Monday 9th August

PoDhouse continues at a great pace; submissions coming in, lots of people visiting and great feedback from the authors themselves. Being a perfectionist I'm always tweaking bits here and there, which would be fine if it didn't mean making the same change to every single page on the entire site! Oh well, the price for learning on the job.

In other news, I've altered my blog somewhat. Back in the days before Facebook and Twitter, Myspace was king and I used to pop up little lists of things on there (ten things not to say at a funeral, ten things you don't want to hear your gran say...that sort of thing), and I 've decided, given my time constraints, to bring back these mini lists. There's a couple up there already, with more to follow. Enjoy!

Sunday 8th August

University of Life is on Amazon! It's there as a paperback and a Kindle version, in case you have one of these little beauties. It was there all the time as it happened, but they neglected to include my surname in the 'author' section, so searching yielded as many results as could be expected. If you're reading this however, I'd much prefer it if you could buy it directly from me as the royalty I recieve is in the pounds rather than the pennies. Thanks!

Tuesday 12th July

After a couple of weeks off it's almost time to go back to work. I've spent the last week working my buns off on getting PoDhouse to a point where it only needs a few tweaks here and there before lift off. It's looking really good and I hope it'll be as successful as it I've planned - finally genuine qualiy self-published work will have a home! I'll be making more announcements soon, so keep your eyes peeled!

Monday 5th July

An interesting last few days and no mistake. Had a nose operation called a septoplasty on Tuesday which had pretty much knocked me for six since then, hence the lack of an updated blog, but the world has righted itself and I'm back on the horse ready to ride off into the sunset, or some such cliche. Have another week off during which time I really should be getting back to grips with PoDhouse which I haven't touched in ages, but it's a VERY time consuming thing that needs a proper business plan which i do'nt have the energy for yet. So I'm going to watch The Sopranos instead.

No further news on future projects. Little ideas keep popping into my head but nothing concrete. Think I need to put University of Life firmly 'to bed' before I can move onto the next thing. I need closure, man! Christ I hate that word. Why do Americans have to come along and ruin everything?

Monday 21st June

Thanks to everyone who's ordered a copy of University of Life. There's still a few copies left with free delivery, so make sure you get yours now! I've also added a few of the 25,000 words worth of outtakes and 'deleted scenes', which are, even though I say it myself, rather funny.

I've been thinking long and hard (stop it) about my next project. I've toyed with the idea of a University of Life sequel, promoting Inspector Crimescene from radio to prose stardom and continuing other long abandoned projects, but the one that is really sticking with me is the diary of the inevitable – the first time dad. Now whilst there’s no ‘good news’ of that ilk at present, having just got married and having a wife as broody as Angelina Jolie in a Malawian Mothercare, it really is only a matter of time. There are plenty of books like this on the market, but I think I could find a new angle on it. I might even pop it up as a blog and turn it into a book, you never know.

But anyway, that’s the latest thought. For now I should be promoting University of Life. So I’d best go do that then.

Tuesday 15th June

I can finally announce that University of Life will be released to the masses on 28th June! The book, priced £7.50, is available with FREE POSTAGE for the first thirty orders, after which postage costs will be in the region of £1.50, so get your orders in now! I don't think I need to say much more - just get on the train to funsville!

Monday 14th June

It's finally here - and it's almost as exciting as Christmas day, a birthday, the Horse of the Year Show and an all chocolate Kit-Kat all rolled into one! The University of Life eBook is out now! It's available from this website and through Lulu (also the publishers of the hard copies of the book) for £3.99, which is a pound cheaper than the standard price. Imagine what you could do with that pound...you could buy a lottery ticket, a reasonable quality pen or hire a low grade prostitute.

I'm currently waiting for the paperback version of the book to arrive for a final proof before I give the go ahead and they get printed. I'm having an operation on 7th July, so I'm trying to get as much sorted as possible before that point, so it'd better come soon or all my calculations may end up being as accurate as London bus timetable.

Friday 11th June

Exciting times! The payment and delivery side of the eBook has been set up, and so all that is required is a test run to make sure the entire process runs as smoothly as an England World Cup 2018 bid. Well, maybe a bit better. This book has been three years in the making, so it's a great feeling knowing it's finally about to be released.

