Tomorrow is the fifth Friday of the month, which means all fourteen episodes of the Limited Capability ebooks for Kindle are free to download, from here...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sarah-Honeysett/e/B00CGNAZXQ/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
As the original 'Welfare Rights Lit' novel Severe Discomfort was published one year ago on Monday 3rd February, all this weekend and Monday, that's also free. Tell anyone who might be getting withdrawl symptoms with 'Benefits Street' not being on this coming week (winks ironically...).
Happy reading!
Thursday 30 January 2014
Tuesday 28 January 2014
A big 'Thank You!'
I haven't had scores of reviews for my books, but those I have received - largely on Amazon's website - have been very welcome.
So welcome that I would love to be able to post replies. Indeed I tried to respond to the first two I received for Severe Discomfort, but with no luck. I tried again when some of the Limited Capability episodes drew reviews. I've just tried to do so again today, to thank 'Sara' and 'Little Green Dragon' for their glowing praise and to tell them that, as long as Mr Duncan Smith's Universal Credit computer stays kaput, there is a fighting chance of more adventures for their favourite characters a little later this year.
But still no luck. Amazon won't let me! It seems I can't post in Amazon discussions because I haven't actually bought anything from them. Ever. Something of an 'I've never seen Star Wars' type confession, I know (except I have seen Star Wars, so many times I almost know the dialogue well enough to do a one-woman show of it, and I love it), but there's never been anything I've wanted that I wouldn't just as happily buy somewhere else.
Now I know one shouldn't bite the hand that feeds and all that, but the last time I checked, every time someone bought an ebook of one of my stories, Amazon got 65% of the sale price, and I (or to be precise, the 'Beverage Fund') got 35%. The split of profits on paperbacks is no better.
In short, publishing through Amazon is strikingly similar to being on Housing Benefit or Universal Credit, only without the disregards! Hence my willingness to give stuff away, though grateful thanks to anyone who has bought an episode or two because...
Bad news for anyone at the Bureau working on that New Year weight-loss plan!
So here's hoping that the people I would like to thank will get the chance to read this blog and know that I appreciate their thoughtful reviews very much and feel humbled by their words. I don't want to rush to print (or whatever the virtual equivalent might be) with something that's not up to scratch, and I do want to try out a different style of narrative and some different characters in another project, but I'm setting up a 'snippets and spoilers' page on this blog to share a few previews of work in progress, and perhaps the odd episode from the earlier books that ended up on the 'cutting room floor'.
Watch this space!
So welcome that I would love to be able to post replies. Indeed I tried to respond to the first two I received for Severe Discomfort, but with no luck. I tried again when some of the Limited Capability episodes drew reviews. I've just tried to do so again today, to thank 'Sara' and 'Little Green Dragon' for their glowing praise and to tell them that, as long as Mr Duncan Smith's Universal Credit computer stays kaput, there is a fighting chance of more adventures for their favourite characters a little later this year.
But still no luck. Amazon won't let me! It seems I can't post in Amazon discussions because I haven't actually bought anything from them. Ever. Something of an 'I've never seen Star Wars' type confession, I know (except I have seen Star Wars, so many times I almost know the dialogue well enough to do a one-woman show of it, and I love it), but there's never been anything I've wanted that I wouldn't just as happily buy somewhere else.
Now I know one shouldn't bite the hand that feeds and all that, but the last time I checked, every time someone bought an ebook of one of my stories, Amazon got 65% of the sale price, and I (or to be precise, the 'Beverage Fund') got 35%. The split of profits on paperbacks is no better.
In short, publishing through Amazon is strikingly similar to being on Housing Benefit or Universal Credit, only without the disregards! Hence my willingness to give stuff away, though grateful thanks to anyone who has bought an episode or two because...
So here's hoping that the people I would like to thank will get the chance to read this blog and know that I appreciate their thoughtful reviews very much and feel humbled by their words. I don't want to rush to print (or whatever the virtual equivalent might be) with something that's not up to scratch, and I do want to try out a different style of narrative and some different characters in another project, but I'm setting up a 'snippets and spoilers' page on this blog to share a few previews of work in progress, and perhaps the odd episode from the earlier books that ended up on the 'cutting room floor'.
Watch this space!
Monday 27 January 2014
Prototype
A new post looking at the origins of 'Severe Discomfort' - spoiler-free if you haven't read the book yet.
A year ago, I was in the final stages of self-publishing my first novel, Severe Discomfort.
I'd started the first draft about a year before - while suffering benefits advice withdrawal symptoms after taking voluntary redundancy from the CAB - but the idea of writing a story about the reality of life 'on benefits' had been kicking about in my head for some time. There were two main reasons. Firstly, while there had been endless variations on the police procedural drama and a plethora of films and novels with lawyers as the central characters, I could think of no book, play or film with a benefits appeal at the core of the story.
The second reason followed from the first - because benefits appeals never found there way into popular culture, most people were blissfully unaware of what could be involved. In fact all they were ever exposed to concerning Social Security law were 'benefit cheat' stories in the local and national press and TV programmes like Saints and Scroungers. In these, there was never any hint that the 'cheat' might have made a genuine mistake, or learned to tolerate a level of pain when walking that previously kept them off their feet. I'd seen people prosecuted in just those circumstances.
The concept was to write a radio play with a characters similar to the book, but with some key differences. Here's the original cast
The Walker Family
Poor 'Charity' had to go - she was born out of a wish to make 'Jack' (who was older and more bitter than Terry) confront his prejudices, but soon she was carrying too much political baggage to have any personality and the intended shy romance between her and 'Dan Harris' felt doomed. The points about prejudice could be better addressed through inventing Lorraine Arthur and, for a different perspective, Parveen Kalia, hopefully without doing so heavy-handedly in either case.
The principal romantic subplot that made it into the novels owes its existence to a real couple glimpsed holding hands across a cream tea and sharing significant smiles in the restaurant of a National Trust property a long way from any of the castles on the south coast. They may not have been up to anything particularly racy in the shrubbery, but I could suddenly think of a couple of characters who might have been!
I'm genuinely happy with the final version - tempting though it is to do a 'directors cut' with a few scenes cut for length and pace slipped back in - but it's funny to think that somewhere in a parallel universe, 'Severe Discomfort 1.0' could be this afternoon's Radio 4 drama presentation.!
A year ago, I was in the final stages of self-publishing my first novel, Severe Discomfort.
I'd started the first draft about a year before - while suffering benefits advice withdrawal symptoms after taking voluntary redundancy from the CAB - but the idea of writing a story about the reality of life 'on benefits' had been kicking about in my head for some time. There were two main reasons. Firstly, while there had been endless variations on the police procedural drama and a plethora of films and novels with lawyers as the central characters, I could think of no book, play or film with a benefits appeal at the core of the story.
The second reason followed from the first - because benefits appeals never found there way into popular culture, most people were blissfully unaware of what could be involved. In fact all they were ever exposed to concerning Social Security law were 'benefit cheat' stories in the local and national press and TV programmes like Saints and Scroungers. In these, there was never any hint that the 'cheat' might have made a genuine mistake, or learned to tolerate a level of pain when walking that previously kept them off their feet. I'd seen people prosecuted in just those circumstances.
The concept was to write a radio play with a characters similar to the book, but with some key differences. Here's the original cast
- Jack – early-retired former mechanic, aged 58, disabled by industrial accident. Missing some fingers from his left hand and with restricted mobility from a spinal injury
- Lynn – Jack’s wife, age 54; has rheumatoid arthritis. She also has limited walking ability and can be confined to bed for days at a time, though her condition has been better controlled recently
- Diane – Jack and Lynn’s daughter – works as a teaching assistant
- Dave – Jack and Lynn’s son. Works as a train driver
- Lorraine – Dave’s wife; age about 30. Not currently in work as struggling to cope after the death of their daughter Lucy.
