Tuesday 30 September 2008

Bookcrossing

I’ve registered Summerset on Bookcrossing. This is a crazy scheme where you log your book onto this website and then leave it somewhere. The next person to pick it up then logs this online in the form of a journal. I know it sounds weird, but it’s good publicity. I’m attaching a link to the website so you can check it out. But can people leave good suggestions? I was thinking of leaving it in a book shop but I’ve a feeling I’ll get caught on CCTV and will be wanted for littering or something. And I think you can forget leaving it on a bus because knowing London Bus Drivers, they’ll probably think it’s explosive and will cause a major incident.

Suggestions please….

http://www.bookcrossing.com/

Friday 26 September 2008

Karen's knowledge of Music isn't as great as she thought it was!

Firstly, I have decided not to get an agent. I’ve thought long and hard about it and weighed up the pros and cons and have decided to go it alone. Yes, an agent could get me a publishing deal. But what does that mean exactly? That at least 35% of my sales go to other people when I’m the one who does all the work myself. At least doing it my own way I get to keep all the takings myself. Maybe sometime along the line I’ll change my mind, but for now I’m flying solo.

On another note, with my weird Roxy Music thing at the moment. I always thought Glass of Champagne was by Roxy Music and actually it was by Sailor (top song), and the last scene of the first episode of Ashes to Ashes plays out with a really cool song, and I thought it was Japan and bought the greatest hits of Japan and it was a load of crap and I never found that song. Then, whilst watching the docu on Roxy, they played Same old Scene and I thought ‘hang on, that’s the song at the end of Ashes to Ashes’ and it is. So I thought Sailor was Roxy Music and Roxy Music was Japan.

Talking of that scene in Ashes to Ashes, I think there is something sexy the way Gene pours the wine for Alex without her asking. Don’t ask me why, I’m a strange person. But if you want to watch it, here it is.

Ciao for now Kx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvj2B6NGKCA

Wednesday 24 September 2008

Same Old Scene

Heard from the literary agent. What a surprise, Two Become One isn’t the sort of thing they can find a market for! This comes on the same day I received an email from Hampshire Library saying they’re going to accept a donated copy of Summerset. So that will be at least three libraries in the UK that will have my book in by the end of the year. Mrs Osbourne will soon be on the shelves and I’m asking myself why I even need to find an agent, why don’t I just carry on as I am?

The itch to write is starting in me. I found writing Mrs O quite limiting because it wasn’t much more than a short story. But I want to get stuck into a proper novel over the winter. I’ve also got to do Two Become One and Winner Takes it All, but The Pioneers is starting to take shape in my head.

I almost must mention that I have only just discovered a song called In Every Dreamhome a Heartache by Roxy Music. It is a really sinister song about a lonely, rich man’s love for his inflatable doll. Me being me it has sparked so many ideas for a crime book involving a sicko and his love for dolls. I truly am going to become like Barbara Cartland, knocking out a new novel every 2 hours!

Ciao

Monday 22 September 2008

Thomas Hardy vs Jordan

Still not much news. Mrs O is about to go to my trusty editor for some proof-reading etc, then I will be checking it myself once more. By the time it's all printed and I'm satisfied, I should have my car, so I think I will build up my driving experience by touring around the M25 dropping off copies of Mrs Osbourne Regrets!

I've also ballsed up on Mad About the Boy. I accidently pressed 'create revision' on Lulu.com last night and now it's been set back because it thinks I've made changes, so it will be Christmas before it's distributed properly. Still, Mrs O will be out and about by then so it will all tie in nicely.

I watched a documentary on Thomas Hardy last night. He was a happy fellow wasn't he? I confess I haven't read any of his books but after watching this docu I think I will, but I'm not sure which one to start with. I think Jude the Obscure is too bleak and Tess of the D'urbervilles has been done to death so I will probably go for Far from the Madding Crowd. It did please me to discover that Hardy paid £75 to have his first book published - I haven't even paid that for Summerset or Mad About the Boy! And given this was around 1870, that's the equivalent of about £3000 today I would imagine. Apparently it took him five years to gain any sort of success and he started out by giving away free copies to his friends. Amazing, Thomas Hardy had to give away his books and pay a fortune to get published and yet Jordan is out-selling JK Rowling with her ghost-written rubbish. What a hippy dilly crazy world as the Frank and Walters sang.

