Monday 29 April 2013

What sort of a writer am I?

Hey guys;

I have been dipping my toes in various discussion groups and writers' workshops recently.

Some are brilliant and supportive, whereas some are a little 'elite' and brimming with what I call 'book snobs'.

The fact that I identify 'book snobs' is a clue to where I come from.

I am a guy who likes to pick up a book, whether it's just in time for a two week relax in the sun,( in which case I will be looking for 3 or 4) or a long lazy weekend (1 or 2).

What sort of books do I like to read? 

They have to be fun. They have to be a good story. They have to entertain me. I like sewn in wit and astute perspectives of real life.

James McGee; Ben Elton; Sebastian Faulkes; Ian Banks...all names I admire and who write books I like to read.

What sort of books do I write?

I hope they are books that I would pick up to read and based on my own criteria. For Fiction particularly.

For reference? 

Well researched and presented in a manner where they really help the reader!

I hope that I can deliver what I purport to offer.

I was over the moon last night when I realised that in just five weeks, over 1,000 of my books have been purchased and are being read (or have been relegated to posh coasters - if they were not well received!).

First real look at book 'sales'

Hey guys;

After a little prompting from fellow Google+ contributors, I have just done a check on 'sales' since my books went out on 25th March 2013.

Jack Ketch's Puppets has been sold in paperback or downloaded 867 times!

Leicestershire Myth & Legend - in verse - 124 times.

Sadly for me, many are the giveaways, so I can't retire in comfort quite just yet!

I have also sold some copies through Createspace store as paperbacks but as yet am unclear on totals.

I am unable to gain information as to paperback versions from FeedARead as they are produced every 6 months, and I shall have to wait until October!

They say that a first time writer sells about 500 copies of their first book in total. I am therefore over the moon at what has been achieved in a little over five weeks!

Thanks to those of you who have contributed to the figures!

A wonderful accolade from Chaunce Stanton, a fellow writer in the USA...

Just had a really nice accolade from a fellow writer in the USA, Chaunce Stanton, which I share below...makes it worth while!

*****

Putting the Artist in the Work

Do you see the painter in the painting?

I like it when an author conveys a personal voice -- even within troubling story lines like gruesome murder investigations. As a reader, I feel like I come to know the writer in some small part even as I come to the characters and the action enfolding them.

Reading +Phil Simpkin's Jack Ketch's Puppets, I sometimes find myself laughing aloud or releasing intrigued "hmmmms" so that my wife, Naomi, asks me what I'm on about, and I read something to her that not only advances Phil's story but shows his sense of humor or the amount of time he spent researching and deliberating over his subject matter.

One brief example that made me pause to write this post:

"I'm afraid, sir, that we have the gravest of problems - the corpse has been stolen," said Beddows...

Phil's person comes through. I know many writers from the objective school try to "cover their tracks" in order to completely remove themselves from their work. But the natural way in which Phil accomplishes this balance between "narrative dream" and the reality of writer as creator is truly a credit to his comfort level with himself and with the story.

I'm certain of one thing: for those readers beginning with the Borough Boys series, they will begin a relationship with Phil as well as his characters.

Fortunately, he is a highly accommodating companion.





Chaunce's blog can be found at...


https://plus.google.com/100915686438618444292/posts

He is a great guy and writes some dark and humourous stuff!

Wednesday 10 April 2013

More resources for Historical Novelists and Genealogists!

Use of British Newspaper Archive for Historical data...

I have just been chatting on a LinkedIn writers group, with a writer who has been struggling to get specific data for certain days in their research for a new Historical Novel.

Many people may not be aware of The British Newspaper Archive, which has copies of (currently) 6,787,555 newspapers from across the UK going back to circa 1800 and, as I understand, earlier when scanned.

These can be viewed on purchase of credits, or for a membership, but once purchased a PDF version of each can be downloaded and used at your leisure.

As much as they are a UK resource, Britain's thirst for world news meant that The Times, and London Standard, for example, carried world news, events, weather, trade, and as such there is so much data, it is a goldmine.

I have copies of papers locally and Nationally for November 1854 to January 1855, for researching The Crimean war, which features heavily in my next major novel in my Borough Boys series.

 

Their website can be found here... British Newspaper archives

An abundance of talent! Long live self-publishing!

I have had a really interesting day today, snooping around the websites and facebook pages of some of my new 'Fans' and 'Followers' on my Facebook 'Borough Boys' page.

I am just blown away by the diversity of what is being produced.

There are some beautiful looking and intriguing titles and blurbs, many of which have already whetted my appetite, and will shortly appear on my 'to read' lists.

Many of these are self-published.

I wonder how many of these writers / authors would have been published under the old regime?

Self publishing is refreshing and encompassing. It gives life to new authors, and gives the readers the chance to decide what they want to read, and not the publishing houses and agents!

The king is dead, long live self-publishing!

