Always nice to get a review

It's (nearly) always nice to get a review, in my experience, so whilst I promise I won't do this every time The Petrified World and other tales gets a write-up, I am going to reproduce this one, the first review to appear on Amazon for the various-authors charity anthology I put together and edited. Here it is:

★★★★★
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of short stories. Whilst they loosely share a general theme of things unknown or unspoken there is great variety in the settings and approach, which really adds to the interest and had me looking forward to each new experience unfolding in the pages. Every one of the stories deals with something unsettling, something dark, with some rooted in contemporary reality, while others explore futuristic scenarios, many of them posing more questions than they deliver answers. All are thought-provoking for different reasons. A great book to pick up and put down at one's leisure – none of the stories are more than 12 pages long - and one which will have me looking out for more work by all the talented authors within it. Plus it’s for a good cause – and one which seems fitting to the book. Very happy to recommend this.

That's nice, isn't it?

You can read the review in situ here or, you know, just just buy the book straight off. What can I say, it's affordable, offers you eleven great short stories by new and emerging authors and benefits the Population Matters charity too - what's not to like?

Another review I'm quite proud of. Sorry.

Again, I crave your indulgence.

JC is a long-time and respected blogger, author of the excellent New Vinyl Villain blog, where he writes predominantly about music. There are few finer music blogs out there, in my view, so imagine my delight on discovering that, not only has he just read Drawn To The Deep End, he's reviewed it too; here's an extract:

Peter is a brilliantly drawn character, someone who will run the full gamut of your emotions and catch you off-guard every now and again; you will have empathy and sympathy one moment but it won’t be too long before you want to grab him by the throat and shout ‘what the fuck??’ into his face to get him to see sense. The book is also populated by a cast of wonderful co-stars, especially from the world of work where the sheer one-dimensional aspect of so many of them struck a chord, given my own experiences in different offices over the past 30+ years with colleagues who have displayed many of the traits on show across the 230-odd pages – I might even admit, with a sense of shame, of seeing something of my younger cocky and arrogant self in parts of the minor characters. It is a book that also contains some of the most moving passages anyone will ever read on just how difficult, draining, frustrating and ultimately heart-breaking it is to be responsible for a demented and elderly parent.

I'm a bit humbled by reviews like this, if truth be told.

You can read the full review on JC's always-excellent blog, right here. And, of course, Drawn To The Deep End is here. Cheers.

I won't do this every time, but...

...I just wanted to draw attention to a review that I'm particularly proud of. Indulge me, please.

Rol Hirst is a long-time and respected blogger, part-time writer, comic-book author and all-round good guy. He's just read and reviewed Drawn To The Deep End; here's an extract from his review:

Drawn To The Deep End is an intense character study of Peter, a man driven to the verge of depression by the death of his girlfriend, trying desperately to claw his way out, grasping at any straw (often straw women) that bends his way. It's a book that has a lot to say about being a lonely 30-something man in this day and age... and as someone who was just that ten or so years ago (and maybe only my age has changed, in some ways), I related to it very much. It's also very funny - shot through with dark observational humour that makes you wince and nod and wish you'd written it yourself. You may end up screaming at Peter. He does make some very unwise decisions. But you'll understand why, every step of the way. What is "happiness", anyway?

I'm quietly chuffed with that, especially the bit in bold.

You can read the full review on Rol's always-excellent blog, right here.

If you're interested in Rol's own novel (and you should be, it's terrific), you'll be wanting this link to I Wish, Wish, Wish You Were Dead, Dead, Dead. And, of course, Drawn To The Deep End is here.

This just in... first reviews!

Reviews (and, gratifyingly, lots of stars) are starting to appear on Amazon for Drawn To The Deep End - you can hover over each review quote in the image below for a bit more info, and click the quote to read the review in full.

Read Drawn To The Deep End? Care to leave a review?

On getting reviewed (or, the hard slog, the wait and the pay-off)

For the struggling independent like me, getting reviewed is hard. Yes, the Internet is awash with book review blogs, journals and websites but once you knock out those that don't accept self-published works and those that don't accept books with less than ten Amazon reviews, you've halved the list. Then take out all the ones that have currently closed their doors to new submissions, usually because they've been inundated, and the list shrinks further. And of course you only want to consider review channels that fit with the genre, theme and tone of your work.

