Cracking the Kindle

As a child, my reading was not as wide as it should have been. I was obsessed with three authors: Roald Dahl; Agatha Christie (Poirot); and Martin Waddell, who wrote football novels. As a teenager I even composed a few chapters of a Waddell-lite book about a talented young footballer struggling at a relegation-haunted second division club. Unfortunately, my dad deleted it – possibly by accident, possibly in a jealous rage at my precocious awesomeness, I’m not sure. No, I’m not over it. Anyway, those three authors led me to want to become a writer.

Enigmatic. Superior.

Divisive
But I wasn’t just inspired by great storytelling; I’ve also always been entranced by the intoxicating thumbnail sketches about authors commonly found on the inside of book jacket covers. Underneath a highly posed and achingly serious black and white head shot (see mine, right) these short paragraphs routinely contained glamorous lines like: “<Author’s name> divides his/her time between London and the south of France.” For centuries, authors have loved to ‘divide their time’ between two sophisticated places, and for many years it has been my dream to do likewise.

Many male authors also choose to boast about a sexy wife in these biographical paragraphs. A typical example might be: “He and his Norwegian wife, the artist Cecille Johannsen, divide their time between Oslo and Buenos Aires.”

The reader is left in awe. Not only did the author write a life-changing slice of literature, he also has a desirous Scandinavian wife! Together they doubtless spend their time wittily discussing important artistic issues with intellectual acquaintances over cocktails in exclusive private clubs all over the world. What a life.

Temptress
Although I do not ‘divide my time’ between different countries, I can at least fulfil the second half of this double-whammy, as I happen to be married to an exotic wife of my own, the ‘Transylvanian Temptress’, Carmen. This detail of my author’s profile is absolutely vital in creating the kind of mystique that conjures both respect and envy in readers. It’s one of the main reasons I proposed, for Roald’s sake.

Unfortunately, next week Carmen will become a British citizen.

I know, right?!

After an official rejection a few years back, I hoped she would abandon this silly idea. But no. Earlier this year she selfishly applied again, and this time her wish was granted. Next Monday she’s even having the temerity to hold a private citizenship ceremony and, apparently just to rub my face in it, a celebratory meal afterwards.

As you can imagine, I am fuming. Look at my author’s profile now:

‘Dan Trelfer divides his time between south London (where he lives) and west London (where he works). Unremarkably, he is (technically) married to a British national.’

Pathetic.

Vital Party News!
The launch event for The Flathunter is pencilled for the evening of WEDNESDAY 20TH JUNE.

THERE ARE NO EURO 2012 GAMES THAT NIGHT – I AM PLANNING THIS WITH YOU IN MIND AS MUCH AS ME.

This date is unconfirmed at the time of going to press, but please put it in your diaries now, just in case. It is important you come as there’s likely to be a minimum £500 spend behind the bar and I can’t afford that. Further (amazing) details to follow.

This week’s soundtrack: Ronny Jordan – The Jackal

This week’s e-book recommendation: Roald Dahl – Going Solo

When publicising anything, it’s important to ensure that you point potential customers to the right place. For example, imagine if the entertainingly monotone comedian Steven Wright wasn’t clear enough with his publicity material and his fans somehow ended up confusedly listening to derivative DJ Steve Wright instead. It’d be awful.

Mr & Mrs Telfer, with registrar

Ludicrously Obscure
I never seriously thought this would be a problem for me because my surname is ludicrously obscure, but a few weeks back, my wife, the lovely Carmen, stumbled across a blog by an American comedian called Dan Telfer.

After the initial panic that Dan Telfer might have written a book and people might accidentally buy his instead of mine, I calmed down and, inspired by a beautiful blog by my friend, the raconteur Robbie Knox, and, of course, by Dave Gorman’s quest to find other Dave Gormans a few years back, I decided to send Dan Telfer an email. Here it is:

Subject: Hey, look, our names are nearly the same.

Hi Dan

My wife just stumbled over your website and thought: “Wow, this comedian has virtually the same name and email address as my husband.” Interestingly, in one sense it could be argued that technically you could be my wife’s husband, because at our wedding the slightly flighty registrar ended the ceremony by announcing: ‘Ladies and gentleman, I present to you, for the first time, Mr and Mrs Telfer!’ We are still unsure whether our marriage is legally binding as in effect we have never been officially pronounced as such correctly (this thought would comfort me, I think, were I ever to cheat on her).

Seeing as I often get called Dan Telfer, it seems odd that I haven’t stumbled across your work before, but it’s really comforting to discover that someone with virtually the same name as me is doing so well. It gives me genuine hope for my future – a reassurance, if you like, that my name will not obstruct my dreams.

