Curiosity Gagged the Cat

Rise of the Raven is out, and I am seeing a repeat of Abigail’s Summer with changing time lines for delivery, with the big company who rules books etc.. It is probably a good job there is a digital version, whilst sat waiting for that small brown package!

It is not easy being a writer these days, it appears everywhere I look that terrible restriction on what can or cannot be said is looming up. It appears that being honest about life is fine, as long as it is a certain kind of life, some parts of life, are simply not to be mentioned. If they are, well, kiss goodbye to your platform that hosts you.

I am finding that writing is somewhat like village life, certain people can say what they like, and others are not allowed to say anything, and yet are having to have all the dung thrown at them and have to endure it. It has become a mine field where you have to be careful where you step.

Apparently, these days certain large companies appear to wield the mightiest axe, and wield all the control, as they define morality, and for a writer who is trying to get their thoughts and observations out there, as they write them into their stories, it feels at times, like one step forward ten steps back. Hmm, didn’t a guy called George write something about that?

It is not that much easier publishing, as it appears no matter what you put out, certain larger operations have algorithms that hinder your progress for sales, because you do not use their own brand or platform to publish and print from, it really does feel like there are one too many Marjorie’s controlling everything, in the world today.

I am pretty sure my hopes of making it as a writer are pretty much stunted, because I want the freedom to take from all my many observations in life, and all the conversations I have had, and use them in my stories. Sadly, that courts controversy, oh how I wish I could time travel back to the seventies, just to get my books out and have them actually read by open minded people who have no fear of being challenged, I am quite sure Abigail would probably have a much better chance of survival, well, better than in 2021.

They say life reflects art, and yep, that is pretty much my life, as I fight to gets books delivered on time to the few who want to read them, with a book that can be printed and shipped within days, but the so called large multinational company offering it online, puts ridiculous delivery times on it, putting customers off because they do not want to wait.

It is mental, I ordered my own book to test the water. Now bear in mind, it is printed in the UK and all over the world, and I live in the UK, but nope, this huge company has decided to print it in the EU, so they cannot offer me a delivery date yet, how utterly ridiculous is that?

Of course, the answer is simple, print and distribute with them, but I don’t want to, because that restricts where my books will be available, and it certainly rules out shops and libraries, who won’t touch them. This is my life as a writer, in stead of writing, I am tied up in an AI robot with no hope of ever talking to a human, trying to simply get one answer. WTF are you playing at, print the bloody thing in the UK.

I am starting to feel like the chief Curio, as I sit wondering what new draconian rules, I will have to restrict my future books, as I work on the second instalment of my story with Abigail and her friends for 2022.

The sad thing is that the story of Abigail, reflects a great deal of life today, with its bullies, and sexual liberation of the young, which I understand is shocking for the older generations who do not really understand that kind of open free life. It fascinates me how people in their lives, are judged by the sexual behaviour, and called for experimenting, when in truth, the world is supposed to be a much more tolerant and accepting society. It is alright to be whatever you want, and identify with any of the many labels we have today, women are told embrace your sexuality, and be unashamed, just don’t do too much of it or you will be shamed, and berated for it. It is such a contradiction, as the masses encourage people to be and live free, and yet when they do, they all stand in judgement, point the finger and shame them. Yep, Madge is alive and well and watching you.

It makes me chuckle, as I am aware of some who read Abigail’s Summer, and were quite taken aback, with a Marjorie like response of ‘Oh, he used to write such nice things, like the love between Robbie and Runestone, in Heirs to the Kingdom, and this Abigail has swearing, I never expected this.’ I cannot deny I have smiled, Abigail’s life is too much, and yet Cutters killing, raping and hanging people from trees is fine, and what about the enforced slavery of the orphanages controlled by Mason Knox?

The works of Robin John Morgan, Writer Author

Just for the record, Runestone has way more sex than Abigail, but that is fine as it is in a dystopian fantasy, and she is married. Just a quick note, she was late sixteen, unmarried, in her mother’s front room, and in front of a passed out Harry, when she jumped on Robbie. I feel Birch would be proud of her, and pat her on the back with a happy, “Well done, was that nice Sweetie?”

The simple truth is, there is actually a really wonderful story within the Curio Chronicles, as it follows the life of Abigail, and those who surround her. She comes from what is considered to be a good family of breeding, they are certainly seen as the well to do moral family. But peel back the layers, and it is a very different story, and that is the point of the Curio Chronicles, it is the peeling back the layers, and taking a good long look at what lies below the facade of the false.

How it looks on the outside, is more important that how it is on the inside, and that is not just life in Wotton, that is the reality of life today.

Look at Edwin, a well to do accountant, in the right tailored suits, highly regarded in the business world, and looked up to by all in Wotton. He is for want of better words, a model resident. The fact that he is cold and cruel to his wife and daughter is meaningless, he looks good. He is out in London, boasting about his wealth, screwing around behind his wife’s back, and when confronted by his wife’s best friend Hatty about it, because Abigail saw him, how did he deal with it, he punished his daughter severely, he even chose to believe a rapist who had the right image in the village, over his own daughter?

Abigail lived at home, lost and ignored and felt utterly betrayed by her father, a scenario I know well, having talked with many like her. Her mother who is a high up in the Parish Council is no better, as she tries to emulate Marjorie and gain respect and approval of the village, and in doing so, became controlling and unfeeling, putting image as a higher priority than her daughters well being. Felicity was once a free spirit, much more like her daughter, and yet because she was shammed and bullied, she married an uncaring man just to gain acceptance again, as it looked proper and decent, the hypocrisy never ends in Wotton.

