The Whole Gamut Publishing

From the Norfolk Daily Times This is the press clipping that is referred to at the beginning of The Nor'easter - if you click on the graphic it is easier to read.

... this Friday 26th October 2018 I'm so pleased to announce that I've finally finished The Nor'easter . My editor, Janet Laurence, returned her review of my 147,500 word first draft at the end of August and I completed the re-work at the end of September.  I went through it again to clean and tighten, reducing the words from 142,00 t0 134,940. John Holland then performed a final proofread and here we are.

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...

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.

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 .

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...

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.

Today, I received back the eagerly awaited second editorial review from Janet Laurence. I love reading the overview first, to see where I've done good, but is always followed up by the but...

Having completed nearly 40,000 words of the next book in the series , The Elusive MacGuffin , I realised that I had set the book chronologically too far from the end of The Pink Herring. I had made changes in the characters lives that needed more explanation and time to bed in. So, I temporarily stopped work on the  The Elusive MacGuffin  and started The Nor'easter, which develops the backstories at a steadier pace.  This will be the next Shaun Young novel, picking up the story a few months after the dramatic ending of The Pink Herring . Helena Crowthorne eases into her promoted role as Detective Inspector, Steven Forrester takes up the acting DCS role while the formal process to replace DSC Spencer is orchestrated by Mary Hart. Shaun outsources the renovation of his canal boat to Frank Barker and his boat building business set in the Martham marina. And they all get involved in a new mystery surrounding the unexplained death ...

Having sorted out what I need to re-write , I decided to head down to France. Mum and Dave were back in the UK leaving the house in Beaulieu empty and ready for a writer in residence. I drove down on the 23rd August into blisteringly hot weather. After about 12 hours I reached the house, via the local Super U to pick up some food and drink, and the temperature was still in the high 30's. Mum and Dave's place is in central France, in the middle of a rural district. It's picturesque and quiet, apart from the odd tractor trundling by. The silence is uncanny. Nothing, no sound at all. After the first day I realised that this was not true. There were no artificial sounds, just the glorious sound of nature.  The view from the back porch is stunning - vast open skies that seem to go on forever. If I can't get inspired to work here it will be because I'm simply overwhelmed by the stunning beauty of the place. I soon found a routine. I rise...

With the first draft completed, I turned to the business of getting the book published.  I'd done a lot research about the best route to go, but with the rise in the number of writers generally, finding a publisher was not going to be an easy task.