Looking back through my e-mail sent items, seems I've sent out 30 review begs, jumping through whatever hoops are deemed necessary: the book must be a PDF; the book must not be a PDF; links to Amazon must be supplied; send no links or attachments; a recent photograph of the author is required; the author biog must contain inside leg measurement (only one of these was made up). It's been a giant faff, in short... but a faff that is starting to pay off. Take a look at my Media page - reviews for Dark Steps are starting to rack up, and I've just had emails promising me two more imminently. Good news. When it comes to promotion, it really is a case of "every little helps".

I'm starting to accumulate more customer reviews too - three on Amazon.co.uk, two on Amazon.com and, most satisfying of all, my first five-star review anywhere, on Lulu. Happy days.


First review on Lulu... and my first 5-star anywhere!



Dark Steps reviewed at Sabotage (or, 'on being reviewed')

My collection of short fiction, Dark Steps, has been reviewed by Ian Chung for Sabotage. Like all the best reviews, it isn't a breathless love song to the book, neither is it a hatchet job. Ian has written a balanced, fair review in which he, knowingly or otherwise, adheres to the 'feedback sandwich' approach of couching constructive criticism within praise.

Of course all such critiques are subjective. I don't necessarily agree with everything Ian says, but equally he does raise some interesting and valid points. And no, I'm not just talking about the discussion of things in the book that he likes.

Now being the author (and, for Dark Steps, editor, cover artist, agent, promoter, manager, chief cook and bottle-washer), I am naturally going to cherry-pick the best bits out of the review, and use them whenever and wherever I can. Things like:

When the techniques [narrator-reader gap and ending with a twist] succeed, the outcome is masterful.

And:

...the surprise reveal ... forces the reader to rethink the significance of everything that has just been read.

And I'm going to ignore some bits too. You can cherry-pick those for yourself.

All in all though, Ian's review makes for very interesting reading, and I am grateful to him and Sabotage for its publication. Have you read Dark Steps yet? How does the review equate to your impression of the book? I'd love to know. You can comment below or after the review itself, which you can find here.

Another nice review

One of the hardest things about getting publicity for a new book, especially if you are an undiscovered writer doing his own PR, is having your work reviewed. I mean properly reviewed too, where the reviewer actually takes the time to read the whole book and construct their own opinion about the contents, rather than just cobble together a 50-word summary based on the Amazon synopsis.

Imagine my delight, then, at having Dark Steps reviewed by well-read (in both senses of the phrase) blogger and professional word wrestler Rol Hirst at Sunset Over Slawit.

Not only was Rol very complimentary, he also offers interesting perspectives on some of the stories in Dark Steps that are perhaps different from those you'd get from me. And that's one of many beauties of story telling - each reader adds their own layer of meaning to those intended by the author.

Rol has also added the nuts and bolts of his review to Dark Steps on Amazon.co.uk and given it four stars - result!

Dark Steps gets its first review on Amazon

The great thing about buying and selling on Amazon is that people can, and do, leave reviews.

For someone who's published a book on Amazon, this could be a double-edged sword though. Okay, so nothing is going to appeal to everybody, but what if you get lots of negative reviews? Unhappy days...

Having said all that, I'm pleased to report that Dark Steps has got it's first review on Amazon (here) and it's a good one - four stars and lots of nice comments ("an excellent collection of short fiction", "didn't want to put it down", and so on). Happy days...

Unthology reviewed again - Waiting Room gets a mention

Unthology No.1 has been reviewed by Ian Chung at Sabotage Reviews. In a paragraph that begins "there are many other points at which Unthology 1 rises to a level that has earned my profound respect", my story, Waiting Room, gets a mention, as follows:

Martin Pond conjures up a near-futuristic world in which a boy is about to take a test, except no one will tell him what it is about, which has disastrous consequences for him.

Which is a neat summary without being explicit praise, but I take it to be an example of something that earned Ian's profound respect. Cheers Ian!

Read the full review at Sabotage, and see if you agree with my interpretation.

On the shelf... but in a good way

As you might know, Unthology No.1 launched a couple of weeks ago. The launch itself took place on the 2nd of December, in the upstairs function room of The York Tavern in Norwich. The original intention was to hold it at the excellent Norwich Arts Centre but they had double-booked themselves... a shame, I would like to have "played" such an established arts venue, but never mind, The York is a nice pub and besides, I used to live just around the corner from there, so it felt comfortable.

