New Review

I've been soliciting.

Not like that! No... a few months ago I happened across a post by a well-known blogger of "all aspects of writing, publishing and book promotion" suggesting how one might go about persuading one or more of the Amazon top x00 reviewers to review one's work.

Sounded good to me. Sounded worth a go. So I did. I trawled through the top 500 reviewers (this list changes regularly - we're talking those who were the top 500 last October) and found a couple of dozen who (a) accepted requests and (b) had biogs or existing reviews which suggested they might be interested in my book. I fired off the emails.

Surprisingly quickly, I had some replies. Positive ones. And in the fullness of time (it does, after all, take SOME time to read 90,000 words) a review appeared.

There was one request I sent out back in October that didn't result in a reply. But that was entirely expected, since those are his rules. It's Big Al, over at the Kindle Indie Author's review site "Big Al's Books & Pals".

The deal there is, you pick the reviewer who you think is most likely to be interested, fire off a request, and wait. They either pick up the request or they don't, but if they do a review will eventually turn up on that site. And for good measure they will also syndicate the review to the Amazon product page AND Goodreads. Cool!

And sure enough, just last week, Al's review of War of Nutrition was posted, giving it 4 stars. I particularly liked the bit where he says "[War of Nutrition] surpasses the typical thriller in characterization. Not only the protagonist, but many of the minor characters are fleshed out well beyond the norm, which gives rise to many sub-threads or stories". I was well chuffed with that.

You can read the full review here.

What happened on November 14?

Apart from our garden project starting, that is, of which more in a later post.

No, I'm talking about the extraordinary explosion in my blog activity. Page views to be precise.

I haven't really paid much attention to this in the past. I know who my main readers are (hi people! Kiss kiss) and I also get a bit of passing traffic, but I'm never going to be in anyone's "top ten" blog list, or make enough to live on from the revenue generated by any click-throughs on my ads, so I only visit the overview and stats pages two or three times a year out of interest.

However, when I started the 100 Theme Writing Challenge, I started to check on the stats more frequently. I was interested in whether having some free story telling would drive my visitor count up. And it did, a bit. It went from a daily average somewhere in the high 20s, to hovering in the high 40s/low 50s most days, with a small domed peak at weekends when occasional readers caught up. This would occasionally reach into the upper 60s. Then yesterday, this happened

I did a bit of a double take to be honest. At first glance it looked like most of my readers had evaporated. Then I noticed the scale and realised Blogger had adjusted the graph to cope with the new peak. 293 page views in a single day.

I have no idea what happened. Is it one new reader (hello!) catching up with several months of posts? A handful of people all catching up with a slightly smaller backlog, but all at once? Or a large number of people attracted by some unknown publicity all paying me a visit and reading a couple of pages each? I just don't know. But whoever you are... don't go! Pull up a chair. Sometimes it gets quite interesting around here :0) Especially if you like decorating.

The only inkling I have about what caused that enormous spike is that I had recently advertised War of Nutrition on a "local interest" Facebook page. But I only posted that Amazon link, so anyone spotting it would have had to click through several pages or do some research to find this blog. I can't believe 293 people all did that! Weird. It's back to normal now though, as you can tell from the graph.

Well of Love

I've intended for some time to make my first "volume" of poems (sounds a bit grand, that, but I don't know what else to call it) free, and sure enough it's easy to do that on my e-publisher's site (Smashwords). You just choose the option "make my book free" and there it is - $0.00. Perfect. And I guess it's true that no-one can resist a freebie, because since I published it at noon yesterday I've had over a hundred page views and 8 downloads.

Unfortunately Smashwords and Amazon still haven't sorted out their integration, so I had to publish separately for Kindle in the same way I did for War of Nutrition.  Kindle however, as I soon discovered, doesn't allow "small" publishers (ie, people like me) to release anything for free on their platform. Their  absolute minimum price is $0.99 (or 77p in English money once you've added the VAT), so I've had to belatedly change the blurb that used to happily shout about how FREE it all was to, well, not shout about that. Because it isn't. At the moment.

There is allegedly a post-hoc way to make it free, which relies on Amazon's policy not to charge more for something on a Kindle than is being charged for other ereader platforms. Since I published free through Smashwords, Well of Love will eventually turn up on the iBookstore, and Kobo, and Nook, and Sony Reader for zero pounds and zero pence. At that point, if someone were to complain to Amazon (using their handy-dandy "tell us about a lower price" link) that it was free for other readers, then they would price match it. At least, that's what they do at the moment. Whether that will carry on is anyone's guess. So for now, if you want Well of Love for your Kindle, it'll cost you 77p. I mean, it's still worth it OBVIOUSLY, but it's not free yet.

