I am constantly told by everyone that I am going about this in the wrong way. If I want to be successful I should do it the right way.
- I should not be churning out all my books one after another.
- I should only put out my very best books.
- I should focus on my best book and seek to get it properly published.
- I should market my chosen book fully and commit my energies to getting that well know
But I’ve got a head full of books and not that long to live.
I have a whole shelf of my books that I can hold and look at with pride.
I am enjoying writing out my books and feeding my compulsion
It would be nice to have a readership though. So if you fancy trying one. They are up on Amazon.
These are my six books of poetry. They are available as paperback or on Kindle from Amazon – all for under £5 for a paperback. You could buy the whole lot for just £27.62!!
They are not conventional poetry books. They are like you find on my blog with a page of explanatory prose followed by the poem. The prose is as important as the poem to me.
Codas, Cadence and Clues – £4.97
Stanzas and Stances – £5.59
Poems and Peons – £4.33
Rhymes and Reasons – £3.98
Prose, Cons and Poetry – £4.60
Vice and Verse – £4.15
Science Fiction books:
Ebola in the Garden of Eden – paperback £6.95 Kindle £2.56 (or free on unlimited)
Green – paperback £9.98 Kindle £2.56 (or free on unlimited)
Rock Music books
In Search of Captain Beefheart – paperback £6.91 Kindle £1.99 (or free on unlimited)
3&sr=1-1&keywords=opher+Goodwin
Other selected books and novels:
Anecdotes-Weird-Science-Writing-Ramblings – a book of anecdotes mainly from the sixties and other writing.
More Anecdotes – following the immense popularity of the first volume I produced a second
Goofin’ with the cosmic freaks – a kind of On the Road for the sixties
The book of Ginny – a novel
In Britain :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Opher-Goodwin/e/B00MSHUX6Y/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1461306850&sr=1-2-ent
In America:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=opher+goodwin
In all other countries around the world check out your regional Amazon site and Opher Goodwin books.
The majority of successful authors take about 2-3 years to produce one book. There must be a reason for that. Your ethos should be quality not quantity such as Barbara Cartland, Enid Blyton.
I jest with these 2, but you get my drift.
With you having a science background, have you ever considered children’s encyclopaedia? You might have heard of a guy Neil Ardley (New Jazz Orchestra, jazz rock) who made an excellent album with John Martyn in `79, Harmony of the Spheres, anyway he also wrote them and sold no less than 10 million copies worldwide. He wrote an entire series of them. You could do the language standard required for children, surely?
I don’t have two to three years Andrew. At my time of life, with the books in my head, it would take a lifetime or two. I’m not attempting to write like Ian McEwan. I would compare myself with many of the Sci-Fi writers from the 50s and 60s who did produce a series of excellent books very quickly. They were good writers with a lot of ideas. Philip K Dick is such a man.
I’m happy with the quality of the work I produce. But I am aware that with an editor to work with it could go a step further. I would aim for that in the future. But the writers you allude to work with teams of readers and editors. They reassess objective views of what they have poroduced and rewrite. I do not often have the luxury of that. I have one editor friend who reads some of my work and improves it no end.
I have a couple of books I have written that I am holding back that have been through a more stringent process. My Nick Harper book has been through a number of readers and rewritten a number of times.
Right now I am enjoying writing and enjoying having my books as a tangible product – things that have emerged out of nothing.
I will probably soon take them all off the market, focus on a selected few and look to get them properly published. That would be something else.
I am fortunate that I do not need to make money at it – so that is not a driving force. I would like to have my books read though.
You obviously are not impressed by the standard of my writing. I can’t do too much about that at this moment in time. I’ve explained my strategy.
As for children’s books – I have a whole bunch of those – environmentally sound, scientifically sound, that I wrote for my grandchildren. At some point, if I have time, I may well get them done too.
I only mentioned the production time span as I happened to know as I had known a successful crime writer – dead now – and as you mentioned a number of people have made comment to you. Don’t shoot the messenger!
Actually I wouldn’t know what the standard is as I’ve never read a finished article as often enough what you’ve posted here has been as per your own description late re-written, re-edited or whatever. I don’t know your production process from Adam!
However, I was under the distinct impression that you DID WANT to sell them given the multitude, if not daily, sales pitches. I must have imagined that.