The paperback/hardback side of things is proving to be a little trickier to manage, but a pre-order date should be available soon. The logistics and, inevitbly, cost are proving the stumbling blocks. I want to keep it as cheap as possible without losing out on all the profit, which isn't an easy thing to achieve.

After a bit of prompting from my wife I also looked into the possibility of a sequel to University of Life. I started one ages ago but stopped working on it when I ran out of time, but the chance has arisen to posibly take it up again. I'll keep you informed of any progress.

Tuesday 8th June

Sorry about the delay, but I got married this weekend so that kind of took up all my time, effort and patience! However, after days and days of nightmarish editing and pulling out of hair, the University of LIfe e-Book finally has a release date! It will go on sale through this website on Monday 14th June from 9am GMT.

There will be a two week long introductory price offer of £3.99, representing a saving of £1, after which time the focus will be on the paperback launch. The book will be in ePub format, although other formats will be available upon request when I can get around to organising that.

So get youre pennies ready, and prepare for the first day of term!

Thursday 27th May

One of the worst things when writing a book is when you find a tiny, tiny character inconsistency early on which consequently screws up exchanges in any further meetings between that character and every other character in the entire f*****g book! So now, dear reader, a member of the supporting cast is being hastily re-written in order to correct this mistake, which really isn't what I wanted so late on. It shouldn't affect the release date (so long as I don't find any more!), it's just a right royal pain in the arse.

Oh well - every day's a school day.

Wednesday 26th May

Exciting news - University of Life will soon be available to pre-order! I'm trying to find a way of a discount being available for pre-orders, and things are going well. The release date will be confirmed on the same day as the pre-order system is set up, but it may be as early as June if things keep going as well as they are.

Don't forget you can preview the book here.

Friday 21st May

It’s a glorious sunny day in London town…which means ten times the usual amount of people filling the streets and standing still when you’re right behind them. It’s not enough to ruin a wonderful day though, just hope it lasts for the weekend – sunshine, beer and football. Yes!

The final draft of University of Life has taken a step closer towards completion, with all the necessary changes marked up and ready to be implemented. It’s amazing to think that I’ve been working on this thing for three years and I’m still finding little bits and pieces to change and improve, although now I’m definitely sure it’s as good as it can be. Keeping the message alive through 85,000 ever-changing words is a bloody hard thing to do, but the cutting of some areas and the tightening of others has been worth it. I was debating sending the revised draft off to literary agents again, but seeing as I’m devoting a huge chunk of my life to the future of the self-publishing industry, it would be ever so slightly hypocritical of me to then aim for traditional publishing with my own novel! No, self-publishing is where it’s at.

Thursday 20th May

And so, the Daily Sandwich is no more. Very sad. It was one of those things that starts off as a great idea until a few weeks in when you realise there's a lot more work involved than you initially thought and it’s taking up all your time. Kind of like installing a new version of Windows, or being in a relationship. It was good fun though and attracted a few people to my work, so it had its benefits.

The most important news today is that THE PREVIEW FOR UNIVERSITY OF LIFE IS AVAILABLE TO READ! It’s only the first chapter, but it’ll give you a flavour of what’s to come. The conversion process wasn’t as sweet as I’d hoped, and any spelling mistakes are as a result of that – I promise! The book will be out in August by the way, in case I haven’t mentioned that enough anywhere. I’m currently editing the final third of the book, where the main character...ah shucks no, that would be telling! If you’re lucky I might put another couple of sample chapter up there at some point. Watch this space...

Meanwhile, work on PoDhouse continues unabated. I really have high hopes for this site, as it will be, from what I can tell, the first place on the entire internet to source the best quality self-published work. There really are some great self-published works out there (not to blow my own trumpet!), but it's just too bloody hard to find them. Not any more! PoDhouse to the rescue...at some point.

Wednesday 19th May

The website (the one you’re visiting now) is about three quarters done and will soon take over from The Daily Sandwich. Shame the Sandwich had to go, but I just didn’t have the time in the end – especially with PoDhouse needing all my available hours to get it off the ground. The Editor’s View is the only ingredient to survive, being magically transformed into The B-Log.

Aside from PoDhouse, I’m working on what will (hopefully) be the last draft of University of Life. There will be a preview section up as soon as I can figure out the best way to do it without it being just reams and reams of text, which isn’t easy when you’re trying to display what is essentially reams and reams of text. Oh well, where there’s a will there’s a dead person.