Juliet, Venus de Milo and Luther Blissett

I have just returned from five days in Verona, a beautiful little city in northern Italy, and I got to thinking about what it is that sustains, what lasts through the centuries and what it is that attracts us still to those paintings, those buildings, that architecture and such. Then I began to wonder about whether we have made any progress at all  since those old and ancient days.

Europe is so full of wonder. Living just a short flight from places like Barcelona, Paris, Rome, Madrid etc is such a privilige. I have been fortunate enough to have been to Paris, Venice and Verona over the last few years and it was when looking back on those short trips that I felt some kind of link between the various experiences I had there.

Now I am not an art historian or anything like that. I struggle to tell one artist's work from another and sculptures have never really been my thing either. And having watched an interview with Tracy Emin the other day, I was pretty much ready to throw myself out the window. But The Louvre in Paris has always been a place I've wanted to go. I went years ago but wasn't really ready for it. The last time I went though I was entirely enthralled. The scale of the paintings, the beauty of the building and the incredible feeling you get when you are so close to something so old - all wonderful.

And then there was the Venus de Milo. To my shame I had never seen even a photo of it - my abiding reference point until that time being a line in Brown-Eyed Handsome Man, a Chuck Berry song.

So there it was, no arms, half-naked, and not the prettiest of faces. On its own, as in the picture above, I could take it or leave it. But you put it in The Louvre surrounded by people from all over the world, their cameras attached to their faces like gasmasks and you truly see the splendour of it. Sometimes you only see perfection when you are presented with something that appalls - and seeing the crowds pushing and having their photos taken beside it, ticking it off their lists as something they've 'done', to be honest I had tears in my eyes. I wanted to lead her away from all this where she could breathe again. It was like a freak show, a circus. I was embarrassed to be a part of it all. And the statue of Juliet in Verona, which is in the courtyard of the house purported to be where Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet, fared no better.

Verona is stunning. I have never been in a city more peaceful, more beautiful, more relaxing and more friendly. Truly it is wonderful. As stated above, there is a statue of Juliet in the famous courtyard. And as you can imagine, that is a courtyard to which many a tourist is attracted. Like I said before, I don't know really what is good art or bad art, good sculpture or bad sculpture, but there was something about the statue that reminded me of the Venus de Milo. It was only when people started flooding into the courtyard I saw what it was. People had their photos taken with Juliet and almost every single one of them delighted in placing a hand on her right breast - from children, to grown adults, there was a procession of people who were more or less falling over each other to do it. No wonder she looked so sad.

But what of Luther Blissett? Well that's when Venice comes in. A few years ago I was sitting in a backstreet in Venice (about the only place we could afford to eat!) when I saw over my shoulder, stuck upon an old church wall, a sticker. It had a red and black striped background upon which was the proclaimation "Luther Blisset is God." I must say it did make me smile. For those of you who don't know, Luther was a footballer who played for Watford in the eighties before being transferred, incredibly, to AC Milan. He was a good honest player who was by no means as talented as many even in the Watford team. And that's what made me smile - Luther Blissett had been loved by someone so much in Italy that they stuck a sticker on a wall in Venice that had been there for at least twenty years. Whilst I was considering the greatness of this I heard a loud American voice (not the first I'd heard in Venice it must be said...)

"Honey, who is Luther Blissett?"

An equally abrasive male voice answered:

"Probably one of those artists or sculptors they have around here. Maybe he built that church the sticker is on?"

What can I say? Olden days and modern times and art and history and sculptures. It's such a strangely beautiful world in which we live. I just can't help but think though we've lost the wonder in standing still that would so give us a greater appreciation of everything. So on behalf of modern times I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to Venus de Milo and to Juliet. I think you're both beautiful.

And I'll leave the final words, as is fitting, to the great Luther Blissett when he spoke about his time in Italy:

"No matter how much money you have here you can't seem to get Rice Krispies."

Life. I love you...

My first ever radio interview (including footage!)

On Tuesday 15th May I was at Saint FM in Maldon doing a radio interview - my first ever. Sarah Banham, a local author and all round lovely lady started up a writing show called Writer's Block a few weeks back and I was scheduled to be one of her weekly guests. The show lasts for an hour and seeks to address all things writing. Sarah herself is a published author who runs writing courses and was also a founder member of the Essex Book Fair. In the local vernacular she is what would be referred to as a 'top bird.'

Anyway, Rebecca drove me to the studio. We had to be there for ten to seven with the show starting at seven. Screw-top bottles of wine are wonderful. Despite Rebecca's obvious embarrassment (top bird but also posh bird) I took full advantage of the technology by glugging some fine cheap wine on the journey. Fine times indeed. When we arrived, we met Sarah who showed us into the studio. Never having been in a radio studio before, I was really impressed. There were monitors and a mixing desk and foam stuff on the walls. Brilliant. It was kind of weird wearing headphones whilst I spoke but it all felt remarkably comfortable - thanks in part to Sarah and in part to Versare Rosso (two bottles for £7).

