As I have been thinking about changing the cover of my book, I asked ChatGPT to come up with something that was more upbeat and colourful than the one I had originally designed. I thought the original might be too dark and unappealing.
And this was its first attempt.
I thought it was colourful and bright, but wondered why the face features were missing.
So, I asked it to come up with its own cover.
Chapter One — Just a Small Funeral.
Chapter Two — The Mysterious Cyprus Album.
Chapter Three — Mam and Dad.
Chapter Four — Life at Number Thirteen.
Chapter Five — Tina.
Chapter Six — Little School.
Chapter Seven — The Little Old Lady Next Door.
Chapter Eight — The Divorce.
Chapter Nine — Son of My Father.
Chapter Ten — Big School.
Chapter Eleven — Related to a Film Star?
Chapter Twelve — The Family From Hell.
Chapter Thirteen — The Girl With Beautiful Eyes.
Chapter Fourteen — A Face From The Past.
Chapter Fifteen — Holidays In The Sun.
Chapter Sixteen — The End of Big School.
Chapter Seventeen — Making Plans For…
Chapter Eighteen — Exit Door.
Chapter Nineteen — Whatever Happened To…
Chapter Twenty — Frank.
Available on Amazon as an e-book, or if you are a member, it is "free" to read on Kindle Unlimited.
1) You ate sugar sandwiches, because jam was not available.
2) You had an aunt who would cut your hair.
3) The local library was the internet.
5) You had to put money into a coin meter for electricity.
7) You watched television pictures of a man landing on the moon.
8) The girl next door was probably your best friend.
9) There were only two, then three television channels, and even then, the adults complained that there was nothing worth watching.
10) The toilet was outside, in the backyard.
Such was life.
So, yesterday I decided to change the look of the blog layout and theme, and I think it now looks better. It has a cleaner look to it, no background picture.
Here's a sample.
Chapter Nine — Son of My Father.
Chapter Ten — Big School.
Chapter Eleven — Related to a Film Star?
Chapter Twelve — The Family From Hell.
Chapter Thirteen — The Girl With Beautiful Eyes.
I also managed to write 2300 or so words yesterday of my new WIP (Really getting with it now, it does mean Work in Progress, doesn't it? Doesn't it?).
I'm sure that one day I will be a proper writer.
I made another visit to a local charity shop that regularly runs five books for a pound sale. This is what I bought this time.
1) Pause by Daniella Marchant. How to press pause before life does it for you. Has a 3.79 rating on Goodreads.
2) The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Has a 3.73 rating on Goodreads. I don't really buy all this Law of Attraction stuff, but I thought that given how it cost twenty pence, I would finally read the book. It also has something to do with a pair of boots I found recently.
3) Happy by Derren Brown. Has a 4.06 rating on Goodreads. I see a trend here. Three self-help type books in a row. Interesting.
4) The Meaning of Sport by Simon Barnes. Has a 3.78 rating on Goodreads. I like sport, so for 20 pence this was an easy pick. We will see.
5) A field Full of Butterflies — Memories of a Romany Childhood, by Rosemary Penfold. Has a 3.67 rating on Goodreads. The lowest Goodreads rating here. Having written a memoir myself, (well, the only book I've written) it is a genre that I like, a real life story.
So, plenty more to read and all five for a pound.
I came across an article in The Guardian online that posed the question, “why are biographies so popular?” I could ask, are they?
I like to read biographies. Actually, I prefer the “auto” biography or memoir. I do read biographies, but I am more inclined to go for the account actually written by the individual telling their own story.
I feel that sometimes biography is used as a catch-all word that includes autobiography, biography, and memoir. I quite like the Wikipedia definition of memoir.
I had a friend at school by the name of Colin. Although we were the same age, he was quite tall and a lot bigger than me. I suspect that because of his size no one picked on him at school. We would often play football in the street opposite Number Thirteen. There were several garages with pull down sliding doors which we used as a goal. I'm sure the residents were overjoyed with the noise every time the ball hit the garage door.
Colin seemed a decent lad, but as the saying goes, appearances can be deceptive, as I was about to find out.
One day I invited him over to my house while mam and dad were out, and we ended up playing with my toy car collection made up of Matchbox, Dinky, and Corgi cars. Pride of place was a new car that Dad had just bought me, a James Bond 007 Aston Martin. A quick check on the internet tells me that back in 1966 this cost all of 3 old pennies. I think I was about seven or eight at the time, so I would have got mine in 1967 or 68.
As we were playing, Colin took a liking to my new car. At one point he said to me, “do you want this?” I thought he was joking and just laughed. There were loads of cars in my toy box, but Colin only seemed to be interested in my new James Bond car. When I asked for it, he just said no and carried on playing with it. He seemed to especially like the passenger ejector seat, which shot out of the roof. He wouldn't give me the car. I asked for it again and his reply took me by surprise.
The conversation went as follows…
For the next seven days. Son of My Father is available on Amazon for £0.99. (Now expired).
It can be found here. Son of My Father
From Son of My Father, a further extract.
I played for the school football team, but it almost didn't happen. We played on a Council run park that was on the outskirts of the city. The facilities were basic at best, and there were three football pitches.
Boys in the school team or close to selection played on the main pitch. The game was usually between two sides picked by the school football captain and the football coach. I was never picked, probably because I wasn't a mate of the captain, and the coach hadn't seen me play. I went and played on one of the other pitches. Pitch number three it was called. I played against boys who were not very good. At that level I was pretty good. I seemed to have a knack for scoring and most weeks, against inferior opposition, I would score several goals.
When I had the idea to write a book, one big question had to be addressed. Would I approach a publisher or an agent to do all the leg work involved in getting a manuscript accepted? Both of these options seemed like a lot of hard work and time-consuming. You also have to prepare yourself for rejection. It is great to think that your book will be the next bestseller or can't miss read, but a publisher or agent may have other ideas. They are also very busy.
I chose to self-publish.
2023 has started with a bang in the world of books. Spare is a memoir written by the British Royal who chose to step back from his role, Prince Harry (ghost-written by novelist J. R. Moehringer.) Released on the 10th January 2023, it has caused a stir, and not just in Royal circles.
This is my first blog post, and it is not my intention to review or write about Harry's book, as I have not read it. Instead, I write about it in the context of my own memoir writing experience, which coincidentally meant that my first book, Son of My Father, was more or less published at the same time.
Actually, my book was published as an e-book on Amazon the week before Christmas, 2022.
Now, the first big difference between my book and Spare is that mine was self-published with no fanfare. Self-publishing used to be called vanity publishing and not encouraged. The traditional route, if the book is any good, is to go through a publisher. That can be a lot of hard work. Many a good author has had their work rejected only to eventually find success. Self-publishing was the easy option for me, and Amazon (and others) do make it reasonably easy to do that.
There is one big drawback to self-publishing. Your new book is one of thousands. How do you get it noticed? I did not publicize it at all. It sat there in the Amazon store waiting for someone to take notice and buy it. Compare that with the 400,000 copies Spare sold on the first day. No surprise in that given all the publicity it received and the fact that this was a book spilling the beans on Royal life. The BBC report that it has become the UK's fastest selling nonfiction book since records began.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64226729
I would have been happy with forty copies sold on the first day. Over the moon.
I will have more to write about Son of My Father in due course, but for now here is the Amazon link.
