New dialogue for Hidden Masters - Chapter 1

The old Chapter 1 was a bit narrative heavy so I came to the conclusion that it needed some dialogue to perk it up. The trouble is the opening scene was a single character getting ready for his friends to arrive for the esbat. However the saving grace was a reported phone call that he later describes. So this is what I've added.

"Hello?"
"…"
"Oh hi Geoff, how's things?"
"… …"
"Uh huh."
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … … … … … …"
"Really?"
"…"
"Good grief!"
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … …"
"Your model village?"
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … … … … … …"
"Casinos?"
"… … …"
"Cowboys?"
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … …"
"Vegas?"
"… … …"
"Blackpool!"
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … … … …"
"Indians? What, with war paint and all that?"
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … … … …"
"Chain Mart! You mean the little everything-shop where you buy your beer?"
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"…"
"… …"
"… … …"
"… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …"
"Are you stoned?"

----------------------------------------------------------------

It's currently available on Kindle and in paperback (check the links in the sidebar). Here's the You Tube promo video.

Passing on the stairs

When I was younger we used to pass on the stairs. I remember this because we had a relative from Canada come to live with us and she made a point of telling us that she wouldn’t pass on the stairs. She thought it was bad luck or she thought she was too wide or something. I remember it making no sense at the time. She used to make a point of lots of things and she was generally annoying like that but hey, what can you do when you are eleven? Anyway, that’s how I remember that the rest of us didn't mind passing on the stairs, because she was different.

I’ve recently finished working in an office where we worked upstairs with the kitchen downstairs. All day we’d be up and down to the kitchen and frequently I’d meet someone coming the other way. The stairs weren’t nearly as narrow as those in a house, although they were not quite as wide as a double width staircase. Colleagues would always wait when someone was on the stairs, often forcing some delay. This seemed strange to me, there was plenty of room.

Is there some change in people that I've not noticed? Over all these years of working at home have I lost touch with the etiquette of stairway traffic? Are people more sensitive about personal space? Did I grow up in a family where we were happier to share out stair space? Or was I so small at eleven that I could get past anybody? Hang on…?

It's just a notion and I thought I'd share.

Is Amazon messing up the chances of small publishers?

This weekend I met a fan of my novel The Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil. Apparently she read the book a couple of years ago and it was quickly circulated amongst all her friends. (I suspect there is a large streak of hedonism running through her social circle, part of my target audience.) Smelling an easy solution to her prezzie problem she decided to buy a copy for each of them for Christmas.

Unfortunately Amazon have been listing the book as difficult to source, out of stock or out of print pretty much ever since it was published in 2006. This has always been disingenuous at best if not a blatant lie. The book is print on demand so it is always available, it just takes a week or so to deliver.

So when she wanted to buy eight copies she had to buy them all second hand. Why is Amazon doing this?

Online sales are one of the few things publishers will take as a recommendation to publish a self published author. Alan Rinzler wrote a blog saying exactly this, yet Amazon is blocking our chances. This is a scandal that really ought to be brought to the attention of the industry.

The Hidden Masters' (not quite) Pocket Book of Tarot

I'm in the process of moving my books over to a new publisher. We're starting with the Pocket Book of Tarot. The new printer can't do the tiny format (90 x 140mm) the old printer was able to do so the new version is known as the Hidden Masters' not quite Pocket Book of Tarot.

Here's the cover art for the new edition.

Possibly the World's only Tarot book with jokes.

You can expect to see this available on Amazon some time in the next few weeks, in the mean time the original (soon to be collectible version) is still available.

More about the book here

You can still buy the first edition here - buy it while it's still small enough for your pocket! Just £3.99

More cover designs for the second edition of the Hidden Masters

After the series of very dark covers for the second edition posted in March, a reader commented that it looked like Stalag Coronation Street or something, a friend has been enthusiastically working on some ideas. Let us know what you think. They are only rough at the moment so they'll have to be developed properly if one is chosen.

1. First of all he was just playing with ideas from the classic Las Vegas design

2. Then he adjusted it after a bit of feedback about the plane and the text

3. Then a yellow one just to see how it looked with a brighter cover

4. Then trying to combine the elements with the earlier designs

5. This was an attempt at the classic blockbuster novel front cover with the author's name writ large

6. And again combining some of the Vegas elements

7. Finally a combination of the Vegas elements, the image from the 3D model and blockbuster text

Do tell us what you think.

