R.J. Lynch's Blog, page 10

jlmandrill:

JJ Marsh is a great writer (see the Beatrice Stubbs books) and a hell of a critic.

Originally posted on jjmarsh:

I’ve now destroyed three Kindles by flinging them at the wall. Number of paperbacks taken to recycling – three bags full. I am so tired and weary of reading half-baked bollocks, I want to give up my treasured pleasure of literature and watch Blackadder repeats.

No, you beard-strokers and bespectacled nodders, this is not the ‘Great Unwashed Tsunami’ of self-publishing. It’s far too many shite books by authors whose gaze rests otherwhere than on their readers. It’s self-indulgent crap and it comes from every kind of publishing arsehole.

This week I hurled a Booker Prize nominee out the window. Gave up on a small press manuscript. Spent three hours trying to refine a critique which should simply read: Don’t.

From a reviewer’s perspective, here are the Golden Bloody Rules.

Stand in your readers’ shoes. We don’t know your characters or storyworld as well as you do. Tread that fine line…

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I am not someone who likes to get up people’s noses. Left to myself, I’d prefer not to upset anyone. Sadly, that isn’t possible. The title of Zappa’s Mam’s a Slapper comes from a passage in the book – this passage (from the beginning of Chapter 8): I chose the name Billy when I was eleven. It was 1999, I’d had eleven years of answering to the one my stupid mother gave me and I wasn’t going to do it any more. You can imagine the stuff I got. “Zappa’s on the crapper.” “Zappa’s mam’s a slapper.” You can probably make your own up and I’m telling you, I’ll have heard it. Zappa McErlane. I ask you. People home in on stupid names. People in authority. Every time I changed class or we got a new teacher I could see her eye going down the register and she’d be thinking, “Oh, yes. Zappa. He’ll be the one. I’ll have trouble with him.” And if they think they will, they do.

That’s how the book got its title – but a woman told me she wouldn’t read a book with the word “slapper” in the title, and nor would a lot of other women. Well, I hope you can see from the passage above that my use of the word was not meant to be demeaning to women. What’s more, everyone connected with the book so far – three editors and an agent – has been female and not one of them has been upset by the word. And, while I don’t seek to offend, I like the title and I’m not going to change it.

It isn’t only the title, though. You can read the whole of Chapter one here, but this is how it begins:

All I’d said was, I wouldn’t mind seeing her in her knickers. I wouldn’t have thought, being honest, that that merited a showdown with her brothers.

I tried to explain. She’s a bit on the chubby side, Kathleen, which I like. Not a grotesque fatty; just a bit of a plumper. Real fatties, I don’t care for. I’ve got a pic I took of a thumper sitting on one chair when three would not have been too many. I took it from behind, which is the only way you could really bring yourself to look at her. Great blue denim bulges hanging down on each side. You’d wonder how anyone could let herself get like that. Jessica made me leave that one out of the exhibition. ‘It’s an interesting eye you have, Billy,’ she said, ‘but it wouldn’t please everyone.’

I said, ‘That’s not what the instructor told us in Young Offenders. He said you should nurture your own unique vision.’

Jessica’s eye twitched. She didn’t like being argued with, and she had this ambivalence towards my time inside—it was what made me a celeb but she said it was her job to publicise it and not mine. Which is all very well, but if I hadn’t been in Young Offenders I’d never have got into taking pics. They’d run this course on digital photography (and how stupid is that? To do digital photography you need a digital camera and how did anyone think a Young Offender was going to get one of those once he was back on the street?) and I’d signed up to deal with the tension of not knowing whether I’d get out. I’d loved it.

No, with Kathleen I’d pictured her sitting on a bed in nothing but a pair of those knickers Marks & Sparks had in their adverts when they were going after the smart young people who wouldn’t be seen dead in Marks, you might as well ask them to shop in Milletts. Everyone remembers those knickers. Every man, anyway. Lot of lezzies, too, I should think. The ones coming a couple of inches down the leg and cut square. Nice patterns, interesting colours and a dark edge to waist and leg. And the models they used hadn’t exactly been short-changed in the upper body department.