Opher, I’d love to be in a position to just buy everything and anything at a whim. But I have seriously high living expenses and financial demands. I lost £240,000 of my own money out of my own pocket 2 years ago. I suffer today because of that.
3 years ago that would have been unimaginable.
My recent holiday was spent at my brothers in Germany as I didn’t have 5 grand available for a cruise. Think twice please before you open your your gob.
Andrew I’ve been writing for nearly fifty years now. Some of my books have taken five years to write. One I worked on for twenty years. Some I write in a week. It depends on the type of book. A lot of my books are my poetry, art, anecdotes and Rock tribute/albums which require no plotting or intricate research. They are easy to write because they come straight out of my head with a little planning. Fifty seven books in forty seven years is not a bad haul. If I was doing a novel I would usually have to take a lot of time sorting out plot, researching and creating characters. My recent books have not required that. Danny’s Story is based on a real house and has been sitting in my head for forty years until I realised the plot for it. It then all dropped into place without need for much work. My subconscious had dwelt on it. The Sci-Fi one, which I’m very happy with, was a great little yarn that came out of a dream ready formed. Sometimes that happens.
And yes I have been putting out a sales pitch with my work. It is the only marketing I do. It’s a bit perfunctory and not very effective but that’s it. If people read a writers blog I would imagine they would expect a sales pitch in it.
As I’ve said I want readers. That is what writing is about. Feels a bit pointless if nobody reads it.
I’m not rolling in money. I’m on a pension. It’s OK. I can afford to go away (though not for £5000 – under half that with all food thrown in was a great deal).
So what’s this about thinking before I open my gob? Why all the rudeness?
Go with your gut, Opher! They’re your bloomin’ books! 😉
I am Cheryl. I am. But it gets frustrating at times.
Having been at the Pessoa museum in Lisbon. Pessoa was only published after his death but all the manuscripts were there and still some being sorted! Some just bits of paper! He then became the most trended Portuguese writer. Don’t die yet though Opher, we need you blogging and writing more. I don’t think James Patterson writes beautifully but his simple structures and languages keep the pace of a story. Publishing is very much luck or a zeitgeist. Carl Tighe my friend’s husband has had some work published but struggles with other pieces. Keep ongoing the way you want to and sounds like you have a good idea to keep some back.
Thanks Georgina. I will probably always keep writing and I’ll probably continue to self-publish for myself. This year I may even have a concerted effort to get a publisher.
But having produced a book for myself I will probably take them down and retire them. Unless you put your time and money into gaining reviews, marketing and sending out copies I have found that there’s no future in it. As the profit margins are so slim – about £1 a book – you always run at a loss – and I can’t afford to put money into it.
The blog reaches a small number but does not generate a great deal of interest.
Seems a bit futile at times.
I need to think about why I’m doing all this.
You sound a bit like Pessoa at the moment. You do need someone prepared to market your books. You also have different categories. I think you should try young adult for books like Ebola in the garden of Eden. Have a break. Take care and take heart.
Perhaps a break is what I need. I’ve had five years solid of writing up to twelve hours a day. But I still have books I want to write.
Thank you so much Georgina.
Opher, man are you stressed out or what? Something’s gone a little off-kilter here, me thinks.
I can fully understand your frustrations and you have all my sympathy as I know you put great efforts into what you do. Yes, I do realise that some projects will come off-pat and others will take eons of prep and planning. Most written projects do. I know this – I wrote technical operational manuals – always needing at least 2 hundred of pages with cross references, indexes, diagrams etc., fully detailed annual budget forecasts, sales and marketing policies that are effectively an operational bible, S&M brochures etc. None of this was for sale per say, but had to be absolutely accurate (particularly anything concerning expenditures and revenues) or enticing or eye-catching, whatever, depending upon intended purpose. All the way down to a poster flyer on a stand in a lobby announcing a Sunday Jazz Brunch etc. It’s not the wording but the artwork and choice of colours used which can make or break that kind of simple but very effective thing.
It’s bloody hard work to get right, be it major or minor to get to a stage of somewhere to what was envisioned in the first place.
So, I’m absolutely on your side here. Believe me.
You describe how you are spending up to 12 hours a day writing. Does this not indicate you are struggling with writing a multitude of different projects simultaneously, be it, poetry, anecdotes, sci-fi, novels, whatever. Wow, is that the best way to do it? Can you honestly keep a firm grip on the editing process of such a plethora? Whatever the reasons are – it’s sure not too healthy to be sitting stationary for all these hours on end day-in day-out.
