Tempus Fugit

"To fill the hour - that is happiness." Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's a horrible feeling when you realise your limitations.

Youth is filled with ambition. To be rich. To be famous. To achieve amazing things. Sooner or later, though, youth is somewhat tempered by experience.

We realise that dreams of glory might be beyond our grasp. For every person who is famous - known and loved by many - there are thousands who are famous only to those who already know and love them.

We can't all be film stars or singers or presidents and prime ministers.

We can't even all be best selling novelists!

Sooner or later, you get to a point in life in which you realise that jumping for the stars has left you slightly winded - and still no closer to reaching them.

Like a dog chasing it's tail, ambition can fill you momentarily with energy and purpose - but ultimately it doesn't lead you anywhere.

This is something I've grown acutely aware of - especially when it comes to Adventure Eddy.

I've been writing adventure stories for well over a decade now. As I grow older - and the stories grow richer and better written - I realise that Adventure Eddy's exploits may never hit the bookshelves of Waterstones like I once envisaged they would.

There's the horrific possibility that my writing legacy might be confined to marketing copy and pompous articles on the Internet. I'll never be a bestselling writer!

So what is there to do?

What is a writer if nobody reads what he has written?

Well, I've been very lucky. Friends of mine - and friends of friends of mine - have chosen to read Adventure Eddy. For all the book's current limitations, it's incredibly empowering to know you've shared this make-believe world with somebody.

The question is: Is it worth writing these stories if they'll never be published?

Part of me thinks that it is.

People have hobbies, don't they? They paint, or draw, or do jigsaws and crosswords. Maybe I should consider writing more like that. Something rewarding and worthwhile for it's own reasons - for what it means to me - rather than for what I hope it will achieve.

With the wonders of things like Lulu, it's entirely possible for me to fill a bookshelf with beautifully printed copies of Adventure Eddy's exploits. Even if nobody ever reads them, they'll be there, preserved for as long as the paper lasts and the glue keeps the pages bound.

Maybe I could print a copy and leave it on a bench or a bus, after signing it up to Bookcrossings. With the wonders of the Internet, people who find and read an abandoned book can 'report' picking it up and let the original owner know where it's gone and who's enjoyed it.

Ultimately, isn't it as rewarding for one person to read your book and enjoy it as a hundred? Or a million?

I've very little basis for comparison!

What I do have is a dozen stories tangled up inside my head. I have now come to accept that I might never make my fortune as a novelist - but I would still like to commit these stories to paper. The very act of writing and expressing emotions and memories is rewarding in and of itself. It's like therapy - or more accurately like medieval 'bleeding.' Pouring the thoughts out of your head before they turn stagnant!

I should do it. I should just write for the hell of it. So no crosswords for me. No sudoku. No more sitting in front of whatever crap it is on TV (although I'll make exceptions for The Colbert Report, House and Dr Who.) Just as Tina has her cross stitch and father has his painting, I will embrace my passion without the limitations of ambition.

At least I know I can write. I mean, that's what I do for a living. I get paid for my ability with words. So if my writing career has never taken off, it's not because I'm a bad writer.

And maybe, if I write only for myself instead of trying to appeal to an audience, my books will be interesting - or at least more personal.

It's quite liberating, really.

Here are some stories I want to write:

Bootleg Boys - the Adventure Eddy story about bootlegged beer is nearly finished! I want to write the rest of it so badly!

God Squad - it's like 'Torchwood' - except instead of aliens, my high-tech troubleshooting team deal with 'extra-Biblical cryptozoological entities' like unicorns, vampires and dragons. Oh, and most of them are heavily armed priests. It's basically fantasy/horror/sci-fi comedy for the Di Vinci Code generation.

The Price of Freedom - based on a 'Movies' plot I wrote, it's the story of a British national arrested for 'terrorism' by a corrupt sheriff in the middle of Pennsylvania. The embassy troubleshooter known as 'British Bulldog' must take charge of this 'captive' and get to the bottom of the trumped-up charges. It's basically a western set east of the Mississippi with an interesting take on the whole War on Terror thing.

Kidd Rockson - a crime novel. When a promising African-American student is gunned down by the county police for packing a gun, most people dismiss it as an unfortunate gang-related incident. But even though the cops have been exonerated, the student's girlfriend claims his death was murder. The only man desperate enough to believe her is down-on-his luck private detective Kidd Rockson.

Ginger Jihad - this one will be fun. It's 2046 and Europe is aflame. Fundamentalist Muslims and the Russian army have painted the map red. Fortress America has long abandoned it's foreign adventures in Europe and the middle east, so only Britain stands and - from the look of the besieged island - not for long. Then American astronauts discover an amazing thing. The perfectly preserved body of 1950's test pilot 'Big Ginger' orbiting the earth. This WWII vet is thawed out by the desperate British government. Can a pip-pip, tally-ho fighter pilot really be Britain's last and only hope?

