The Ghost and The Railway - The story behind the book

[A.C.]

THE GHOST AND THE RAILWAY
By A.C. Hutchinson

I began writing 'The Ghost and The Railway' in October 2013 and finished it about a year later. I spent the greater part of the following months trying to get it published, and I came closer than I ever imagined I would. The book-publishing industry is very competitive and the figures of success make depressing reading for aspiring authors. Firstly, you need a literary agent. An agent will receive approximately three hundred book submissions per month. From these submissions (it is normal to submit only the first three chapters of your book) an agent will invite perhaps two or three authors each month to submit their full manuscript for consideration. 'The Ghost and The Railway' caught the eye of one particular agent and thus I was one of those lucky few. Unfortunately, out of the twenty-odd full manuscripts an agent shows an interest in per year, in the end they will choose to represent only three or four of them, and my novel didn’t make the final cut. The struggle to become a successful author can be compared to a child's dream of becoming a Premier League footballer, as the chances of it happening are equally as slim. Even if you become a published author, only a small handful will make any money from it. And in turn, only a small percentage of those will actually make significant amounts of cash. So, you have to be in it for the love, and considering I have four children (two of which are under three years of age), a forty-hours-per-week job (plus ten hours of commuting a week) and a loving wife, the thing that drives me to tap at my keyboard each evening has to be love.

Please try a free sample of my book. It was written with love, but is guaranteed to chill your soul!

(99,000 words. £1.99/$2.99)

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0159B30EM

US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0159B30EM