Lovely. Kathleen would be sitting on the bed in these and nothing else, one leg pointing straight out in front and the other drawn up under her, arms crossed at the elbow and hands clasped so that you saw nothing more revealing than a bit of flesh squeezed each side of the arms. And she’d be looking straight at the camera and smiling. That’s one of the things I liked about Kathleen—that she was always smiling. That and not being skinny. She had a lovely smile, Kathleen.

Jessica said I had a fantastic eye for a pic, “a real intuitive grasp for composition,” which was exactly what the instructor at Young Offenders had said. And that’s all it was.

But I’d said it out loud and some mischief-making twat had told Kathleen’s brothers and they were offended. Or pretended they were.

So there you are. I’ve probably outraged fat people, thin people, lesbians and who knows who else? Maybe people who don’t smile. But it can’t be helped. It seems to me that a willingness – in fact, an active desire – to be offended has become part of our culture; people go looking for things to complain about. And what I had to decide was: am I going to write what I want to write in the way I want to write it? Or should I tailor my writing to make sure I don’t offend anyone? I think there’s only one answer to that question. It will probably lead to a lot of one and two star reviews from people who want to take revenge for what they see as a slight, but I have to let Billy tell his story his way.

On Saturday, 29th August I’ll be at Hawkesbury Upton Show with my books and a bunch of other writers. You’ll find us in the Pop-Up Literary Festival tent right next to the Pimms tent and close to the showground entrance. In the unlikely event that you don’t know where the show is held it’s at the Recreation Ground, High Street, Hawkesbury Upton, South Gloucestershire GL9 1AU.

I’ll be selling all of my books in paperback at the knockdown price of £7.50 each. To make this amazing bargain available to those who can’t be there, or are there but can’t immediately make up their minds, until 6th September I’m offering a 30% discount on all of the books, post free. Just go to my product page here: http://tinyurl.com/q35k8h2 and enter the coupon code HULITFEST when you get to checkout. If you’d like the book(s) signed, email me at [email protected] and tell me exactly how you’d like the dedication to appear.

Here’s a pic of the coupon I’ll be handing out on the day:

Come along and make a day of it. Apart from the Pop-Up Literary Festival there’ll be:

a carnival procession
the exhibitors’ marquee, a vast white tent running the length of the ground, housing entries to over 160 competition categories, from prize marrows to flower arrangements to baking to crafts
entertainments in the arena at the far end of the field, from the awarding of prizes to carnival entrants to tug-of-war and tractor pulls
a fairground with dodgems, bouncy castles, etc
stalls all around the edge of the ground, selling crafts, food (a deer/hog/lamb roast; a fish and chip van, cake stalls), toys, clothes, etc

What could be more agreeable on a Bank Holiday weekend?

 

Rather nice feedback from the Wishing Shelf Awards on Zappa’s Mam’s a Slapper:

Readers’ Comments

‘A very enjoyable read. The plot is superb and the writing is lively.’ Male reader, aged 43

‘The criminal element of the book, mostly set in Newcastle, is very well described. I liked how the character developed and the ending was satisfying. Billy is a wonderful character to follow, from his life as a kid to life in prison. Often, it’s rather shocking but the author keeps the reader with him till the bitter end. Fantastic cover too.’ Female reader, aged 28

‘Very, very different to A Just and Upright Man. I loved every page of this novel. The pacing is perfect and the message the book sends out is strong and relevant. Although it should be a sad book, it wasn’t; there was a lot of hope in there too. A big publisher needs to sign up this author soon.’ Female reader, aged 47

‘It’s always fun to find a book by an author who knows his readers and what they want.’ Male reader, aged 24

Stats

Cover 9/10

Editing 9/10

Writing Style 10/10

Plot/Story/Contents 10/10

Of the 32 readers:

31 would read another book by this author.

28 thought the cover was good or excellent.

20 felt the best part was the writing style.

Catchy Quote

‘A powerful, unrelenting page-turner. Highly recommended.’ The Wishing Shelf Awards

 

Nicked this off the Mandrill Press blog. (Well, why not? I wrote it).

Sex equality in 1950s Britain

 

 

There’s a new link on the Mandrill Press website that will give you 50% off the price of the paperback of your choice (P&P free, wherever in the world you are) in return for signing up to the newsletter of John Lynch Author.

