Category Archives: Publishing

General musings, Publishing, Site Maintenance, Stars Trilogy

Updating


I feel like I’m finally surfacing. The last year has been maddeningly frustrating due to moving continents, yet again, and the COVID restrictions, many of which seem farcical. given the current risk.

All of which has simply drained my energy and diverted attention from other projects, to the point where I am beginning to find just how out of the loop I have become. Apart from one clumsy attempt at literary blackmail, my works appear to have disappeared from public view. I prefer to think that this disappearance was down to my neglect rather than the efficacy of any would-be blackmailer.

Goodreads is completely out of date and needs revision, as does my listing on Author’s Den. Fortunately these things are now works in progress, along with “Darkness between the stars”, the third work in the Stars trilogy and my most recent addition to the fold “The Cat Tree and other stories“, the 2019 collection of my quirkier short stories containing;

  • The Cat Tree
  • Polish Ted
  • Moonlit Shadow
  • Just Another Day at the Office
  • Good Here Innit?
  • A Coelacanth in the Bathroom
  • The Hunting of the Squonk
  • Restoration
  • Honey Tells
  • Three Park Benches and a Bicycle Rack
  • Coffee House
  • Bats!

I will post some excerpts and notes on each once my Goodreads profile is sorted out and I can log back in.

Note; “Moonlit Shadow” my one and only Christmas themed short story, “Good here innit?” and “A Coelacanth in the Bathroom” were previously published in three of Legiron Books horror / supernatural anthologies.

Publishing

Progress


Have re-written “Oggie” and re-titled it as “Aug-E”. The beginning of the story has always worked well, but I was forever unhappy with the last version that can be found under the ‘Short Stories’ menu. So I chopped it in half and junked the Paul Calvin ambush story line, preferring to follow my stepdaughters comment about one of the characters, the transgender ‘Pete’. She told me she was disappointed with the original and told me I should have done more with ‘Pete’, so I switched story lines to make it more about the dynamic between the uber-male character Frank Yale and the less physical ‘Pete’.

At a shade under seven thousand words, it’s a much better read than the original and I liked the follow through from the gangland theme in the beginning. I know about gangs and how they work from my experiences in the late 70’s with some of the outlaw biker gangs in Birmingham, UK. Also, having worked with two pre-operative transgenders whilst in nursing college during the early 1980’s, I did some more research and threw in what I knew from personal experience. It seems to ring true. So I’m putting it into the ‘finished’ file.

The story emphasis in Aug-E is now more about transitions, both from the physical and psychological aspects. I’ve got an idea for some basic but interesting artwork and the ending is a lot better, but no spoilers at this point. It will form the key story from a collection of quirky science fiction short stories with the working title “Aug-E and clones”. I have the skeletons of another eleven tales that I shall be working on during January and February, hopefully with a total word count of fifty to sixty thousand words. White on black art for the cover and simple silhouette art for the inside of the hardback as before. It’s a lot simpler, far more striking, and fits in with Stobor Books general artistic ethos. Which it to keep things simple and striking.

Have finished the eBook text for the eBook version of “The Cat Tree and other stories” so should be getting an ISBN for that version in the next week of so, after which that will be released to follow up with the Hardback original which should be hitting Amazon any day now. Although if anyone wants a hard copy, I would prefer it if they bought it direct via this link. That way I get more of the royalties.

Distribution, Publishing

Released into the wild


Stobor books has now released my finalised Hardback edition of “The Cat Tree and other stories” for distribution. Currently only available from here for the modest sum of CAD$35.00, the hardback will be joined on Amazon and Barnes & Noble by an eBook edition in January 2020.

The rewrite of the Stars Trilogy grinds on, but in the times when I am not working at my day job, I will be putting out a collection of my short science fiction and fantasy stories, which I don’t have a working title for just yet. However, I do have around twelve four thousand word stories which should fit the bill nicely and provide some welcome diversion from all the doom and gloom in the news.

This means a lot of editing and re-writing over Christmas, but this will be my own antidote to terrible TV and far too much to eat and drink.

First on the list for revision is “Oggie”, originally written as a companion piece to the Paul Calvin themed stories. I’ve had what I think is a very entertaining idea, which means some major surgery, an amputation here, a few grafts there, but nothing that won’t make it a far better read.