- Katie – Dave and Lorraine’s daughter, aged 8
- Ryan – Dave and Lorraine’s son, aged 6.
- Charity Okube – volunteer adviser/asylum seeker, aged 30
- Dan Harris – benefits adviser, aged about 27
- Hilary O’Casey – benefits team manger; aged 64
- Mike Cooper – benefits adviser, age about 50
- Laura Morrison – solicitor
- Luke Schofield – barrister
Poor 'Charity' had to go - she was born out of a wish to make 'Jack' (who was older and more bitter than Terry) confront his prejudices, but soon she was carrying too much political baggage to have any personality and the intended shy romance between her and 'Dan Harris' felt doomed. The points about prejudice could be better addressed through inventing Lorraine Arthur and, for a different perspective, Parveen Kalia, hopefully without doing so heavy-handedly in either case.
The principal romantic subplot that made it into the novels owes its existence to a real couple glimpsed holding hands across a cream tea and sharing significant smiles in the restaurant of a National Trust property a long way from any of the castles on the south coast. They may not have been up to anything particularly racy in the shrubbery, but I could suddenly think of a couple of characters who might have been!
I'm genuinely happy with the final version - tempting though it is to do a 'directors cut' with a few scenes cut for length and pace slipped back in - but it's funny to think that somewhere in a parallel universe, 'Severe Discomfort 1.0' could be this afternoon's Radio 4 drama presentation.!
Whatever next?
An extract from a pre-Christmas 2013 musing on the year that was, included for the observations on how the reality of promoting a self-published book diverges from the ideal!
I've been putting together this year's Christmas letter today. I know some people - notably 'Guardian' columnist Simon Hoggart - are disdainful of 'round robins', but I generally enjoy those we receive from our friends, which are generally witty and not at all smug. I would much rather receive a printed newsletter than no news at all, and have binned out of hand a card which contains only a sticky label to say who it's from and arrived in a sticky-labelled envelope for the second year running!
It is odd looking back on this year's achievements, especially finishing the RHS course without any plans to sign up for another. I would love to tackle the Level 3 theory course, and the practical too for that matter, but my CAB job really needs me to be quite flexible about the days I can work and the capacity to do some evenings, and while I could do the theory as an evening course, I don't think I would have the concentration for it after a busy day training or talking. And I still have a handful of loyal customers who need their plots tended, before I think of taking on another patch at Reaseheath. But it felt strange not starting back in September.
The other recent achievement was completing the task I set myself of polishing the second draft of 'Limited Capability', sequel Social Security saga to the earlier books, into a finished text and publishing it as a serial with an episode (roughly two chapters) available for free download by Friday every week - for fourteen consecutive weeks. Only one - appropriately, episode 13 - was one day late: the rest came out on time, though a re-read has shown up some proof-reading errors which I can quietly correct, and a calculation error which I have uncharitably blamed on the character in the story responsible for the sum, rather than his careless author. The next stage is to re-divide back into chapters and typeset for publication as a paperback, and then see if I can manage something slightly more akin to a proper 'launch' for the book than my previous efforts received.
I have read a couple of 'how to...' articles on book launches which seem to involve i) being in London, ii) inviting large numbers of influential people and iii) plying critics and journalists with generous quantities of free food and champagne. There seems to be no model based on being in Stoke-on-Trent, inviting a modest number of friends and work-mates and plying them with tea and oatcakes, which is about as far as my budget stretches! Having said that, one generous colleague has splashed a recommendation for the whole series all over the front page of a CAB internal online magazine complete with the warning 'contains some kissing!' - doubtless the reason for a small spike in 'Severe Discomfort' sales at the end of last week - and while the ambition of shifting enough books to keep us all in tea and coffee at Stoke CAB has yet to be realised, there is now a respectable little fund which will provide the gang with a few Christmas treats and some goodies afterwards for those stressful months as we approach the end of the financial year, and the end of some financial support...
It will be a good time to take a break and take stock, and I certainly plan to do some gardening over Christmas - in fact I have promised a serious pruning session to one of our prospective hosts during the Festive Season - and with a clear week after Christmas before I'm back to work I ought to be able to catch up on some clients' work too, but I'll make sure I have my notebook to hand as I already have some notes for a new story taking one existing character and several new ones in a subtly different and quirky direction, before hopefully returning to the Solent Welfare Rights Project at some point in the not too distant future. There will be politics, humour and suspense.
And yes, there will probably be 'kissing' too...
I've been putting together this year's Christmas letter today. I know some people - notably 'Guardian' columnist Simon Hoggart - are disdainful of 'round robins', but I generally enjoy those we receive from our friends, which are generally witty and not at all smug. I would much rather receive a printed newsletter than no news at all, and have binned out of hand a card which contains only a sticky label to say who it's from and arrived in a sticky-labelled envelope for the second year running!
It is odd looking back on this year's achievements, especially finishing the RHS course without any plans to sign up for another. I would love to tackle the Level 3 theory course, and the practical too for that matter, but my CAB job really needs me to be quite flexible about the days I can work and the capacity to do some evenings, and while I could do the theory as an evening course, I don't think I would have the concentration for it after a busy day training or talking. And I still have a handful of loyal customers who need their plots tended, before I think of taking on another patch at Reaseheath. But it felt strange not starting back in September.
The other recent achievement was completing the task I set myself of polishing the second draft of 'Limited Capability', sequel Social Security saga to the earlier books, into a finished text and publishing it as a serial with an episode (roughly two chapters) available for free download by Friday every week - for fourteen consecutive weeks. Only one - appropriately, episode 13 - was one day late: the rest came out on time, though a re-read has shown up some proof-reading errors which I can quietly correct, and a calculation error which I have uncharitably blamed on the character in the story responsible for the sum, rather than his careless author. The next stage is to re-divide back into chapters and typeset for publication as a paperback, and then see if I can manage something slightly more akin to a proper 'launch' for the book than my previous efforts received.
I have read a couple of 'how to...' articles on book launches which seem to involve i) being in London, ii) inviting large numbers of influential people and iii) plying critics and journalists with generous quantities of free food and champagne. There seems to be no model based on being in Stoke-on-Trent, inviting a modest number of friends and work-mates and plying them with tea and oatcakes, which is about as far as my budget stretches! Having said that, one generous colleague has splashed a recommendation for the whole series all over the front page of a CAB internal online magazine complete with the warning 'contains some kissing!' - doubtless the reason for a small spike in 'Severe Discomfort' sales at the end of last week - and while the ambition of shifting enough books to keep us all in tea and coffee at Stoke CAB has yet to be realised, there is now a respectable little fund which will provide the gang with a few Christmas treats and some goodies afterwards for those stressful months as we approach the end of the financial year, and the end of some financial support...
And yes, there will probably be 'kissing' too...
Thursday 23 January 2014
All you need is love?
Another blast from the past blog.
It's the end of October 2013...
'Severe Discomfort' and 'Continual Supervision' are still largely undiscovered by the reading public, but undaunted by apparent failure I've started publishing the further adventures of the same characters - in a story with the working title 'Limited Capability' - as a serial.
With a new episode out every week it was a quite a challenge to stick to the schedule. Although the full story had been written as a first draft, edited down and partially re-written, each episode still required at least final tweaks to the narrative and dialogue, continuity checks and DIY proof reading, while some needed extra or replacement scenes. There were little profiles of some of the characters too, for the benefit of readers who hadn't read the earlier books.