The joy of writing this series was that I was able to use Wotton to hold up a mirror to society as a whole, and say look at this, in a startling and at times uncomfortable way. The Curio Chronicles, and Abigail’s Summer, does not hold back as it twists and weaves through what actually is quite a powerful story. The sexual referencing and humour lighten the load on the journey, but for those who have read Abigail’s Summer, as you know in true RJM manor, what I write at the start of the book, is just to paint the background, and lull the reader into a very unseen twist at the end, as I lob in a very large dose of reality to Abigail’s life.

Debs, Birch and Deadly. Abigail’s Summer
.

That is sort of the point, this is her story, her evolution, and through each book she will age as she faces new challenges, always living in the fear of becoming her mother. If I have learned anything about life having been around for fifty odd years, and having spent much of that watching and talking to others, it is that life is uncomfortable, and not quite the rosy picture we would want it to be. There are some pretty ruthless and cruel people in the world, and we have all done things in our past we would much rather not admit, and that is actually the point of the series.

We live in the moment doing our best, and we get drawn into things we enjoy, even if it surprises us at times, which as we grow up and grow older, we are told that is wrong. So we hide it, ashamed someone will find out, and there are a lot of people in this world who judge others for doing exactly as we did as young people. In the first book, Abigail is nineteen and filled with the optimism of living a free open life, especially as she has the very liberated and wild Birch at her side, who encourages her to live well and not hide it, as Birch guides her into learning about who she really is, and what her full potential can be.

Birch never lies and admits her faults, she is after all unashamed of just being herself, but after all, she was raised by two psychologists, and has devoted a lot of her life to the study of human behaviour, and thoroughly understands it. She believes people should not hide, and live their lives to the fullest, as we only get one trip round the block, and fully intends to make the most of her life, and in doing so, enhance the lives of Abigail and her friends, and she definitely does not hold back.

In a way, Deadly and Birch are like a yin and yang, as their dark and light fit together perfectly, with Birch creating her chaos, and Abby getting dragged into the centre of it all, racked with self doubt and close to heart failure, trying to understand herself. Birch opens the world up for Abby, and in doing so, opens her own world, as the two of them learn to let go and sample life to its eye brow raising fullest. For Abigail, she begins to learn a great deal more about who she really is, and starts to see and understand her own potential, especially as a wannabe writer. Birch already knows Abigail is capable of greater things, and in many ways gives her a well needed push, as she helps unshackle the chains placed on Abby by her parents through the oppression of her childhood.

I feel there is a message here that says let go and be true to yourself, and if that is not what you expected, well at least it is honest. So many people suffer from those dreaded four words of ‘what will people think?’ and as a result, they become unhappy and feel they have to hide. The saddest thing about that, is usually people are so preoccupied with their own egos, that they do not really notice anyone else.

Be honest, do people ever look up from their phones these days, maybe they fear being triggered by someone being respectful to them and saying hello? I find it amusing and crazy, that today just showing good manners is seen as flirting, and can trigger someone, it is so messed up.

As I prepare the second book to be published, I smile, yep, this one is no different, (That is your trigger warning lol) as the group fall apart and separate, as five years pass, and they hit twenty four years old, but as with all things connected to Abigail and Birch, you cannot stop a runaway train, and those two who are a little older, but not so much wiser, blaze a trail to send Marjorie and her cronies into meltdown, leaving them no choice but to strike back.

Abigail’s Summer The Curio Chronicles Book One

The second Curio book, will challenge all of Abigail’s perceptions of her youth, and force her to face some unpleasant realities, and face some of her biggest fears, with plenty of humour and some very uncomfortable topics. All of it will be done with the same curiosity from Deb’s, the cool controlled manner from Edwina, some flamboyance from Anthony, and as for Chloe, well she is just exactly who she has always been meant to be, just a simple girl from a council house estate in Oxendale, and more deviant than ever, as she swears like a sailor, but she actually is a lovely kind girl, although all young men should be wary.

I am working on Curio’s Summer now, (Curio Chronicles, book two) as well as something completely different from anything I have ever written before, which is more fantasy based, and probably expected of me, as its cleaner. (Smiles) And as with all things I write, when it is done, you will have it. I also have two more Kingdom related stories which have been progressing along, one more a prequel to jump in after Raven, and one set after the last Kingdom book, so they will appear at some point.

My time is busy, shared between the writing desk and VCP and all the problems with being an indie publisher, trying to get noticed, in between all the large dominant companies, who appear determined to force me to play by their rules, which I won’t be doing any time soon. And as always, when I know more, so will all of you.

Thanks to everyone who has supported this journey of mine in a writer life, it has always been greatly appreciated, so stay safe and talk books, it all helps.

The Arrival, and almost Departure, of Abigail.

It is funny really as I look back on what has been the most stressful and heart-breaking week of my life, and then cast my mind back to last year.

The rise of the Covid virus sent shivers down my spine, as I got to see something not unsimilar to the rise of the Red Death, and realised very quickly that my thoughts back in the mid 1980’s were actually pretty accurate, as an unknown virus swept across the world creating havoc. Back in March 2020, it was frightening to watch the news media, and see some of my theories about the fragility of life become a reality.

People around me were scared, jobs were threatened, schools closed, and everyone went into survival mode, and spending stopped as people stayed home, and a whole new reality of life became apparent. We all wore masks, if we had to leave the house, something we all did with much trepidation. Business crashed, including my own, it was a difficult and frightening time to be alive.

Suddenly I had a lot of time on my hands, and so I focused on writing. Getting the last part of HTTK out was a priority, even though I knew few would sell as people sat on their cash, just in case their employers crashed also. I got the book out in July, but was not expecting a great deal, and in order to stay focused, I wrote another related story that went back to the very beginning of Heirs to the Kingdom, which I do hope to publish this year.