Friday 5 April 2013

Who would want to read 'Jack Ketch's Puppets' and why?

Hey guys;

I am starting to appreciate, that as a novice author, with my first books only just out in the market place, trying to identify to a reader, why, they might want to read YOUR book, is in need of a lot of extra publicity and marketing effort.

A novel - seems so straight-forward - we all love a novel, especially a crime, and a murder mystery to boot! But, there are thousands on sale.

So why should 'Jack Ketch's puppets' appeal to some readers more than others? 

And who might want to read it, or for that matter, any of the impending 'Borough Boys' series?

This series should be of interest to not just readers of Fiction, Crime and Mysteries.

I have deliberately included large amounts of information about the history of the Borough of Leicester, from before 1850; through 1850, and will go on to later in the Victorian era.

This includes social, economic and political change, as well as the evolution of Policing.

But it is all entwined with a fast moving and intriguing, murder, who-dunnit?

I am getting great responses from Local Historians, Genealogists, and Social Historians. This alone gives me hope that I am crossing borders from Fiction into reference.

Fact can be fun, even more so, when woven into Fiction.

Take a look at my website:www.1455bookcompany.com and my Facebook 'Fanpage' at The Borough Boys Fanpage on facebook

Buy my novel at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jack-Ketchs-Puppets-Introducing-Borough/dp/1482712008/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364317134&sr=1-1

Was Shakespeare wrong? How many of his works are a mix of both?

'The Bard of Enderby'

Researching my novels, questions I am asked...

Hey guys;

It has been an interesting couple of days, and since I posted my recent first Q & A session with a local Hack, I have been asked a few questions about how I go about researching my work.

I have to say, that the emergence of data on the internet has been a phenomenal bonus, and is a godsend for Historical research.

However, I am also a Genealogist, and have taken my own, plus friends' family trees back to the 1400's.

The Genealogy resources are a real asset for Historical Fiction.

I am writing about 1850s Leicester, England.

The biggest asset here is the 1841 and 1851 UK Census records, which give you names, addresses, occupations, ages, places of birth, and more.

These Census records continue right through to 1911 and will be my constant companion in each yearly move in my novel timeline.

Also, Historical Registers. There are many documented Registers that detail Pubs; Licensees; shops and their owners; Newspapers, etc. You want to know who was who and what was what at a particular time and place, and these books will tell you.

University catalogues are also full of similar social and economic data.

Recently, 'The British Newspaper Archive' has become available, and for a few pounds, you can view and download papers from your own Town or City, and London, for example. My next major novel is set around Political disquiet in 1854/5 at the time of The Crimean War.

I have downloaded Leicester's papers and 'The Times' of London, for November and December 1854, and I have ready access to what was happening as it was reported, and this is a massive boost to getting fact right!

What is startling to me, when I conduct this research, is that we do not learn, Humans, that is!

Reading the background to the disquiet about the Crimea, I discovered that there was a lot of anti-government sentiment about how the Army had been treated in the first Afghan wars.

In the Crimea, the Army was under-staffed, under-equipped or at least ill-equipped, nobody saw a real motive for war in the Crimea, and the Government was seen as weak and manipulated for going to war in the first place.

Sound familiar?

Wednesday 3 April 2013

My first Question and Answer session regarding 'The Borough Boys'



Q - What made you want to write ‘The Borough Boys series?’
A – Back in 1976, when I started walking the beat as a young Cop, in Leicester, I was fascinated by the history of the Town. There are some great places, full of atmosphere, with original buildings and street lamps, and that sort of prompt.
I decided that I wanted to know what Leicester must have been like back then, during that early Victorian period, and that got me going.

Q – Why ‘The Borough Boys?’
A – The original name was Leicester Borough Police. They covered the Town area, and in 1839 Leicestershire County Police was formed, who covered beyond the Town walls, and the old periphery.

Q – Why did you start off in 1850/51?
A – I wanted to take people to a period in time, where change was already occurring, and Leicester was already feeling that change. By 1850, it was already suffering the Industry and scars that would bring, and the population of the Town was an ‘interesting mix’ by then.

Q – Who is the character Samson Shepherd based upon?
A – Me of course, as a young man, mixed with the best or worst bits, of other such young cops I have worked with over the years.

Q – And John Beddows?
A  - Ah, John Beddows wasn’t meant to be a star in the series, but he developed on the back of my developing storyline. I needed an older mentor, and again, created a character who had the best I could take from all my old Tutors and mentors. He is a man I would admire, and he is a bit of good, and a bit of evil, rolled into an efficient crime fighter.