Episode one is here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Limited-Capability-Episode-Social-Insecurity-ebook/dp/B00EZWT4VA/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1390516631&sr=1-2&keywords=sarah+honeysett
There are free episodes available every Friday - four, eight and twelve tomorrow, and all episodes free on every fifth Friday - but some people seem to be hooked enough on the story to buy the parts they don't want to wait for!
But as the download data began to filter through, an unexpected pattern began to emerge...
'Sex sells', they say. Well, it seems that whoever figured that out was definitely on to something...
As regular readers will know, in between the odd gardening project and my 'proper' job back at the CAB, I write fiction. If you haven't already read 'Severe Discomfort' and its sequel, 'Continual Supervision', and haven't met the Walker family and the Solent Welfare Rights Project advisers who help them cope with a nightmare Social Security appeal, I hope you will; both are available as real paperbacks from real bookshops as well as virtual ones with any profits from sales earmarked for the Stoke-on-Trent Citizens Advice Bureau.
Kindle owners can pick up both as ebooks on Amazon, along with weekly instalments of 'Limited Capability', a new story concerning the same characters, with at least a couple of episodes free to download every Friday. It's the download stats for these that prove the old marketing maxim correct.
Logically, if you start a story at Episode One, state clearly in the blurb when it can be downloaded free, publish Episode Two the following week with similar guidance and so on, you might expect similar numbers to be downloaded week by week, unless you do a major marketing blitz to disrupt the pattern. I don't have the resources for a major marketing blitz, but have popped the odd link on Facebook sites sympathetic to the cause of Social Security claimants around the first Friday of the month, when Episode One is always free.
On that basis, you might expect the highest sales for the first instalment, with fewer for no.2 as the story won't appeal to all, a few less for no 3 (especially if folk enjoying the story haven't finished the previous episode yet, but know they can come back for a freebie in a month's time or spend 77p for it when they want it) and so on. But this is not the pattern.
While Episode One has reasonably good 'sales' (including freebies), it is currently being outpaced by Episodes Four, Six and Eight which, I'm sure you'll agree, is illogical. Or it would be, if all the instalments were classified in the same way, but because there is no genre 'Social Security Benefit themed, left-leaning chick lit' to select from Amazon's menu (an unforgivable oversight, I'm sure you'll agree), I've varied the two options for genre available per episode. No 1 therefore went out as 'Legal' and 'Family Saga' which is probably the closest match for the story as a whole. Depending on the primary themes in each of them, other episodes have also been tagged as 'Contemporary Women', 'Political' and 'Romance'.
It's no coincidence that Episodes Four, Six and Eight have the 'Romance' tag!
But now I have a dilemma. I want my story to be read. I want people who wouldn't otherwise think sympathetically about benefit claimants to meet the Walkers and get to like them, and to empathise with their troubles. I want them to share the frustrations of the advice workers battling with funding cuts and legal challenges. I want them to stop believing the 'Daily Mail' and see Iain Duncan Smith for the vile little turd that he unquestionably is.
And I now know that the best way to get readers is to classify my stories as 'romance'. There is clearly a large audience for romantic fiction looking for a free read - I'm sure it's the mildly racy scene available early on in the preview pages of 'Continual Supervision' that keeps it outpacing its prequel when they're both on a free promotion! I have a sneaking suspicion that classifying an episode or two as 'erotica' would be even more effective in drumming up downloads, but even the naughtiest of the 'naughty bits' aren't really naughty enough to get away with that without risking disappointment to frustrated readers, and we don't want bad reviews!
At which point, may I make a gentle plea for kind but honest reviews on the 'Amazon' site if you've read either of the original books or any of the new serial so far.
So I suppose I had better not cheat and stick the 'romance' label where it doesn't belong. On the other hand, if 'sex sells' perhaps the trick is actually to write a few extra 'naughty bits'?
Actually, my conscience prevailed and I didn't do either - there was no deliberate misclassification and no gratuitous bonking either!
Another blast from the past blog.
It's the end of October 2013...
'Severe Discomfort' and 'Continual Supervision' are still largely undiscovered by the reading public, but undaunted by apparent failure I've started publishing the further adventures of the same characters - in a story with the working title 'Limited Capability' - as a serial.
With a new episode out every week it was a quite a challenge to stick to the schedule. Although the full story had been written as a first draft, edited down and partially re-written, each episode still required at least final tweaks to the narrative and dialogue, continuity checks and DIY proof reading, while some needed extra or replacement scenes. There were little profiles of some of the characters too, for the benefit of readers who hadn't read the earlier books.
Episode one is here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Limited-Capability-Episode-Social-Insecurity-ebook/dp/B00EZWT4VA/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1390516631&sr=1-2&keywords=sarah+honeysett
There are free episodes available every Friday - four, eight and twelve tomorrow, and all episodes free on every fifth Friday - but some people seem to be hooked enough on the story to buy the parts they don't want to wait for!
But as the download data began to filter through, an unexpected pattern began to emerge...
 |
| The romantic scent of Philadelphus plays a part in helping two characters find love in Severe Discomfort |
'Sex sells', they say. Well, it seems that whoever figured that out was definitely on to something...
As regular readers will know, in between the odd gardening project and my 'proper' job back at the CAB, I write fiction. If you haven't already read 'Severe Discomfort' and its sequel, 'Continual Supervision', and haven't met the Walker family and the Solent Welfare Rights Project advisers who help them cope with a nightmare Social Security appeal, I hope you will; both are available as real paperbacks from real bookshops as well as virtual ones with any profits from sales earmarked for the Stoke-on-Trent Citizens Advice Bureau.
Kindle owners can pick up both as ebooks on Amazon, along with weekly instalments of 'Limited Capability', a new story concerning the same characters, with at least a couple of episodes free to download every Friday. It's the download stats for these that prove the old marketing maxim correct.
Logically, if you start a story at Episode One, state clearly in the blurb when it can be downloaded free, publish Episode Two the following week with similar guidance and so on, you might expect similar numbers to be downloaded week by week, unless you do a major marketing blitz to disrupt the pattern. I don't have the resources for a major marketing blitz, but have popped the odd link on Facebook sites sympathetic to the cause of Social Security claimants around the first Friday of the month, when Episode One is always free.
On that basis, you might expect the highest sales for the first instalment, with fewer for no.2 as the story won't appeal to all, a few less for no 3 (especially if folk enjoying the story haven't finished the previous episode yet, but know they can come back for a freebie in a month's time or spend 77p for it when they want it) and so on. But this is not the pattern.
While Episode One has reasonably good 'sales' (including freebies), it is currently being outpaced by Episodes Four, Six and Eight which, I'm sure you'll agree, is illogical. Or it would be, if all the instalments were classified in the same way, but because there is no genre 'Social Security Benefit themed, left-leaning chick lit' to select from Amazon's menu (an unforgivable oversight, I'm sure you'll agree), I've varied the two options for genre available per episode. No 1 therefore went out as 'Legal' and 'Family Saga' which is probably the closest match for the story as a whole. Depending on the primary themes in each of them, other episodes have also been tagged as 'Contemporary Women', 'Political' and 'Romance'.
It's no coincidence that Episodes Four, Six and Eight have the 'Romance' tag!
But now I have a dilemma. I want my story to be read. I want people who wouldn't otherwise think sympathetically about benefit claimants to meet the Walkers and get to like them, and to empathise with their troubles. I want them to share the frustrations of the advice workers battling with funding cuts and legal challenges. I want them to stop believing the 'Daily Mail' and see Iain Duncan Smith for the vile little turd that he unquestionably is.