I’ve grumbled a couple of times recently about appalling customer service so I’m delighted to be able to give a big thumbs up to a company that really knows what service means. Broadband speed where I live has been atrocious but recently BT installed high-speed fibre-optic kit at our local exchange and I ordered the upgrade. The improvement in download speeds was immediately obvious – to me. The guv’nor’s laptop did not get the same and I found, hidden away in the BT documentation, the information that you need an ethernet connection or you might as well stay with the old slow (and cheaper) option. I therefore ordered a Broadband Extender Kit from BT and when it arrived, one of the pins was broken. I filled in an online form and was contacted almost immediately by Keely in Customer Services at Dabs.com. That was the first I knew that Dabs.com handle fulfilment of devices like this for BT. I’m glad they do. Keely asked for a photograph, which I emailed, and she promptly authorised replacement and collection of the defective unit. The replacement arrived before 10.00 the next morning, I installed it, it’s working fine. The collection also went through as arranged. I was left not entirely happy with BT but filled with admiration for Dabs.com and their excellent customer service.

 

This just appeared on the Mandrill Press blog. Rather than link to it, I decided just to steal the whole thing. I’m preening.

Earlier this year, John Lynch was delighted when he learned that A Just and Upright Man had been shortlisted for the Historical Novel Association’s 2015 Indie Award. He didn’t win, but then he hadn’t expected to – he knew how ferocious the competition was. He had entered the book for another award, the Wishing Shelf Award and there he won a Bronze Medal. Today we received the feedback the promise of which was really his reason for entering in the first place. Since reading it, he’s been walking around with his chest puffed out and a smile from ear to ear. I’ll let him take over:

 The book was read by 26 judges. This is what they had to say:

Overall rating: 5 stars out of 5

Cover quality: 10/10

Contents quality: 10/10

26 of the 26 readers said they would read another book by me.

24 thought the cover was good or excellent.

There were some rather nice comments from individual readers:

‘A thoroughly enjoyable historical mystery with a drop of romance. Lots of twists and turns, a powerful opening and a satisfying ending.’ Male reader, aged 50
‘Well researched mystery. I loved the setting: England during the 1700s at the time of Enclosures. Fascinating. A strong mystery and a number of lustful, fully-rounded characters.’ Female reader, aged 34
‘I did enjoy this historical novel. There were many aspects I particularly enjoyed: the way Blakiston is so respectful of Kate, the author’s understanding of the Enclosure Acts and the way he winds it so well into the story. Fab cover too!’ Male reader, aged 44
‘The best book in the awards.’ Female reader, aged 71

The book already has a review that compares it with Winston Graham’s Poldark and another (this one from Romance Reviews Magazine) that says: This novel is on a par with Thomas Hardy’s meaty offerings of country life and the hardships of the less well off: those beholden to the super-rich of their day and while I know that everyone (including me) hates a show off, if I don’t sing my praises then who will?

Now, as it happens, when this feedback arrived we had just finished posting an offer of A Just and Upright Man as part of a Buy Two, Get One Free deal that gives three of John’s books at a 40% discount on the normal total retail price, with free post and packing wherever in the world the reader happens to be. So, if you want to read the book these twenty-six readers are so complementary about, you’ll find the offer here

But don’t delay — it closes on Sunday evening.

To mark the revamping of our online paperback store we’re launching for a short time a Buy Two, Get One Free offer. Buy these two paperbacks:

Zappa’s Mam’s a Slapper by John Lynch (349 pages, normal retail price £9.99); and


Sharon Wright: Butterfly by John Lynch (340 pages, normal retail price £11.49)

for a discounted combined price of £20 including free post and packing, wherever in the world you may be and we will send you, completely free, A Just and Upright Man by R J Lynch (340 pages, normal retail price £11.99).

That’s a saving of £13.47 – 40% – and post and packing is completely free.

Find the offer here.

https://jlynchblogdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/a-just-and-upright-man-audiobook-sample.mp3

A Just and Upright Man is the first in the five book James Blakiston series of romance and crime novels set in northeast England in the 1760s. The second book in the series, Poor Law, should be published by September 2015; in the meantime I’m recording the audiobook of A Just and Upright Man and you can hear an extract by clicking on the link above.

If you’d like to be informed when the audiobook is completed  and available for purchase, email me on [email protected].