You express your impatience with yourself and driven desire to get everything out there and this nagging worry at the back of your mind that you may be running out of time. That’s nuts.
What are your strengths and weaknesses – not with your ideas but concerning the actual finished product. Is it your poetry or sci-fi or the occasional rock book?
I’ve no doubt the rock books are a doddle because you have all that down to pat anyway.
Look how quickly you got your latest travel book together – does that that point you in a positive direction?
Poetry – is that really a viable use of valuable input and time? Is poetry of interest to more than a smattering few? You’ve as much chance there as you have introducing the 13th Disciple into the Bible! There’s an idea for a book!
Therefore, you strengths are perhaps sci-fi and anecdotes.
The anecdotes must be a heck of a lot easier as you lived the beginning, the middle and the end.
You have the plot down to pat, you already know the funny bits, the sad bits, the character strength and weaknesses, the descriptive scenes, the descriptive geography that gives the reader something tangible to relate to.
Sci-fi , I couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of work that would need in terms of plan, plot, draft, write and edit except that I could foresee my computer being hurled through the window at least half a dozen times in anger at the ineptitude of my pathetic attempts to write a fantasy story.
That’s a skill I just don’t have or at least ever attempted. You have my utmost respect for even going there.
You’ve said it yourself, your friends have told you too, you need to reign in on what you do best as you have such tremendous writing experience behind you – there must be a cracker of a book simmering away there within.
I wholly agree with your friends.
You can’t have it both or all ways – you will fail – all the time, every time.
I agree that the time is nigh to meet publishers or people in the book publishing business.
It is fool hardy to not at least spend a little time on that.
You might kick yourself even harder later for not doing so.
I was only trying to offer my take on your dilemma as per described by you.
Obviously it’s not what you want to hear. I can understand that as I’m probably so far off the reality map.
You’re too maverick for your own good.
You are indeed that Stormcock that sits in mid-winter on it’s own whistling into the wind (the only indigenous British bird that does so).
Anyway, you haven’t mentioned, but did you get tickets or no doubt a freebie to go see Roy later this summer? I did as Tracy had kindly sent out a pre-sale internet thingy, so I scored seats on the front row of the circle at Edinburgh, the acoustics are very good up there and better than in the stalls.
Cheers.
Well Andrew, Thanks for all that.
No, you are quite right, in one sense, that what I do is counterproductive in terms of getting published – too many books, in too many genres. I know that.
The dilemma is – am I writing to get published? Or am I writing what I want to write, when I want to write it?
Up until now it has been the latter.
You are also right that it is time I spent some time looking to focus on a couple and get them properly published – talk to publishers. So that has to change. I’ve probably got it out of my system anyway.
I’ve been putting that off. That is boring. But, as you rightly say, it is necessary if I want an audience.
In terms of time – well in a couple of weeks I’ll be 67. I have good friends who’ve died or had strokes. Who knows what lies round that bend. I have a desire to get my stuff in digital form.
I shall be going to a couple of the Roy gigs – London for sure – not certain about the other – we’ll see. It sounds as if you managed to grab a good seat at the front. I’m greatly looking forward to it.
And I bet that at least one of your friends has had a stroke simply because they didn’t take a daily 75mg Aspirin.
Aspirin seems to be the new wonder drug. Shame about the stomach bleeds. They are talking of the wonder pill – aspirin/statin/beta blocker. We’ll see.
I’ve had two close friends die of strokes and one who is recovering and hopefully will make a full recovery. I have no idea if they were on aspirin or not or if it would have made a difference.
I meant to say “therefore your strengths are ALSO sci-fi and anecdots” on paragraph #4. !!
I asked my GP ref stomach problems and no, there should not be any problems at all if you take 1 per day at 75mg and not more after food. Any man over 50 should take a daily tab. Of course if swallowed like Smarties it would be of no surprise that problems may arise. My GP told me of the great number of stupid patients that miss tablets (all sorts) then triple/quadruple dose to make up for it and become unwell! I’ve taken them for 5 years and never a problem and what’s more I never get a headache.
I’ll have to look into that. It is also implicated in preventing a number of cancers.