With that over with, I had to occupy my thoughts, we came out of the lockdown, only to find ourselves back in another one, so I did what I could with VCP, and then turned back to writing, and a project I shelved back in 2017. Back then I really wanted to write this book, but I was so tied up with Kingdom, it was not possible, I have a file filled with outlined ideas, and story plots, and in mid-October, I was sifting through it, when I came across what was at the time simply labelled ‘Students.’

For those not in the know, as I do keep a lot of my life private, I worked on and off for over twenty five years counselling, and in that time of talking with every generation, I have been privileged enough to gain a lot of insights, to areas of life that are not often visible to most of us.

I read through what was the synopsis for the book, it was late at night and I was really feeling that need to write, which I lovingly refer to as having itchy fingers. I reached the end of the synopsis and quickly realised this would actually make a great start to a story, and would create almost a full first chapter, and that was it, I reached the end, hit enter to drop a line and continued to write for the next five hours, creating notes on the story as I went. Somewhere around dawn, I collapsed into bed mentally exhausted, with a list of main characters, a rough sketched village map, and the first two chapters.

Abigail's Summer by Robin John Morgan. ISBN 978-1-910299-27-2

That became the pattern of my life for the next two weeks, I hammered away everyday making a few more notes, but basically, I was writing blind and, in the dark, just making it up as I went along, never knowing what the next chapter would be about. For myself, it felt like freedom, and reminded me very much of writing the Bowman of Loxley back in 2007, which was the same inspired and intense experience, and I was loving the fact I was writing something nothing at all like Kingdom.

The editing watered it down a little, it was real, very gritty, a little spicy, and had lots of twists and turns in it to keep the reader guessing, and the most wonderful thing about it all, was it contained lots of slightly tongue in cheek, and a little naughty humour. I have always struggled to write humour, Harry in Kingdom was not always an easy thing, and I would spend hours putting each little section riddled with misunderstanding together. Abigail was so different, it just flowed out of me as I thought back to all the stupid and bizarre moments of my own life, and that of friends.

What emerged was a book that whilst not as elaborate and heavily layered as Kingdom, still had a lot of great sub plots and layers, that would all weave through the story to the final ending. I hoped it would provide a good twist, and really engage the reader to take a long hard look at their own life and the lives of those around them. From the few to date that have read it, I think it has worked really well.

I will not deny, the book is very modern and fresh, and very off the cuff, and gritty, and for a lot of readers, I am assuming there will be a few WTF! moments, but I actually like that, books should make people think, and even with Kingdom, I created similar scenarios.

Abigail and her crazy friend Birch, encounter so much unpredictable madness, that it is my hope it keeps the story flowing, so far those who have read think it does, but ultimately the jury is still out on that. The last month of editing and formatting was such an exciting time for me, I guess with Kingdom I have become a little jaded, after 14 years and eight books, and not as excited as I should be, but this book had me chomping at the bit as the deadline drew closer, and seeing it formatted was thrilling, and even more so, as this was the first time, I was putting a digital version out at the same time.

Abigail's Summer, Print and Digital

Digital Kingdoms are coming soon, there has been a lot of set backs getting the right distribution, but that is now sorted and settled, and the Kingdom stories are almost ready, I just held back a little as I wanted to give Abigail a good run first. The day approached and I got the first test print, and it looked amazing, it was also so much fun to work on the cover, as my wife took on the task of cover design for me, and she produced such a great relevant and fantastic picture for it. I really was so excited, and could not wait for the moment when we hit the button, and it was published.

My joy was short lived, the following day when the book appeared on Amazon, it was listed as unavailable, with the comment “We do know when or if this item will be back in stock.” I could not believe it, and checked straight away with the distributor, but it was available and ready to print, it made no sense at all. The following day, June 13th, the book was offered, but the delivery time was ‘one to two months’ Again my happiness was crushed. I checked again with the distributor, they were quite insistent the book was available, as it could be printed and shipped within 3 to 5 working days depending on the number of orders coming in.

Currently Unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock

All I can say is, when you are an author and you have put your heart and soul into a book, to experience this, is devastating. No reader is prepared to wait between one and two months for a book. I tried to contact Amazon, which as an author or publisher is impossible, their email no longer works, and their phones lines ring and ring, and when you do get through to the call system, you go round and round, all they are interested in is customer calls, not authors. It was frustrating and gut wrenching, my chances of selling my book were zero, it was literally dead in the water. I tried chat, and got a robot, and again got the same run around, it was impossible to get past it, because there is no chat box to write in, you just have generic answers to press, and no hope of speaking to a human being, and talk to someone who could help me. I cannot write how soul destroying it was to have to go through it. I spoke to another author on a forum who I know quite well, they told me, “They want you to publish with them and use their POD service, if you don’t, get used to this.” Another author told me. “It happened to me, and the only way I could get back on the platform was to give them an even bigger discount.” They added. “My book sells for twelve pounds, and at the end of all of it, I get just one pound and forty pence, after paying the print costs, Amazon takes the rest which is massively more than I make.”

Usually despatched within one to two months.

All Authors use POD (Print on Demand) it is an advanced system which means as you buy the book, it is printed and shipped automatically. Amazon has no reason to list any of our books for more than one month’s deliver time, they simply chose to, because they are a multi billion dollar company that rules supremely over the book world, and no one is big enough to challenge them, and so they can do as they wish, which means delaying delivery of anyone’s books, and it is wrong and it sucks.