That's more than could be said for me, of course. Public speaking is not high on my list of favourite activities and before the event I was, in 1980s schoolboy parlance, bricking it. Pulling out was never an option though - after all, my name was on the poster (left)... even so, my nerves were not helped by the fact that the inclement weather (snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures, slippery roads and mirror-polished pavements) meant that, just minutes before the advertised start time there was no-one else there other than the organisers from Unthank Books and three of the other reading authors. So not only was I nervous in the extreme, I was also worried that the event would be a total flop.

As luck would have it, I needn't have worried. All of a sudden there was a sudden influx of people, all rosy-cheeked and swathed in coats hats, scarves and gloves. My personal mini-cheer-squad of friends and family arrived too and, whilst this was reassuring in some respects, they added the possibility that I could screw up royally in front of family and friends. Consider "it" comprehensively "bricked"...

I was third to read, after C.D. Rose and the wonderful Lora Stimson (more of whom later). The compere introduced me by saying that one of the objectives of the book was to give new writers a voice, and so it gave him great pleasure to welcome a previously unpublished author to the stage. The irrepressible paranoid spark at the back of my mind burned a little brighter at that - it felt a little like "ladies and gentlemen, please lower your expectations!" but that's just negative old me being me. It wasn't like that at all.

The first two readers gave little pre-ambles before their readings, so I decided to do the same. My anecdote, if that's not stretching things, concerned seeing Paul Torday give a reading a Latitude a couple of years ago, and specifically how he had looked petrified. I wondered why he had looked so nervous - after all, he is a very successful writer and must do this all the time, I thought. I gave the crowd now filling The York's function room what I hoped was a wry smile and delivered my "now I understand" punchline. This got a laugh, despite not being in the least funny. It was at that point I had the same Damascene revelation that Best Men must have been having for years as they begin their wedding reception speeches - at times like these, the audience wants you to do well. They want you to succeed. It's a nice feeling, and one that made the nerves subside... a bit...

I stood before the crowd, with only a microphone and speakers to hide behind, and read the first thousand words or so of my story. It's only a very short story, so that was about half of it, but if left the narrative at a nice mini-cliffhanger, and brought me in just on the "please only read for five minutes" deadline. Cue warm applause... and then, blessed relief, I was followed by the interval. A friend bought me a pint of bitter, and I could relax.

What happened next was the biggest and, in some ways, nicest, surprise of the night. People bought the book, and then asked me to sign it! I found myself saying things like "who should I make it out to?" and then realising that I had given no thought to what I would write should this eventuality occur. So it was that I found myself writing things like "To Anna, thanks for coming" and then scrawling half a signature. This didn't diminsh the weird and slightly heady thrill of signing books though - it's not something I had ever imagined would happen, so I enjoyed every second whilst it lasted.

After the interval, there were three more readings, from Deborah Arnander (who was lovely and, like me, very nervous), Melinda Moore and Ashley Stokes. And then the evening concluded with live music from Lora Stimson. Yes, the same Lora who'd read earlier! An accomplished writer and, it transpired, equally accomplished singer-songwriter. She played acoustic guitar and sang with the most amazing, soaring voice. It was a nice way to end the evening.... although there was just time to sign a couple more books before I left.

So all in all, it was a memorable occasion, if slightly surreal at times. It might never happen for me again (though there is talk of a London launch event, so you never know), so I'm pleased that I was able to enjoy it and, as you might have guessed, I'm happy to report that being asked to sign copies of your work is every bit as exciting as you might imagine. A couple of days later, the Eastern Daily Press (Britain's best-selling regional daily, no less) reviewed the Unthology; though it didn't give explicit mention to all the stories in the book (there are 17, after all), my little story, written in 24 hours just because I needed something, did get a mention. This is what it said:

...Waiting Room is an intriguing and mysterious Brave New World-type tale set in the near future which keeps the reader guessing right to the end...

Eastern Daily Press, 4th December 2010

That'll do for me.

Oh, and an epilogue for you: I went into Waterstone's last weekend, and there it was, Unthology No. 1, on their shelf. As I said before, this might never happen for me again... so I felt no embarrassment in taking a picture (right).