-----------------


If you want to know more about the Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil here are some extracts:

Chapter two on astral travel

Chapter three on breaking down on the M6

Until the second edition comes out you can still get the first edition, complete with the original typos, from Blackwells

First paragraph from the Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil

In sheer terror Geoff bit down hard on his meerschaum pipe carved in the shape of the god Pan. He would have closed his eyes as the enormous double-decker bus bore down on him, but he couldn’t because his eyes were painted on. Meanwhile, the engine of the twelfth-scale biplane screamed as it carried him toward an almost certain and horrible death. It was at this very point that just one thought dominated Geoff’s mind: "Why does this sort of thing only ever happen to me when I get involved with these guys?"


Chapter two on astral travel

Chapter three on breaking down on the M6

Until the second edition comes out you can still get the first edition, complete with the original typos, from Blackwells

Cover designs for the second edition of the Hidden Masters

Here are some visuals for the cover design of the Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil (second edition). I'd welcome your input. I've knocked these up in Photoshop, these are to give the designer a brief. The final art will include spine details and all the bumph about price and ISBN etc.

Remember, this is still the first book in the series that many of you guys have already read in the old green cover. This is for the move to my new publisher. The second book in the series will follow when the transfer to the new publisher is complete.

Cover A

Cover B

Cover C

Cover D

Cover E

Cover F

Cover G

The images are taken from the 3D model that was adapted from the set for the animation. (The animation has been shelved until all the books are moved over to the new publisher.) Because the model was only ever meant to be seen from the alley side of the buildings the windows on the front of the houses haven't been painted in. Once we know which image we'll be using the image will be tidied up and finished off. The model as used in these images has streets going off into the distance but most of these are close into the houses so not much of the background shows.

The blurb is just a draft at the moment. If you've got any thoughts then please feel free to comment on this post or my post discussing future marketing.

And finally if you want to know what all the fuss is about here are some extracts:

Chapter two on astral travel

Chapter three on breaking down on the M6

Until the second edition comes out you can still get the first edition, complete with the original typos, from Blackwells

Danger of publisher's offer going down the pan

Back in the autumn I submitted a couple of proposals to publishers that were accepting submissions from unagented writers. I spent weeks writing a suitable proposal with the help of a consultant who knows about these things because it's more of an arcane art than the occult practices that I write about.

Then I waited...

And I'm still waiting.

The afore mentioned publishers said that they don't enter into correspondence. I'm sure they got the text for that disclaimer from the small print of competitions on the back of cereal packets from when I was too small to sit on a chair and touch the floor. You had to read the competitions because there was nothing else to do while eating a bowl of Wheataflakes with milk and enough sugar to give you cancer.

So I find myself wondering what happens if they actually do like a submission and how much trouble they go to when they get back to you? Will they send one email or will they try to find a phone number? Or will they even try to track down your blog or even your book?

My greatest fear is that someone will reply to me and the message will end up in the spam trap only to get deleted amidst all the ads for fake Rolex watches, erectile dysfunction drugs (if you are lucky pellets of chalk that wont kill you) and special offers for septic tanks.

Observations of similarities with Terry Pratchett are to be discouraged

The life of a writer isn’t always full of glamour. I’ve spent the last two months writing a manual for a laboratory machine that incubates water and tests for pathogens. I had the summer free because there weren’t any photocopier manuals to be written. Apparently Terry Pratchett used to be a technical author working for the Central Electricity Generating Board and he used to write press releases about how there hadn’t been a radiation leak. Really, there hadn’t! And I get the impression that he would have been about the same age as I am. So if the similarities don’t end there then perhaps there’s hope for me.

I’m currently rushing home each night in the hope that I’ll have enough energy to edit the next chapter of the first Hidden Masters novel. I’m hoping to tighten it up a bit and put it out as a second edition with a new ISBN. That way hopefully Amazon won’t list it as out of print. It’s not out print even now; if Amazon tells you that the Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil is out of print they are lying to you! Let them have me for defamation or whatever they want. I bet Terry didn’t have this trouble. Apparently he used to rush home to work on the next Discworld novel. This was before he was really famous and he still had a day job. But he didn’t have to deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous small press publishing.