Just like last year, it felt like my books were running in sync with my stories, last year I saw a virus not unsimilar in its spread to the one I created for Kingdom, and my latest book Abigail’s Summer, focus’s on the bullying tactics of those who feel they can control everything, and Amazon certainly do when it comes to book sales.

I really love Abigail’s Summer, the characters are probably not what you expect from me, but they really are wonderful, so much so I reached the end of the first book, and knew I could not walk away from them, and so wrote another four stories that took them from their first glorious summer together, right through ten years of life, friendships and troubles. What is now the Curio Chronicles will come out over the next few years, I was lucky, I wrote all of them before the first was even published, so they are done, apart from a few tweaks.

Working hard with VCP at the moment, I am working to make sure I never get hit in the face again. Abigail’s Summer will be available world wide and with a fast delivery to ensure anyone who wants to read it will do, it will take a few weeks to get it set up, but that is ongoing as I write, and in future I will not bother what Amazon does, as I will promote the hell out of the VCP links and do it myself.

To those of you who have stood by me and supported my writing since 2009, I would ask, that if you do read Abigail’s Summer, (If you actually get it before Summer ends) and you do enjoy it, because it is very different from HTTK, please help, share the links, talk, tell your friends, and encourage them to buy it or download it. I am one guy sat at a desk who loves to write, and create great stories, but at the moment that is threatened, as without sales, I will not be able to make it through, and will ultimately have to stop writing. I am working 18-hour days to get this book known and out there.

My story is not a lone one, as other authors have reached out with the same story, and I am helping them to follow my lead and build websites with their own delivery distribution worldwide built in. No one should bend to a bully, and Abigail’s Summer shows that, and I will back up my words in the book 1000%. There is a line in it that feels so appropriate at the moment, and you will find it in chapter thirty-two, and it simply reads.

ADULTS BULLY TOO!

My thanks as always to those who have supported my writing, I hope you all have a peaceful Summer.

Happy New Year 2019.

Winter within the Woodland

At one hour past midnight in a glade filled with soft snow, the sounds of a small babies cries echoed through the bare snow dressed trees, around the ancient woodland that surrounded Robbie’s Mere, and the house of the Lord Loxley and his wife Runestone.

   As if they all knew, the few animals that scratched in the snow for food, stopped and all raised their heads and looked in the direction of the wooden house. It was a sacred time when a power of the sight of the future was brought by Stephanie and Jessica into the world.

   The house rang with cheers, and laughter and the ringing of glasses of celebration, and somehow in the world of the woodland that was asleep for the winter, life seemed to tread round the trees and bring tidings to all of a new addition to the noble line of Loxley.

Taken from The Queen of the Violet Isle. HTTK Book Four, by Robin John Morgan.

Is it 2019 already?

It is hard to believe that 10 years ago in January of 2009, I sat with my girlfriend, later to be my wife, and looked through every page of the Bowman of Loxley. We were in the process of starting what was to become a publishing deal for the first editions of HTTK, the only problem was, the publisher was concerned about the word count. We edited a sizeable chunk from the first book, something I did very begrudgingly, as this book was the culmination of 20 years of research and ideas.

It was an exciting time, I had been pushed and pushed by a lot of people to publish this book, and for two years I had dodged doing it, from my own point of view I did not feel like I was a writer, I simply wrote stuff down and enjoyed doing it. Writing was a past time, a hobby, it was not something that was meant to be serious, but having been pushed by just about everyone who had read the rough first draft, I had finally made the decision to publish and set about getting things ready.

The rest as we know is history, the book was edited down, the book was published in April 2009, followed by book two the same year, and the third book came out a year later. It has all felt like a whirl wind trip, and the kind of story dreams are made of, but sadly that was not to be the case.

The fourth book in the series was not published until 2014, four years after the third book, which was mainly due to the fact that as my third book hit the stores, I began to feel very uneasy about allowing my publisher of that time work on the fourth. Things felt wrong, and my suspicions grew a great deal that things with the publisher were not as expected. I am glad now that I listened to my gut feelings because as I arrive in 2019 I still have not received a single penny in royalties from those first editions, and I can no longer reach the publisher as they have disappeared, I have had no choice but to write off those earnings from what at the time was a lot of book sales.

It served as a lesson for the future, and became my driving force to set things right and establish HTTK by a means I could control, and funnily enough, it was New Year’s Day 2014 that I launched Violet Circle Publishing, after a year of seriously hard work and effort on the part of my wife and myself. January 2014 was once again a hive of activity as I pushed to firstly revisit the first three books, and put back all the edits that had been removed from the first editions. The focus from that point on was to completely re-format the interior with a format that could be replicated throughout all the books, I wanted it simple, clean, and easy to read, and by making the page size a little larger, I manged to drop the page count, and thus reduce the price of the books, as I had always felt the first editions were just too expensive.

January 2019 is going to follow a similar pattern; I will be writing none stop as my wife looks towards the editing of each chapter as I write it, in order to speed up production of the final book of the series. It will feel good to finish with the final book on the tenth anniversary of the first publication, a feat that will bring to a close a whopping twelve years of none stop writing of this particular series of books. Who knew it would take so long to actually get all of it to this point and into print?

Heirs to the Kingdom has seen me write millions of words, spend literally a good few years of just editing and revising, I have taken thousands of photographs, driven hundreds of miles, and have hours of notes on my digital voice recorder, and I think I have used a good few trees worth of recycled paper in the process.

I would love to say it’s been exhausting, but honestly even though there have been so many nights sat up alone writing, and I have at times suffered sleep deprivation because I got carried away on a particular stubborn part of the tale. Exhaustion was never an issue, it has been a challenge of that there is no doubt, but I loved every moment I have worked on this story, and it has become a huge part of the person I have become, and hopefully I think I can say I have finally earned my stripes as full time writer.