Now that all my free poems are available in this beautifully adorned package, I've removed them from my website. I have another 16 or so coming soon in a second volume. That won't be free. Just sayin'.

eApproval

This morning War of Nutrition finally received its approval for "Premium Distribution" at Smashwords.

This means that, in addition to Kindle where it's been available since last month, you'll soon be able to get it for Kobo, Sony eReader, the Apple iReader (from the iBookstore) and pretty much every other electronic reader platform there is, including regular PDF or HTML versions for reading on your PC.

Or, you can get it *right now* direct from Smashwords themselves! What are you waiting for :o)

The delay in approval is partly due to their enormous backlog, and partly my fault. I'd asked Nat for a very small change to the cover art, and then went and uploaded the raw picture file to Smashwords without reinstating the title and author text. Doh! So it could have been approved two weeks ago if I hadn't been such a numpty.

I've already had some great feedback from those who've finished reading it (or are still in the middle), including a review on Amazon from my mate Diane. Still anxiously waiting for that first review from someone who doesn't know me, but I guess it's only a matter of time O_O. Meanwhile I'm planning world domination through a combination of poetry, short stories and two other really cool ideas for novels that are currently stewing somewhere at the back of my brain while I keep my fingers busy writing sketches for this year's Chorlton Players Hotpot show.

Pimp My Hotpot: Final Night & BBQ 2010

A pretty hectic day for me yesterday, as the final night of the Hotpot show clashed with the annual street barbecue. So it was up with the lark to prepare the usual salads (always such a popular item I'd been asked to make the same three for the third year running), cut the new neighbour's grass (she moves in soon and it was looking like a bit of a jungle out there), and pull the garden chairs out from the depths of the shed.

BBQ started around 3pm and for once - unlike the last two years - the day was glorious. We'd had fabulous weather last weekend and the forecast in the early part of the week suggested we were in for a repeat of last year, missing the good weather by a week and being subjected to a downpour. Instead the bad weather slipped back a day and left us smiling under the sun while chomping on our toasties.

I should give the toasties a special mention this year, as it may well be the last year we enjoy them. Torsten & Keeth are set to emigrate to Portugal by the end of the summer, and their special contribution to every year's barbie will be greatly missed. Someone was supposed to watch the assembly of these delights this year so the tradition could be handed on, but no-one turned up and now they might be lost forever. I think I'll be popping down the road sometime soon with paper and pen. A street barbecue without toasties is unthinkable.

At 6.30pm, in the middle of the first quiz, I had to duck out, change into (one of) my stage costume(s) and drive over to the hall in preparation to open the final show. Even though I knew I had that monologue in my head, I didn't want to be blasé about it, and still repeated it to myself a couple of times before taking the stage. It all went very smoothly (although a slightly smaller audience than last night owing to the good weather) and pretty soon I was changing out of my tux into the black jeans and T I've been wearing all week for Beresford & Wallace's interval set.

On balance I think our performance last night was the best of the three. Not surprising, I guess, as it was the one we'd had most practice for, and I think we both (or all three of us if we include our guest artiste Becky Hodges who played a flute accompaniment to More Than Just Your Face) felt totally comfortable with both the material and the performing of it. But although it may have been technically the best performance I didn't enjoy it quite as much, both on account of knowing it was the last one, and because Nikki, Nat & Blythe weren't there as they'd been the night before. We did have a couple of friends in the audience, but it wasn't the same.

Coming off stage around 9pm I grabbed my other costume and headed back to the street BBQ, where the Chocolate Game had just finished and people were once again sitting around chatting. We had a very short gentle shower which caused us to move the chairs into a quadrangle under the gazebo, where we lit candles and enjoyed a couple of rounds of the Story Game (everyone in turn says a sentence to carry the story on) and Mafia (rules too complicated to relate but can be found here for anyone interested - although we didn't include the Nurse role mentioned there.) before moving inside, when the rain became more persistent, for another round of Mafia and more drinking (!)

Shortly after midnight most of the family had had enough so we left the remaining dozen or so revellers to their fate and wandered over the road. I picked up some more beer and headed off to the after-show party (another barbecue!) at Annie's - luckily only a short walk away. The rain had, mercifully, passed off a couple of hours before, leaving the night fresh and warm, and I spent a pleasant couple of hours munching on more BBQ food, sipping on a couple of ales and chatting with fellow members of cast & crew. It was also the first (and probably only) time I got to enjoy the Aftershow Awards ceremony that is a Chorlton Players tradition. Great fun. When I got home shortly after 3 I was more than ready to crash, even though dawn was already faintly visible over the roofs of the houses.