What is also strange is that my friend Robbie recently wrote a blog about how he is continually mistaken for a comedian called Joe Wilkinson. Robbie has a small amount of fame over here in the UK and it emerged that, in turn, the comedian had also been mistaken several times for Robbie. It makes me wonder whether they might try and swap wives for a night – you know, like how identical twins like to swap boy/girlfriends (depending on gender and sexual preference, obv.) for fun. And now, just a week or so later, I find I have my own comedian doppelganger (albeit of a different sort, as you and I do not look alike) which is quite lovely.

Anyway, I’ll save you more eye-rolling, but if I’m ever in the States I must come and see your stand-up and perhaps afterwards we can compare name pronunciations. If you have a wife called Carmen I think there’s every chance we might be able to get a 90 minute HBO documentary special out of it.

Cheers, Dan

Still Waiting
Unfortunately, Dan seems to have elected not to reply.

Back in a fortnight: small hiatus next week, I’m afraid.

This week’s e-book recommendation: Are You Dave Gorman? – Dave Gorman

This week’s soundtrack: The World Of Jeeves And Wooster

I was recently electronically connected with American author Eddie Whitlock through my friend Molly Fisher, who is currently creating glorious cover designs for The Flathunter. Eddie’s highly-regarded first novel, Evil is Always Human, is available now and this week he very kindly agreed to write a Guest Column about his experience in Kindle publishing, just for us:

Here’s the truth I should be ashamed to tell: Writing my first novel was not difficult. It only took a month.

Only slightly less shameful is the fact that prior to actually finishing a novel, I had worked for nearly five years on a book that I could never finish. Sometimes it was a tale of alternate history; sometimes it was a monster story; sometimes it meandered between the two. It was terrible.

My monster story became a monster in my life. It would not settle down. It would not be controlled. It would not be finished. For nearly five years, I struggled with it almost every day.

Low-life
Last October, I decided to set aside my in-the-works novel. I decided to take part in November’s National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is an online project that helps would-be writers. Participants begin on November 1 with the goal of completing a 50,000 word novel in thirty days.

I cheated, because that’s the kind of low-life that I am, and started my new story on October 28. By the time November rolled around, I already had a start on the story. I used a childhood memory – my grandfather telling me that he had seen the last public hanging in our county when he was a child – as my starting point.

Surprisingly, the novel was finished on November 26. I spent December making corrections and adding some descriptive passages that I had skipped over. In January, I turned it over to Vally Sharpe, my editor, to refine and prepare for publication.

She worked her magic and my novel went online February 14 as a Kindle download on amazon.com. I was thrilled. People started buying it, downloading it and reading it. Pretty quickly there were reviews posted online.

Every day or two, I hear from someone else who has just finished it and wants to talk about the characters and the plot. Some have plucked out passages that they found particularly meaningful. I am an author!

Diversification
I added a print version of the book because there are people who want to hold the paper copy in their hands. It is cumbersome to manage orders, pack and ship, but it is proving to pay for itself as well as the upfront cost of getting the book ready.

Plus, my mom got to read it, a fact that is not to be ignored. She has never used a computer and is not interested in starting. She has no inclination to pick up an e-reader. It has nothing to be with price or availability. I could buy her one and it would sit unused like that answering machine I bought her twenty-five years ago.

My mother’s stance is probably common, but it is by no means the rule.

I work in a public library. I answer questions daily about downloading e-books, a service our library here in Athens, Georgia, provides. Most of those who come in wanting such information are over 40. E-books are a new technology, but reading – particularly getting books for free at the library – is not.
There are many mature potential readers like myself – I’m 53 – for the e-books. Keep them in mind. They, too, will be a significant market for your novel.

You can thank Eddie for this article by buying his e-book: Evil is Always Human

Last Sunday was a momentous day: I finished rewriting and re-editing the final chapter of The Flathunter. My friends: publication is now firmly in sight.

Look at My Schedule!
Hopefully this vague schedule will reassure you all that I haven’t been leading you on a merry (if entertaining) dance over the last eight months or so. Here’s what still has to happen:

My destiny (imagine the date is 2013)

Editors: The final chapter has been sent to my editors, Josephine and Rebecca. The most likely scenario I can imagine is that they’ll soon be meeting me armed with garlands and a slew of research on how I should go about submitting The Flathunter for the Man Booker Prize. Minor alterations are likely, but they won’t take long.

Proof in the Pudding: This week, thirteen fourteenths of the book will be placed in the hands of my proofreader, TV impresario Tom Sutton. Tom probably volunteered so he wouldn’t have to pay for the final version, but it’s still a nice gesture. Please direct any complaints regarding spelling and grammar to him once you’ve read the book – by definition, they’ll all be his fault.

