First bash...
So this is Blogland, eh?
Let me introduce myself, and explain why I'm here.
My name is Chas Griffin, and I'm here because someone suggested I should open up a blog. There. Done it.
He said people would be interested in hearing background information about my two books 'Scenes from a Smallholding' and, wait for it… 'More Scenes from a Smallholding'. (I'm particularly proud of the second title, by the way: snappy, brief… to the point; and anyway, I couldn't think of anything better.)
*And I could also use the blog to mention any past or upcoming projects that readers of Scenes might be interested to hear about.
*And I could have a rant about all the things that need seriously ranting about and nobody would haul me off to the local clink for creating a public nuisance.
Who could resist?
So.. if you are interested in such things, you may find something on this site to amuse or even interest you. Otherwise, I should push off now before you find yourself being drawn into something you would be much better off without. Either way… enjoy your day! CG.
So where to start?
If you've read Scenes I and II you'll know more or less why I came to write the books, so there's not much point in repeating it here. (If you've not read the books, but are curious, please take a look at http://www.thirdleafbooks.co.uk/ where you can read a couple of extracts from Scenes I, and a page or two of reviews and readers' comments.)
***
Perhaps as good a place to start as any would be to explain why there are two editions of Scenes I on sale, one published by Third Leaf Books and the other by Ebury Press (who also published Scenes II).
It's all to do with me 'catching' ME (CFS, PVFS, VSOP, RSVP, etc) back in 1985, just three years after moving into our new smallholding-to-be…
By the time I came to write Scenes I, it had become clear to me and Anne that I was unlikely to be much good for proper work ever again. Thus our alternatives were either:
1 That I should go onto Benefit full-time, and we would eke out our remaining days courtesy of the long-suffering British taxpayer, or
2 That we should try something else.
Obviously I couldn't take proper work elsewhere, as I was chronically unreliable, and weak as a PM's promise into the bargain. And Anne was more than busy keeping the remainder of the farm in trim, and running the household, and trying to keep me awake with the occasional prod and cup of tea.
What then?
Well, I'd always been interested in writing, so maybe that was the way to go? But I couldn't consider journalism, because of the dead-line factor. I'd never cope. So it had to be some sort of writing I could do at my own pace. Hence a book of some sort. I'd been toying with the idea of something called 'Your Dog as Philosopher', but Anne agreed with the editor of The Organic Way (for whom I'd been writing a quarterly column for years) that I really ought to write about our life on the smallholding. But surely dogs are more interesting? OK, OK… smallholding, it is.. here goes..
I knew from previous experience that it was a complete waste of time and money sending off manuscripts to a publisher (printing a fresh copy every time, plus p&p both ways, months of delay…) and that nothing would ever come of it. This is because publishers are swamped with submissions, and anyway they are not interested in anything that isn't written by a very famous and established author, or a brilliant new talent like Wayne Rooney or Chantelle. These things were certainties.
Then my luck began…
A very nice man called Peter Andrews, who runs Eco-Logic Books (www.eco-logicbooks.com), read my column and offered to publish 'Scenes'. Very good. Peter said that he could offer £1 a time as a royalty, which was a lot more than I'd get from a big publisher. The downside was that he didn't have the clout to get the book promoted and 'noticed'. Sales would probably be in the hundreds, not the tens of thousands.
This is where it gets interesting…
I needed to find a way of earning my living again, and five hundred copies, say, sold @ £1 a shot was scarcely worth the time it had taken to write the book (something like two years, on and off: mainly off). I would have to do better than that, somehow. But how?
So we talked about self-publishing. Peter gave me some useful information about mysteries like 'Whitakers' and ISBN's and 'distribution', and Anne and I did our sums.
To cut a complicated story short, we decided we would risk ~£6,000 of our emergency savings and do it ourselves (Not quite as rash as it sounds, actually. More on this later...)
Our good luck continued: one of our friends (Peter Lock of http://www.logopro.co.uk/) was a professional designer, and another friend, Ken Guy, was a professional artist. They offered to help with the art and design for free, or until I could afford to pay something. Wonderful. Everyone should have friends like these! Thus, our only upfront design & production expense was a modest fee to Peter's daughter, Katie, for typesetting the text, a very onerous and responsible job. Thanks again, Katie!
So we went ahead and ordered 2,000 copies of Scenes I from a local printer http://www.gomer.co.uk/). Peter arranged all the technicalities, again without charge.
One day a man in a van turned up with 80-odd boxes of books, smelling excitingly of printer's ink (and so did the books).
Now for the hard work… selling them……..
(CUE DRAMATIC CHORD, TAILING OFF INTO THIN STRINGS)
Part II to follow, as soon as I can get organised enough..