Pimp My Hotpot: Two Down!

It's frightening how much I'm enjoying this - and last night was the best yet. What made it so special was having family and friends in the audience. As I said to Natalie on the way back to the car - it's a kind of payback for all the wonderful concerts I've been to over the years when she's been performing. I think I'll need a few more outings before we're all square but hey, it's a start.

I managed to join the family table for the latter half of the show before diving back to the green room to join the queue for the curtain call. Luckily myself and one of my fellow compères were the penultimate cast members to take the stage, so my timing was spot on.

If anything this experience has confirmed my long-held opinion that I have absolutely no interest in treading the boards in an acting capacity. Opening the show as compère can't be called "acting" IMO. It's more like doing a presentation (only without any slides) and from day one I've found it no more nerve-racking than any presentation I give as part of my day job.

And the singing is really not that different to the karaoke I've been doing for almost ten years. Except the songs are our own, and we don't have to keep stepping off the stage to "let someone else have a go."

But having mentioned karaoke, I should just add that if it hadn't been for my past experiences, gaining confidence in singing in front of an audience, I would never, ever, have been able to step up on stage and give a performance like I did tonight. A certain person who shall remain anonymous laughed at me when she first learned I'd started singing karaoke. But say what you will, everything happens for a reason, and starting out on that path all those years ago has led me to last night - one of the most fulfilling experiences I've ever had and a buzz that can't be easily explained to anyone who hasn't done it, or matched by much else. Laugh all you like, but if I could change anything at all, I would only want to have started sooner.

Pimp My Hotpot: Opening Night

So, what was it like for you?

In the end, I was nowhere near as nervous as I expected to be, but on reflection that probably has something to do with confidence that I knew my lines, the fact that there were only 2 minutes-worth  rather than a whole play, and that it wasn't *really* acting. Being a compère is more like doing a presentation, which is something I've done dozens of times, to much bigger audiences.

So that part went pretty well. Got a few laughs, even. The worst part was the heat. I picked a really bad night to be wearing a tuxedo and bow tie. Later there was a brief panic when we thought we'd lost the laptop with our music on it, and then I was nearly killed by falling scenery while we set up the mikes for our interval slot. The movable wall, used in the previous sketch, was in a slightly different position than it had been at dress rehearsal. As the half-tab curtains were pulled across the stage they caught it and toppled it over.

Luckily I spotted it out of the corner of my eye in time to move out from under it, but it was a peripheral vision test I could have done without at that particular moment.

As predicted the audience were preoccupied with conversation, and getting on the outside of their food, during most of the first number, but we were pleased that they soon realised we were worth listening too, and by the middle of the second number we had everyone's attention. I don't think the sound of my stomach reacting to the smell of chilli as it wafted onto stage was audible over the singing.

And then, suddenly, it was over. First night was behind us. In the bag. A success, albeit with a pitifully small audience (on account of the good weather, we decided, along with the fact that the local paper let us down and didn't include our press release in last week's edition).

The post-show beers have never tasted so good.

What was that about killing the radio star?

I better keep an eye out for that video, because last night at 6pm for a little over half an hour I, along with my partner-in-crime (well, songwriting) Annie, became a radio star.

We'd been invited in to Chorlton Arts Radio - an Internet-only, temporary radio station set up in an empty shop in the precinct to promote Chorlton Arts Festival - to do a bit of an interview and play a few tracks on Mike Bulfield's "The Festival" programme.

We had no idea before we arrived what form the slot would take, so we'd sat down together on Saturday and come up with a simple schedule of enough tracks and what we wanted to say about them to fill just over 30 minutes. We'd have been quite happy to fill the half-hour ourselves but as it turned out Mike had also prepared a few questions, and did an expert job of dovetailing his questions with what we wanted to say, giving us time to plug the website, and our forthcoming live gig at the Hotpot. During one of our off-air chats while our music was playing he congratulated us on being the most well-prepared interviewees he'd ever worked with.

Sorry if you missed it. No idea if they repeated the show at all (they were a bit short of content at one stage), but the entire radio station will be gone by the end of the week anyway. I'm told we'll have access to a recording of the show in due course, so I'm sure it'll end up being featured on one or more of our websites eventually :o)

Maybe I'll be a musician

I've always wanted to play a musical instrument. You'll notice I said play, rather than learn. A deliberate choice of words, because it's the learning that's always put me off. Not having the time for it, partly, but also knowing myself well enough to admit, reluctantly, that I almost certainly wouldn't have the patience or determination for it either.