Pretty Pictures: I’m hoping that my cover designer, Molly Fisher, will provide a couple of options so that I can ask you, my loyal disciples, to vote on the cover you like best. JK Rowling never allows interaction like that, as far as I know, so I hope you appreciate the effort I’m making here.

Blurb: As explained last week, I will need to finalise my blurb. Thanks to Lady Emma Clarke (read her wonderful blog here) and Rich Lloyd, I now have a very good idea as to what this should be.

Late Review: I need to identify some online reviewers who might be willing to read an advance copy of The Flathunter. Build that buzz, baby. Obviously, if any of you have any promotional ideas or friends ‘in the biz’ that you think might help, do get in touch. Please. I need this.

Trailer: With help from my lovely wife Carmen as my DoP, I have filmed and edited a movie-like trailer for the book. It features a Soccer AM legend, a former lead actress from EastEnders and a man sometimes seen on Newsnight. Star-fucking-studded. It will be released just before publication.

Party Time: As a matter of some urgency, I need to start planning The Biggest Launch Party for an Independently-Released E-Book in History. Obviously, I need to give you all plenty of notice on the date so you can’t possibly have an excuse not to come. A venue must be found, prizes need to be sourced if possible and I have to decide whether or not I can offer a free glass of bubbly on arrival.

The Upload: The text will need to be run through a proper formatting process to ensure that it doesn’t look like the book was published by a total amateur, and then, finally, there it will be, ready to be sold in numbers not seen since Steve Jobs died and his biography sales went batshit crazy (bad taste?).

Doesn’t seem like much, does it? Stick with me. It won’t be long now.

This week’s soundtrack: Stuck In A Wind Up – Lord Large

This week’s e-book recommendation: Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography

This week is all about The Blurb – that paragraph commonly found on the back of physical books or on an e-book’s Amazon page designed to entice readers with a scent of the story that lies within.

Harry Ford in The Mosquito Coast (not as good as the book)

DIY
Usually this would be completed by the publisher, free as they are from such wretched constraints as professional modesty. It’s all about selling, you see, and as a notoriously humble man, I’m finding it tough to produce an exciting paragraph that will lure strangers into spending their cash on my work. It seems dishonest; I mean, I think The Flathunter is stupendous fun, but I would say that, wouldn’t I?

For inspiration, I read The Blurbs for other books. The Blurbs for memoirs, I noticed, often contain the handy phrase ‘by turns…’ This cleverly allows the publisher to say the book is sad yet happy, funny yet serious and sexy yet thoughtful, all in one easy sentence. Even Christopher Hitchens’ Blurb for Hitch-22 uses ‘by turns’, which I suspect made him puke when he read it – Martin Amis would certainly have sent him an acerbic email noting how viciously the publisher had undercut Hitch’s wonderful prose inside with such weedy phraseology on the outside.

Meanwhile, Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart gets a meaty three paragraphs on the rear of the paperback, strongly hinting at sexy lesbianism, hot older women and lashings of unrequited love. It hooked me.

But I found something approaching gloriously concise perfection with Paul Theroux’s masterful The Mosquito Coast: ‘Allie Fox is going to re-create the world. Abominating the cops, crooks, junkies and scavengers of modern America, he abandons civilization and takes the family to live in the Honduran jungle. There his tortured, messianic genius keeps them alive, his hoarse tirades harrying them through a diseased and dirty Eden towards unimaginable darkness.’

If you’ve never read that novel before, you must be itching to do so now. There’s a handy link below if you want to give it a bash.

I’m Forever Blowing Blurbles
My problem is that The Flathunter is a novel that thinks it’s a guidebook. And although it will be obvious to readers that it isn’t a guidebook, I’m loathe to give away too much in The Blurb. It’s a tough balancing act: The Blurb must snatch at the imagination without ruining the pleasure of gradual discovery. Here’s my first attempt. I’d appreciate your thoughts:

The flatshare interview is a cruel procedure. Rejections are based not on a lack of qualifications or experience, but on personality. Failure brutally confirms a character flaw or, perhaps, a personal hygiene issue. So, it seemed about time that someone studied the psychological dynamics of the flatshare interview in an effort to unearth some handy tips that might give applicants the best possible chance of securing the flatshare of their dreams.

That is what this book should have been.

Unfortunately, the author’s ambitious experimental programme, which mainly involved the fabrication of increasingly bizarre stories about his own life during flatshare interviews, rendered this attempt at a guidebook useless. On the other hand, it’s a fascinating, curious and above all funny account of one man’s descent into a pigeon-infested paranoid dreamworld.

I think it needs some work…

This week’s soundtrack: Has Been – William Shatner

This week’s e-book recommendation: The Mosquito Coast – Paul Theroux