2019 will take me into a place where my focus and concentration have to be better than ever, I have a lot still to do to bring this story to its final conclusion, and it with that in mind that I take my inspiration from the last ten years of working to publish this story. It still needs a much bigger fan base if I am going to continue to write, and once the final book hits the shelves, that will be my goal for the second part of this year, but for now, I am simply doing what I love the most, writing the tale that you have all come to love, for all of you who read this are one of the inspirations that drives me forward, and I will be forever grateful to all of you.

I wish all of you the very best for this coming year, I wish you all peace, and safety in whatever you may face this year, and I hope all of you will get to walk a greener path lit by the shade of old trees.

Happy New Year 2019 to you all.

The dappled shade of the Woodland

Happy New Year.

As the clock strikes midnight, and we all move from one year into another, I guess I will not be that sad to see 2017 end, its not be the easiest of years.

2017 has felt like the popular theme of my HTTK work, I have faced some pretty overwhelming odds and had to fight my way through. The year began in what for me is a creative frenzy, and I was inspired and working really well, but unfortunately it was not long before life began to tap me on the shoulder, and point out that things were occurring which required a great deal of my attention.

This country has seen some pretty major upheavals in recent years, and the most significant being the Brexit vote, at first I was not overly concerned, but after several years of Austerity cuts in this country, it became very clear that the book market was suffering, as people had less and less for a luxury product such as books.

A great deal of my attention was switched to promotion, as I had to don my VCP hat, and do what I could to help bolster the promotions, to try and find new audiences for not just myself, but the other authors I represent, and that at times has meant prioritising their work over my own. It has been a long and hard struggle to get the word out this year, especially against the bigger publishers who were feeling the same bite, and pushed more of their resources into promotion on levels I could not possibly compete with. It’s been a creative year there is no doubt, as VCP has expanded in many more ways on social media and networking, to find audiences with more disposable income. It has felt like a long hard struggle, and at times I cannot deny it has been exhausting.

My greatest set back has been in the form of simple life, events and growing issues around family have diverted a great deal of my attention away from writing into dealing with day to day life. Emotionally this has been the toughest year I have had for some years, and it has been hard to focus on writing in the small amounts of down time I have had between drama and the problems around me. I have felt very frustrated for a great deal of the year, and torn between VCP, HTTK and Family, not the best recipe for focused writing.

It’s not all grim news, HTTK is alive and well, and even though I started out 2017 with an ambitious project of getting two books ready for print, I have completed a considerable amount of my goal, and both stories have had a significant amount done on them. My aim for the quieter moments of 2018 is to start and get them finished ASAP. HTTK eight is my priority, which will then be followed up later with a related story, which will take the story right back to the start of everything, and open up the back story of how the Merle worked its way into the line of the Dark One. Both are in good shape and just need to be completed, I have written a huge amount on the back story, which has allowed me to weave elements of it into the final book of the HTTK series, and as I start this new year, the last HTTK edition and getting it finished is my priority.

I am feeling the pressure to get more readers, and finish the book, and also to make this a book worth reading.

To all of you who have shown such great loyalty to my work, I wish you every happiness for this New Year. I hope that the paths you walk are greener and shaded from the brightness of distraction, and the focus of your lives this year is peaceful, safe, and productive.

Happy New Year to you all.

Kingdom Next Book Update

It is hard to find a place to start.

Shortly the seventh book in the series will be available, and I am delighted with it. I have been on this particular book for two years, which is odd, because I knew before the first page exactly how this one was going to go as it races towards the final conclusion in book eight.

I have been creating threads and clues throughout all the books that would all come together in this particular one, which made for easy writing, but along the way I gained an extra book, as book five became five  and Five part two (Book six). That then meant the editing was a more difficult task to keep the books fresh and exciting, so when it came to this one, which has become the seventh book, the dilemma was not so much what to write, but the order in which the story unfolds.

Just to recap.

Robbie has struggled and finally overcome his inner fears, Runestone has finally received her final gift from the White Lord, Sapphire is in all sorts of dilemmas because of her confusion over her mind and heart, and she is also having graphic visions of some elements of the past. Jett with the sword of truth is gone forever, and Una has left on a task set for her by her grandfather many years ago. Opal is charging around in a panic over something she feels was done by the Queen of Fae, Eve has finally gone from the realm and is protecting the Star of the Merle forever, and to cap it all, Morgan has hit at the heart of the Woodland Realm by kidnapping Runestone and the Green Lord, whist springing a deadly trap to capture the Specialists. An awful lot has happened in just book six, and if you add to that all the books prior, there is a great deal to stitch together before the end.

The end of book six presented many facts and asked a huge amount of questions, and yes, very soon the answers will be arriving between the covers of Heirs to the Kingdom part seven, Bridge of Sequana. That was just the start of the notes to include in the book as I began my first draft, and since that day, I have been very carefully weaving together the story in a way that will unfold and hopefully take the readers breath away. There is no doubt this book will stir many emotions, but the one thing I hope is that the book is not predicable, this is a part of the story I have always looked forward to, as I know it will throw a curved ball into the mix, but as with everything that has been written to date, everything has been put there for a very good reason, and I think a little of this book, will have readers reflecting on the previous books, or at least that is my hope.

Halfway through this book I also started to write the final book, so I was working on seven and eight at the same time, mainly due to the fact that after ten years of writing none stop, the published books have caught up with my writing, and in order to build the climax and keep the momentum going, I want eight out on time with no delays.