Recent musical activities in the shape of Beresford & Wallace have rekindled my interest in playing, and by a strange coincidence Natalie's keyboard has been lying on the study floor gathering dust for more than a year, silently nagging me to plug it in and run my fingers along its smooth white loveliness. With occasional smooth black loveliness thrown in, in the usual way of keyboards.

We popped in to Waterstones over Easter weekend for an OS map or two in preparation for our forthcoming jaunt to the Lakes, and while Nikki was trying to find the holiday reading she was after, my browsing led me to a book entitled Learn to Play Keyboards (with a free CD!). I was tempted. Skimming the first few pages was enough to convince me to buy it.

But owning the means to learn - a keyboard, a computer, and a book of lessons - and actually doing the learning are still quite widely separate things. Nevertheless the actual learning took a step closer yesterday when Annie called around to fix me up with a new soundcard and a music editing suite. In a trice the keyboard was connected up and working, and I was having a play with my very own soundbank. Yes flutes, oboes, grand pianos, church organs and many more are all now mine for the trying.

Lesson 1...

Anticipation

There's a definite warmth to the air this afternoon. A suggestion of incipient summer. A cursory check of the weekend weather forecast suggests it will hold nice all day Saturday and most of Sunday, so maybe we'll get our asses in gear and start the serious gardening of 2010, after last weekend's brief sojourn outside to complete The First Cut of the Year, and trim back the rampant hedge which had once again spent the winter encroaching on the path.

It's been a quiet week mainly, apart from Wednesday when I hauled myself off to the Spread to attend auditions for this year's Chorlton Players "hotpot." Normally a sketch show, this year they're having a vaudeville theme, so I thought I'd chuck my name into the hat for the position of MC.

In the seven or eight years we've been helping out with the Players I've never felt the urge to tread the boards, but I do have a track record (well, to be accurate, one previous outing) as MC in the style of Leonard Sachs, so I thought "why not?"

We're also up for singing a couple of tracks off Weird & Wonderful during the show, which should be a laugh. If I can stop shaking, that is.

Weird & Wonderful available to buy

We've just received confirmation from our digital distribution partner cdbaby that our album is available for download. How exciting is that? You have to go direct to them at the moment, but iTunes, Amazon, and other digital retailers will have it available in a few weeks.

Anyone in the UK reading this and wanting to download it PLEASE wait until we know whether or not we're going to be selected as one of the 40 acts taking part in Storm the Charts. If we make the final 40 we'll need as many downloads as possible in June.

But if you're outside the UK and you'd like to buy it, be our guest! :o)

We're up!

After a trepidatious few days between me sending off the "for your consideration" email, and said email rising to the top of Wes's (probably absolutely overflowing) inbox, Beresford & Wallace finally made an appearance on the Storm the Charts Livejournal list of artists. At number 215.

That just means we're the 215th to apply. It's not a rank.

You can see the whole list here: http://stormthecharts.livejournal.com/

I plan to listen to every track posted. I'm not naive enough to expect everyone will do the same - I guess most bands will only be in it to promote their own work - but if only a small fraction of the thousands of group members plays Spin Doctor we'll have reached many more ears than we ever expected.

That photo

We reconvened the photo shoot yesterday evening, with Nikki behind the camera this time to save the lawn, and this - after a bit of work with the GIMP - is the result as it will appear on the inside front cover of the album.

The sepia tint, soft focus and background colour are all chosen to match the livery of the album's existing cover art (front and back). The airbrushing of the bags under our eyes was entirely Annie's idea and I should make it clear that I abhor doctored photos in all their guises (*cough*). I mean, who do I think I am? A flippin' rock star or something? I'll be on the cover of Heat magazine next, and talking about my liposuction.

I don't think.

Storm force

Storm the Charts - we're on again, thanks to Wes and the gang changing the rules to mean we don't have to be downloadable by the application deadline (March 23), only the download deadline (June 5).

Still no guarantee of being chosen, of course, but hey - at least we're in the game. And the boost to our online profile can't hurt either. At the time of writing the Facebook group has 12,000+ members and there are 130 bands/artists registered. You've got to believe that a fair proportion of the group members - who all get to vote on which songs make the shortlist for the top 40 attempt - will listen to as many tracks as they can before they make up their minds - and at least some of them might like the music even if we don't make the shortlist.

DIY photo shoot

After a brief discussion about what should appear on the inside front cover of the album, Annie and I deployed our stunning originality to come up with the idea of: a photo of us.

I know. Don't.

After an extended period of dull weather, the sun shone on us yesterday - literally - so we decided to snatch a few moments at lunchtime and take said photo. Only there was just the two of us around. Time to deploy the tripod. Naturally this meant I had to plod up and down the garden, lining up the photo, hurrying back to be in it, trekking back again to check the result, adjusting the angle, trying another pose. I won't need to bother with the first lawn cutting of the season: I've worn it all out.

