Back down to earth.

Just back from a week in Eurodisney with the kids, excellent fun but they sure know how to keep taking money off you in that place! Wallet says ouch!

BiteMarks had shifted somewhere around the 500 copies mark on my return, and I'm pleased with that for a start - Tim Roux at Night Publishing has done a great job of keeping me informed about the various places that he's touting the back around, and now I'm back and at the day-job again I've got a renewed sense of purpose too (as in I'd rather be writing!).

I'm aiming for a few endorsements from celebs at present - not the easiest thing in the world to do when you don't know anybody remotely famous...for those of you not in the know, the process goes something like this: find out who celebrity person's agent is and send them a polite enquiry; most of the time get ignored or get a terse and impersonal 'go away' (I can only assume that they either get this a lot, or that there are way too many nutters out there and they're forced to be very guarded!), every so often get a non-commital 'yes, send it over, but xxxx is very busy and I can't give you any indication of when they might ever look at it'; last step - send the book and hope for the best!

Okay, back to the grindstone x

The Hand That Feeds.

Well now, the best laid plans and all that...lol!

New plan: one post a week on whatever's floating around in my strange mind; and another each time I interview a new victim from the writing world for amusement!

Today's topic: charitable giving for authors.

When I'm not scribbling down novel ideas on fragments of paper, I'm advising clients on their finances for a large UK banking group (snore!). Each year the bank nominate a charity to benefit from fundraising activities for the whole year (last year British Heart Foundation, this year Save The Children); and I saw my chance to do something selfless by donating profits from my debut crime novel to the children's charity for the first few months; with Tim Roux at Night Publishing agreeing to not only donate the publisher share of profits, but also offering to encourage other Night authors to do the same...so far so good.

Cue a stream of e-mails from the charity about 'protecting their brand', 'looking into corporate commercial logistics', and 'signing an agreement to outline the necessary steps that need to be adhered to'....to cut a long story short; the representative from the charity is quite happy to take the money, but bordered on accusing both me and Night of looking at angles to trade off their name (in fact Tim had already stated to them that he'd prefer not to be named publicly if they preferred - although from my own perspective more publicity meant more money raised for them)! Talk about biting the hand that feeds!

The good to come out of all of this embarrassment and awkwardness (Night have now graciously agreed to give the proceeds to me to be donated anonymously how I choose), is that I'm looking into founding a charitable organisation of my own in order to make a difference without all of the commercial crap. The lesson for anybody else out there is simple: charitys are first and foremost businesses; the majority of the donations that they receive cover costs (including salaries), and they therefore behave just like any other faceless corporate entity in their dealings with others - donate by all means, but expect suspicion about your motives at the very least.

Drew x

Take 2!

Well, a lot has changed in the last month and a half, but finally BiteMarks will be appearing on an e-reader (and in paperback) near you later this week. |Big thanks to Tim Roux at Night Publishing who stepped in at the eleventh hour and offered a separate contract to publish the book. I'll be sharing the experiences of going on sale and marketing like crazy to all and sundry starting on Friday.

Henceforth, Friday's are blog days; let's get this party started!