I am really thrilled with Sequana, it has taken a huge amount of twisting and turning and clever editing, but the story is captivating, well-paced, and very hard to leave alone, I would imagine for those few diehard fans of HTTK (To whom I am so grateful) it will draw them in and hold them there entranced.

I am working now to get the book out asap, which due to the process will be late July onwards, just in time for sitting quietly in the Summer sunshine, and as you all read, I too will be out in the sun, tapping away to finally complete the series and tie up all the threads, (Talk about pressure) and create what is hopefully the best book yet. I am now sensing that feeling of approaching endings, and soon the story will finally be told as I leave the Woodland Realm for new pastures. It has been a thrilling adventure, and happily there is still some more to come before the end.

Enjoy book seven.

 

Robin.

My Reason To Write

If your only reason for writing a book is to make money, think again.

We all have that age old picture of the Dickens era writer with black ink stained fingers, scratching away at his parchment by candlelight, and to be honest, when you look at the industry today with all its high class technology, you could be fooled into thinking that writers have it easy and are sat on a good size pile of constantly flowing cash. But the harsh reality is, for the writer things have not improved a great deal from back in the days of Dickens.

Writing will not make you rich overnight, well not for 90% of those who choose to do it. Yes there are those chosen few who the chips fell right for, and they have the privilege of living a life of comfort and security. For the rest of us that is a dream we can only dream of, as getting a book written edited and then out for sale is a mammoth task, and that is just the first hurdle, then you have to make it sell. Most of the big publishers are not that interested in new writers, there is little money to be made as the investment in promotion is very high, and the returns may not recoup their initial investment, they prefer the tried and tested route of known name celebrities and writers, as their first consideration has to be profit driven. Self publishing does give you a much longer term programme, and personally considering the fact that with a traditional publisher you have pretty much the first four months of release to make a profit in order to stay on their books, then self publishing does make more sense, as you have time to sit back and wait, especially if you are constantly writing new material. This is how a lot of writers are starting to think now, looking at the bigger longer picture, but even so, the rewards in the form of financial gain will never be high.

It’s a very real fact that your average writer earns less in a year from writing than most people do in a month of working at their usual job, you may see the handsomely priced books at £5, £10 and £15, but believe me, when it comes to the royalty of that price being paid out to the writer, it has dropped to less than 10% of the book price per sale.

So why do it?

The fact is that most writers are book geeks, they love literature and reading, and are driven from within by a compulsion to sit for days and weeks slaving away slowly crafting the limits of their imagination into words, that hopefully one day they will share with the rest of us. It’s not very glamorous, and at times it can be quiet boring, and yet the need to write drives all writers forward.

Looking at my own life, I sit alone separated from my family, happily tapping the keyboard lost in a world of my own invention, I lose all sense of reality and time as I watch the words appear on the screen, and I feel the rush of whatever related emotion is present within at the one lost moment in time. Where it all comes from I cannot say, I have a plan in my mind of what I want to say, and how I want the story to develop, but I can assure you the finished result is far superior to what I had first imagined.  Woven into my thoughts and my words via this wonderful process of merger between my conscious self and the depths of my soul something wondrous and beautiful is created, as every thought I have ever had and every experience, be it happy or from the depths of my despair fuses into the words of the person you think to be the creator of the story. It may sound odd, but the conscious part of me cannot happily take all the credit, because writing unleashes huge deeper parts of me, and that is something that I find mind-blowing, as it reveals parts of my own self that even I was not aware of when I began. I suppose that is my reason to write, that part of me is cooler, wilder and far more adventurous than ordinary everyday me.  Put plainly I would say, its more addictive than any drug or substance you could offer me, and leaves me thoroughly exhausted with just the single thought of deep happy sleep to occupy my mind as I drift off slowly.

Reading what I have written back is like reading a code known only to me, as I gasp at what has been revealed. To any other reader it is simply a story, a tale to captivate the mind and intrigue the soul, but for myself alone at my desk, I see my life, my feelings, my hopes and dreams, it’s so deeply personal that it almost feels like standing naked before the world, my only security is that I know no one will ever truly work it all out.

There is no part of the process where I have thoughts of money and gains, I feel no need to embrace vanity and be adored, if anything I am possibly one of the most reluctant writers to publish. Publishing is a drag; I find it tedious and annoying as it takes me away from writing, as I am forced to promote the book. I am the worst possible person alive to ask about what I write, because when I look at what I have committed to paper, I find it hard to break out of my deeply private sense of privacy and talk at any length about how the story came together. I am in many ways also the biggest critic of what I have written, I am never satisfied with the finished result and always feel it could be better, so promoting it is not an easy task, and I would much rather be sat at my desk lost and alone caught in that moment of wonder where it all spills out onto the page.

Selling a book feels like real work, writing comes to me in an uncontrollable compulsion, and there is nothing in the process that I do not take great joy from, money plays no part in it at all. I cannot think of sales and income, it is too much of a distraction from the process of physically writing.

I am a pretty rational person, and yet I am a full time writer, I know it means things can and will be tough, and as selfish as it sounds I don’t care, I have spent the last 30 years of my life breaking my back working in horticulture from dawn until dust, in every kind of weather, and I was not rich then either. It’s nice to sit at my desk, snug and warm and rest my aching body that has the scars and has paid the price of my labours since youth. Writing has afforded me the time to watch the world and take note, it has given me back a family life, and a chance to walk in the world and enjoy its wonder, it doesn’t pay in sterling, but the rewards have been vast in so much as it has taken a tired workaholic and given me back a life of quality and value.

There is little financial gain to be made from writing, but there is the huge payoff of knowing that I have shared something deeply private and special with those who turn the pages of what I write about. I have the reward of being closer to those who I love and love me, so because of writing I feel I have become the wealthiest man alive, and if by chance I do need money, well hey, there are always part time jobs.