We took five in all, and as far as either of us could tell from the small screen on my camera, two of them were OK. It was only when they were displayed full-size on our PCs that the truth became apparent. The sunshine, lovely as it was, had caused severe squinting. As in, our eyes appeared to have gone into hiding. Sunken into the depths of our brains.

Another photo shoot will be required, on a marginally less effulgent day. David Bailey never has this problem.

Strangely quiet in the studio

After the rush (both temporal and emotional) we went through getting Weird and Wonderful out into the public domain, this week has been strangely anticlimactic.

I've likened it to an exciting train ride - a magical mystery trip if you like.

The train barrels into the station... and there's no-one there to meet you. You step down, the train pulls out with a blast of its whistle, and you're left standing on the platform. Suddenly there's no noise, or movement, or excitement. Just silence, emptiness, and a still, small feeling of expectation.

This could be the start of something. Or it could be another deserted whistle stop cafe in the long journey of life. Either way, I think it'll be a while before we can tell the difference.

Official release day

Today was the day we were supposed to be releasing Weird and Wonderful, and in some ways jumping the gun and opening up the sound streams on Saturday was a bit premature. With most people expecting to have to wait until today, and spending a lot less time at their computers over the weekend, early feedback was almost entirely absent. Both Annie and I found this incredibly frustrating - a side-effect, I expect, of being SO close to it for SO long. It took on a kind of immense, special meaning for us which (obviously) isn't reflected in everyone else's lives. To anyone who isn't us, or very close family, it's "just another album."

The good news is that once the comments started to flow, they were all favourable. But then, I guess if anyone didn't like it they just wouldn't bother to say anything ;o)

Surprise early release

Annie was at the peak of production prowess and took no time at all to master her last vocal, recorded on Thursday night, and complete the tweaks to those other couple of tracks we had glitches on. So having allowed ourselves an entire weekend to prepare for release, we were ready by lunchtime.

I pointed out that many people would be working Monday anyway and might not be able to listen right away, so in the end we agreed to steal a march on your expectations and release Weird & Wonderful early. At the moment you can only stream it from one of the websites, but we're busy signing up for iTunes and Amazon distribution, so it'll be available for iPods etc as soon as we can make it happen.

Meanwhile, to listen to all 12 tracks on the new album, you can use the Music Player on the Beresford & Wallace website or if you're on Facebook you can try the music player on our Facebook page.

It's a wrap!

With a remarkable lack of ceremony, the last song seemed to take almost no time at all to record and our second album, at least in terms of recording, was put to bed last night. This extract from the Weird & Wonderful cover seems particularly apt!

Not that the ease of recording made for a short evening's work. Oh no. Annie had discovered a couple of minor problems with earlier sessions, which meant going back to two of my previous recordings and re-doing a few harmonies in one case, and a final chorus in another.

On top of that there were decisions to be made. What should the track order be? How many copies of the album are we going for as a first print run? What kind of promo are we going to be doing? What's the best local venue for our first live gig? All in all, there was more talking last night than singing, but it's all good; we're still on track for a Monday (March 1) release. It's easy for me to say that though - it's not me doing all the post-production work!

Because it takes time (two weeks on average) for new material to appear on iTunes, the release date will be for "streaming only" at first. That is, you'll be able to hear the songs on one of our websites, but not download them onto your iPods or PCs for a couple of weeks. And even though we have the much-adored and commented on front cover, we're still working on the artwork for the rest of the CD, so anyone wanting a physical copy will have to hang on a little while longer too.

Only one to go!

We recorded the penultimate track to Weird & Wonderful last night. The last-but-one to be recorded that is, not necessarily the last-but-one on the album - we still haven't finalised the order of tracks.

This whole thing has been a learning experience. Sometimes it's Annie learning a new production trick, or - as I mentioned last time - realising that it would make sense to write the music in a key we can sing, rather than having all the work of transposing it into the right key post-hoc.

Last night, the lesson was for me. Because quite a number (*checks* - six) of lines in this song, my last, begin with "It's." It sounded great in my head when I was writing it - the perfect way to describe all those little things that add up to a great relationship, which is what the song's about. But you try singing it. "It's" is not the easiest word in the world to articulate clearly when you're also trying to hit the opening note of a line, and follow it up immediately with two more words when you only have half a beat in which to sing them.

So my lesson was, in the same way as there are notes that are harder to reach, there are words that are harder to sing. When I'm writing, I'd damn' well better sing it out loud, not just in my head.