The Whole Gamut Publishing

What competition? Last month, I opened a competition to give away three copies of my book, The Pink Herring . It was a competition with a difference - the prize wasn't for the applicant, it was for them to give as a present for someone they thought would appreciate it.

What's on offer? As we head into the festive season and work on my second Shaun Young novel, The Nor'easter  comes to a conclusion, I'd like to offer three people the opportunity of receiving a signed copy of my debut 5-star novel, The Pink Herring  (reviews can be found here .)

For the first three months, I published The Pink Herring exclusively through Amazon's Kindle Unlimited scheme. It remains available through Kindle as an ebook, but it has now been published as an ebook on...

Tonight, I watched a film I have seen countless times and every time I do, I think it is one of the finest films ever made.

Tom & Corrin meet for the first time at the party - even the Ray-Bans were a match Are we really just six steps away? There have been many reports that support the concept -  science  papers, Microsoft adding weight to it, not to mention a game called The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon where inebriated students try to link him to another actor through their co-stars in six steps or less.

Pink Herring   ©   Simon Royer - Natural History in Art I've heard of a red herring, but what the heck is a pink herring? After setting the title of my book, The Pink Herring , I did some research on the use of the term. The results were sparse, but very surprising.

I took a look at the sales of The Pink Herring through Amazon today. Nearly half the sales are in the eBook format and I expect that percentage to rise as time goes on.

... and I'm falling helplessly down it . So, I published The Pink Herring at the end of March intending to spend a small proportion of my time on marketing activity - the majority devoted to working on the next book. Two months on and guess what? I have managed the exact opposite of that proportion...

This evening I had the immense pleasure to watch my daughter perform in the excellent Spelling Bee held at the Swindon Arts Centre .   This was her final year project and it was as entertaining as it was professionally produced.

Well, this was a first for me. Tonight, I was invited to be the star attraction at The Blackrock Bookies, an Irish book club hailing from just outside Dundalk, County Louth in the Republic of Ireland. The members include,  From left to right:   Anna Capplis , Grainne Hoey, Ruth Sands,   Margaret Moynihan , Patricia Keenan, Michelle Reidy . Missing from the picture are Anne Donaghy and Brigitte Nelson .

Before I started writing in earnest, I did some research   on how others approach writing fiction, hoping to find a magic bullet technique that I could use. However, the more I looked, the more varied the methods of writing I found and the less convinced I became that I would ever find one which would make my task any easier...

Following feedback from some early customers , it was becoming clear that not many people could see that the front cover was actually a canal bridge at night. After speaking to Tim O'Rourke, he suggested a change to the cover that more closely followed other books in my genre. Tim suggested a variant of the lady in bed that appears on the new front cover which I bought from Shutterstock. I went through a similar process of editing the picture to give it a dark, pink-red sheen and added my brand of titling.  The original cover depicts a scene towards the end of the book; the new portrays the start with the original now on the back. I think the finished article looks good and a quick straw poll of random reviewers confirmed it. Let's see if I makes any difference to sales... Please feel free to share this - go on, hit the button of your choice...

This was a trailer I made for the book launch. This was my first attempt using iMovie which is an excellent tool for novices such as myself. What do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment or share this post - go on, hit the button of your choice...

I wrote this article for LinkedIn to explain how I got into writing fiction after taking what turned out to be rather a long sabbatical from the corporate world...

And here it is folks! Wow, to actually hold it my hands -  this is a very special day. The quality is surprising good for a print-on-demand product. The pages are well printed and have a nice feel to them - the page turn is easy and pleasant to the touch. The cover art is terrific, front and back, and the book has a weight to it, making feel like the substantial tome that it is. It may be childish and probably won't last, but I can't stop putting it in my bookcase along side my literary heroes. Heaven... Please feel free to share this - go on, hit the button of your choice...

Once more taking advice from the great Tim O'Rourke , today I set up a Facebook Author page from which I can launch news about the book to get the message out. Not sure where best to focus on - Facebook, Twitter or even this blog? For now I will try Facebook and see how things progress. Apparently, there's a marketing section where you can 'boost' posts to a much wider audience than your followers... Please feel free to share this - go on, hit the button of your choice...

Check it out... Finally, the day comes to let it loose upon the world . I have spent a few days sorting out the Word formatting for the eBook and the paperback and a few more getting the cover art correct for them both. Like anything in life, it's all part of the learning curve; once in it should stay in and makes things easier the next time around. I can't tell you how great it feels to actually see your work up for sale on a platform as huge and professional as Amazon. The process of signing up and getting everything uploaded has been fine.  I didn't need to use a helpline as it was all pretty straightforward. The difficult bits are choosing price, keywords and making the decision to actually do it. I ordered the paperback as soon as it was live, which was actually a few hours before the eBook was ready. Apparently, it will arrive the day after tomorrow. Can't wait... Please feel free to share this - go on, hit the button of your choice...

The final cover. I had a clear vision for the cover art. I wanted the book cover to reflect a scene from the story, towards the end where things take place under a canal bridge.