. When it first came out in self-published form from Lulu and Amazon, it had sold a few copies but nowhere near enough to make any impact. Now it had a second chance of exposure and I wanted my story to reach a bigger audience not just because I yearned for a successful book but also because of the injustice I had suffered.
Smoke Without Fire details a genuine conspiracy and reading it even now fills me with horror and dread that people in authority can trample over the powerless in modern Britain. Amazingly, upon it's release, and in amongst the positive reviews, one of the protagonists who had appeared unfavourably within its pages wrote a damning review on Amazon. I knew straightaway who was responsible. Even ten years after the event he had to have his say.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/smok...
I do get a kick from seeing it on Waterstones website. I'd like eventually to see it on their shelves too.
Smoke Without Fire details a genuine conspiracy and reading it even now fills me with horror and dread that people in authority can trample over the powerless in modern Britain. Amazingly, upon it's release, and in amongst the positive reviews, one of the protagonists who had appeared unfavourably within its pages wrote a damning review on Amazon. I knew straightaway who was responsible. Even ten years after the event he had to have his say.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/smok...
I do get a kick from seeing it on Waterstones website. I'd like eventually to see it on their shelves too.
November 4, 2021
The New Year
On January 1st 2021, Hobart Books was launched. It was all down to the efforts of Adam Gardner who had spent years in the publishing industry. It was he who made the website and established Hobart as a registered company et cetera. At first we had two books, then four and then six. We moved quickly to get established.
Book seven came from playwright Judy Upton and we knew immediately we had a potential hit. I maintain that words take on a rhythm when used well and Judy's expertise along with her natural humour and ability to tell a story shone through her book, 'Out Of The Frying Pan.'
With its strapline, 'How many artists does it take to solve a kidnapping?', the book's premise and promise was clear.
Why Hobart Books? Adam and I were both stationed in Hobart Barracks in Detmold, Germany, named after Major-General Percy Hobart. When Adam jokingly suggested the name, it seemed to fit and a new publishing house was born.
Book seven came from playwright Judy Upton and we knew immediately we had a potential hit. I maintain that words take on a rhythm when used well and Judy's expertise along with her natural humour and ability to tell a story shone through her book, 'Out Of The Frying Pan.'
With its strapline, 'How many artists does it take to solve a kidnapping?', the book's premise and promise was clear.
Why Hobart Books? Adam and I were both stationed in Hobart Barracks in Detmold, Germany, named after Major-General Percy Hobart. When Adam jokingly suggested the name, it seemed to fit and a new publishing house was born.
November 3, 2021
Hobart Books
My new found freedom didn't last long and my new job, although close to home, was extremely difficult. A friend from the Army asked if he could ring and I assumed that this was in relation to one of his daughters' education.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
Adam Gardner and I had served in the same regiment in Germany although in vastly different roles. At best, we knew each other by sight and may even have said 'hello'' on occasion but that was it. Our paths crossed again when we attended the University of Plymouth a couple of years later.
When he rang, our conversation radically changed the course of my life.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
Adam Gardner and I had served in the same regiment in Germany although in vastly different roles. At best, we knew each other by sight and may even have said 'hello'' on occasion but that was it. Our paths crossed again when we attended the University of Plymouth a couple of years later.
When he rang, our conversation radically changed the course of my life.
November 2, 2021
Giving up
By the summer of 2020, my latest rejection ringing clearly in my head like a bell, I made the momentous decision to give up being a writer. In fact, never having been published and not considering myself to be a proper writer in the first place, I was actually giving up hope of being a writer.
I was casting off twenty-six years of hope, of work, of money invested in computers, stamps, manila envelopes, copies of the Artists and Writers Yearbook... it all suddenly meant nothing. I had failed. To be able to acknowledge that actually felt great. A burden had been removed, a metaphorical weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
Now I would throw my efforts into my new job and be a great success as a teacher.
However, I had one book to finish off and another to write, having promised a friend that he would feature in it. My last book was Metano Island and it was a spin-off from the Lost Man series. Metano Island was a wartime murder mystery set on the eponymous island in the Med. It had been years since I had even considered the possibility of success.
I was casting off twenty-six years of hope, of work, of money invested in computers, stamps, manila envelopes, copies of the Artists and Writers Yearbook... it all suddenly meant nothing. I had failed. To be able to acknowledge that actually felt great. A burden had been removed, a metaphorical weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
Now I would throw my efforts into my new job and be a great success as a teacher.
However, I had one book to finish off and another to write, having promised a friend that he would feature in it. My last book was Metano Island and it was a spin-off from the Lost Man series. Metano Island was a wartime murder mystery set on the eponymous island in the Med. It had been years since I had even considered the possibility of success.
November 1, 2021
Home
I endured caravan life for many years before moving back home permanently with a new job which was only minutes from my house. Shortly after that the pandemic hit and for much of the time I was at home.
It was during this period that I wrote 'Absent Victim', a novel inspired by my tacit belief in something which might be called 'genetic memory'. I can't say for sure that such a thing really exists but I have always felt a connection of some sort to my grandfather who killed himself in 1934 and who I never met. Perhaps it is a fanciful notion.
In Absent Victim, a Belfast-based private investigator takes on a client who believes she has murdered someone. The problem is that there is no body, not motive, no record whatsoever of her doing so.
The book took about two months to complete and I was pretty pleased with the end result. I even managed to find a literary agent based in my home town of Bangor. Absent Victim was my best book. The scene was set...
... for rejection.
It was during this period that I wrote 'Absent Victim', a novel inspired by my tacit belief in something which might be called 'genetic memory'. I can't say for sure that such a thing really exists but I have always felt a connection of some sort to my grandfather who killed himself in 1934 and who I never met. Perhaps it is a fanciful notion.
In Absent Victim, a Belfast-based private investigator takes on a client who believes she has murdered someone. The problem is that there is no body, not motive, no record whatsoever of her doing so.
The book took about two months to complete and I was pretty pleased with the end result. I even managed to find a literary agent based in my home town of Bangor. Absent Victim was my best book. The scene was set...
... for rejection.
October 31, 2021
Blogday
This blog is one month old today and has already been read by something like three people.
Being an author isn't just about writing the books unfortunately. People don't buy books from .
'unknowns' and the only way to get around that is to become known. Easier said than done.
Once you become a fan of a writer of course, you keep buying their books. I have all of Spike Milligan's war memoirs, my Mum's Ed McBain collection, Alistair Maclean, Colin Bateman.
For me, I suppose the dream is that people will eagerly await the new 'David Roy' novel coming out. By 'people' I mean thousands of people. I want my books to be in demand and on the shelves of Waterstones and Barnes and Noble.
Being an author isn't just about writing the books unfortunately. People don't buy books from .
'unknowns' and the only way to get around that is to become known. Easier said than done.
Once you become a fan of a writer of course, you keep buying their books. I have all of Spike Milligan's war memoirs, my Mum's Ed McBain collection, Alistair Maclean, Colin Bateman.
For me, I suppose the dream is that people will eagerly await the new 'David Roy' novel coming out. By 'people' I mean thousands of people. I want my books to be in demand and on the shelves of Waterstones and Barnes and Noble.