And I now know that the best way to get readers is to classify my stories as 'romance'. There is clearly a large audience for romantic fiction looking for a free read - I'm sure it's the mildly racy scene available early on in the preview pages of 'Continual Supervision' that keeps it outpacing its prequel when they're both on a free promotion! I have a sneaking suspicion that classifying an episode or two as 'erotica' would be even more effective in drumming up downloads, but even the naughtiest of the 'naughty bits' aren't really naughty enough to get away with that without risking disappointment to frustrated readers, and we don't want bad reviews!
At which point, may I make a gentle plea for kind but honest reviews on the 'Amazon' site if you've read either of the original books or any of the new serial so far.
So I suppose I had better not cheat and stick the 'romance' label where it doesn't belong. On the other hand, if 'sex sells' perhaps the trick is actually to write a few extra 'naughty bits'?
Actually, my conscience prevailed and I didn't do either - there was no deliberate misclassification and no gratuitous bonking either!
Tuesday 21 January 2014
Are you 'Hilary'?
Another recycled blog. It's the end of August 2013, I'm back at the CAB and 'Severe Discomfort' is still stubbornly avoiding commercial success. But those of my colleagues who've read it have a few questions... (Contains no significant 'spoilers')
Apologies to the spud geeks who were expecting a post on the subject of this year's especially colourful new additions to the tater plot, but another 'plot' entirely has stolen their thunder, as I've unexpectedly won a useful little bit of publicity for my books, with an impending article on the 'Big Book, Little Book' review site, as this link will show...
http://www.completelynovel.com/articles/selfpubsunday-promotion
A big 'thank you' to the Completelynovel team for giving me this chance!
I say 'unexpectedly' advisedly, as I'm actually pretty hopeless at conventional self-promotion. Okay, so I'm on Facebook and Linkedin, and I write a blog or two, but what 'image' do I present? On here (http://sarahhoneysettsgarden.blogspot.co.uk/), I celebrate my failures as much as my successes - crap carrots, saucy-shaped rather than prizewinning potatoes, crops ravaged by caterpillars and slugs, while my most read post isn't about anything I've grown at all, but the accidental narcotics that sprouted up in a friend's garden. While other people select professional smart-suited head and shoulders shots for their Linkedin pic, I've been using the one above of me in tatty overalls scraping peeling paint and rust off of the roof of a narrowboat. It's a nice photo of me, with a bright, cheery smile, but when it comes to promoting that professional image, I'm wondering if it's ideal for someone not specifically seeking work renovating canal boats!
And I'd be surprised if it works that well as the public image of an author, which is a shame as it's the one I've been using for CompletelyNovel and Amazon. To be fair, I do have the outline of a narrowboat-based drama sketched out (with my Stoke-based Geordie feminist Daphne Randall taking the helm), but until that's more than the scrawly contents of a notebook, the current 'image' is an epic fail, and that day is some way off as I haven't finished with the Solent Welfare Rights Project gang just yet (though I do have a 'cunning plan' for releasing their next adventures sooner rather than later).
The original stories are picking up a small but select fanbase at work, which is both encouraging and occasionally disconcerting. A couple of days ago a colleague asked me quietly, "Are you Hilary?". I didn't know whether to be flattered - as Hilary is intelligent, assertive and 'really rather' glamorous - or to 'Plead the Fifth' as they say in the USA, on account of her (ahem!) inappropriate use of National Trust membership! In fact, I've had a quite a few raised eyebrows on account of the 'naughty bits' in the second book, which isn't what anyone expects from me - but isn't not judging people by appearances a key theme of the books?
But no, I'm not Hilary, though as we're both 'ladies of a certain age' who've worked in benefits advice for the same amount of time and were students in coalfield cities during the Miners' Strike, we do share a few opinions and a little bit of history, though I share a lot more studied 'history' with fellow medievalist Tom Appleby. There's common ground between me and some of my other characters too: when I stood on the Milton Road End terraces at the old Dell cheering on the Saints, a young Toby Novak could easily have been at my side, while the way Vaughan James' garden quietly invades his kitchen is something we share.
The closest match, and the one I own up to in the preface, is Sally Archer, who has a great deal in common with my younger self, including spectacular clumsiness, an interest in everything and a knack for passing exams, awkwardness about her height, a truly dreadful singing voice and a carbon footprint significantly smaller than her actual footprint - I do indeed possess a pair of size 10 safety boots! But my Dad was a train driver not a builder, and has great financial sense too.
 |
| Would you buy a used book from this woman? |
http://www.completelynovel.com/articles/selfpubsunday-promotion
A big 'thank you' to the Completelynovel team for giving me this chance!
I say 'unexpectedly' advisedly, as I'm actually pretty hopeless at conventional self-promotion. Okay, so I'm on Facebook and Linkedin, and I write a blog or two, but what 'image' do I present? On here (http://sarahhoneysettsgarden.blogspot.co.uk/), I celebrate my failures as much as my successes - crap carrots, saucy-shaped rather than prizewinning potatoes, crops ravaged by caterpillars and slugs, while my most read post isn't about anything I've grown at all, but the accidental narcotics that sprouted up in a friend's garden. While other people select professional smart-suited head and shoulders shots for their Linkedin pic, I've been using the one above of me in tatty overalls scraping peeling paint and rust off of the roof of a narrowboat. It's a nice photo of me, with a bright, cheery smile, but when it comes to promoting that professional image, I'm wondering if it's ideal for someone not specifically seeking work renovating canal boats!
And I'd be surprised if it works that well as the public image of an author, which is a shame as it's the one I've been using for CompletelyNovel and Amazon. To be fair, I do have the outline of a narrowboat-based drama sketched out (with my Stoke-based Geordie feminist Daphne Randall taking the helm), but until that's more than the scrawly contents of a notebook, the current 'image' is an epic fail, and that day is some way off as I haven't finished with the Solent Welfare Rights Project gang just yet (though I do have a 'cunning plan' for releasing their next adventures sooner rather than later).
The original stories are picking up a small but select fanbase at work, which is both encouraging and occasionally disconcerting. A couple of days ago a colleague asked me quietly, "Are you Hilary?". I didn't know whether to be flattered - as Hilary is intelligent, assertive and 'really rather' glamorous - or to 'Plead the Fifth' as they say in the USA, on account of her (ahem!) inappropriate use of National Trust membership! In fact, I've had a quite a few raised eyebrows on account of the 'naughty bits' in the second book, which isn't what anyone expects from me - but isn't not judging people by appearances a key theme of the books?
But no, I'm not Hilary, though as we're both 'ladies of a certain age' who've worked in benefits advice for the same amount of time and were students in coalfield cities during the Miners' Strike, we do share a few opinions and a little bit of history, though I share a lot more studied 'history' with fellow medievalist Tom Appleby. There's common ground between me and some of my other characters too: when I stood on the Milton Road End terraces at the old Dell cheering on the Saints, a young Toby Novak could easily have been at my side, while the way Vaughan James' garden quietly invades his kitchen is something we share.
 |
| A little more literary. Sarah at Tate Modern (with tea, and Jon's hat) |
There are times when the truth is stranger than fiction, though. A west country newspaper recently told of a man wrongly taken to court by the DWP for benefit fraud when a medical report showed his right leg had recovered from an injury, and they took this as evidence he had lied about his mobility difficulties - completely overlooking the fact that his left leg had been amputated!