Captain Albion - the world's first superhero is from England! This mysterious crime-fighter has the tabloids in a storm and Britain swept up in a wave of patriotism. But when the superhero's actions clash with the British government's plans, the Prime Minister sets out to deal with this uncooperative menace. Meanwhile, an ambitious young reporter searches to uncover the 'real' identity of Captain Albion herself. The explosive climax features America's own 'nuclear powered' superhero arriving to confront Britain's finest.

The Wedding Story / Black Dog - two previously finished adventure Eddy stories need to be 'retconned' to match Eddy's slightly altered origins.

Operation Mycroft - whatever DID happen to Adventure Eddy's missing brother? When Mi5 and the CIA start demanding answers, Eddy sets out to find out. A good old fashioned adventure story with car chases, romance, beautiful women, a villainous villain and it's all set in France which is AWESOME.

The Widow of Winchester - Winchester's new mayor is making sweeping changes. Are his twenty-first century ambitions linked to a mysterious gang of 'vampires' who are chasing out his political and financial rivals? Adventure Eddy sets out to prove that there are 'no such things as vampires.'

The Silver Relic - I've already written this one about five times. But this time it'll have one of those things.... oh, what's it called? That's it! A plot! Anyway. It's a story about one of those old Mercedes Benz Silver Arrow racing cars and the murderous lengths unscrupulous people will go to get one. Amazingly, it's (very, very loosely) based on a true story!

The Island Affair - finally - FINALLY - the story about how Adventure Eddy wound up on Tresco and what he did there. Expect high adventure on the high seas, a devious criminal mastermind and a bit with a dog. And unlike Adventure Eddy, there really WILL be a bit with a dog in this one. The dog is called Fido.

Adventure Eddy in New York - Sooner or later, it had to happen. Is Eddy's ambition to 'clean up' the city going to get him killed? Oh, what fun this story will be. Beautiful women. Deadly bad guys. All the sights, sounds, smells of New York city sandwiched in an adventure story. I can't wait!

Yes, as you can see, I have a lot of work ahead of me. SO MANY stories to write. Now I just need to sit my arse down and actually do it.

Well, the winter months are coming up. Now is as good a time to start as any.

And whatever you think of my silly writing ambitions - even you have to admit it's more productive than a jigsaw.

Eddy on Demand

To give Lulu a try, I recently published two books there. One was my own Adventure Eddy story (which you can read in it's unedited less-than-glory here.) Then there was one of my mother's stories, A Long Way West, which she wrote a few years ago.

It took about ten days for them to arrive and they both looked fab.

They were printed in two different styles. Adventure Eddy was printed in classic American format, with a 6"x9" layout and beige paper. Mum's was printed in British 6.14" x 9.21" format with white paper. Mum's looked a lot better, I have to admit.

Her book looked like this:

My book, on the other hand, turned out a bit 'busier' and had that old 'pulp fiction' kind of feel to it with the slightly yellow paper. Although 'pulp fiction' is probably quite a good description.

It looked like this:

Because I'd pressed the wrong buttons, my name came out on the spine of Adventure Eddy, but Mother was left anonymous.

In the end, including postage, each book cost about a tenner, which wasn't that bad.

The thing that amazed me was just how good they looked. I mean, here I was, holding a real book in my hand. It was amazing.

How is it done?

Thought I'd write just a little about the whole process of uploading and publishing with Lulu.

First off, you need to register for a free account. That's fairly simple. Then you have to 'Start a Project.' I started off with Mum's book.

They ask you if you want to make the book available to the public or just have it available to yourself. This is so you can simply use Lulu as a printing service (like I did) or actually as the hub of your publishing empire. If you choose to make your book available to the public, you are given your own page on Lulu to promote your book. For a small fee, you can also buy an ISBN number which will then be tied in with Amazon and other online book sellers. It also means places like Waterstones can actually order your book.

They won't, by the way. But in theory they could. Although you could still walk into Waterstones and say "I'd like a copy of this" and then they'd send off for it (knowing that somebody will buy it.)

I chose to make both books available only to myself, because in that way they're not officially 'published' and I can still send both manuscripts around to real publishers.

Next, you have to upload the manuscript.

Like real publishers, Lulu work off Adobe PDF files. Fortunately, they have the facility to convert your Microsoft Word and Works files into PDF's. What you have to do, though, is make sure your document is formatted correctly.

This goes beyond just checking the spelling. You are responsible for everything that appears between the covers of your book. The title page. The publisher info. The contents. Even the page numbers. I spent a lot of time poking about before I got things looking right, but if even a computer dyslexic like me can do it, anybody can. The finished article was indistinguishable from a book you'd pick up in WH Smiths.