I also want to briefly mention to UK viewers that on Living at 9pm on a Sunday is a show called The Underdog Show where 'celebs' train rescue dogs with a hope of getting them a home. Lesley Joseph (Dorian from Birds of a Feather) has a little terrier called Louise and it is the spitting image of Sally, my first dog. I want the number of that dog's agent! I want it to play Sheppie when the inevitable adaptation of Summerset is made (got to think positive here).

Enough ramblings. I've cut out alcohol, chocolate, cheese and caffine from my diet in order to avoid migraines. I'm also eating a magnesium rich diet and the change is making me a bit of space cowboy at the moment. Will be back on earth soon, I promise.

Monday 15 September 2008

Bronte vs Austen – no contest

With nothing much to report on my own writing front except that I’ve almost finished Mrs Osbourne Regrets and I’m pissed off with youwriteon. I’ve been given a good deal of four and five stars for my reviews of Two Become One and yet they’re coming up with an average of 3 stars, thus putting me at number 33 in their chart, I thought I would give my opinion on a literary argument that I’m sure burns on even today. Who is better – Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte?

I absolutely adore Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, both in the book and TV form. I’m watching the 1983 version with Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke for the 100th time and I’m still enthralled. To me, the Bronte sisters wiped the floor with Jane Austen. That woman is to blame for the utter influx of shit chick lit we have littering our bookshops, all her books are about social manners and finding Mr Right, which is all very nice but I’m sorry Mr Darcy (yes, even Colin Firth in that wet shirt) cannot compare to the sheer brooding and Byronesqe majesty of Edward Fairfax Rochester.

Both Eyre and Rochester are flawed characters who, through finding each other, discover things about themselves. I have a feeling that should Jane Eyre had found herself in an Austen novel, she would have found her match in Mr Whoever and would have become somehow tamed by him. With Bronte, she allows the wilful Jane to meet a man who is her equal. They are as wild as each other and you can imagine that they probably have really great sex!

To me it is quite telling of the times that Jane Austen books are so popular in an age where the majority of young women aspire to nothing more than marrying well. If Austen wrote today, Darcy would probably play for Chelsea. Jane Eyre is an independent woman and by the end of the book, it is she who is the stronger one in the relationship, the crippled and broken Rochester relying upon her for physical and emotional support.

Jane Austen is to blame for Mills and Boon and all that rubbishy chick lit. Her books fill young women’s heads with dreams of unrealistic romance and I find anything that just centres around the upper classes quite nauseating. Why do you think there are no soap operas centred around posh people? It’s because more often than not their lives are so boring. If you’re going to do class you should at least have some sort of contrast, some commentary on the differences between people.

Anything to do with Jane Austen triggers the same response in me as the words Sex and the City – I want to stick pins in my eyes. There is more to being a woman than your relationships with men and how other women see you. Maybe this is more about me; perhaps I’m too masculine in my approach to life but anyone who reads my novels will see I’m not afraid to explore the darker elements of life. If I want escapism I’ll watch a sci-fi film.

If they were musicians today, Austen would be Dido; the Brontes would be Radiohead. Nuff said.

Ciao for now.

Thursday 11 September 2008

Telstar!

I just wanted to add that I am soooo excited about the up and coming Nick Moran film, Telstar. It tells the story of Joe Meek, the tragic record producer who ended up killing his landlady then himself. I absolutely love anything about tragic characters (hence my obsession with the film Control) but added to this Joe Meek was gay and associated with loads of dodgy people and it’s just the most exciting thing. If you’ve never heard of Joe Meek, wiki him and it’ll tell you everything. To any Muse fans out there, I’m curious to see who plays Matt Bellamy’s dad!

The New Books Store

In my quest to turn around the fates of self published authors like myself I have come up with a new idea. I have this fantasy of opening up a bookshop for just self-published authors but unfortunately this is unlikely to happen as I just don’t have the capital. So I’ve come to the conclusion that my second best option is to create a website where self-published authors can sell their work.

I’m not even sure if this will work but there must be people out there who are bored with the same old same old books they get in regular book shops and are looking for something different. So I’ve set up this website which just sells self-published and independent authors and I’ll be interested in what people think. So if you get a chance, take a look and leave a comment here.

http://sites.google.com/site/newbooksstore/

On another front, I’ve almost finished Mrs Osbourne Regrets so that’ll be put into its final stages before I published. So curious to see if this new way of marketing my work is effective. Once it is done, I might put some of it onto my website for people to read, but it’s far too raw at the moment.