The format of the show was pretty much jingle-song-question-answer and round again. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed every second. Sarah whispered to me what questions she was going to ask whilst each song was going on and I answered with whatever came into my head. My language was clean, I pronounced my t's and I said 'erm' about three hundred times. In between all that I think I got across what I wanted to say about writing in general and Tollesbury Time Forever in particular. I even got to read a paragraph that I had brought with me from the novel I've nearly finished - The Bird That Nobody Sees.

When it was over we went back to the car, glugged a bit more red on the way home and I was finally persuaded to get myself a glass. And I woke up the following morning to more sales of Tollesbury Time Forever than I'd had in the previous three days combined!

So thank you Sarah! Thank you Saint FM! And thank you mum for teaching me how to speak properly when I need to!

Hurrah!

So here's a small clip of me answering a couple of questions and saying erm alot. The jumper cost £4.99 by the way. A real bargain...

A Review of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Now I wasn't prepared for this! Much in the same way as Treasure Island surprised me by being so much more than a book about pirates and parrots, so Frankenstein is so much more than a novel about a mad doctor who creates a monster with a bolt through its neck. I confess to having subconsciously prejudged both novels perhaps due to the ubiquitous nature of their presence in other forms of media. And, in doing so, I somehow managed to degrade them in terms of their literary worth. My review of Treasure Island and conversion to its greatness is elsewhere on this blog. So what did I make of Frankenstein?

To be honest, I was shocked on many levels - not 'horror' shocked but shocked in terms of the beautifully poetic descriptions, the  almost Shakesperian quality of the dialogue and the deep melancholy of the entire novel. This isn't a book about creating life - it's a book about being unable to tolerate life. What begins as a dream for Dr Frankenstein culminates in the ruination of all and everything that he loves.

At this point a note about the author, Mary Shelley, is most apposite. I knew that Mary had been married to the poet Percy Shelley, that she had been very young when she wrote Frankenstein and that at one stage she, her husband and Lord Byron had gone to Europe together. What I hadn't known was how tragic had been her life before she wrote Frankenstein and in the years leading to its publication. Mary was born in London in 1797. Her mother died ten days after giving birth to her. Following her father's remarriage to their next door neighbour, who already had two children, Mary was left very much in the background, receiving no formal education and prone to visiting her mother's grave in St Pancras. Just before her seventeenth birthday, she ran away with Percy Shelley (who was then 22 and married) and travelled Europe - Lord Byron meeting them for that famous sojourn. Two years later, Mary's half sister committed suicide and not long after that Percy's wife drowned herself. Mary and Percy married on their return to London but the tragedy didn't end there. Mary bore three children all of whom died shortly after they were born. Percy then drowned in a freak storm in 1822.

To put this all in perspective, by the time Frankenstein was published in its second edition in 1823 (the first to bear her name), Mary had lost her mother, been cast aside by her immediate family, eloped with a famous married poet, had her sister commit suicide, her lover's wife commit suicide, married the famous poet, had three children, all of whom died shortly after birth and then, not long after the birth of their one surviving child, her husband drowned. Much has been made in the recent past of JK Rowling's single parent status and how wonderful it was that she was able to extract herself from her perceived ignominy by writing a novel based on a fantastical premise. It's all about perspective I guess...


So is it any wonder that Frankenstein is suffused with huge discources on the nature of death and the harshness of life?  Perhaps the biggest tragedy of all is that so many people, myself included, have grown to think of Frankenstein as nothing more than a hulking green zombie with a bolt through his neck when in truth the creature (Frankenstein being the creator) is the most eloquent character in the entire novel. The creature is never fully described. We know it is 'ugly', 'over eight feet tall' and 'yellowed skin'. There is no mention of bolts or a block-shaped head. The description in the novel reminded me very much of William Blake's incredible Nabuchodonosor as opposed to anything from the studios of Hollywood or the pens of cartoonists.

For me, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, is a breathtaking novel that seeks to find reasons to carry on amidst tragedy, self-blame and lofty aspirations. Mary died of a brain-tumour in 1851 at the age of 53. On the first anniversary of her death, members of Percy Shelley's surviving family opened Mary's writing desk. Inside they found, amongst other things, locks of her dead children's hair and a copy of Adonais (a poem by Shelley) with one page wrapped around a silk cloth that held some of his ashes and the remains of his heart.

Frankenstein, for me, is not a horror story, it's not science fiction and it's not a tale of adventure. It is a very personal story written by a young woman who is doing her best to make sense of her life, a life that had known death almost from conception. I put the book down with the belief that it is the creature that embodies Mary more than any other character - destruction following in its wake. "Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live?" The words are that of the creature, but are perhaps the honest exhortations of the author.

All I have left to say is anybody these days going through even a part of what Mary Shelley went through would undoubtedly find themselves referred for counselling, psychotherapy, perhaps be given medication and an appointment with a psychiatrist. And just imagine what the media would make of the discovery of the locks of deceased children and the partial heart of a dead husband. But what did Mary do in response to the tragedies of her life? She wrote books - and one particular book, Frankenstein, that has people like me, almost two hundred years after its publication, tapping words into a machine that will then be available to people all around the world. Sometimes you just have to gasp at the wonder of this life.