 

The real price of something for nothing.

There is quite the debate going on at the moment about the price of digital books, and the question is being asked why it is that they are being offered for such a low amount of money. I have heard all the arguments, the most quoted being that the consumer has grown use to low prices, and therefore demand cheaper books, and also that it is a cheaper route to publication, and so therefore should be cheaper, but somehow I feel sat here isolated from the rest of the world at my writing desk, that out of all the arguments within the debate, the one thing that appears to be lacking is the point of view of the Authors.

I cannot really speak for other author’s as I have only my own experience of writing, but I can say that for myself it is a very worrying trend and I do feel concerned about the way the larger global companies discount books and offer them at such low prices, often below the price they have paid themselves. Discounting is and has always been a large part of the printed book selling industry, but recent trends in the movement to digital has seen a sharp fall in the sales of printed books, and as more and more people switch over to one of the many digital devices, I fear my time as an author may be coming to an abrupt end, because with digital books selling at lower and lower prices, I find it hard to see how I will earn enough revenue to actually stay afloat.

I have just finished writing the latest in the series of books I have been working on since 2006, (Heirs to the Kingdom) and currently have three of the series out and the fourth is ready for publication. Obviously because this is a detailed series and I had been writing long before I got the first published in 2009, I am at an advanced stage in the writing process, and as you can see I am six years into it. I work every day of the week on the books, and due to the plot and the many layers within the books, I have a constant run of threads weaving through the series that have to be picked up and woven into them. The latest book in the series has taken me just over a year at 14 months to research and write, it has been a long drawn out process checking every step of the way that I have not missed out vital key issues from the previous books, and has also involved a great deal of research and fact finding missions, to ensure that the book comes across as being realistic, even though it is a work of fiction.

The research for the books can consist of Internet searches, book purchasing and reading up, or visiting locations that allow me to take photographs to aid in the process of writing accurately. All of this has a cost that is borne out by myself, I am like so many other writers out there working hard to establish myself in the world of fiction and trying to build a reputation for myself. I have used a self publishing company to get the books out, which not only has a cost for production, it also means I have to fund the costs of promotion, which has many related extra costs. I pay for the web site to remain up and running, and I also have to pay many of the various sites that feature my books, I try wherever possible to use as much free publicity as I can, but that is a shrinking market and so more often than not, a new site to help me promote comes at a cost.

I have spent six years writing almost full time, earning extra income selling jewellery which my wife makes, and purchasing my own books at wholesale to sell at events, its a low income way of living, but with some clever budgeting we survive as a family and push forward.  When I first decided to publish this series, I sat for a great deal of time with my wife, and we looked at our prospects, having researched the subject in full, it was never going to be easy, but we have managed and have taken the long term view of slowly building up the reputation and taking it one sale at a time. To date we have invested quite a sum of capital into this project, its pretty much almost everything we had, and we have after three years of hard work, recovered around 5% of what we have spent, it is indeed a very long term investment.

This article is not a complaint, its an honest appraisal of what myself and others have done, for I know that in this I am not alone. I love writing, it has taken me a very long time to pluck up the courage to put my work into print, and now that I have, I can honestly say I am happier than I have ever been, as I have finally found something that I love and adore as a working lifestyle. I do not mind that its taken the last 14 months to put together the latest episode of my series, I have no qualms at all knowing I will now move forward to check the book over and over to ensure it is to the highest possible standard before it goes of to be proof read, a process that will take possibly another six months of constant scrutiny, because at the end of the day I know that there is growing readership of people who will read my words and gain a great deal of enjoyment from them, but I have to ask one very important question.

Why is it when it comes to the world of books and writing, that my efforts have so little value?

My books are not in a digital format yet, and even though this is going to be the future of books, you must agree that to sell what will finally reach 20 months of work for less than the price of a birthday card is somewhat insulting?

I know of no other industry where a man’s life and work have such little value, and yet that is what the digital readers demand, which in my case is a detailed book of over 200 thousand words for less than £4. The mad thing is that is not even my share, as profits have to go to the distributor etc… I think it works out about the total value of a cheap cup of poor coffee per copy sold. I must have drunk over a million whist sat here writing the thing. I suppose the question is… If I offer you a job and pay you the same, would you consider it for more than a millisecond? Of course you wouldn’t, who would?

Publishing is one of very few industries that exploits its most valued asset, the creative source, and no matter what happens in the future that will remain unchanged. All writers know that the odds of making a living that can sustain life are very slender indeed. There are a few very lucky writers who hit at the right moment and they are the 3% that make it as a full time writer reaping the rewards of their labour, the rest of us keep going in hope that one day someone out there will read our work and hopefully recommend it to their friends, which at the end of the day is how books become known, its no different to acting or dancing, all of us are waiting for that all important break, and some of us will never get it, but we live in the slim hope we may if we persevere. We love what we do, and we are happy doing it, but do not insult us beyond that, have the decency to understand how much time and effort goes into the process, and offer us a fair price for it. Digital may appear a cheaper option, but the costs are not really that much different from print for an author, it should be a cheaper version I agree, but lets keep the price a little fairer. It matters not how you read a book, whether its print or digital it has value, because for the reader it an experience that provides joy and excitement, and for the author it is often more than a year of their life.

Hopefully this will shed a little light which I feel enlightens the view, I shall remain a writer no matter what happens, and I shall see where that takes me, one thing I do know is that its going to be an interesting journey.

 

Will many writers survive Digital?

