No Time to Write

I have been too busy to write. That’s terrible, isn’t it? Given how much I enjoy writing. The truth is that I have been too busy working on the writing I have already done to have the time to write about the work I am doing on the writing I have done. Phew - just thinking about it puts my head in a spin.

It doesn’t help that I also, accidentally I might add, have two jobs. An overlap period of around a month between the job I am leaving and the job I am joining coincides with the exact period of around a month that I had earmarked for launching my book. They do say that if you want something done, to ask a busy person. Just please don’t ask me, I am on the cusp of tipping over into being so busy that members of the family will stop getting fed. (Dylan, that is. Jasper wouldn’t stand for that kind of nonsense.)

All this to say, I apologise for the brevity of this post, but I wanted to share an update of all the goings-on in my soon-to-be-published author life.

Printed Books

Some of you might say it’s quite fitting that the printer who is helping to produce a stack of physical book copies for me here in India, usually specialises in cocktail menus. They have other skills, of course, but the contact was shared with me by our favourite restaurant, The Bombay Canteen and the fact that the printing shop is spitting distance from Dylan’s construction site made it an easy award of a job. I am having 300 copies printed here, mostly to display at a launch event, but perhaps also to share as gifts (anyone who thinks you are not getting one for Christmas this year is very much mistaken.)

For anyone who does end up the lucky owner of one of these copies, please take note: if you can spot all 8 typos that my mother (the proof-reader, I’ll have you know) found once she went through her own proof copy delivered through amazon in the UK, you win a prize. Spoiler alert: it’s another copy of the book to share with someone else who wants to play the same game.

I had the opportunity to order a few ‘proof copies’ of the book when I uploaded it to amazon, and I sent them to Jersey (because I don’t trust India post and didn’t fancy the postage anyway). I then requested (read: stage directed) a few photos which my family executed with admirable pzazz.

I took Jasper and Dylan with me to collect my own test copy of the book here in India and Jasper's little face when he spotted his own face on the book made the busy-ness seem suddenly entirely worth it!

eBooks

I have successfully uploaded my book to amazon Kindle and have made it available for pre-order. I was very excited about this, because according to ‘the internet’, pre-orders are very helpful for new authors as they help the algorithms to understand how popular a book might be. I say I was excited, because it turns out that despite being a kindle-convert myself (expatting doesn’t lend itself to bulging bookshelves) not one member of my family, or my circle of friends, or even people I consider peripheral friends (you know, fun colleagues past and present or people I have met once or twice through mutual acquaintances but with whom I would have a great chinwag over a glass of wine) owns a kindle. The global book sales data tells me kindles are popular. My own anecdotal research tells me a very different story.

But still, I successfully navigated the upload process and so, if you DO own a Kindle (firstly, hooray for you, out here on this ledge with me) you can enjoy a 25% discount on the pre-order.

Launch event

I am hosting a small launch event here in Mumbai: partly as a way to set myself a deadline for really getting the book out there, partly because it will be a great opportunity to take some successful-looking photos and also, partly, because some friends here have reminded me that I wrote a book and that deserves a small celebration of some kind!

I have never attended a book launch event, so I am not sure entirely what they usually involve, but mine will have canapes, drinks, cookies that look like my book and a short speech by me.

All the proceeds from the launch event (at which I am hoping the odd person will want to pick up a flawed but signed print book) will be donated to a local charity here in Mumbai. It is called SNEHA and has a Maternal and Child Health focus area towards which the money will go. Many of you will know why infant health is a matter very close to my heart, but for those of you who don’t, it’s Chapter 4 in the book.

Audio book

If it weren’t for GG (Jasper’s Great Grandmother) I can’t say I would have even considered making an audio book. I don’t listen to them and I don’t enjoy the sound of my own voice. But, as the saying goes, what the Great Grandperson wants, the Great Grandperson gets and GG has requested a recorded version.

I have recorded voiceovers for short corporate videos before, but never a book, and after one two hour session, I can confirm that it is exhausting for someone who has not spent any time or effort training my voice muscles. At the rate I seem to have gone in that first session (and with the interruptions of hammering work going on in the office above the studio) I estimate that it will take around 20 hours to record the entire book. Not in one session, of course, but over the course of three or four weeks. So, for any audio book lovers out there, you will have the option of purchasing my slightly strained, undoubtedly emotional and somewhat over-articulated-in-the-complex-parts reading of the book wherever you would usually find your audio content. (Once I work out how that entire uploading process works.)

Moving House

OK, so not strictly related to my author journey, but it’s nice to know that I won’t have to use my printed books to build a shelter. We have found somewhere - finally. Having seen plenty of properties that would have been fine but whose owners were unwilling to wait until October to have our rent pouring into their bank accounts, the supply suddenly dried up as we entered September. My nudges and reminders to the real estate agent went unanswered and we were beginning to wonder if we’d be out on the street (a preferable alternative to trying to renegotiate the early departure we had already requested from our unreasonable and unpleasant current landlord) come October 31st.

But we have avoided this. On Monday this week we paid our deposit and convened at the contract registration office for our district before school and work and signed up for three years in a new place. I also took the opportunity to roll out Jasper’s latest party trick, pointing to a row of portraits on the registrar’s wall and asking ‘Who is that in the centre, Jasper?’ To which Jasper confidently announced ‘That’s Mahatma Gandhi.’ There’s nothing like a display of toddler genius to earn the leniency of a landlord.

So there it is, my excuse for not having had time to update you on this year’s festival season (there has been at least one, we are in the middle of another and there’s a biggie coming up in November) or on the latest tub of flour that had to be chucked after a new batch of weevils held their latest tunnelling convention in there.

By mid-October I will have my book launched, will be back down to one job and will have moved house. And at that point, I will be back to regular writing and posting frequency I hope!