Big Trouble
Having just come back from a quick 3-day camping trip with no real connection to the world due to a flat phone battery and no time to charge it for more than a few minutes, I was immediately inundated with the news this morning on CNN. As I read about all the problems, wars and mayhem I have to say that there is just one thing that if applied by everyone would solve most of all of these issues…. live and let live. Why is it that folk feel like they are bound to force others to believe what they believe, live like they live and behave like they behave? OK so you may think I need to be ‘saved’ from myself. I have news for you – go fix
Read More »The ‘Bad’ Review
One of the things you have to develop a thick skin for if you put yourself out there, is the bad review…. No one likes a bad review and I have heard many actors, writers etc. state that they never read reviews because they simply can’t abide it when they get a bad one. Having said that, a bad review is inevitable. Everyone is different and has their own view. So last night I found my first ‘bad’ review. I was googling to see if there were any more reviews and I found it. Actually, it isn’t all bad news. The reviewer actually enjoyed the book and gave it 8/10 for plot but he hated my writing and character development. It is hard to read negative stuff and one immediately
Read More »Just Today
Have you ever wondered if today is, in fact, the only day of your ‘life’? Ever since I was a young child, I have puzzled over reality. As I have mentioned many times, in Inner Journeys, I talk about how as a young boy, I really felt like this wasn’t real and that I was in a booth somewhere looking through some glasses and experiencing life as a ‘virtual reality’ game. Back then there was no virtual reality of course. Later, at school, I couldn’t quite understand how I could be just a bunch of atoms floating around in space! What kept me together? How did I know which atoms where mine? and many many other questions. Other kids thought I was a bit weird. Probably they were right. I
Read More »The Self Doubts of the Self Employed
Sometimes, despite my best intentions, I get down in the dumps…. I think today I am shall we say, browned off. Trying to build a small business isn’t easy and I think the realization of the downside of building a business is now beginning to sink in. Firstly, people don’t have time or money and then when you actually do get a consulting gig or a client, they take simply ages to pay your invoice. Plus, right now is slap bang in the middle of the holiday season too (and the fact I should actually be on a beach today doesn’t actually help either). So I am sat at my PC thinking. Who can I talk to? Who might buy what we are offering? Sending out emails and receiving mostly
Read More »The Dreaded Lurgy
Just about now, we should be headed down the runway of Charles De Gaulle en route for Detroit and later, Orlando. Tomorrow we had planned a morning by the pool before picking up a rental car and heading to Santa Anna Island. Dreams just dreams. Instead, we are sat at home with our 5-year old who is covered in the blisters of Chickenpox but is otherwise fine and, as usual, full of beans. We are all a bit disappointed to say the least but what will be will be. There was moment yesterday when I still believed this wasn’t chickenpox breaking out in front of our eyes. The hospital doctor soon put paid to that forlorn hope. Then there was the momentary temptation to follow the advice of many of
Read More »Promotion and More Promotion
As I have said before I think, the average book doesn’t sell too many copies. In 2004, 950,000 titles out of the 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen Bookscan sold fewer than 99 copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies. Only 25,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. This is pretty old data but I couldn’t find anything more up to date in the 30 seconds that I tried…. It just shows you though. They say – they being my publisher – that you need to promote and promote and promote…. They do some of this work but I do the lion’s share. But, I am feeling guilty. For the next 2 and a bit weeks I will be on vacation and I won’t lift a finger on the book (collective
Read More »Technology is Killing Us
I was reminiscing to myself last night as you do from time to time. I recall back in the early part of my career how there where no cell phones, no smart phones, no IPads, no PCs, no windows, no Google, no Facebook…… and wasn’t it great! If I went on a trip, I didn’t expect to keep in touch with people, no one called me looking for something. Occasionally, I’d get on a payphone and call home to check in but that was it. Back then, a holiday was a holiday. On Sunday, we leave for two weeks in the USA. Sunday looks like being miserable with three flights and around 14 hours in the air. But I am looking forward to my vacation and going back to the
Read More »Presidential Myth Making
Those that know me also know that one subject and one subject alone can get me truly very angry. That subject is the idea that man-made CO2 is responsible for ‘global warming’ and today I am very mad because Mr. Obama, presumably to detract attention away from his complete mismanagement of Government and everything else, has decided to jump on the bandwagon. I’m sorry to my friends and eldest son who love this man, but he is to me the worst President the US ever had simply because he doesn’t appear to actually stand for anything except himself and now – the myth of global warming. People – global temperatures haven’t risen in the last 15-years. I’m not going to get into all the arguments because frankly I have made
Read More »Shifting Sands
So, let’s get something straight before we begin this. I don’t care if any government is logging my calls, tracking my internet usage or even listening in to those calls. I have nothing to hide but I am sure there are others that do have something to hide and need to be listened to very carefully. I really don’t care too much about this stuff. Maybe I should but I don’t. Nor do I particularly care that some guy is running around telling the world’s media that the US Government does this. I should hope that they do. I don’t either much care for the Chinese government pretending that they are innocent of such things (nor the Russians for that matter). The fact is, if for a minute I stopped
Read More »Viral Thinking
What if The Last Observer took off? I mean really took off. If it sold, hundreds of thousands of copies. I have been just occasionally letting myself dream such things in the hope that, if I think and believe it, it will happen. Funny though because this thought is always rapidly followed by that other little voice that says ‘You stupid bugger! Who would buy your book?‘ It’s that second little voice that stops us all from dreaming too much but actually, if we listened to it too much, we would never do anything at all. I set myself a goal with The Last Observer. It is this – minimum 3000 copies sold. 3000 isn’t that big of a number is it? Actually, I do think 300,000 would be achievable
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