The last few months have seen a resurgence of my back pain, as bad as it first was. To cut a long story short, I’ve opted for surgery this time, and I go under the knife next week. Spine surgery is never something to be undertaken lightly, but everyone’s case is different and unique.

To books. Being laid-up gave me the opportunity to catch up on some things. One of those things was to advance the promotion of Broken Evolution, to cross those last things off the indie-author’s to-do list.

Firstly, I set about getting some reviews from real readers - readers I don’t know and who have no vested interest in sparing my feelings. Friends and family and fellow authors are all well and good, but they will veer towards encouragement. I had the niggling sensation that I never really knew what I had with Broken Evolution and that I would have to get real at some point to find out. I would have to get actual reader reviews. The result: average. Broken Evolution is not brilliant; it’s not a disaster either. It’s an ok read. And I’m convinced now that “well-written” in a review is a euphemism. Anyone who has ever used it or received it will know what that means! However, I have learned from them all, and could carry what I’ve learned through to my writing in future.

The second goal was to get the novel into as many readers hands as possible, to start building a readership. Here’s what I’ve learned. Paperback is a waste of time for an Indie author. EBook is the only way to go to start with. Amazon have the indie author market sewn up. With the introduction of KDP Select, it is the only reliable way of pushing your eBook up in the search results and differentiating it from the millions (and counting) of eBooks just sitting in the Amazon catalogue. If you’re an unknown author, 99 cent eBooks do actually work to get some sales (better sales than at 2.99). Free is even better (assuming you are more interesting in starting a readership than making money. If your goal is to make money out of it - start something else). With the latest ebook price fixing ruling, it seems certain that Amazon now set the terms of indie publishing (and even trade publishing) and for many years to come. Indie authors will need to be familiar with Amazon’s rules of the game - albeit the visible rules only.

For now, I now have a novel read by thousands of readers - what any starting author needs.

It’s been a ride. On the other side of recovery I’ll decide whether it’s a ride I should return to. Chronic pain alters you. It drags your spirit down. Concentration is lost. Motivation becomes a struggle. Motivating to write is hard even at the best of times; this isn’t the best of times. You teeter on the edge of depression - and the view from there is ghastly, let me tell you. Pain is very personal journey that can not be shared. Only those who have experienced severe unremitting pain understand. I can only hope mine is now near an end.

Raw, but real.

The Telegraph’s Debt Crisis Blog reveals

“Analysts are getting good vibes from the packed-out stores in the States - particularly vendors of Justin Bieber apparel and Twilight merchandise.”

Who could have forseen such a day!

It got me thinking about originality. I inhabit the software industry with its endemic start-up culture. The water-cooler conversations are always about cool ideas for a new web site or business. It is almost a religion in this business - the cult of originality. It can become tyrannical. That same tyranny to be original seems to be a driver in “high-concept” thrillers too. It is said (I can’t remember who) that for every original idea you think you have, there are at least 3 people in the world having the same idea. Some will be in better position to pursue that idea, or further along with it than you. For example, tablet PCs have been around for years. The idea was in even Star Trek (and probably earlier than that). But it took the convergence of Steve Jobs to bring the idea to its time with the iPad. Now they are everywhere.

Then there is the school of thought that says there are no really original ideas in the world anyway - it’s all been done before. If we followed it to its logical conclusion, we would never do anything at all!

So does the discovery of a potentially similar book de-rail me?

No.

There is also the school of thought that you can do something others are doing, but you should do it in your own unique way. We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. Don’t let the tyranny of orginality topple you. As they often say on Litopia, you can’t protect ideas, only the expression of ideas. So I won’t be reading any cybercrime novels for a while, just in case!

I have always asserted that authors can only write the books they can write. Authors are the amalgam of all the ideas, philosophies, experiences, and people that have influenced them in their lives. There lies the originality and the uniqueness. It is a writer’s style, and the way he or she combines story elements and plots that makes the work unique. I want to complete my own draft this month. I want to write those scenes in my mind on the steps in Odessa, and that pivotal character piece in the Karelian forests, and that closing scene in the streets of Seattle (whose charms I first discovered last year).

I noticed the same thing even happened to Mr. Russinovich - a novel just published after his by David Baldacci with the same name Zero Day! At least I can change my title. (By the way guys - I have the domain zerodaynovel.com registered if you want it!)
Congratulations to them both. I know that writing and publishing a book is a major achievement.

In truth, we write because of our creative drive, our characters, our own imaginative worlds … and for the fun of it. There’s nothing like it!

Recently, I started to think that we might have it all wrong. The third World War may already have begun.

Unlike the last World War, it won’t be a war between nation states. It is a war within states. A global civil war. It may be a war unlike any we have seen before. All facilitated by modern social networks. Civilians rebelling against the stringencies and austerity imposed on them by their governments.

“The Arab Spring” in the middle-east. Civil unrest in Greece. London riots today. Where next?

Snow drifts and financial storms happen for a reason. Trouble brings people together.

After I get back the REAL work begins - promoting it! And then a first draft of the next novel. Busy, busy.

See you in a couple of weeks!

To read about my own work things like “enjoyable and a very good read” and “the author does seem to have done his homework both from an ethical and scientific perspective” and “I really believe this book should be made into a film” is wonderful and great validation of the years of work in getting it to this stage.

But the nicest surprise is this: a totally independent view of the meaning of this story.

Of late, I had been so mired just getting it all right, making a good thriller, tweaking the pace, or editing the grammer and punctuation, or fixing typos, or submitting to agents, or receiving the obligatory agent rejections and false starts, only to be left spinning and wondering what I actually had in this story at all. How nice to get this assessment - pinpointing with laser precision - the true meaning of this tale: “this book raises the fundamental bioethical questions about the definition of human dignity, how it is conferred and the manner in which a person understands his or her identity.”

Thank you Dr. MacKellar; you have reminded me why I sat down to write this book in the first place.

It’s just a quick snap that doesn’t show the full detail, but it looks gorgeous in close-up. Getting there …. bit by bit. The new web site is underway too, and should be live just before publication.

Oh sure, the old arguments against eReaders are still there: “nobody will read an entire book from a screen.” Those arguments haven’t changed. There are only two factors that have changed in the intervening years, combining to make eReading a viable medium in this era: portability and ubiquity.

No one was ever going to sit down to their PC to tuck into a good book. PCs were for work; the last thing you wanted to see when you felt like a recreational read. Reading was always something to take to a special place, or fit in when and where you had some down-time. Neither of those apply to a PC. But the era of personal portable computing devices has arrived. Like a book, we can take those personal devices around with us; unlike a book, we can even slip a computer into our pocket.

In the olde days, the only way to get the book bits onto an eReader was on a “floppy disk” (look it up), or the very fancy new medium of “Compact Disc”. No USB keys back then. Now we have the ultimate form of digital distribution - the wireless internet. Download any book over-the-air from anywhere. Book access is now ubiquitous, as ubiqutious as the marketing-driven popularity of Amazon’s Kindle or Apple’s iPhone/iPad - the eReading devices that have become de rigueur.

There is nothing new in software technology, only hardware. All the software tools and techniques I use every day were all invented decades ago. But what is new, is this singularity - the creeping convergence of all technical factors to make the right time and the right place for something to just … take off.

Next … eReading moves beyond the constraints of the old medium to which it is currently compared … matures in its own unique aspects … comes of age … and becomes something new.

Words … finally in motion.

It’s been a long uncertain journey to get here, but I’m finally feeling excited again. Enjoyment is what it’s all about.