I often wonder what peoples perception of what a writer actually does is, because when people find out that I write, it appears that they just naturally assume that somehow I am loaded and raking in masses of money, if only that was true.

In 90% of cases a writer barely earns enough to give their family a weekend away, let alone provide them with a luxurious lifestyle, and they have to take on extra jobs just to make ends meet. People really have little idea of how hard it can be to survive on book sales, they really only see the very lucky few who make it up the mid-lists and into that top bracket where life at the top has its privileges.

I was talking recently to a few friends who just naturally assumed I was making well over five English pounds per copy of my book sold. Oh if only that was the case, they were stunned to find out that the average author earns just fifty pence per copy sold, and therefore need massive sales just to cover the costs of living whilst writing, let alone any future plans.

From my own experience of writing, when I look at the amount of money spent on researching, travelling and reading to prepare my books before I even write a word, never mind the costs of a family containing a wife and two children, it is amazing how much money goes in long before you finally get that illusive publishing deal, and that was just to get the book finally printed.

The sad fact is that for most writers money is not the motivation behind the work, for myself it is the joy of preparation, researching and writing, to that point where you sit back and know that you have created something unique and feel satisfied that you have accomplished your goal. It is a wonderful feeling that stirs deep inside and you have a final result that you can look at with pride, knowing you gave it your all, and also knowing that somewhere it will bring a moment of escape and delight to those who read it and live in a world you created, there really isn’t any other feeling like it in the world. It is something that is very easily exploited by those who run the industry.

It is well documented that the publishing industry has used it for years to line their own pockets, stating their costs as justifcation and takeing the lion’s share of the money, leaving the author with the smallest amount of the profits, and I think we are all intelligent enough to understand that it has always been the way of things, and maybe we have all sat back and accepted it when we should have asked for more. The biggest problem with that though is that publishing deals have always been hard to come by, and we are also smart enough to realise that if we push too hard, we could end up out of deal, left high and dry with no contract.

There is no shortage of writers, if anything the numbers have risen steadily for years, so one wrong move and you can very easily be replaced, and that has always been something that has in a way acted as a deterrent to writers rebelling against the system. However things have been changing now for several years, and to be honest one has to question if there is even going to be a future for writers, as the digital age forces rule changes and working methods across the globe. The publishing industry is in a shambles at the moment, I spend most days reading the various Blogs and newsletters emailed to me from inside the trade, and I find it very hard to see how the future of books printed or digital, will survive without some radical changes of thought from not only the industry, but also from the consumers, because lowering prices are squeezing the life out of everyone.

Without readers there is no need for books whether they be on a page or a digital screen, but it looks to me like we are all heading for a very big stalemate, as consumers demand cheaper books, especially digital ones, but as the price falls, so do the royalties paid to the author. I am a bottom list author and believe it or not I am in the largest bracket, as there are many like myself out there all trying to get the word out about their books, and we all know our sales will not be huge. As much as we all dream of that freak moment when we get discovered, we do not have the support of a large company who will spend thousands on us to publicise our work, and most of us promote from home with the help of a few friends using the internet and social networks to try and increase our sales. Our print runs are low or use print on demand, which means the costs of our books is higher than the big names, and although we have publishers, we still only get the nominal royalty, so for us digital is a huge fear.

Its bad enough so much of the price of our books goes to the retailer, wholesaler and publisher, but recent trends show how little value our work has in this modern time, as the price of digital downloads is pushed into the floor. The bigger online retail companies are very aggressive; they list millions of books and are not reliant on massive profits per book to stay afloat, and so they have created an atmosphere of cheaper and cheaper in order to rival their competition, and the book buying public has sold into its practice to such a point that it is becoming impossible for any author to realistically get any return for their effort.

One very large online presence in particular pushes masses of books for just $0.99, and I see it on the screen and feel this must be madness. I am told this is what the consumers of books demand, and they are unlikely to pick your book if it is valued much higher, because digital is cheaper easier and faster, and therefore should be cheaper. I am sorry to disagree with the worlds leading book seller of the moment, but I got no discount when writing it because one day it would be appearing as digital download. My hours of dedication have not lessened because it will eventually be delivered via an inbox rather than a post box. To be honest it is insulting, how would the consumer feel if I asked them to work all week as I have for just $0.99? I am pretty sure they value the jobs they do to earn their living, so why has mine become so worthless? Is it not bad enough that I have to live with an industry that puts my creative ability as its last priority, whilst it makes twenty times more money from my work than I do? Do all writers now have to suffer the ultimate humiliation of being told by the consumer that their efforts rank lower than everyone else’s?

It’s a very sad truth that in the capitalist society we live in writers have no worth at all, and with the onset of digital, and the so called death of the book, the future for writers just became very dark indeed, and one can only wonder how long it will be before the writer has no choice but to stop publishing simply because they can no longer afford to. We could simply leave publishers and go the self publishing route, and upload our books directly, which is starting to happen, especially since publishers today are cutting their lists and courting the already rich and famous for their biographies and cookbooks, but even then, when the retailer takes their cut of the $0.99 there is little left to live on for the author.

Will we reach a time when writers have to write for free and just accept it? Or will we one day see a time when all there is to read is a classic that has gone out of copyright and so is available to download free, it is a very real possibility, because in the scramble to gain control of the digital book reading world, it looks to me like every single area is being scrutinised except the most important one of all, and that is the role of the future author.

I have no choice but to be a spectator at the moment, and I am watching very carefully, as depending on how things go, I may have to make a very difficult decision in my future. Will I stop writing? No, its not possible for me. Will I stop publishing? That is a question I will eventually face, and I am sure there are many out there who like myself will face the very same question. All I can say for now is, I am watching…. I will have to wait and see.