Meanwhile, in a real advice centre somewhere in North Staffordshire, I wandered into one of the staff loos yesterday and found the previous occupant had left a book called 'Quiet Enjoyment' sitting by the pan! It's a housing law book, in case you didn't guess, though if anyone is after a title for a book set in a Housing Advice Centre...?
Still, better 'Quiet Enjoyment' in the WC than 'Severe Discomfort'!
Monday 20 January 2014
The Beverage Report
First Published in Sarah's Gardening Blog August 2013, on the welcome news that Stoke-on-Trent CAB had a new mission for me...
In a few days time, I'll be back to work at Stoke-on-Trent CAB (actually, it's now Staffordshire North and Stoke CAB) as a part-time Training and Network Development Officer, rather than trying to make a living with fork, spade, paintbrush or pen/PC.
Not that I will be quitting horticulture completely; I have several clients whose gardens I would be sorry not to return to, and they seem keen to keep me on the case. 'Uplander Designs' will also continue, as I've got things to paint for Christmas craft fairs, but apart from having to keep doing self-assessment forms and pay Class 2 NI, those enterprises will almost be back to being hobbies. My new 'part-time' job is going to be very much to the fore.
There are also some ESA-themed adventures for my 'imaginary friends' at the fictional Solent Welfare Rights Project, now on a second edit and DIY proof-read, but before these hit the printed page even in prototype, I'd like to get the original tales out to a wider audience.
Their purpose was always education - 'counter-propaganda' - rather than profit, but now I have an income lined up for the winter, it occurs to me that rather than contributing small change to my finances during the horticultural closed season, the fictional advisers could do something to help their real life counterparts.
If you've read the books, you might have noticed a key theme running through them. No, not the 'Atticus Finch principle' of not judging someone until you've stood in their shoes and walked about in them, or by appearances. That's too obvious. I mean the part that hot beverages play in the plot. The kettle is rarely silent, either at the Walkers' house or within the Project's tatty kitchen. Cups of tea and coffee play key supporting roles as characters take their first faltering steps along the road to romance, struggle to balance their shrinking budgets, or even as they consider whether life remains worth living.
The fictional advisers find solace after fraught interviews with a reviving cuppa, unwind after tough tribunals with a refreshing brew, dream their dreams of a fairer society with mugs in hand, and in that respect art imitates life. In fact, when I received my first meagre royalties recently, I remarked on Facebook that the sum would scarcely keep a self-respecting advice worker in tea for a week. Though written flippantly, that's now given me an idea. Since I couldn't have devoted so much time to writing without the remnants of my redundancy settlement to see me through the damp days of last summer, it would be great to be able to give something back to the CAB. Something utterly vital, and yet easily overlooked.
So the challenge I'm setting myself is to do a good enough job of promoting my books that the profits from sales of 'Severe Discomfort' and 'Continual Supervision' can fund my comrades' tea and coffee. I'll need to do better than at present, when I'm probably running at the equivalent of a pint or two of milk per week!
With all the crises there are in the world and the hardship there is in our region, this might seem a poor use of a charitable ideal. There must be more deserving cases; with foodbanks running empty, tenants facing eviction due to the 'Bedroom Tax', benefit caps and sanctions afflicting so many families, why aspire to give advisers free tea?
My answer is, because when you've spent a morning having to tell client after despairing client that there really is nothing more they're entitled to, that there's no way to draft a budget so they can both eat and pay rent, that you know nobody will employ them with their health as it is, but according to the law, they are fully fit for work, the best way to get your head together for an afternoon of the same is to get the kettle on. And if you're lucky, that little bit of thinking time over tea is when the strategy to solve one or two of these problems suddenly drops into place.
So here are the links to the books yet again.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Severe-Discomfort-Sarah-Honeysett/dp/1849143285
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Continual-Supervision-Sarah-Honeysett/dp/1849143374/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1
The Kindle version of 'Severe Discomfort' is available free for a few days from 31st July to mark my return to a 'proper' job, so ebook readers can try it for nothing. If you enjoy it, please give it a review; if you can afford to buy one, you'll also give an adviser a cuppa!
If you want real books, don't forget you can order paperbacks from real, tax-paying bookshops for no more than the Amazon price of £5.99. Foyle's were advertising each online at £5.39 with free P&P for orders over £10, so that's a £1.20 saving for the pair over Amazon - and a round of hot beverages for one of our teams!
So this summer, why not put your feet up with a good book and a cuppa!
 |
| Time for Tea? |
In a few days time, I'll be back to work at Stoke-on-Trent CAB (actually, it's now Staffordshire North and Stoke CAB) as a part-time Training and Network Development Officer, rather than trying to make a living with fork, spade, paintbrush or pen/PC.
Not that I will be quitting horticulture completely; I have several clients whose gardens I would be sorry not to return to, and they seem keen to keep me on the case. 'Uplander Designs' will also continue, as I've got things to paint for Christmas craft fairs, but apart from having to keep doing self-assessment forms and pay Class 2 NI, those enterprises will almost be back to being hobbies. My new 'part-time' job is going to be very much to the fore.
There are also some ESA-themed adventures for my 'imaginary friends' at the fictional Solent Welfare Rights Project, now on a second edit and DIY proof-read, but before these hit the printed page even in prototype, I'd like to get the original tales out to a wider audience.
 |
| What I did last summer... |
Their purpose was always education - 'counter-propaganda' - rather than profit, but now I have an income lined up for the winter, it occurs to me that rather than contributing small change to my finances during the horticultural closed season, the fictional advisers could do something to help their real life counterparts.
If you've read the books, you might have noticed a key theme running through them. No, not the 'Atticus Finch principle' of not judging someone until you've stood in their shoes and walked about in them, or by appearances. That's too obvious. I mean the part that hot beverages play in the plot. The kettle is rarely silent, either at the Walkers' house or within the Project's tatty kitchen. Cups of tea and coffee play key supporting roles as characters take their first faltering steps along the road to romance, struggle to balance their shrinking budgets, or even as they consider whether life remains worth living.
The fictional advisers find solace after fraught interviews with a reviving cuppa, unwind after tough tribunals with a refreshing brew, dream their dreams of a fairer society with mugs in hand, and in that respect art imitates life. In fact, when I received my first meagre royalties recently, I remarked on Facebook that the sum would scarcely keep a self-respecting advice worker in tea for a week. Though written flippantly, that's now given me an idea. Since I couldn't have devoted so much time to writing without the remnants of my redundancy settlement to see me through the damp days of last summer, it would be great to be able to give something back to the CAB. Something utterly vital, and yet easily overlooked.
So the challenge I'm setting myself is to do a good enough job of promoting my books that the profits from sales of 'Severe Discomfort' and 'Continual Supervision' can fund my comrades' tea and coffee. I'll need to do better than at present, when I'm probably running at the equivalent of a pint or two of milk per week!
With all the crises there are in the world and the hardship there is in our region, this might seem a poor use of a charitable ideal. There must be more deserving cases; with foodbanks running empty, tenants facing eviction due to the 'Bedroom Tax', benefit caps and sanctions afflicting so many families, why aspire to give advisers free tea?
My answer is, because when you've spent a morning having to tell client after despairing client that there really is nothing more they're entitled to, that there's no way to draft a budget so they can both eat and pay rent, that you know nobody will employ them with their health as it is, but according to the law, they are fully fit for work, the best way to get your head together for an afternoon of the same is to get the kettle on. And if you're lucky, that little bit of thinking time over tea is when the strategy to solve one or two of these problems suddenly drops into place.