Publishing

Stobor Books


Stobor books, my new boutique publishing web site, is now up and running. “The Cat Tree and other stories” is published and due for general release when the main proof copy arrives and approved for general distribution.

For anybody keen to purchase a hardback copy, I appreciate that there have been long intervals where it appears that nothing has been happening, but these are delays mostly occasioned by production faults, travel and a four week illness, also holding down a part time job which temporarily drifted into full time hours and of course waiting for Canada Post.

One of the things I will do over this Christmas, as part of my own learning curve is share my experiences of the publishing and distribution process on video, hopefully enlightening any would-be authors about the quirks of putting their own work out in the marketplace.

General musings, Publishing

Post published


Waiting game again. The second proof copy of “The Cat Tree and other stories” has been despatched and will reach me by the end of the month. This should finally mark the end of the writing and editing process so I can move forward into the distribution and marketing phases.

While the interminable wait goes on, I will fill the unforgiving minutes between then and now with a little motorcycle riding, before the weather really closes down in October. Did try yesterday, but when I passed the eighty kilometre marker, what had been merely a little moisture in the air turned into enough rain to make the roads damp, so, being a fair weather rider, I beat a hasty retreat down the Island Highway home to Victoria, moisture rapidly beading my visor and the front of the fairing, as you can see in the attached video. Apologies for the lack of sound, but it’s my first time using this particular camera and I’d managed to mute the microphone.

Now I’ve ridden in far worse, everything from snow, hail, torrential rain and cold that put a quarter inch breastplate of ice onto my leathers. Cold that bit through three layers of gloves within a mere twenty miles so that I had to warm my gloves on the cylinder head. The worst of those times was over thirty five years ago, but now that I am over sixty summers, my taste and tolerance for such saddle bound masochism is much diminished.

Today my wife has the car for a lunch date with friends. Looking out of my office window, I see we have sunshine, which after I finish work today at lunchtime I intend to take full advantage of.

Publishing

Proof of publishing


Had a word with the printers and they are sending me a new, hopefully no missing pages this time, proof copy of my book “The Cat Tree and other stories”. They were very good about it and will expedite matters to ensure the issue doesn’t happen again.

There will be just about enough time to do the final proof edit and approval before I head off to London in mid-October. Whilst I’m over in the UK, I’ll take a little time out and re-read the proof a few times before giving the green light for distribution in early November. Just in time to be out for distribution 1st December.

The book itself has four previously published stories nestled within it’s elegant hardback cover. One is a dark little tale of mix and match mythologies, the second a plain old fashioned ghost story. The third and fourth are both comic supernatural tales meant to act as an antidote to the seriousness of life. The story behind the five thousand word tale entitled “Three park benches and a bicycle rack” is a happy little anecdote where the title came before the story. As it sometimes does. Must start doing video’s of those. Just video commentaries about where some of my stranger ideas come from.

One of the comments I did get from the printers today was that the original MSS they received had no stray codes in it that could have accounted for the missing pages, so they were going to do a little due diligence on their own internal processes. Could have just been a one-off error, but I did submit a second, and triple checked MSS via their web portal to replace the first, which had two minor errors (One formatting, one factual) which escaped the proofing process. Spelling, apart from the dialogue, is OED standard. The typesetting is mostly in nice, easy to read Times New Roman 12point, with only the headings and title being larger. Overall it’s as nice a piece of work as I’ve seen, on or off a bookstores shelving.

This is one of the things no-one tells you about when it comes to publishing. First, that the manuscript has to be pretty damn good before anyone will even so much as glance at it, second, that you as the author have to do a hell of a lot more than just write. You have to give approval for designs, layout and any changes to the text. Procrastination may be the thief of time, but publishing is a whole different animal.

After your book is listed for distribution there’s the marketing. Which even big publishers tend to leave that to the author. I recall reading world famous Auto journalist and satirist P J O’Rourke’s account of sitting alone behind a pile of his own work in some remote midwestern US mall.

