For me it is a dream come true, my book has been published!

It is quite a feeling logging onto a site like Amazon and seeing your hard work appearing there and not just that but knowing that it is for sale! What a rush!

After four years of writing, research, re-writing, more research, and then hours of fine tuning, my project has finally seen the light of day. Looking back it does not actually seem that long ago when I had the first idea to begin writing this book, although that is actually incorrect, my first idea was to write a book about how the Saxons defeated the largest Viking army ever to set foot in England at Stamford Bridge, but then I discovered that there was more to it than that. Anyway, I digress, the fact is that without checking my prodigous amount of notes I would not have thought that I had spent four years doing this!

The good thing is, however, well at least I think that it is, that The Sorrow Song Trilogy project has only just begun really; there's two more books to write! So why I am busy doing that I don't suppose you fancy having a stroll along to Amazon and having a look do you?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FBZW76E

And here's my author's page if you happen to be interested:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00FCRZU56

My book has gone to Kindle for publishing

After two days of intensive work at the prompting of ‘M’ (you know how you are!) I finally submitted my manuscript to Kindle last night!

At last, I have written a book and sent it for publication.

I’d like to say that it was easy but it wasn’t. Even going down to the last wire I discovered some formatting problems that I had not expected, but I got them sorted in the end...I hope!

‘The War Wolf’ is not sitting on my Kindle bookshelf with ‘Publishing’ written underneath it, even seeing that leaves me with a great feeling of satisfaction! It feels better than I had expected to be honest, but then I began this project with the idea of following the traditional route for publishing a literary work. That did not work out, got a lot of rejections to prove it, but as the book developed the idea of e-publishing became more and more attractive.

Some might see it as an easy option but I do not think that that is necessarily true, at least not for the dedicated writer. The reason why I spent two days working until late each evening was because I wanted my manuscript to be right. I did not want to see any silly spelling mistakes or careless grammatical errors in the finished article. I wanted people to concentrate on what I got right not what I got wrong.

As a result I feel more closely bound to my manuscript than maybe I expected. I am very proud of it. I think that it is a story that is worth telling; in fact I know it is. It no longer matters to me that I could not get a literary agent interested because I know that that really does not signify anything. A literary agent is just another person expressing a subjective opinion bound by the parameters of commercial success. If they did not see The War Wolf as being a commercially successful book then they are not likely to accept it. I understand this point and move on.

The real litmus test is not the literary agents and, perhaps not even the critics, it is the reader. Obviously the critics can have a massive impact upon a book, I don’t discount that, but you have to stop and think who did you write this book for? It was not for the critics, it was people who enjoy a good story, empathise with your characters and want to know what happens to them. Of course critics are such people, so they figure in their anyway!

Now I wait for Amazon to tell me that my book is out in the wide public domain, it’s like waiting for Christmas morning!

Today I will mostly be working on my manuscript

I set myself a deadline for publishing my book on Kindle and guess what? It's approaching at an alarming rate now!

No point whinging about it, if there was never a deadline there would never be any books published and what a horrible world htat would be!

So today has been set aside to peruse the suggestions from a good friend who is giving the manuscript yet another review, he's come up with some great ideas already. Nothing major, like the introduction of a whole new character, just some clever observations on how to improve various scenes or on moving some of the paragraphs around to create better hooks to catch the reader with.

If you can get someone you trust to do this sort of thing for you then it is definitely worth the effort, although a little bit earlier in the day would be better - but that's entirely my fault!!

When the finish line is in sight!

 Taking a break for a family holiday seemed like a good idea at the time but now that it is over and I am back at my desk I have to admit that I feel somewhat under pressure! Perhaps that is not so surprising when I look at my notes and realise that I started this project in September 2009!

4 years ago!

Wow! That’s a lot of exclamation marks! (There’s another one!)

To be fair a large portion of that time was spent in learning all about my chosen subject, the Anglo-Saxon period of English history. Also, there was time taken to develop the story into a trilogy, several re-writes, and 2 major surgical procedures to recover from as well. Tempus fugit as they say.

I also spent a considerable amount of time trying to get a literary agent interested in my project, to no avail. That is all water under the bridge, another popular saying. Having given up on the traditional route to publication, at least for now, I decided to go through the experience of e-publishing.

I only have myself to blame!

Ha, no, not really. It is not a question of blame. The thing is, I like this story that I have written, I like the characters of Coenred, the Saxon warrior forged in battled and honed by a sense of honour that would put a modern-day ‘right honourable’ politician to shame, and Mildryth, a woman fighting to recover what’s due to her and then hang onto it and then avoid the rapacious thief Thrydwulf and then wonder at the sense of falling in love with a warrior like Coenred and then....well, you’ll have to read the book! I believe in this book. I think that the story has human interest and that it plays out against an interesting backdrop featuring a people who have been much maligned since 1066, probably because the victors get to write the history and sadly the winners were not the proud Anglo-Saxons.

The whole world of 1066 has become a part of my world and enriched it as a result. Will ‘The War Wolf’ become a massive international bestseller? I don’t know (although I can dream) but I have set the bar a little low, all I want is for 1 person I do not know to contact me and tell me that they enjoyed my book, not too much to ask for really is it?

I will, of course, be doing the rounds to sell my book, after 4 years work it would be plain stupid not to, especially considering that ‘The War Wold’ is the first instalment in ‘The Sorrow Song Trilogy’, I mean, it’s not likely that anyone will read volume 2 if no one knows about volume 1.

First, however, I have to get my book ready for publication. Actually, it is 98% ready, I am sure of that, but there is still that niggling 2% to sort out. A friend is currently speed-reading through the manuscript to try and offer yet another insight into how I might make the story better, very many thanks Mike. I have joined Kindle and from today I will start the countdown to launch day, which I hope will be on September 20^th, the anniversary of the Battle of Fulford Gate as this is both the main event around which ‘The War Wolf’ takes place and also the anniversary of the actual battle.

I have crossed my Rubicon!

As a prelude to publishing...

I have decided to make the first chapter of my book, The War Wolf, free to download in pdf format.
The fact is that it is about time that I got something out there and while the book is being finalised for that very event why not, I thought, put out a taster? Well, what's the worse that can go wrong?

Okay, never ask a loaded question! That said, every aspiring writer has to reach this point where you step beyond your comfort zone, reach out beyond the circle of your family and friends, and offer your work up to that most frightening of individuals - the total stranger!

Funnily enough I feel rather confident about this stage in the long and winding road. I know that someone can, if they so wish, hurl a whole bucket load of invective criticism at my head, especially as I put a comments box on my website, but what they hey! Nothing ventured, nothing gained! Besides, I've been using the internet long enough now that I reckon that I can spot genuine constructive criticism from bile!

So here you go, if you want to, have a look and tell me what you think!

 The Sorrow Song Trilogy