What’s the point of all this? Not much really. Blogging about the publishing life means you have to post something and sometimes it’s not all that glamorous. But why should it be any more entertaining for you than me? Well okay you are the reader and I have an obligation to entertain you. So here’s a poem I once wrote about a spoon:

How I wish
I had some tea
for my spoon
so sad to me

Oh God
can’t you see
that my spoon
would wish to be
a greater spoon
a boon to me

If you could grant
just a little tea
but please quite soon
or I might swoon

So please grant
my wish so humble
treat my spoon
and I’ll not grumble

So much happier
I will be
if my spoon
could stir my tea

Inspired by Nick Harrison (who is not a spoon)

I am an arse - well partially at least

It seems publishers are beginning to look to self published authors for their next talent. This is great news for self published authors waiting to be discovered. But look just below the surface of these claims and you discover that publishers are looking for self publishers who have achieved good sales of their self published books. So they seem to be using successful self published authors as a way of reducing their exposure to risk.

Read Alan Rinzler's blog about this here

I’m a pretty incompetent publisher. I’m a fairly incompetent marketer. I’m a completely incompetent publicist. When it comes to being a self publicist I’m a total arse! I am a self publisher.

I can’t phone up a venue to say I’d like to do a book promotion for my own book because I feel like they will think I’m a wannabe, unable to find a publisher because I’m crap. I know that’s not the case but it’s what’s going through my mind. During the brief time when I had a publicist I did readings, signings, all sorts, and I had a great time. Having somebody else to represent you gives you credibility. I can do all the web promotion, social networking, all that’s easy. When I started I chose a pen name so I could pretend to be a second person when I was acting as my publisher. That way I might disguise the fact that I was self published. It didn’t really help much because what I really needed was another team member.

I’m a writer, I’ve been writing for twenty years, mostly corporate or technical content with some copywriting and a bit of journalism thrown in for good measure. Now I’m trying to break into a new field, writing popular mass market comic fiction.

Saying that publishers are going to judge the potential of a self published book on sales seems ludicrous. I know these are businesses but, surely, when a manuscript lands on their desk they judge it on the manuscript. It’s got potential or it hasn’t. Expecting self published books to show fantastic sales is just saying that they only what to publish books by business gurus. I write deeply absurd comic fiction with philosophical themes that make people laugh out loud on the train. I know that’s true, my readers have told me so. But I don’t have tens of thousands of readers out there because I have no way of reaching the mass market. Even blogging and tweeting isn't going to  bring you to the level that the industry are looking for as people follow bloggers when they have whiff of success, rarely before. Plus some of the bigger on-line sellers list print on demand books as unavailable or out of print! The industry is actively blocking the one man bands.

Publishing insiders claim that there isn’t a wall around the industry. Saying that self published writers are welcome, then picking up one or two as an example to show how open the industry is, just means they have extended the wall to block a minor breach. The rest of us are still on the outside.

The importance of feedback from readers

I was talking with a reader of mine on-line earlier. He was asking about my next novel and I mentioned that the Knights Templar will feature significantly.I've edited the conversation slightly but it went something like this.

Jack Barrow:

The Templars are due to be a major theme of my next novel if I can ever get around to writing it.

A Reader:

That sounds right up my alley! I may have to get a copy when you are done with it. I'm nearly done with Hidden Masters, some of the humour in it is brilliant - "You breathe it in. You've got a cold, not constipation!" What area of the Templars will you cover? A comical quest for the Holy Grail?

Jack Barrow:

The Templars are involved on the Welsh borders in the modern world. I can’t say too much until it’s written.

I don't recognise that quote. Are you sure you're reading my book?

A Reader:

The scene where Clint is making a herbal remedy for Wayne’s cold. p.131 Templars story sounds good, how far along are you with it?

Jack Barrow:

Okay I remember, the infusion scene. That scene is one of the ones that might get chopped in the second edition. It doesn't do much for the story but I suppose it does help develop Clint as a character. The new book is about two chapters done, but has been stuck at that for about 198 months.

A Reader:  

That's a shame, I do like the side scenes. I feel it gives an insight into their relationships with one another and the one liners are brilliant.
Ah, good luck with it. Lets hope it doesn't take another 198 more.

Jack Barrow:

Oh, sorry, typo, it was meant to say 18 months but it does feel like 198. Interestingly though if the side scenes help to develop the characters then perhaps they should stay. Feedback like that is always useful. I might blog that.

So here I am thinking now that the bits of the story that don’t add much are more important that I thought. What can you do without feedback?