So here are the links to the books yet again.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Severe-Discomfort-Sarah-Honeysett/dp/1849143285
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Continual-Supervision-Sarah-Honeysett/dp/1849143374/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1
The Kindle version of 'Severe Discomfort' is available free for a few days from 31st July to mark my return to a 'proper' job, so ebook readers can try it for nothing. If you enjoy it, please give it a review; if you can afford to buy one, you'll also give an adviser a cuppa!
If you want real books, don't forget you can order paperbacks from real, tax-paying bookshops for no more than the Amazon price of £5.99. Foyle's were advertising each online at £5.39 with free P&P for orders over £10, so that's a £1.20 saving for the pair over Amazon - and a round of hot beverages for one of our teams!
So this summer, why not put your feet up with a good book and a cuppa!
Not all beastly in Eastleigh
Not strictly about the books, but the political history of the town where, in a parallel universe, the Solent Welfare Rights Project can be found. In the real world, this blog from March 2013 contemplated the 'lessons' (or otherwise) to be learned from the recent by-election.
If I didn't know this was going to be the sort of post where the jokes almost write themselves, I'd be tempted to put it in 'the other blog'. It's going to be almost completely plantless and riddled with more political references than there are slugs in a typical hosta bed, but it's simply not the style for the sombre Suffragette time-traveller who writes http://raggedskirt.blogspot.co.uk/
The author of that was an earnest young woman who took her politics extremely seriously and, in the days leading up to her 24th birthday in the late spring of 1987, could have been found trudging the streets of the Southern Parishes of an obscure Hampshire town with bundles of Labour Party leaflets in a big satchel, stuffing them through the letter-boxes of prospective voters, boldly knocking on doors and checking voting intentions, wincing with embarrassment when those doors were opened by sitting Tory councillors (supporters' address list just a trifle out-of-date there, Eastleigh CLP - thanks, comrades!). Because that was my home constituency for the first 24 years of my life, excepting the term-time parts of my three years as a student in Red Sheffield - Beastly Eastleigh.
I was even allocated the thankless task that same year of running for a Parish Council seat in yachty Hamble (which subsequently went even further up itself by adding 'le-Rice' to its title). Despite the marvellously efficient Eastleigh CLP printing a leaflet describing me as belonging to the 'Campaign Against Nuclear Disarmament', when naturally I supported quite the opposite cause - and so did the Party as a whole, officially, back then - I managed to come second (with about 150 votes) to the Tory, who had a mere 600 more, and still beat the Libdem into third by about three votes. Whether my 'success' might have got me a winnable seat next time round, I'll never know - at a Labour Party meeting later that year, the guest speaker (invited by his colleague in the ambulance service, who was also my driving instructor) was a chap discussing the merits of Regional Government. I wasn't totally convinced by his ideas, but got on quite well with the little man himself. His name was Jon Honeysett. The rest, as the saying goes, is history...
The town of Eastleigh is probably hoping to slip quietly back into obscurity now the political band-waggon and media circus is packing up and moving on, especially now that the rest of the civilised world thinks all its UKIP-voting xenophobic citizens care about is the mathematically impossible prospect of more Bulgarians than the entire population of Bulgaria heading their way in the next wave of EU migration. That's an entirely unfair reflection on the good people of Eastleigh - I can think of a couple of friends who would be only to welcoming to strangers from anywhere in the world, just as long as the immigrants were willing to share the coolest tracks from their record collection and any particularly tasty vegetarian recipes.
But then we do know all four of the Democrats living in Texas too...
Unless you're a railway enthusiast, and a steam buff at that, or (God forbid) a fan of ghastly 1970s 'comedian' Benny Hill who was born there, you probably hadn't heard of Eastleigh until all the shenanigans with Chris Huhne and his motoring misdemeanors hit the press. But the position of Eastleigh MP has a track record of misfortune not far better than the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts tutor at Hogwarts. For many years, the MP was a genteel old Tory by the name of Sir David Price, who didn't seem to get particularly upset about anything until his pet dog was bitten by an adder in the New Forest, at which point he got all riled and started calling for the reptiles to be culled en masse, but ultimately failed in his St Patrick like ambition. His successor, elected in the 1992 General Election, took a safe seat and was tipped for great things but ultimately became (in)famous only for the manner of his untimely death. I will discreetly refer my readers with curious minds who are not too easily shocked by kinky goings-on to Wikipedia for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Milligan
Suffice to say, that didn't help the Tories with their 'Victorian values' morality-heavy strategy at the time, though was the gift that kept on giving to political satirists for years to come. The Libdems swept in at the by-election on a tide of moral outrage and much of their famous grass-roots electioneering, heavily based on promising to do something about dog poo on pavements (not, however, 'kill the adders so dog-walkers can take their pets out to the New Foest in safety', which even those in the blue corner had disgarded by then).
I understand dog poo is still an issue on the doorstep.
Poor Mr Milligan's fruity fatality was quite handy from my perspective, as I was working for Eastleigh Council in their housing advice team at the time. We often had to contact other local authorities when checking the back-stories of some of our applicants for housing and invariably when you called them and said where you were calling from, they'd ask 'Where?' and you'd have to explain it was a town in south Hampshire, just north of Southampton, just south of Winchester... After what should have been, but never was called 'Orangegate', EVERYBODY knew where Eastleigh was!*
And then they forgot again. Eastleigh settled down with an obscure Libdem MP called David Chidgey (wasn't that a village near Camberwick Green?) and local politics went off the scale of absurdity with a Conservative/Labour coalition holding the Libdems at bay in the Town Hall at one one point. No one old enough to remember that was going to buy 'Don't vote for the Libdems - they've made a pact with the Devil!' in 2013, when Eastleigh Labour Party didn't always remember to bring their own long spoons to the feast.
So if there's one thing I'd urge Ed Milliband and the policy guys at Labour HQ, it would be don't try to draw conclusions from anything that happens in Eastleigh, because it's weird with a frankly bonkers political history. And don't drift to the right to try and snap up those UKIP voters either, because if you do, you'll lose even more of those earnest young activists who thought nothing of leafleting an entire village single-handed in a day for 'the Party', until the Party dropped Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament, and Clause 4, went to war in Iraq, and introduced Employment and Support Allowance. We've heard muffled regrets about the illegal war, but it's been a bit quiet on where 'we' stand on plans for squandering billions on son-of-Trident. Some potentially popular renationalisations (railways, anybody? - that would go down well in Eastleigh!) might help stop the rot and so far nobody's apologised for those nasty new descriptors and letting Atos loose on the sick and disabled, have they?
You need us old-fashioned, idealistic activists back on board; those leaflets aren't going to deliver themselves, you know. And once you've got the policies worked out, sort your 'supporters' address lists out too!
*whoops - is that my John O'Farrell moment, the sick remark that will come back to haunt any future political life I might aspire to?
 |
| The view from Netley Beach, Eastleigh Constituency. It's prettier at night... |
The author of that was an earnest young woman who took her politics extremely seriously and, in the days leading up to her 24th birthday in the late spring of 1987, could have been found trudging the streets of the Southern Parishes of an obscure Hampshire town with bundles of Labour Party leaflets in a big satchel, stuffing them through the letter-boxes of prospective voters, boldly knocking on doors and checking voting intentions, wincing with embarrassment when those doors were opened by sitting Tory councillors (supporters' address list just a trifle out-of-date there, Eastleigh CLP - thanks, comrades!). Because that was my home constituency for the first 24 years of my life, excepting the term-time parts of my three years as a student in Red Sheffield - Beastly Eastleigh.
