Something Nicer?

I continue to be faintly taken aback at the positive reaction to Something Nice. One reader (and fellow writer) over on Goodreads has posted a truly awesome review which analyses the first three of my stories down to the subatomic level. I'm pleased that the work so far seems to be standing up to his intense scrutiny.

A couple of short stories are now in the bag for a potential second volume, although I'm going to take a few months to send them to magazines, competitions, etc. My 'previously published' notes on the first book probably haven't made much difference to sales, but it does reassure people that I can reliably spell (and indeed spell reliably).

There's been a major obstacle to the fiction writing this week as I hit the deadline for another batch of car articles and a three page survey write-up in the day job's magazine. The survey results piece will be read by over 11,000 people. We... still need to sell a few copies of Something Nice to reach that kind of volume.

Feedback

The other week I published a collection of my best short stories. And now people have got around to reading it, and the reviews are trickling in:

"The short stories are perfect reading when you don't have much time or want to read something before bedtime." Faint praise indeed...

"It's an odd collection of offbeat, quirky fiction. "Throwing Up With the Joneses" sets the tone early on, establishing mundane characters and settings that are punctured by fantasy and horror elements." There are a few things about Throwing Up With the Joneses that I don't much like any more, particularly the ending (there were four different endings at one point, and the published version is the one that best fit the magazine's word count rather than being my favourite as such). But others seem to enjoy it.

"I like the one with the neighbours yokking up" As I said, others seem to enjoy it...

"All of the stories have an element of absurdity too them, mingled in with your sci-fi, romance, or dramatic storyline." Thanks for noticing, guv!

"There wasn't a single one I didn't enjoy. They were particularly well written and all had that little edge of discomfort." This is part of the loveliest review I've ever had, particularly as the writer in question was kind enough to copy it over to the American site as well, where I had precisely no feedback.

"It didn't feel like I was reading fiction. It was more like sort of reading a diary." I'm... still not sure what kind of diary this reader keeps. But am very grateful for a nice review.

I briefly reached the dizzying heights of 63rd best-selling paid Kindle short story collection, which is a strong indication of how many ebooks people are actually buying, in spite of the hype, and I'm busy writing more short stories, whether for a second volume or just for the heck of it. It was an experiment for me, but Something Nice seems to have worked out rather well so far

Something Nice Sample

Something Nice has now been available for a whole month, and the feedback has been brilliant. It's great that people are enjoying the book so much, and it's spurred on my fiction writing to produce a second volume. As is de rigeur these days you can of course get a sample of the first 10% or 15% of the book, depending on where you're buying it, but that seems to cut off some of the opening story for some readers.

So, please follow this link to read Write a short story about growing up. Include three apples and a suitcase. It's an early version, posted on a website I assumed had gone under years ago, and comes with a downright cryptic comment at the bottom.

And if that appeals, Something Nice is still only £0.77.

Something Nice on Kindle!

It's been a slightly crazy week. Something Nice went live on Amazon, and for a few hours I was their 63rd fastest selling short story collection.

And that was without even mentioning the release to the loyal 18 people subscribed to this blog! I'm still grappling with Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and many more, trying to strike a balance between marketing my work in an effective and joined-up way, and not getting too much sarcasm from work. I'm on Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Facebook, Myspace, just about anywhere you can think of, and not all of those platforms quite gel with my professional life as a publishing manager.

Anyway, on with the widget! If you enjoy Something Nice, please leave a review - it's looking a bit lonely there still unrated...

Something Nice

Further to my last post, if you would care to point your browsers at this page, kind readers, you will notice that I've published a book. An e-anthology of ten of my short stories, to be precise.

Something Nice is a diverse collection. There's a bit of supernatural fiction with a haunted photocopier. A bit of horror (with tea and cake). A bit of gung-ho SF. And some quieter stuff where sixth formers talk about literature, and parents struggle to deal with a child who's a little different.

There are competition winners in there (including last year's Cyberstalking), and a few which have been published in magazines which have long since gone to the great dentist's waiting room in the sky. Many people will have read a couple of these stories, but no one has read all of them up to now.

Each story is credited with the name of the pub in which some/most/all of it was written (people still think I'm joking about that), and the cover photo was taken in the Red Lion in Barnes last weekend (the not-quite-visible writing are my original scribbles for Cyberstalking).

Please enjoy Something Nice.

Self-publishing

I've joined the self-published throng. As we speak, an anthology of 10 of my short stories is awaiting clearance on a popular platform. Now, I've scorned self-publishing many many times online, so why have I done it? Again.*

Not because I've lost faith in "traditional" publishing after numerous rejections, that's for sure. The stories include four which have been published professionally (for a given value of "professionally"), two competition winners and, well, what more do you want, really?

It's not because I'm particularly captivated by the opportunities afforded by the new wave of e-readers either. I like my Kindle, but the bottom line is that I'd have probably done this via POD sooner or later, and before that as a photocopied zine.

There are two reasons. One simple and practical, and one more aspirational.

1) The practical. I've written a bunch of stories, some of which have been published, read, apparentky enjoyed, and then have disappeared back into obscurity. All the rights have now reverted back to me, but there are even fewer markets for a reprint than there are for original short stories. And no market at all for anthologies. I've got independent verification that the stories are of a publishable standard, so why not?

