PROGRESS

Word, I think, is spreading: I have had a few phone calls and e mails asking how to buy the book and for how much and there is some interest. In the early days there was a televison company interested and asking about a possible option, but I have heard nothing lately and shall not be holding my breath. Links to purchase, by the way are: Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/ and Authorhouse: http://www.authorhouse.com/. Not listed as a best seller or a "mover and shaker" yet, but give it time!!

23 June 2007 and “Folmer” is now available in Smiths and Waterstones nationally. I have no idea which shops are actually stocking it but an enquiry on 22 June revealed that the main Plymouth Waterstones had sold all the copies they had and were re-ordering – but it is not known how many copies they had in the first place! Still, very encouraging. There is an anomaly regarding the pricing, though, and this is worrying. The book can be bought from Amazon and Authorhouse for circa £8.00 and with a waiting time of about ten days, but Smiths and Waterstones are asking circa £13.50 and are apparently inflexible. This is due to the fact that the book is not from a main publisher and that, therefore, they cannot get the huge discounts which enable them to drastically reduce price and make “three for £10.00” offers and similar. This is frustrating and could well have an effect on sales. I am expecting two reviews in local papers this coming week, complete with photos etc. I am pushing for other reviews and have promises from various newspapers and magazines. Overall, the marketing is harder and far more frustrating than the writing of the book…

20 October 2007. It's been an interesting summer as far as "Folmer" is concerned andI think that I have learned a lot about “self-publishing” and the problems and complications of getting started as a first-time author. The large Waterstones in Plymouth proved to be marvellous and ordered the book as they promised and have since re-ordered several times. My understanding is that several other Waterstones ordered and I may have had some success with Borders getting copies into several of their major outlets, but WH Smith was a waste of time and turned their noses up the moment they knew it was self-published. The local manager did not even bother to return calls and although the staff were kind, he evidently felt that my efforts were a waste of both my time and his. The various newspaper and magazine reviews which I was promised materialised and the Plymouth Evening Herald featured the book twice. The ex CID Officers Association of the Met. Police were very kind and gave me a blast which resulted in over a hundred hits on my website in a day!! I have had numerous very good reactions (see Reviews on this site) and have had a report that the book was seen being read on the beach in Malta! The first royalty payment was very poor, but it only covered a short period and the book was not in the shops at the time. The next one is due in mid-November and, hopefully, will tell a better story….. The problem has been that I have had to do all of the marketing myself. My “agent” – Darin Jewell of the Inspira Group – did no more or no less than he promised and I am not in any position to criticise. Perhaps there were misunderstandings on both sides; there was certainly no signed contract between them and myself, and without wishing to go into this further, we parted company – which left me without an agent. Much is written on the net regarding Inspira and my advice is that anyone considering using them should read it all very carefully – but not take any notice of the “literary police”. There are countless of these individuals who spend their time chatting on writers’ magazine sites, generally whining because their 300 pages on bee-keeping in the Azores, martial arts as practiced by the Welsh community in Argentina or a convoluted fiction based half in Sidcup and half in Bolivia has not been published. They are to be avoided at all costs. Yes, Inspira charged me £350.00 to send the full ms to 16 publishers, but I do wonder if I could have done it for that, considering postage, printing, paper and ink. To say nothing of dealing with the misery of the 16 rejection slips which followed like the night the day! And, yes, Inspira did point me towards Authorhouse – but I had already looked at them before I contacted Inspira. Darin Jewell told me he would help with the marketing of the book for a percentage of the royalty, and it was on his idea of marketing as opposed to mine that we disagreed. He is an American and is making his way in what is a hard world and a harder profession, and I have to say that nothing he ever told me, said or did, was untrue or improper. When we parted he sent a childish, unkind and silly e mail, but the bottom line must be that if you have confidence in what you have written – as I did and still have – and you can afford the money, in many ways it is worth it – even if he does not find a publisher. As I said in earlier paras, the marketing is far harder work than the writing! On hearing that Inspira would not do any more for me, I set to and e mailed God-knows-how-many Waterstones up and down the country and spent days phoning and chasing. I knew that if I could get the book on the shelves it would sell – the Plymouth shop’s re-ordering and the readers’ reactions I have had proved that. The price has been a problem, as I knew it would, but it is the cheapest that Authorhouse will do, and if I told you how little I make, any would-be writer would be put off for all time! Then there was the libraries and having learned about Public Lending Rights and set my self up with the relevant organisation, I spent another two days phoning and e mailing just about every library in England! I think that this was time well spent, as I received many favourable replies - several saying they would order half-a-dozen copies for the libraries in their area. Anyway, finding myself agentless, I sent the first three chapters off to a series of agencies and – amazingly – on 21 September one of these asked for the full manuscript (in book form) and I am still waiting – rather like waiting for the results of hospital tests....and certainly just as stressful.