KDP Select - To Free or Not To Free?

Now I have two novels published with Amazon and have enrolled both in the KDP Select Programme. By enrolling in the Select Programne you are not permitted to have your books for sale on any other site (Smashwords etc.) For this though you are given two priveleges:

1. The ability to give away your book for free for five days during the ninety day period of the enrollment.
2. The inclusion of your work in the Kindle Owners Lending Library accessible by Amazon Prime Members who are entitled to one 'borrow' per month. The author receives payment for the borrow based on certain variables. Depending on the purchase price of the book an author may get substantially more income from a borrowed copy than for a paid copy.

In this post, the issues surrounding giving away your work for free and 'lending' it, will be discussed, both in terms of my own experience and observations I have made on the process in general.

The first novel I put up for free was Tollesbury Time Forever. Sales for the initial two weeks were good (about 5 per day) and they then faltered a little so I jumped straight in with a Free Promo day. Watching the numbers rack up was very addictive. It was almost like playing an online slot machine with fake money though. Throughout the period I thought many times "ah, if they were actual sales, how good would that be?" Once the promotion had ended I saw no direct increase in paid sales but as time went on reviews began to come in and it was clear that the Free Promo day had put the book into the hands of Kindle owners who otherwise would never have heard of it. This led me to discover sites like Goodreads and the UK Kindle User Forum which have been invaluable in terms of support and shared knowledge.

I thus adjudged that first Free Promo day to have been a success. I must say however that subsequent giveaways proved fruitless in terms of stimulating increased sales both for Tollesbury Time Forever and my other novel, A Cleansing of Souls. As such, although I have re-enrolled in the KDP Select Programme I have no intention of using any ither Free Promo days. That situation may change when my third novel is released, but it is something I will consider in depth.

In terms of the Kindle Owner Lending Library, this is currently only accessible on Amazon.com. My novels were borrowed barely at all in January or February but in March my novels were borrowed 40 times. April saw (as well as a decrease in general sales) borrows revert to their January/February trickle.

Now to what I have observed with others who have used the Free Promo days.

There have most definitely examples of authors benefitting hugely from the Free Promo days. The success of these days seems to hinge on a variety of factors:

• engaging with various sites who publicise free ebooks
• co-ordinated posts by the author and others on Facebook and Twitter to announce the free promotion
• whether the days are used individually or consecutively 

The rule of thumb seems to be that if your book makes it into the top 100 Free List you have a good chance of achieving a sharp upturn in sales over subsequent days. Outside of the top 100, your work may not see much of a surge.

So a massive surge in sales following on from giving away thousands of copies - surely that's worth it? Well I'm not so sure. I have observed two factors that in some way make me glad that my Free Promo days did not break into the top 100. The first is that the surge oftentimes does not seem to last for more than a week or two before sales continue at their pre-promotion rate or, perhaps, reduce even from that. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? Perhaps. But the second factor is a little more concerning. It seems that getting a book for free does not preclude some readers from leaving damning reviews. Novels that have previously had maybe twenty glowing five star reviews from people who have considered their purchase and downloaded it thinking it is something they will like can come to grief when that same novel is downloaded free on a whim and summarily disregarded with a one or two star review. Harsh but true.

I guess it's weighing up whether a temporary surge in sales is a reasonable price to pay for perhaps one or two permanent bad reviews. It is also worth noting that some Indie Authors (Cheryl Reid for example) have seen huge success without ever giving away their work for free - Rachel Abbott also; although her novel began to receive greatly varying reviews once it reached the top of the charts.

And so finally, on a wider point, is having the facility to give away ebooks for free a good or a bad thing?

Following my initial enthusiasm I am more and more inclined to think that short-term gain is a high price to pay in terms of the long-term future. What seems certain is that the KDP Select Programme with its vast array of free books and borrows is a wonderful thing for readers - it certainly seems true also that they are a major factor in the increasing sales of Kindles. So do free books sell Kindles or are they the key to literary stardom for the author. Being something of a cynic I am of the view that the KDP Select Programme is a wonderful piece of marketing by Amazon. All us Indie Authors with our hopes and dreams are lured into the trap of giving away our work in the hope that we will catch a magic wave and before we know it we are giving up the day job. I have personally come to the view that the Free Promo function could lead to a saturated market where books become entirely devalued and readers will look for price first and quality second, baulking at spending more than a pound or a dollar on an 80,000 word novel. I have even begun to feel some antipathy towards the sites, threads and people that highlight and spread the word about Free Books - but that's just the communist in me railing against the capitaist machine. And anyway, with me, forgiveness always prevails!

On a positive personal note, Tollesbury Time Forever currently has more 5 star reviews (51) than any other Literary Fiction eBook. So how do I get more sales? Put it up for free for a couple of days? Reduce the price? Increase the price? Change the cover? Change the description? Aaaaaghhhhh!!!!

I think I'll just have some wine...