I'm a Redroom Author

Update on my previous post. I've now been approved as a Redroom author. I suppose, now I have to update the sidebar on this blogpage...

My new Redroom account

I've now got an account on Redroom, which is a site for authors and anyone interested in them. I've applied for status as an author, which they'll consider over the next couple of weeks. In the mean time, I've got a page, including a secondary blog site.

I found out about it through Derek Leman's blog. He's now a Redroom author.

Check it out, and visit a few authors...

The Story of St Catrick

For a limited time only, I'm posting this one as a free download. It requires some work before the publisher will look at it, so when I'm ready to submit it, I'll take it down again. The final released version will thus be different from this one. It's one I did several years ago, and represents some of my thoughts regarding ethnic reconciliation.

This was actually my first published novel. I did it through GreatUnPublished, a self publishing POD publisher, since taken over by Booksurge. I had to pay US$90 to get it done, which means it didn't matter how good it was. A lot of my friends liked it (at least, they said they did). My uncle, a Presbyterian minister like it very much.

Here's the blurb I used to have for it:

Maybe a bit like Wind in the Willows, except with a socio-political slant, it's about ethnic reconciliation, using animal species instead of human ethnic groups.

Catrick, a cat living in cat society, realises that the Maker didn't create animals to eat oneanother, but through the knowledge of the Maker animals will stop hurting each other. Catrick sets out to spread the knowledge of the Maker in the city of Catropolis where he lives, and begins to affect other cats, as well as rodents living in the various rodent ghettoes.

A species war is raging -- the rodents are fighting to free themselves from the shackles of cat-rule, and the cats generally assume they are the superior species. But as Catrick's message gains influence, it becomes a three way battle.

It seemed simple and straightforward at first, but neither Catrick nor his friend, David Mousecovitz realised what they are in for -- political agendas, prejudices, memories of past atrocities, fears, and countless reasons for not doing the obvious.

This might be about Northern Ireland, or it might be about Neo Nazis vs the Jews, or maybe blacks vs whites, or about Yugoslavia, Indonesia, or any one of countless focal points of cultural intolerance -- it's about what those who are truly committed to peace and reconciliation must be prepared to face.

Anyway, have a read ...

>>>note>>> as of 24, July, 2009, Catrick is no longer a free download. The above links will now take you to Smashwords.com, where you can read 50% of the novel as a free sample, before downloading the whole thing for US$2.00.

Silent Comix

It's a series of feature length cartoons that I hope will amuse everyone including non-English speakers and illiterate people.

I got the idea as I was teaching English to private students several years ago. I scrawled the cartoons on A4 sheets of paper with a pencil, had the students look at the cartoon and tell me the story in English. It worked pretty well. Later, I inked them in, scanned them, and touched them up a bit. Here are some of my best ones. ESL teachers may find these useful.

Read and enjoy...

Marketing Pepe

The book has been released for close to a month now. That is no guarantee that people are buying it. On one hand, the publisher and the editor did a lot of work, first in selecting it, then in helping to further turn it into a marketable product. At least, I'm confident it's something people will buy if the right people told them to buy it. It's not just me, then, who thinks it's a good book. But it will require marketing. That's where I am now.

Since it is an ebook, the obvious place to do that is on the Internet. I've submitted it to a few reviewers, whom I hope will help. I'm also tweaking my web presence so that search engines find me via key words people will be likely to use. There are also banner exchange services, and the web rings.

I've posted a new page just for Pepe: http://uk.geocities.com/Pepe_the_novel@btinternet.com Like this blog page, it rewards visitors with a chance to download free stories, novellas, etc. I'll soon re post some of my comix somewhere to add to the list of freebies.

Now, the obvious question: How does someone who hates consumerism go about marketing a book? Would it be like a Communist or a Nazi using the democratic system to campaign for the abolition of democracy?

I do have to live with myself, but I think there is a sensible answer: That's to recognise that our whole culture has been so moulded by the forces of consumerism, that probably the only way to totally avoid it is to become Amish. We're affected by it in ways we don't realise. However, if we pinpoint what it is about consumerism that we don't like, that is ugly, that is displeasing to God, we can carefully avoid some of the pitfalls without going off to live in the hills, and maybe even sell a book in the process.

Yeshua praised the man in his "parable of the unjust steward" who used filthy mammon to make friends of this world, saying, "The sons of this world are wiser than the Sons of Light". Recent study shows that Yeshua's use of the term "sons of light" could have been a reference to the Essenes, who would have been every bit as anti-consumerist as the Amish.

To steer a straight course, there are two things we need to avoid, 1: hype, and 2: worldliness. Marketing has been with us for thousands of years. Yeshua wasn't against markets. He only cleared the Holy Temple of people who were doing it in the wrong place while ripping people off. Hype is ripping people off, because it's stretching the truth, which is in effect, lying. I don't have to lie to say I think Pepe is good quality reading material. The other thing to avoid is worldliness. Consumerism has all but made a religion of "loving the world", in direct opposition to the Kingdom of God.

So, the only other question is, how heavy to market my book without boring all my friends...?

Pepe Now Available

Here it is folks... Pepe is now a published novel -- electronically, that is. Click on the graphic at the right to buy and download your copy for USD4.95.

Half of my royalties will go to Father Joe's Mercy Centre. They appear in the story as Fr. Antonio and Mercy House. That would be about USD1.20 would go to help homeless children and AIDS victims, the other USD1.20 will help put food on our table.

Anyway, here's jacket cover blurb:

The year is 2040. We have people living on Mars, but haven't sorted out life on earth yet. To the boy washing windscreens at the traffic signal, it could just as well be 1940.

The boy is Pepe. He doesn't know who his real parents are. His 'grandma' dies in a slum fire, and he is left to fend for himself and his grandma's biological granddaughter, Po, whom he treats like a real sister. They live in an abandoned construction site with other homeless children. With help from a young computer hacker named Raul and a mystical old man named Atsuko, Pepe discovers his true identity.

The villain: General Don Juan Clemente, who seized power from the king ten years ago, and installed himself as president for life. The General has a degenerative disease that is paralysing him. However, his brain has been linked to a computer network that enables him to control the country and destroy any threat to his power. Right now, his biggest threat is the very existence of Pepe.

coming VERY soon

Pepe is now in the process of being formatted for release. It should be any day now, that I replace this graphic at the right with one that says "Now Available".

The publisher prevailed on me for one last change. It's now set in 2040 and thereafter, not 2020. She thought 2020 was too early to expect the sea water to rise to the point where dikes were necessary to protect coastal farmland. It didn't matter to me whether it happened so soon -- actually it does matter! I hope it doesn't! -- but I also lament one bit where the general (who took over the country by force in 2002 (to be changed to 2042) has a campaign called "2020 - Cardovia's Year of Vision". However, I've been told now that opticians don't say 20-20 any more in reference to normal eye-sight.

As for keeping it in 2020, I suppose the only mistake would have been adding the prospect of global warming and rising seawater. I suppose it's not certain how soon they'll begin rising. It's just that I read Cosmos Magazine that the changes could be as early as 2020, so in a panic, I went to my manuscript and and added dikes to protect my beloved Cardovia from too much change.

The other technological advances described in Pepe are probably on target. We might have Binary to Neuro technology by then (linking computers directly to people's brains), which is one of the central high tech ideas in the book -- changing an already despotic head of state into the ultimate villain.

As far as missing it, I'd be in good company. I think William Gibson set his story, Virtual Light, in 2005. George Orwell was certainly off the mark for 1984 (aren't you glad?), and as for Arthor C. Clark's 2001 ...