7 November 2007. Well, very much as had anticipated Coombes Moylett – the agent I had hopes with – has turned me down. I am now in a decline and must seriously consider if I want to go on with this. My second book – “From the Beatles to Blair (and some of the bullshit in between)” is finished. This a roman a clef turning on corruption – police and in higher places – the Krays (who I knew well) and a welter of political intrigue etc. Some of the few who have seen the ms say it is better than “Folmer”, but despair is a strange and very effective companion! Truth to tell, it feels like being eighteen again, and every girl you speak to at a dance tells you to piss off! I had started a third “Gregory”, but now, well, I think it will have to be back to the day job – not that I’ve got one, mind! I don’t honestly think that “Folmer” has sold very well (I will know more in a week or so) and I have come to understand that my vanity (must face facts) and self-belief have been misplaced. They all say it, those who know: self publishing is a farce – and I am sure they are right………….

15 December 2007. The royalty payment was due 30 November last but to date nothing. Authorhouse tell me that there has been some confusion with my postcode and a fresh cheque is being drawn and will be sent. I chased them, the usual complaining and sarcastic e mails and telephone messages and then, very much in the manner W.W. Jacobs described in “The Monkey’s Paw”, I got what I had wished for! Authorhouse sent me a statement and the sales were a disaster – less than one hundred since publication in May 2007. Ooh, calamity! Now, short of schlepping round the book shops with a suitcase full of books (which I am sure would have been pointless) I think I have done just about everything possible to market the damn thing, but the hard and unavoidable truth is that unless it is on the bookshops’ shelves at a reasonable price (both negatives as far as mine is concerned) it ain’t gonna sell. As I have stated, the local (Plymouth) Waterstones have been very good to me, but the general principal is as stated in Jonathon Clifford’s excellent and revealing web pages: no book shop is going to touch any self-published book – with the exception of those immediately local to the author, who will take a few copies because of the likelihood of local interest. The price is controlled by the publisher and is set far too high – especially in these days of “three for two” offers and Grisham hardbacks selling for twelve quid: on a sale price of £12.99 my return is less than one pound per book! Despite the super reviews I have had and the compliments from people I have never met, my feeling is that “Folmer” is going nowhere and the time has come for me to consider if, at my time of life, it is worth continuing. “To thine own self be true; and it must follow like the night the day, thou can’st not be false to any man”, said Lord Polonius in Hamlet - which is to say if you fool yourself you are no sort of man, and this is true advice. That said, “Folmer” is a good read and, as someone has said, if you buy it at Heathrow it will keep you occupied to JFK - and it is a shame that it seems likely to founder. I had thought that if I got the cost of “Folmer” back I may be inclined to go down the Authorhouse road with “Beatles to Blair”, but I see now that there is a slim chance of that indeed and that, despite my earlier ebullience and self-confidence Detective Chief Inspector Gregory and friends are destined to fade into obscurity. Perhaps a book about self-publishing?

17 December and still nothing from Authorhouse and to compound the misery I had a nightmare last night. I had found an agent and within a short time they had discovered a publisher who saw the value of “Folmer”. Yes, they said, subject to ironing out the details, they would publish the book and they were sure it would be a great success and a good seller. The dream took me into the boardroom with the publishing company’s directors at the point of agreeing the contract; there had been concerns about a first time author and a minimum print run of five thousand copies, but all was looking good and pens were poised over the papers. Then, of a sudden, a door opened and a young man holding a manuscript came in. “Hold everything”, he cried. “An Accrington Stanley player’s wife with big tits who knows someone who is related to a chap who went to school with a cousin of the Yorkshire Ripper’s wife has written an autobiography – there are about seven hundred spelling mistakes and it needs about six weeks of editing, but – “ The board looked across at me and with heads shaking, as a man they said: “Sorry, John – why would we take a chance on you when we’ve got a sure-fire best seller on offer…..?”

11 May 2008. “Folmer” has been in print now for almmost twelve months and despite my best efforts sales have not been good. Sadly, this is wholly due to the marketing problems and the disinclination of the bookshops to take self-published work. The reviews and readers comments I have had (see Reviews section) have been marvellous and everyone who has spoken to me has said that it is a good read and as good if not better than many in the bookshops.

This, of course, is soul-destroying but unless one has a vast fortune available for publicising, advertisement and Max Clifford, there is nothing can be done. The book is still on a few Waterstones and Borders shelves and can be ordered from Amazon etc., but I must face the truth, which is that I have failed. Oddly, although the sales are poor, from an investment point of view it is miles better than I could get anywhere else!

My second – “From the Beatles to Blair (and some of the bullshit in between)” is finished. The few people who have read it say they like it better than “Folmer”. It is being read at Authorhouse as I write this, but is this the best way? The will charge me circa £600 and for that I can get it off to about 150 agents! Several have seen it already and I have the rejection slips to prove it: it is a bit like being seventeen again and every girl you chat up in the pub tells you to piss off!!