Ciao for now x

Thursday 4 September 2008

Role Models

This was a really funny film and I recommend people go to see it. It's the usual sort of humour a la Dodgeball, Blades of Glory etc but it was hilarious in parts. Best to avoid if you don't like swearing and nudity but for me it was really enjoyable. And Paul Rudd - oh my God, he is soooooo hot!

I Confess

I was going to keep this a secret but I feel the need to offload. I’ve found a very novel (excuse the pun) way of marketing my books. Advertising is all well and good, but how many thousands of adverts are we bombarded with day in day out and 99% of the time we either take no notice, or don’t buy the stuff. What I need to do is target my audience. Book shops are utter C U Next Tuesdays and won’t stock self-published stuff, libraries are equally tight and ridiculously bad at replying to emails even when I’m offering a freebee. So I then thought about doing an abridged version of Summerset or Mad About the Boy, about 100 pages, which would then cost about £3.80 from Lulu. I could spend £50 getting a decent amount printed then distribute them around second hand shops. My reasoning being there have been countless times in my life where I’ve bought a book costing 50p from a second hand shop, thought it was so brilliant I’ve then gone on to buy every book from that author.

But, to be honest, I haven’t the foggiest idea how one goes about creating an abridged version, I’d feel as though I was compromising my novels and I couldn’t face doing it. So, me being me, I thought to myself ‘why don’t you just write a short novella and sell that in second hand shops’. I decided to write a 95-100 page novel with adverts for the other two books at the back, I’m going to print it off and distribute around said second hand shops. Hopefully people will like what they read and come back for more. I can only try. At least if someone picks up the book, reads the synopsis and buys, well they’re already interested in my kind of work. I could spend thousands on advertising and no one would bother even looking any further because it’s not of interest to them.

I also thank the Lord I chose to self-pub rather than falling into the trap of vanity publishing. With all these shenanigans that have been going on with name calling (certain friends will know what I mean) I got into looking at publishers sites and found there are still hundreds of vanity publishers in operation. I worked for one of these when I left university and every day I would leave the office feeling sick to my stomach after they’d fleeced some poor old person out of their life savings with the promise they’d publish their magnum opus and turn it into some sort of best-seller before they died. When in reality they printed a few shoddy copies of the book and just left them to rot. It was horrible. Strangely enough in the publishing world, self-pub books are looked on more favourably than vanity press, which is weird because you may have a book without editing or proof reading.

Still no word from Lorella Belli.

I’m off to see a free screening of a film tonight. Role Models is by the same people who did Knocked Up and 40 Year Old Virgin, and for some reason they’re trying it out before they release it. That makes me feel better because it’s made me realise that no matter how famous or successful you are, you’ve got to give away a few freebies to get your audience. Will let you know what I thought with my next entry.

Ciao for now x

Monday 1 September 2008

The British media sucks sometimes

In continuation of my occasional non-book blogs, I thought would write about something that has astounded me in recent weeks. I never thought I would write a blog defending Jade Goody. The whole ‘woe is me, I’ve done a fart’ publicity seeking is quite annoying and people like her have brought the cult of celebrity to a whole new low. But since she has been diagnosed with cancer, the sheer hypocrisy of the British media has just knocked me for sideways.

Last year when the whole Shilpa Shetty thing blew up, all the celebrity rags turned against Jade in such a venomous way. I think the only one that dared let her state her point was Heat, I can remember her giving an interview with them. All the others treated her as though she was daughter of Hitler or something. IMHO I don’t think Jade’s comments were particularly racist, just ignorant. And I’m sorry, when Shilpa accused her of being common and she instructed her to go and visit the slums of India to see the ‘common’ people who had put her where she was now, she had a point. Anyway, Shilpa was a stuck up madam and while Danielle, Jo and Jade did act like bullies, I think even someone more articulate may well have got fed up with Shilpa’s Miss Perfect veneer.

Anyway, back to the point Now! Magazine in particular just rendered me speechless (there goes any chance of my book being reviewed by them). Jade used to have a page in the magazine where she gave her opinions on things. It was obvious that it was ghost written, we all know Jade is not exactly the brightest button in the box. Then when it happened, suddenly Now! Turned on her, severed all ties with her and wrote horrible stories about her.

Now Jade is ill, suddenly their writing stories about how they wish her well and her brave struggle etc etc. Now! Isn’t alone, all the gutter girl’s rags are doing it. Putting her on the cover, knowing that it will sell copies. Fair enough, they’re in it to make money. But the hypocrisy is just amazing. They either hate her or they don’t. Last year they despised her, so why not ignore her now? No, because she guarantees sales. It all stinks.