Which can midwife that nagging doubt in a writers soul. You wrote the book, of course it’s good. Isn’t it? So why haven’t you sold many? Why does no-one seem interested? Or why is it already in the ‘remaindered’ section of Barnes & Noble? There may be several reasons; not least of which is timing of the release. Any press releases you send out may end up spiked in favour of something much more newsworthy, or relegated to an obscure corner where few eyes ever stray. There are so many other possibilities they are hard to enumerate, let alone describe. It may well be simply that your work is in an unfashionable part of a genre. Your standard of writing may be on a par with the literary greats, your characters fully realised figures that jump straight off the page into a readers head, but if no-one is currently interested in the topic, this might well be a reason why it is not selling. Your initial premise might even have arisen from an idea that is too far ahead of it’s time. There is no one reason for a great idea not taking off.

Writing is a tough business, especially when the world fails to immediately share your good opinion of your work. Whenever rejection hits I find there is always a certain sensation of being more than a little crushed. The wounds of rejection re-open time and time again and during the upheavals of disturbed sleep the vampire of doubt bites, sucking creative blood from aching veins, draining the impetus, disconnecting the narrative drive. After a bad episode it’s often very hard to put fingers to keyboard.

Sometimes the only answer is to just keep your head down, try another genre and never, ever give up. Because even if you never sell much, at least it won’t be because you didn’t try.

Publishing

Looking good, but…


I received my proof copy of “The Cat Tree and other stories” on Thursday 12th September, so in my naivete I thought I’d do a mildly tongue in cheek ‘unboxing’ video. What the hell, everyone else does them.

Here’s what happened (Do not watch with the volume turned up too high)

Can you hear my teeth grinding from here?

Distribution, Publishing

The proof


Well that’s it for the most part. The heavy lifting is done and here’s the screenshot of the first proof copy which should reach me by mid-September for final proof and edit.

After many hours checking and re-checking I’m fairly happy with the content, but if asked to go through it one more time, I’m not sure that I could resist the temptation to tinker.

As advertised this small collection is like an old brides wedding dress list. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Although without the traditional sixpence in the shoe. I like it. And if asked would add that this is primarily fiction to my taste.

Once I have the actual copy in my hot little hands I’ll be busy for a week or so checking on the finished result before approving the design and outline of the hardback edition for distribution. Thence I may send a couple of copies as gifts to friends. The eBook will follow in December, all things being well.

General musings, Publishing

Last chance to see..


Well, me for a while. I’ve recorded a video reading for the story “Just another day at the office” from the forthcoming “The Cat Tree and other stories”. The recording is now live here on Bitchute. This will be the last video reading from this particular collection. Commentaries will be available on Subscribestar when my profile is ready.

Apologies in advance for all the fluffs and mispronunciations. I know I messed up ‘Dafydd’ several times, but every time I tried to say it I hardened the last two letters. Fortunately, no Welsh people were harmed in the creation of the story that I know of and the few instances of mild profanity are necessary for dramatic impact and tone of the narrative.

So if you don’t like mild swearing, don’t bloody watch. Okay? There is a PG 13+ warning on the title page.

Scheduled publication of the collection is for late November / early December 2019 when I return from London to approve the final design and editing.

Publishing

Finally…


At last I’ve managed to put together a video reading for ‘Blink!’ that I’m half way happy with. The short YouTube version of which can be seen below. Hope the multiple fluffs and tongue stumbles don’t prove too stressful for any viewers. Dailymotion and Vimeo will also be getting a copy.

The full 2500 word reading can be found here on Bitchute.

Note 1: In future, all YouTube / Vimeo / Dailymotion versions will only be partial readings. Full story readings will henceforth only be found on my Bitchute channel.

Note 2: The colourful tropical and Provencal shirts are going to become a feature of future readings as I have quite a nice selection. Doing straight readings, although not my greatest strength, are a lot less work than producing multiple simple artworks for a story like I did for ‘The Cat tree’. Such graphics also distract from actually writing, so I’m going to try and keep that side of things to a minimum.

Note 3: Work on the supernatural compilation ‘The Cat Tree and other stories’ continues and I hope to be proofing the first hardback version in September prior to visiting London in late October. Work on ‘Darkness between the Stars’, the third volume of the Stars trilogy should be close to story completion by Spring 2020, ready for what I’m starting to think of as ‘the great edit’.