Stuck on viral marketing

Coming soon to a viral marketing campaign near you

So here’s the thing. I’ve talked in the past about doing an animation to promote my first novel. (I’ve only written one novel so far but there are plans for a further three in the series, honest!) The book was published a few years ago but since then I’ve decided it needs more polish and would have a better chance in the pagan community if I corrected a few mistakes that some people can get a bit indignant about. (Interestingly these issues don't apply to my non-pagan readers who just take it at face value and laugh out loud on the train, apparently.) I’ve not been deliberately offensive, well not much anyway and those aren’t the bits they complain about; more that some people don’t like to be miscategorised. So the second edition is in the pipeline.

So here’s the other thing. I really, really ought to use viral marketing to promote my work. Back in 1989 I had some ideas that I put together into my first book. Satanic Viruses was a non fiction essay about how I thought the years ahead would see a change in society. The thesis suggested that the purely scientific perception of reality that had been taking hold of the world throughout the twentieth century would weaken and a more holistic perception would take its place. That holistic perception would have space for philosophical perspectives such as is evidenced in modern neo-paganism and there would be a weakening of more structured theological traditions. To this day I am convinced that the rise in religious fundamentalism that we have witnessed is a part of the death throes of the major religions. In the future religion will be much more bottom-up rather than hierarchical and structured.

Just add figures and darken the surrounding background

Anywho, at the same time I had another idea that, for the want of a better way of getting it out there, I tagged onto the end of the book. That idea was the information virus. Back in those days there was no Internet to speak of, only academics and a chosen few had email and there was no world wide web. However, it struck me that, if presented in the right form, easily copied and with a reward to pass it on, an idea could spread like a virus. Richard Dawkins had written about memes about ten years before but it wasn’t his idea and he hadn’t suggested a formalised mechanism. My solution was cumbersome and unworkable, involving photocopiers and chain letters, but the theory was there. About six years later Tim Berners-Lee came up with the web and viral communication became a real possibility. Satanic Viruses was republished in 2008 with considerable additions to the original text. I’ve looked and I can’t find anything published on viral marketing that predates the nineties and the whole idea may not have been written about other than on web sites until some time after the millennium.

There is a very real possibility that I came up with the idea that led to viral marketing, so it sort of makes sense that I use viral marketing to promote my work. But how do you make a viral about a book? After discussing this with a few people, including some people who work in the new field of viral marketing (I don’t remember getting a thank you for creating their jobs), the idea arose for an animation of a part of the Hidden Masters story. A scene from Chapter 7 was chosen as it shows the nature of the characters and contains good examples of the humour and magic.

Minor artefacts of construction, such as seams, will be removed in Photoshop

To cut a long story long I’ve built a 3D model of the location that I can move into any position to present the characters in front of. I’m currently trying to create a storyboard so that I can either continue with the project or hand it on to an animator to complete. An experience with an animator last year, while I was committed to other things, has taught me that I need a storyboard at least to be able to communicate my vision so I have to do that myself.

I’m currently trying to figure out if I can develop the skills to draw the characters onto the backgrounds. (Actually, at the moment, I’m writing this and not getting on with it.) I’m using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to sketch some characters in. Or should I just try to figure out why my scanner hasn’t worked for years and draw the figures on by hand and scan the whole lot in?

So ultimately, I’ve been stuck here for months. I need to produce a viral video to go with the second edition now I’ve learned that I have a potential readership. I know that if I can just reach enough people they will make comparisons to Dan Brown, Douglas Adams, Robert Rankin and even Terry Pratchett, though the last one is a bit of a stretch. I know they will make the comparisons because those comparisons have been made already. Should I be making these claims? No, my agent should be making them but I can’t seem to get the attention of anyone in the publishing industry. (A smart middle class woman at the Hay Festival once asked me who I was with when I handed her a flyer a few years ago. I fumbled my response and undoubtedly missed an opportunity.)

The camera can be put anywhere as in a virtual film set

This all has to be ready to run a campaign on Facebook, Twitter, the blog, and generally around the web.

Now I don’t really know why I started writing all this, probably to avoid trying to learn how to draw in Illustrator. So if you know an animator, graphic artist, agent or even a publisher, you could save me a whole load of crap because the second novel is there, ready to go with a couple of chapters written and I’d really rather be doing that.

Oh and I’m told that publishers these days are looking for writers with more than a single book and with the web and IT skills to take on some promotion. If that’s the case, see above!

In case you missed the link about here's the finished video