Let me introduce myself, and explain why I'm here.
My name is Chas Griffin, and I'm here because someone suggested I should open up a blog. There. Done it.
He said people would be interested in hearing background information about my two books 'Scenes from a Smallholding' and, wait for it… 'More Scenes from a Smallholding'. (I'm particularly proud of the second title, by the way: snappy, brief… to the point; and anyway, I couldn't think of anything better.)
*And I could also use the blog to mention any past or upcoming projects that readers of Scenes might be interested to hear about.
*And I could have a rant about all the things that need seriously ranting about and nobody would haul me off to the local clink for creating a public nuisance.
Who could resist?
So.. if you are interested in such things, you may find something on this site to amuse or even interest you. Otherwise, I should push off now before you find yourself being drawn into something you would be much better off without. Either way… enjoy your day! CG.
So where to start?
If you've read Scenes I and II you'll know more or less why I came to write the books, so there's not much point in repeating it here. (If you've not read the books, but are curious, please take a look at http://www.thirdleafbooks.co.uk/ where you can read a couple of extracts from Scenes I, and a page or two of reviews and readers' comments.)
***
Perhaps as good a place to start as any would be to explain why there are two editions of Scenes I on sale, one published by Third Leaf Books and the other by Ebury Press (who also published Scenes II).
It's all to do with me 'catching' ME (CFS, PVFS, VSOP, RSVP, etc) back in 1985, just three years after moving into our new smallholding-to-be…
By the time I came to write Scenes I, it had become clear to me and Anne that I was unlikely to be much good for proper work ever again. Thus our alternatives were either:
1 That I should go onto Benefit full-time, and we would eke out our remaining days courtesy of the long-suffering British taxpayer, or
2 That we should try something else.
Obviously I couldn't take proper work elsewhere, as I was chronically unreliable, and weak as a PM's promise into the bargain. And Anne was more than busy keeping the remainder of the farm in trim, and running the household, and trying to keep me awake with the occasional prod and cup of tea.
What then?
Well, I'd always been interested in writing, so maybe that was the way to go? But I couldn't consider journalism, because of the dead-line factor. I'd never cope. So it had to be some sort of writing I could do at my own pace. Hence a book of some sort. I'd been toying with the idea of something called 'Your Dog as Philosopher', but Anne agreed with the editor of The Organic Way (for whom I'd been writing a quarterly column for years) that I really ought to write about our life on the smallholding. But surely dogs are more interesting? OK, OK… smallholding, it is.. here goes..
I knew from previous experience that it was a complete waste of time and money sending off manuscripts to a publisher (printing a fresh copy every time, plus p&p both ways, months of delay…) and that nothing would ever come of it. This is because publishers are swamped with submissions, and anyway they are not interested in anything that isn't written by a very famous and established author, or a brilliant new talent like Wayne Rooney or Chantelle. These things were certainties.
Then my luck began…
A very nice man called Peter Andrews, who runs Eco-Logic Books (www.eco-logicbooks.com), read my column and offered to publish 'Scenes'. Very good. Peter said that he could offer £1 a time as a royalty, which was a lot more than I'd get from a big publisher. The downside was that he didn't have the clout to get the book promoted and 'noticed'. Sales would probably be in the hundreds, not the tens of thousands.
This is where it gets interesting…
I needed to find a way of earning my living again, and five hundred copies, say, sold @ £1 a shot was scarcely worth the time it had taken to write the book (something like two years, on and off: mainly off). I would have to do better than that, somehow. But how?
So we talked about self-publishing. Peter gave me some useful information about mysteries like 'Whitakers' and ISBN's and 'distribution', and Anne and I did our sums.
To cut a complicated story short, we decided we would risk ~£6,000 of our emergency savings and do it ourselves (Not quite as rash as it sounds, actually. More on this later...)
Our good luck continued: one of our friends (Peter Lock of http://www.logopro.co.uk/) was a professional designer, and another friend, Ken Guy, was a professional artist. They offered to help with the art and design for free, or until I could afford to pay something. Wonderful. Everyone should have friends like these! Thus, our only upfront design & production expense was a modest fee to Peter's daughter, Katie, for typesetting the text, a very onerous and responsible job. Thanks again, Katie!
So we went ahead and ordered 2,000 copies of Scenes I from a local printer http://www.gomer.co.uk/). Peter arranged all the technicalities, again without charge.
One day a man in a van turned up with 80-odd boxes of books, smelling excitingly of printer's ink (and so did the books).
Now for the hard work… selling them……..
(CUE DRAMATIC CHORD, TAILING OFF INTO THIN STRINGS)
Part II to follow, as soon as I can get organised enough..