Note 4: Have moved all my (admittedly minimal) social media activity over to Minds.com here and will be opening a Gab account in the next week or two. This may sound like opening the door to the Lions cage and strolling inside, but I’m game if they are.

Happy reading and viewing.

Update:

Looks like Vimeo and Dailymotion don’t want my content. Dailymotion want me to pay them to upload and Vimeo say I’ve gone past my monthly upload limit when I haven’t put anything on their platforms for months. This is why YouTube is the biggest player in the market.

General musings, Publishing

The stories so far


Regarding the short story collection ‘The Cat tree and other stories’. Hardback scheduled for October 2019 release. eBook scheduled for mid / late November / early December 2019. I’m taking a break in London UK from 2nd week October 2019 to 2nd week November, so will check the final edit and proof of the Hardback edition before then and the eBook version after I return home.

I will be taking two free copies of the hardback edition as gifts for friends who have expressed an interest.

The stories so far;
From ‘The Cat Tree’ series
The Cat Tree Completed. Supernatural
White Noise Transcribing from old paper MSS artwork in progress. Supernatural
The Unwelcoming Transcribing from old paper MSS artwork in progress. Supernatural
Josephine Transcribing from old paper MSS artwork in progress. Supernatural None of these will make the cut. Too much rewriting needed. Too many negative memories. Too personal.

From the 1990’s
Polish Ted Completed. Ghost story

Post 2004 tales
Moonlit Shadow Completed (Minor changes from Underdog anthology 7.) Horror
Just another day at the office Completed. Horror / Comedy
Good here, innit? Completed (Minor changes from copy submitted for Underdog anthology 9.) Horror / Comedy
A Coelacanth in the bathroom Completed (Minor edits from Underdog anthology 8.) Horror / Comedy
The hunting of the Squonk Work in progress 50%. Supernatural Horror
Restoration Completed. Ghost story
Honey tells Completed. General / Social commentary
Three park benches and a bicycle rack Completed. Horror / Comedy
Coffee House Completed. Supernatural
Bats! Completed. Horror / Comedy

I’ve a couple of older tales which need a lot of work, so they may not make the cut by the September 2019 deadline.

Current word count circa 37,000. On schedule for estimated completion word count 55,000-60,000 50,000. Total estimated length around 170 pages in current updated format.

Artwork is about 75% complete. Nothing fancy. All black and white in similar style to the cover at 300 DPi. I’ll triple check the proof copy before allowing distribution.

May collate a couple of sci-fi novellas with a few other sci-fi short stories for the New Year 2020. Work on ‘Darkness between the stars’ continues. Will re-issue heavily edited trilogy as three volumes when complete, day job permitting.

Note; this post is subject to periodic update.

Publishing

The stories so far


…for ‘The Cat Tree and other stories’ which is a collection of tales from the supernatural and comedic side of my back catalogue.

Here are the titles so far;
The Cat Tree……………….. The first of ‘The cat Tree’ series
White Noise………………… The second of ‘The cat Tree’ series
The unwelcoming…………….. The third of ‘The cat Tree’ series
Polish Ted…………………. A modern ghost story
Moonlit shadow……………… Is Santa who we think he is?
The Coat…………………… Can an item of apparel be possessed?
A Coelacanth in the bathroom…. A nasty shock on a wet English Monday
The Hunting of the Squonk……. A hunt for a legendary North American creature
Restoration………………… A ghost story
Honey Tells………………… Homeless woman haunts herself
Coffee House……………….. A meeting with a famous ghost
A barbecue of bats………….. You’ve got an infestation of what?

There are two others which might make the cut, but this looks like being a slim volume of around 120 pages. The above list is subject to change. I’m keeping the artwork simple. Mainly line drawings and silhouettes.

Publishing, Stars Trilogy

New project


As Xenophon said to Claudius; “Better out than in.”

With luck there will be a new project available in hardback and eBook format by the end of May. Should be on Barnes & Noble and Amazon by then. The working title being ‘The Cat tree and other stories’ Essentially it’s going to be a collection of my short fantasy and supernatural fiction, the raw text of some which can be found on the pages of this web site. What the hardback edition will have is artwork as illustrations to accompany the text. I’ll try and add some of these to the eBook if formats allow. Artwork for front cover will include this image.