Q – So what would Leicester have been like in 1850?
A – It was a grim place to be. I started researching about two years ago, and the books and history available on the internet, disclosed a place I had no knowledge of, yet I have lived so close to it for over fifty years.
Imagine, in 1836, John Flowers, the artist who features in ‘Jack Ketch’s Puppets’, painted and sketched what Leicester was like then. Fifteen years later, it had Railways, factories, dye-houses, Foundry’s, large Industrial buildings blotted out the skyline, and the trees of 1836 were all cut down and burned for fuel!
Also, so many people came to the new Town, looking for work. The old frame-knitters were a dying breed and places like Corah’s offered hundreds of jobs.
Small houses were thrown up quickly, and old pig sties and hovels became homes to hundreds if not thousands of incomers. 900 Irish came over after the famine of 1845 and settled. Most came to ‘The Rookeries’ in St Margaret’s Parish, which was about as bad as it got.

Q – Why was it called ‘the Rookeries’?
A – A Rookery is felt to be a place where nests spring up and populations explode rapidly. In London, the name had already been coined for several undesirable parts of The East End and around Bloomsbury and St. Giles, and so it became a term for similar areas in places such as Leicester.

Q – Was it really that bad?
A – The area around what we now think of as St Margaret’s Bus Station; Abbey Street, Mansfield Street, Sandiacre Street, Garden Street and Orchard Street, from Churchgate and down along Belgrave Gate to where Corah’s was sited, was just a mass of tiny little lanes and yards. Cock Muck Hill, Delaney’s Yard, names that come from the book, were all there. Pork Shop Yard was infamous. It was really called Hextall’s Yard, and was the domain of Abigail Hextall, who owned a Common Lodging House at the end of it. It became infamous.

Q – Why was there so much crime?
A – Think about it. A Frame work knitter could earn about four shillings a week. It was virtually slave labour. If he or she could not get work and the Factories like Corahs was taking work away from them, they would starve.
The other option was the Workhouse; the new one had just been built on what we now know as Sparkenhoe Street, on what was then called High Fields, to the south of the Town. There they worked you until you broke, for just a roof over your head.
So, the Death penalty had gone for most crimes. Transportation to the Colonies was the worst you could get outside of a prison cell here in Leicester.
Sex was a popular distraction. A Street prostitute, female or male, and I’m not talking about the posher ones in the Brothels, could make anywhere between £5 and £20 a week selling themselves in alleyways and yards. To earn that as a frame work knitter would take you between five months and two years! Now do you understand why crime became rife?
Pick-pockets and conmen were so prolific; it was almost condoned as a consequence of walking through the Town. If you were fool enough, you would get robbed or conned out of something, so more fool you.

Q – And what were those old fashioned Coppers like?
A – To start off with it must have been awful. You were no more than a glorified night watch man, and you were paid by the ‘watch’ for that reason. Peel had set a standard for the Metropolitan Police, but it took long after 1836 for it to become respectable.
Of the fifty original Coppers taken on in 1836, only four remained in 1840, many leaving through assaults and abuse. Many went on with Frederick Goodyer to less demanding beats in The County.
The Borough Police were often drunk, as beer and gin were safer than water.
Many were dishonest, and turned a blind eye, for minor rewards.
 Magistrates didn’t like them. Nor did they back them up when they took people to courts.
It must have been miserable for those who wanted to be good Coppers.

Q – So what makes Samson Shepherd, John Beddows and The Borough Boys those good guys?
A – They were tough. They were fair. They were determined. They were hard men, standing up to large gangs that roamed the Town, infiltrating them with detectives like Tanky Smith and Black Tommy Haynes, getting into them and locking them away! A touch ruthless, if I was to be honest.
They had to cross the line at times to win the battle and the war against crime, and make Leicester the Town it would become.

Q – What have you in mind next, now that ‘Jack Ketch’s puppets’ has been published?
A – There are three short novels in development. One will cover each year between 1851 and 1853. The next major novel set in 1854/5 is a bit different to ‘Jack Ketch’s Puppets’ and is set against anti-war sentiment during the Crimean Campaign, and the end of the first Afghan war. Totally different!

Q – When can we expect to see the next, the first short novel, out?
A – Hopefully for the summer, this year. Just in time for the Holiday market and Airport and Service area book piles!




Tuesday 2 April 2013

A Gratifying weekend!

Hey Guys;

This is my official thank you to you all for the support I have received over this, opening, weekend of publication of  both of my books.

At its best, Jack Ketch's Puppets, reached #70 in the Kindle 'Mysteries' category, equal with 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' by Steigg Larrson, and ahead of Lee Childs, James Herbert, and many more names I have always looked at in wonderment!

As for 'Leicestershire Myth & Legend - in verse'; at 9am today it was at #32 in Amazon Kindle 'Entertainment' category.

Both books are now back at their original Kindle price of £1.01, and paperbacks as they were originally released.

Those of you that have downloaded - MANY THANKS!


Please would you leave me a review on Amazon Kindle and Goodreads, if you feel so inclined.

EVERY REVIEW IS APPRECIATED!

Thanks

Phil

A short promotion - Book four - 'A few silver threads'

 Hi folks; For your information, I am running a promotional event on both Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com, for the next week only. During that t...