Bugtown is on Kindle!

      
          I knew as soon as I finished In The Land Of The Demon Masters that I was going to have trouble getting anyone in the publishing business to read it, but I enjoyed writing it so much that I wanted to write another one. This time I reckoned I'd write something just for fun, something that kids might enjoy, something with a lot of humour in it.

          Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the cartoon, was phenomenally successful just over twenty years ago. The creator said he thought of all the things that were around at the time and just put these together. Ninja, mutants, teenage and turtles. So I remembered this when I was trying to think about what to write about for the second book for this age group. Aliens, alien abduction, time travel, dinosaurs, castles, knights, and sometimes funny! So that is what Bugtown is really about. And the main characters had to be siblings; one about eleven and one about fourteen, a boy and a girl. That covers the target audience, I guess.

          I couldn't get anyone to read it at all. I think I got two folk in the business to read the first one. That's why I'm so pleased to be able to put it on Kindle. I had a lot of school kids read these books and really like them, so I'm confident about the product.

          Since In The Land Of The Demon Masters owes so much to Tibetan history and mysticism, I sent a copy down to a nun I know who lives in the Samye Ling, a Tibetan Centre and Monastery. I wasn't expecting her to read it. I said she could pass it on to any buddhists she knew with twelve year old kids. There aren't a lot of books with buddhist connections for kids of that age. Anyway, I got this very nice response yesterday:


Thanks for sending your story.  I had a look at it and I think it's great.  We have a new tour guide for school groups so I've passed it on to her so she can use it for a rainy day activity.  Who knows, it may even generate some sales!

In The Land Of The Demon Masters is on Kindle

Easter Sunday
                     The Land of the Demon Masters is now on Kindle. Hurrah!

                     This story, for ten to fourteen year olds, is very heavily influenced by Tibetan history and mysticism. I was particularly taken by the account in Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Neel when she creates a phantom monk in her meditation cell. Of course, in this story this is exaggerated and the baddies create demons, but in much the same fashion.

                      In fact, the book is brimful of Tibetan associations. The sage/magician is called Padmasam, which is a shortened version of Padmasambhava, and he does sweep the demons out of the country in  much the same way as Padmasambhava is said to have done in Tibet during the 8th century.

                     There is also a foreign invasion in this story. The Chinese of course invaded Tibet.

                     I'm  a school librarian. When I finished this book, I had about fifty pupils in first and second year at high school read it and fill in questionnaires. They did this thinking the book was written by someone called Alison Main, not me. One of the questions asked the readers if they liked the book better than the last book they had read. Four out of the five pupils who had read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone before this book preferred In The Land Of The Demon Masters.

              

Bugtown cover!

Just got this cover. It's brilliant! Told the kiddo there was a bit in the book where this Tyrannosaurus Rex was trying to get into the city through this portcullis, and voila! Some cats got it and some cats aint!

In The Land of the Demon Masters cover.

          I wish these Kindle books, which I'm getting uploaded over the next couple of weeks, didn't need book covers. I'm a school librarian and book covers don't really make the job any easier in that part of it is trying to get the right book for the right kid. So maybe you have twelve year old boy standing in front of you and he's got a book he wants to take out which you know he's not going to like, and isn't going to read. You ask the kid why he wants to take the book out and the kid says because it looks like a good book. The kid hasn't looked inside the book. The kid hasn't even read the first sentence, but the book has a great cover and it looks as if it might be about vampires. But it's not really about vampires. It's about kissing vampires (thirteen/fourteen year old girls love these books!) and .... don't get me started about book covers. If you tell a kid that the person who designed the book cover almost certainly hasn't read the book ... it's like telling a kid that lawyers sometimes defend folk they know are guilty. Yes, it's a terrible world out there! It's a successful book cover if it makes you spend your money.

          But I do like this book cover. It was drawn by my daughter who is a glass artist. I gave her £20 for it, but told her if the pirates don't completely ruin this ebook business, she might be getting royalties from the book long after I've passed away. She read the book when she was twelve, but she couldn't remember what it was about. Until last week, the book was called Light in the Dark, but that doesn't sell the book. In the Land of the Demon Masters might.