All the twisted tales from my back catalogue, including several which have never seen the light of day, will be in this modest omnibus edition. This renewed focus is because paying work has slacked off considerably and Angie is going away with house guests for a couple of weeks, which means I can focus on getting the literary side of things done and out there, so there will be a video for the short version of ‘Blink’ while our house guests are elsewhere.

A full list of edited and improved stories will be available shortly, although I’m writing a couple of fantasy tales especially for this edition. Working titles are “The hunting of the Squonk” and “The coat”. I may also create a similar package for my back catalogue of short science fiction stories. That project will include novella versions of ‘Blink’ and ‘Oggie’ which are significantly longer (and better) than the originals. Better fleshed out characters and backstories, more savage twists.

Work proceeds very slowly on the third volume of the Stars series. So far I’ve carved off most of the fat, which leaves around 70,000 words to date but there are two main story threads which need tying off and completing from ‘Falling’. Also two spin off projects at around 30,000 words each and counting.

A word of advice for those looking at online payments processors; Don’t bother with Patreon. One very good reason being that they’re very limited. Payouts only go via PayPal (More fees) and one other online service. You can’t actually, as an individual, transfer funds directly from Patreon to your bank account like you can with Subscribestar. This is very limiting and another very good reason not to use Patreon. Payment speed is also snail-like. Up to ten working days for an online transfer between Patreon and Paypal? I have transferred thousands in under forty-eight hours from the UK to Canada using only my regular bank accounts and the worst that happened was an early morning phone call from UK bank security. By contrast my last royalty cheque from Leg-iron books cleared immediately after taking four days to arrive via airmail from Scotland. Draw your own conclusions. In crayon if you must, but draw them nonetheless.

Publishing, Site Maintenance

Changes


Having been contacted by another publisher via a third party for one of my quirkier brand of short story, I’m having to rethink my communications strategy. This means getting out of some aspects of social media entirely and getting new, paid, email services that have nothing to do with Silicon Valley.

Now I’ve had one of my novels disallowed by one Silicon Valley owned platform for being ‘against community guidelines’ whatever that means. To me a story is a story, and whatever happens from premise to conclusion is narrative-necessary. No-one asked me if I wanted to be part of any ‘community’, in which others set the rules to which I have no real say, apart clicking ‘accept’ to the constantly changing ‘terms of service’ one has to accept when using any given online platform. I’m not part of any ‘community’. I’m an individual who can stand on his own two feet.

So I’m starting a new non-google, non-silicon valley affiliated email provider account and shifting this site to a fully paid WordPress plan, which should give me more overall control and no adverts for anything else but my work. If conditions change, I may even forgo the assistance of their ‘Happiness Engineers’. There’s a satirical title for a story right there. Can you ‘Engineer’ happiness and what form do the perpetrators of that blessed state of mind intend it takes? I was wondering about what to submit to the editor of that horror eZine. Now I think I know. Something unexpectedly nightmarish for preference.

On the topic of publishing Transgenre Dreams, the latest from Leg Iron books containing my short story “A Coelacanth in the Bathroom” is now available via Amazon. It’s also available from Smashwords and Kindle A linked picture should shortly be available on the sidebar.

Here are some opening paragraphs from ‘Coelacanth’

Finding a four foot long fish occupying the bath was a bit of a surprise. Especially at six fifteen on a Monday morning and particularly before breakfast. “I know it’s an old bathtub.” Perry muttered to himself, blinking wearily at the large, strange looking fish peering dopily back at him through vaguely green tinted water. At this time of day his sleep fogged mind was still running far too slowly to register any shock. “But this is ridiculous.”

Maybe if he left the bathroom and came back it would maybe disappear. Maybe he was still dreaming. He pinched himself and blinked hard, twice. No. The fish with skin like Van Gogh’s starry night turned in the confined space of their claw footed cast iron antique with a sluggish sploshing and waved an amiable tail back at him.

Who had filled the bathtub anyway? Wouldn’t they have heard their flats notoriously eccentric pipework in the middle of the night? And greenish water? Their venerable plumbing occasionally dispensed liquid with a brown tinge, but never green. Perry sniffed. Was that the taint of old seaweed? Sea water? This far inland?