I was even allocated the thankless task that same year of running for a Parish Council seat in yachty Hamble (which subsequently went even further up itself by adding 'le-Rice' to its title). Despite the marvellously efficient Eastleigh CLP printing a leaflet describing me as belonging to the 'Campaign Against Nuclear Disarmament', when naturally I supported quite the opposite cause - and so did the Party as a whole, officially, back then - I managed to come second (with about 150 votes) to the Tory, who had a mere 600 more, and still beat the Libdem into third by about three votes. Whether my 'success' might have got me a winnable seat next time round, I'll never know - at a Labour Party meeting later that year, the guest speaker (invited by his colleague in the ambulance service, who was also my driving instructor) was a chap discussing the merits of Regional Government. I wasn't totally convinced by his ideas, but got on quite well with the little man himself. His name was Jon Honeysett. The rest, as the saying goes, is history...
The town of Eastleigh is probably hoping to slip quietly back into obscurity now the political band-waggon and media circus is packing up and moving on, especially now that the rest of the civilised world thinks all its UKIP-voting xenophobic citizens care about is the mathematically impossible prospect of more Bulgarians than the entire population of Bulgaria heading their way in the next wave of EU migration. That's an entirely unfair reflection on the good people of Eastleigh - I can think of a couple of friends who would be only to welcoming to strangers from anywhere in the world, just as long as the immigrants were willing to share the coolest tracks from their record collection and any particularly tasty vegetarian recipes.
But then we do know all four of the Democrats living in Texas too...
Unless you're a railway enthusiast, and a steam buff at that, or (God forbid) a fan of ghastly 1970s 'comedian' Benny Hill who was born there, you probably hadn't heard of Eastleigh until all the shenanigans with Chris Huhne and his motoring misdemeanors hit the press. But the position of Eastleigh MP has a track record of misfortune not far better than the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts tutor at Hogwarts. For many years, the MP was a genteel old Tory by the name of Sir David Price, who didn't seem to get particularly upset about anything until his pet dog was bitten by an adder in the New Forest, at which point he got all riled and started calling for the reptiles to be culled en masse, but ultimately failed in his St Patrick like ambition. His successor, elected in the 1992 General Election, took a safe seat and was tipped for great things but ultimately became (in)famous only for the manner of his untimely death. I will discreetly refer my readers with curious minds who are not too easily shocked by kinky goings-on to Wikipedia for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Milligan
Suffice to say, that didn't help the Tories with their 'Victorian values' morality-heavy strategy at the time, though was the gift that kept on giving to political satirists for years to come. The Libdems swept in at the by-election on a tide of moral outrage and much of their famous grass-roots electioneering, heavily based on promising to do something about dog poo on pavements (not, however, 'kill the adders so dog-walkers can take their pets out to the New Foest in safety', which even those in the blue corner had disgarded by then).
I understand dog poo is still an issue on the doorstep.
Poor Mr Milligan's fruity fatality was quite handy from my perspective, as I was working for Eastleigh Council in their housing advice team at the time. We often had to contact other local authorities when checking the back-stories of some of our applicants for housing and invariably when you called them and said where you were calling from, they'd ask 'Where?' and you'd have to explain it was a town in south Hampshire, just north of Southampton, just south of Winchester... After what should have been, but never was called 'Orangegate', EVERYBODY knew where Eastleigh was!*
And then they forgot again. Eastleigh settled down with an obscure Libdem MP called David Chidgey (wasn't that a village near Camberwick Green?) and local politics went off the scale of absurdity with a Conservative/Labour coalition holding the Libdems at bay in the Town Hall at one one point. No one old enough to remember that was going to buy 'Don't vote for the Libdems - they've made a pact with the Devil!' in 2013, when Eastleigh Labour Party didn't always remember to bring their own long spoons to the feast.
So if there's one thing I'd urge Ed Milliband and the policy guys at Labour HQ, it would be don't try to draw conclusions from anything that happens in Eastleigh, because it's weird with a frankly bonkers political history. And don't drift to the right to try and snap up those UKIP voters either, because if you do, you'll lose even more of those earnest young activists who thought nothing of leafleting an entire village single-handed in a day for 'the Party', until the Party dropped Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament, and Clause 4, went to war in Iraq, and introduced Employment and Support Allowance. We've heard muffled regrets about the illegal war, but it's been a bit quiet on where 'we' stand on plans for squandering billions on son-of-Trident. Some potentially popular renationalisations (railways, anybody? - that would go down well in Eastleigh!) might help stop the rot and so far nobody's apologised for those nasty new descriptors and letting Atos loose on the sick and disabled, have they?
You need us old-fashioned, idealistic activists back on board; those leaflets aren't going to deliver themselves, you know. And once you've got the policies worked out, sort your 'supporters' address lists out too!
*whoops - is that my John O'Farrell moment, the sick remark that will come back to haunt any future political life I might aspire to?
Stranger than Fiction
This one was originally from 20th February 2013 - 'Severe Discomfort' is a real, printed book at last, 'Welfare Reform' and an obscure railway town in south Hampshire are in the news, but I have no experience of publishing, no contacts and no budget to promote my story...
I mentioned a few posts ago that I was on the way to publishing my first novel. Well, it's taking its first tentative steps into the wider world even as I write...
The funny thing is that when I started writing 'Severe Discomfort', the shrinking Social Security system and demonisation of claimants didn't seem a particularly topical subject. Since then, 'Welfare Reform' has become one of the big issues and potentially a matter on which the Opposition can, if they're brave, put some really clear water between themselves and the 'Nasty Party'.
But the real surprise, having set my tale in 'an unnamed railway town in south Hampshire' - but clearly one on Southampton's doorstep - is that for the next week or so, with Chris Huhne's downfall and the Eastleigh by-election, the railway town in south Hampshire that forms the backdrop to my tale is going to be the centre of the political universe and, with the kind of timing that I usually save for my infrequent attempts at surfing, I've faffed and farted about for just long enough to miss that particular wave of publicity since it'll be another two to six weeks before 'Severe Discomfort' is available from bookshops or Amazon. Not that I want you to buy it from the tax-evading behemoth, of course - if you want a paper copy, support those nice people at Completelynovel: see below.
Still, no matter. The 'Welfare Reform' debate isn't done by a long way, but there is the merest hint that the tide might be starting to turn with terrible tales of hardship from the 'Bedroom Tax' and hopefully David Cameron, George Osborne and dispicable IDS are all heading for some 'severe discomfort' of their own.
In the meantime, if you haven't had enough of my warped sense of humour and unashamedly Socialist views on social justice, you can get an extra large dose here, for free:
http://www.completelynovel.com/books/severe-discomfort--1
If you enjoy the story, give it a good review. If you really enjoy the story, tell your friends and buy your Luddite friends who don't read books online a paper version. And watch out for 'Continual Supervision' the sequel - currently at the final proof-reading stage with a trusted, eagle-eyed friend - because, as any football fan will tell you, it's a game of two halves!
|
| Courtroom drama, humour, romance... and benefits? |
The funny thing is that when I started writing 'Severe Discomfort', the shrinking Social Security system and demonisation of claimants didn't seem a particularly topical subject. Since then, 'Welfare Reform' has become one of the big issues and potentially a matter on which the Opposition can, if they're brave, put some really clear water between themselves and the 'Nasty Party'.
But the real surprise, having set my tale in 'an unnamed railway town in south Hampshire' - but clearly one on Southampton's doorstep - is that for the next week or so, with Chris Huhne's downfall and the Eastleigh by-election, the railway town in south Hampshire that forms the backdrop to my tale is going to be the centre of the political universe and, with the kind of timing that I usually save for my infrequent attempts at surfing, I've faffed and farted about for just long enough to miss that particular wave of publicity since it'll be another two to six weeks before 'Severe Discomfort' is available from bookshops or Amazon. Not that I want you to buy it from the tax-evading behemoth, of course - if you want a paper copy, support those nice people at Completelynovel: see below.