City Whitelight

Tuesday 7:40 p.m.
                           City Whitelight was published in 1986, long before there were electronic/digital copies of novels, so I had to break up a hardback, scan it, and then edit the scan so that my friend can upload it to Kindle.  Of course, you have to read it while you're editing the scan. Must be more than twenty years since I last looked at that book.

                            When I first read it after it was published, I cringed and cringed, and didn't enjoy the experience at all. There was a typesetting error on the first page, which didn't help. Once I decided there were seven or thirteen good paragraphs in it - I can't remember which.

                             But this time when I read it I couldn't remember bits of it at all. And it must say I really quite enjoyed it. Here's what I wrote yesterday on my facebook page:

Just finished editing the scan of City Whitelight. Written by another joe a long time ago. Forgot a lot of it. Haven't read it for decades. Class war, ya bass! A wee gothic gem, so it was. I think I impressed myself this evening! Anybody wants a free look, just ask. Otherwise, it should be on Kindle as soon as the consigliere can do. Hurrah!


                     One of my facebook friends is Colin MacDonald who makes his living writing plays and screenplays, something which he is very good at, and left this very kind comment:


Colin MacDonald John it is a wee gothic gem. Wait, that sounds like a Sunday Post review. It is a shaft of brilliance illuminating a dark world. You are right to have been impressed!


                      I read that before going to work this morning. What a nice start to the day!


                          

Children's Books

          I saw an advert today for a competition for children's book writers. None of the submissions are to be from an agent, so they're looking for fresh talent. The winner will get published, get an agent, and get £10,000. Hurrah! I'm going to be rich! I'm going to be rich!

          I've written two suitable books. I am a school librarian. You't think I might know something about books for schoolchildren, so I wrote two books for ten to fourteen years olds back to back when I found myself unwillingly in full time employment.

          When I finished each of the books, I gave them out to schoolchildren, telling them they were written by someone else, and handed out questionnaires. This was most satisfying thing that ever happened to me through the wonderful writings. Kids can love books. Much more than adults. So all these kids are coming up to me and handing back these folders with the questionnaires, and giving me the big, beaming smiles. The kids, by and large, really loved these books. I thought they would and was much chuffed really.

           As a boost for this children's book competition, Michele Paver writes of competitions when she was unpublished. "The also gave me the assurance that one of those godlike beings in the 'publishing world' would actually read what I've written.'

           I was hustling the children's books for over two years. I sent letters out to all the appropriate publishers and almost all of them  told me to send in three chapters. So I did that along with photocopies of the reader reports .... and not one of the publishers asked to read either of the books.

           I found out after all this palaver that no one had ever heard of anyone getting published in this area without an agent. So sending three chapters to publishers is a complete waste of time. Why they pretend they're going to look at these three chapters ....

           I finally got an email from Nicky Singer and she said that there was no chance of getting anything read without an agent and you probably wouldn't get published unless you were with one of the six "killer" agents.

           So I sent submissions to all of the agents in Britain and managed to get two of them to read it. At least, they wanted me to send in full manuscripts. Whether anyone got round to reading them is another matter.

            I met someone a couple of weeks ago who'd just had a book published in this field, her first. No advance. I'd never heard of gettting published without getting an advance. I thought that was all the money you'd ever see. Not only was she given no advance, she only got seven and a half percent off sales. I'd never heard of anyone getting under ten percent.

           So it looks as if getting into a competition might be the only chance you've got of getting a book published in this field unless you are .... very fortunate indeed!

            But you've got to pay them to read your book. They're charging £15 to enter. So they'll read your book for £15. Or at least the first couple of pages. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of folk will send in stuff. The publishers will make a fortune!!

            Roz McKenzie  is preparing the covers for the two children's books I've written. They be on Kindle within the next couple of weeks, I hope!