2) The aspirational. Fiction, I have neglected you. There was a time (roughly 2004-2008) when I was producing a short story, whether fan fiction or original, every couple of months. People were genuinely interested in reading the next story. I was building an audience.

Then I embarked on an insane undertaking to novelise the Time War from Doctor Who, because a lot of fans were doing the same thing and I felt that they'd all rather missed the point by removing all humour and making it all about joyless space battles. Then I translated Casanova's Histoire de ma Fuite into English, under the [mistaken, as it turned out] impression that no one had done this before.

Then I discovered that I could churn out non-fiction web articles in ten minutes and earn money for them. And as this was around the time of the credit crunch, well, what would you do? I made a lot of money, but it was at the cost of my fiction writing. In February 2011 I wrote Cyberstalking, a 400 word piece of flash fiction, and realised it was my first full story in three years. I'm doing this to try and get my head back into dealing with writing fiction on a regular basis again.

Dusting down each story made me remember how excited I was when I first started writing it, how relieved I was when I finished, how thrilled I was when it was accepted for publication, how I spent the cheque... Then of course, I had to spend many hours formatting paragraph styles for Word files that in some cases were almost a decade old and the enthusiasm faded.

So here's the thing. When I self-publish a collection of short stories, it shouldn't be taken as a comment on publishing (an industry I work in and love), or the rise of 'indie' authors (barely literate morons who confuse Twitter statistics and Amazon ranks with indicators of writing quality). And it certainly shouldn't be taken as a get rich quick scheme - I'm going with a $0.99 price as the lowest option: partly because of the length of the book (about 23,000 words), but mostly to reach the widest possible audience without giving the book away.

I'm trying to prod myself into writing more stories and just get a bit of excitement back about my writing. At the moment I'm writing about a kid and his alien friend hiding in his garage (and stayed until the kid was 38). And a story about computer games which I know will need severe editing because I think I'm being clever with it (never a good sign).

So there's no link on this post, this is not a 'buy my book' pitch, but... there's one on the way. And I'm very excited about it!

* In the interests of full disclosure, I also self-published my MPhil thesis on the depiction of violence in the early films of Jean-Luc Godard back in 2004. That was much more about getting my own bound copy of the book than it was about sales, or about being published. It's no longer available, and I have no current interest in offering it for distribution in any format. If you're that bothered, head to the main library stacks at University of Birmingham and look me up.

The cheese shop sketch in real life

I walked to Hammersmith to buy a PS3 today. For anyone with a passing interest in gaming, this is the surest sign yet that the next generation of consoles is about to appear. My patronage is the kiss of death to any gaming platform.

Anyway, I walked into 'troubled retailer' Game. I've spent a lot of money in their shops in the last decade or so, had mostly brilliant service, and I thought it would be nice to try and put some cash in their direction in a futile and tokenistic attempt to stave off the inevitable.

There was precious little stock at all beyond racks of 'pre-owned' stuff that they're trying to shift for silly money. This meant, bizarrely, that they had more PS2 games than anything else.

Anyway, they were selling a 320GB PS3 bundled with a few games and Move for £250. Done, I thought. Oh no.

The manager explained they were out of the games in the bundle. Do I give a toss about Little Big Planet 2 or GT5? Not really. But I sort of assumed they might chuck in some other software in their place by way of compensation.

Apparently not. I could buy the console itself for £250, and just not get any of the other stuff in the package. I sort of stood there, waiting for some hint of a deal, and it never arrived.

To be fair, the manager called the Chiswick and Westfield branches while I was there to see if they had stock. They didn't (and though I didn't tell him this, there was no way I was trekking off to Chiswick anyway). Then he apparently couldn't sweeten the deal in any way, even though he's got a shop full of second-hand merchandise.

This guy's best suggestion was that I order via the website, and then pick it up from the shop in 2-4 working days. I did sort of mention that that's not really how shops are supposed to work, and he shrugged.

So I wandered off to Argos, and was back in ten minutes with the exact package Game had been advertising, games and all. I wouldn't even have gone back, but Mary reminded me that I should probably cash in the points on my loyalty card while they're still open at all. I bought £60 worth of PS3 games, noting as I did so that all the 'special editions' are now cheaper than the 'standard editions', which is just moronic.

As I handed over my debit card at the till, I pointed out to the pleasant girl behind the counter that in the last half hour I'd spent over £300 on games hardware and software, but thanks to the manager most of it had been in another shop, and how little he needed to do to have got all of my business. Apparently their hands are tied, and everything comes through 'head office'.

Now let's not beat around the bush, everyone in that shop is going to be unemployed in a week's time. If I didn't think that before I went in, I certainly do now. Surely the staff and especially the managers should be busting a nut to impress, shift stock and put as positive a spin as possible in case some of the outlets manage to squeeze through? Fuck head office, look where sticking to their policies has got you - on the dole with considerable experience in a retail sector which is about to stop existing. Innovate, promote, do something.

The situation with Game has come about due to a breakdown in supply chain finance management. I would imagine my day job will almost certainly be including them in a case study on how not to do it in future syllabuses.

Speaking of which, I've just completed my first writing for the day job. About one eighth of a Conference Report, sponsored by Barclays. I look forward to linking on publication, which should be in about a week's time...