Then, you have to pick how you want your book to appear. This includes the size of the book to the way it's printed. You can publish paperbacks or hardbacks, full colour or black and white. You can even decide what colour paper you want them printed on.

Lastly, you need to pick the covers.

This is the fun bit. With Mum's book, I picked a 'library' picture, which was a standard Lulu royalty-free picture. The title of the book (but sadly not Mum's name) was printed on the cover and the spine.

On my book, I uploaded my own cover. I didn't have one for Adventure Eddy and wasn't feeling very creative, so I uploaded a cover I'd designed a few years ago for "The Silver Relic." It looks a bit cheesy, but shows off the possibilities.

If you want, you can make your own 'one peice' cover instead of having seperate back-and-front covers and a generic spine. This is slightly more complicated through and you'll need to convert it into a PDF yourself. I wasn't brave enough for that!

Once you've decided all of that, you're good to go. Click on the publish button and you're done.

You have to 'buy' your own copy (and you can even earn yourself royalties from your own purchase) but ten days later, you'll receive a lovely copy of your book.

I was very impressed with what Lulu produced. Mum's book got sent off to France as a bit of a suprise present (and hopefully inspiration to keep on writing.) My copy of Adventure Eddy, considering it had the wrong cover and was riddled with mistakes, has been adopted as my 'handheld touch-pad editing device.'

As in, I've got a pencil and started scribbling in it, trying to put together a final, edited version.

Lulu - Not the annoying singer.

I read somewhere that there are two defining moments in a writer's life. The first, when they see their book in print. The second, when people actually go out and buy that book.



That first defining moment is easier than ever to accomplish, thanks to the wonders of modern technology. I stumbled across a website called Lulu.com, who offer a POD service. That means 'Print on Demand.'

Basically, you can upload your book and buy a perfectly bound copy of it, just like you'd pick up in Waterstones. What makes 'POD' different from paying somebody else to print your book is that you can print out just a single copy and it won't cost more than an equivilent book in WH Smiths. Printers generally expect orders of hundred or thousands of copies.

Lulu.com suggest that this service is going to revolutionize the publishing world. I'm not so sure about that, but it is a wonderful facility to have. They will print your books and mail them anywhere in the world. In addition, you can actually 'publish' your book on line and buy an official ISDN number (the international book code that allows book sellers to take orders for books.) With this service, you can put your book online and sell it via Lulu's website or tie it in with a real online bookseller like Amazon. When somebody orders it, a copy gets printed and mailed to the customer.

The advantages of POD are obvious. Printing books is expensive. If they don't sell, the printed books just end up festering in some warehouse (if books fester) or being piled up high and sold cheap at The Works. Unless a publisher sells the books they print, they lose money. Sometimes a lot of money. Dorling Kindersley printed 13 million copies of their pictorial guide to Star Wars: Episode One and only sold 3 million. The firm was sold soon afterwards.

With POD, copies of the book are only printed when they've been ordered. While the cost per unit might be higher than large scale printings, in means there's no wastage. It basically takes the risk out of publishing.

However, there are disadvantages.

The reason it's so tough to get your book published is because publishers have very high standards. They are only going to invest in products that will give them a return. In that respect, the books they publish need to be more than just well written and entertaining. They need to appeal to a market that will shell out money to buy them.

With POD, however, anybody can publish anything. There's no quality control. If you look on the Lulu website you'll see thousands and thousands of books being pushed on their online catalogue. Most of them are supposed to be awful.

Real publishers spend money on editing, fact checking and layout. Since Lulu leaves all of that to the individual author, many of the books you'll find on their catalogue are poorly edited and riddled with spelling mistakes. I should know. I've tried my hand at it myself. More on that later.

Lulu offers something wonderful. The chance for absolutely anybody to see their books in print. What they can't offer are the things that really make publishers worthwhile. The attention to detail and their immense marketing budgets.

Marketing is the big one. You can have the best book in the world, but unless people know about it, nobody will ever read it. Compare, for example, Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code against a best seller on the Lulu Catalogue. Da Vinci sold over 30 million copies. Lulu's 'best sellers' struggle to sell more than 500.

Which brings us on to the second defining moment in a writer's life. That moment when you find out about people - lots of people - going out to buy your book. Lulu say their philosophy is to turn around the old publishing system. Instead of one hundred authors selling a million books, they want a million authors to each sell 100 books. Is that a good or a bad thing?

While POD services like Lulu have made getting into print easier than ever, they're making it harder and harder to break into the big time. And, let's admit it. Secretly all aspiring writers want their books to become the next Da Vinci Code.