Still, no matter. The 'Welfare Reform' debate isn't done by a long way, but there is the merest hint that the tide might be starting to turn with terrible tales of hardship from the 'Bedroom Tax' and hopefully David Cameron, George Osborne and dispicable IDS are all heading for some 'severe discomfort' of their own.
In the meantime, if you haven't had enough of my warped sense of humour and unashamedly Socialist views on social justice, you can get an extra large dose here, for free:
http://www.completelynovel.com/books/severe-discomfort--1
If you enjoy the story, give it a good review. If you really enjoy the story, tell your friends and buy your Luddite friends who don't read books online a paper version. And watch out for 'Continual Supervision' the sequel - currently at the final proof-reading stage with a trusted, eagle-eyed friend - because, as any football fan will tell you, it's a game of two halves!
From the Slush Pile
This is the post from my 'Gardening Blog' in January 2013 in which I first confessed my literary ambitions...
Bearing in mind how much of 2012 was wet, windy and unfit to garden in, perceptive readers might very well wonder what the heck I got up to for big chunks of the year. After all, my own posts lamented my inauspicious timing in setting up as a gardener in such a climate, with work so scarce. I also bewailed the way the rotten weather kept potential customers away from craft fairs at which I was attempting to sell my 'Roses and Castles' canalware, the other string to my bow, so clearly I wasn't painting furiously to keep up with demand. And while the blog might have entertained you, it's scarcely great literature requiring hours of deep thought to compose. The principle is essentially
i) think of a daft pun and
ii) add text vaguely related to i).
Avid readers of the blog (that'll be my accidental pot-growing pal in Hampshire, then) may recall that in the depths of a very grey summer I was pondering using my writing skills for more profitable ends by jumping on the 'Mommy Porn' bandwagon. Fear not, friends; I didn't. 'Fifty Spades of Clay', the Staffordshire-set horticulturally-themed bonkbuster remains, mercifully, unpenned.
But I have been dabbling in creative fiction and, to recycle one of my dubious jokes regarding the above notorious novel, have written a work of 'leftie chick lit', a genre for those fed up with being screwed by sadistic multi-millionaires. Following the trials and tribulations of a down-trodden middle-aged grandmother, her Sun-readerish husband and an unexpected allegation of benefit fraud, my tale (in two parts - trilogies are so last year!) is set in the deeply unfashionable, wildly unglamourous, tea-swilling world of an independent welfare rights advice project, complete with cast of quirky characters, gallows humour, peeling paintwork, second-hand office furniture and state-of-the-Ark technology. Located 'somewhere in south Hampshire' and with the nicely misleading title Severe Discomfort (it's a clause from the Disability Living Allowance regulations), the first part has already proved to be utterly resistible to several literary agents.
Despite promising myself I was going to do this 'properly' with an editor and publisher and all that jazz, I've realised that as it's neither a celebrity memoir nor racy romance (not that it doesn't have romance - it does, but I do believe in leaving something to the reader's imagination!), it probably isn't going to get snapped up soon via the conventional channels. So it's either self-publish or languish in the slush pile. But I want this story out now because, if I'm being completely honest, with both the Social Security system and advice-giving organisations being decimated by current Government policies, it's a little piece of counter-propaganda. If it had fewer pages and I had more funds, I'd hire a plane and drop copies across marginal constituencies the length and breadth of the UK. But three hundred pages from 30,000 feet would make a right mess of your photovoltaic panels, so realistically, that's not an option!
You can be parted from very serious amounts of cash going down the self-publication (or as the sceptics might say 'vanity publishing') road, but I seem to have stumbled across a genuinely helpful, friendly web-based organisation called CompletelyNovel through which I've been able to do quite an effective DIY job. For a cost that's barely into double figures I'm already staring at a proof copy of a book with my name on the cover; that's actually quite weird!
And of course already I'm spotting typos I completely overlooked on screen, even reading it aloud, so it's just as well it's not on 'general release' yet. But when it's been de-bugged and is finally available from the publishing company, or your local bookshop (or Amazon - but don't buy it from them until they're paying their taxes, good citizens), you'll be the first to know!
 |
| Digs gardens, paints boaty stuff... and writes books? |
Bearing in mind how much of 2012 was wet, windy and unfit to garden in, perceptive readers might very well wonder what the heck I got up to for big chunks of the year. After all, my own posts lamented my inauspicious timing in setting up as a gardener in such a climate, with work so scarce. I also bewailed the way the rotten weather kept potential customers away from craft fairs at which I was attempting to sell my 'Roses and Castles' canalware, the other string to my bow, so clearly I wasn't painting furiously to keep up with demand. And while the blog might have entertained you, it's scarcely great literature requiring hours of deep thought to compose. The principle is essentially
i) think of a daft pun and
ii) add text vaguely related to i).
Avid readers of the blog (that'll be my accidental pot-growing pal in Hampshire, then) may recall that in the depths of a very grey summer I was pondering using my writing skills for more profitable ends by jumping on the 'Mommy Porn' bandwagon. Fear not, friends; I didn't. 'Fifty Spades of Clay', the Staffordshire-set horticulturally-themed bonkbuster remains, mercifully, unpenned.
But I have been dabbling in creative fiction and, to recycle one of my dubious jokes regarding the above notorious novel, have written a work of 'leftie chick lit', a genre for those fed up with being screwed by sadistic multi-millionaires. Following the trials and tribulations of a down-trodden middle-aged grandmother, her Sun-readerish husband and an unexpected allegation of benefit fraud, my tale (in two parts - trilogies are so last year!) is set in the deeply unfashionable, wildly unglamourous, tea-swilling world of an independent welfare rights advice project, complete with cast of quirky characters, gallows humour, peeling paintwork, second-hand office furniture and state-of-the-Ark technology. Located 'somewhere in south Hampshire' and with the nicely misleading title Severe Discomfort (it's a clause from the Disability Living Allowance regulations), the first part has already proved to be utterly resistible to several literary agents.
Despite promising myself I was going to do this 'properly' with an editor and publisher and all that jazz, I've realised that as it's neither a celebrity memoir nor racy romance (not that it doesn't have romance - it does, but I do believe in leaving something to the reader's imagination!), it probably isn't going to get snapped up soon via the conventional channels. So it's either self-publish or languish in the slush pile. But I want this story out now because, if I'm being completely honest, with both the Social Security system and advice-giving organisations being decimated by current Government policies, it's a little piece of counter-propaganda. If it had fewer pages and I had more funds, I'd hire a plane and drop copies across marginal constituencies the length and breadth of the UK. But three hundred pages from 30,000 feet would make a right mess of your photovoltaic panels, so realistically, that's not an option!
You can be parted from very serious amounts of cash going down the self-publication (or as the sceptics might say 'vanity publishing') road, but I seem to have stumbled across a genuinely helpful, friendly web-based organisation called CompletelyNovel through which I've been able to do quite an effective DIY job. For a cost that's barely into double figures I'm already staring at a proof copy of a book with my name on the cover; that's actually quite weird!
And of course already I'm spotting typos I completely overlooked on screen, even reading it aloud, so it's just as well it's not on 'general release' yet. But when it's been de-bugged and is finally available from the publishing company, or your local bookshop (or Amazon - but don't buy it from them until they're paying their taxes, good citizens), you'll be the first to know!
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