Death – An extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

The crux of the matter, the root of the problem, if I can be allowed to mix clichés, is that we have a problem with death.

Death is something we don’t like talking about. We don’t even like thinking about. The fact that we are going to die, that our loved ones are going to die, is an anathema to everything we think and feel. It destroys the egocentric way we view the universe and makes it all pointless. How could the universe exist without us? Surely all this is here for a reason?

We see order in the universe and mistake it for a planned design. Death upsets that plan.

Death is disturbing. It seems contrary to order and negates purpose.

Our own death indicates that the universe really doesn’t care about us or need us. It carries on regardless. That seems illogical to us so we have invented an afterlife. Our deceased loved-ones are now with the angels or are now stars in the heavens.

That seems absurd and stupid to me. I prefer death. But many people find these ideas of an afterlife comforting.

We don’t even want to acknowledge death! It is too frightening a concept. Our whole lives are based around routine. Each day is much the same as the last. Life goes on. Nothing drastic is going to happen. We don’t doubt that we will wake up tomorrow.

Then – BAAAANG!!  We are knocked out of kilter by some religious madmen flying planes into skyscrapers. We watch in horror as the buildings collapse. This cannot be happening! Those buildings are permanent! Like mountains! It is not possible that anything that permanent can disappear so quickly and unexpectedly! That shows how impermanent we are! That shows us that death is real. We are going to die.

Buddhists meditate in graveyards to think about impermanence. They don’t avoid death. They try to accept it and come to terms with it. That seems healthy to me. They also don’t believe in gods.

If I had to choose a religion I’d be a Buddhist.

The answer is to pretend that there is no death, When we die we go to a better place. Problem solved. Death is a rebirth. Life is an interlude. No need to worry. We can go on thinking about all those everyday important matters. Life and death will take care of itself.

The next step is to get there quicker. If it is such a good place to go, after you are dead, let’s get there quicker!

‘Hey, injun, meet yer maker!’  Bang. Just like in the Westerns.

We are doing them all a favour by bumping them off.

Put your faith in Jesus!

But inexplicably, in the real world, these guys are flying planes into buildings because they are buying in to eternal paradise. That’s real commitment!

People actually believe these things.

Maybe I should start a new cult – ‘Nutters for death – the gateway to eternal life!’

I could have a series of decals made up with catchy mottos:

‘Put an end to all worries – kill yourself!’

‘In debt? Can’t solve your problems? Put a bullet through your head and wake up in heaven!’

‘Unhappy? Lost a loved one? Be reunited forever in paradise!’

‘Don’t like other religions? Think yours is the best brand? Show God you really care by blowing a whole bunch of them to fuck and fly an airbus into them!’ ‘God’ll love you for it!’

It’ll catch on!

We could sell the merchandise and turn a nifty profit.

Green plastic luminous exploding heads with ‘death for life’ on them.

Car stickers – ‘Make someone happy – kill a friend today!’

‘One God – kill anyone who says different. Save them from hell!’

‘Jesus loves you to death!’

There’s a big commercial franchise to be established. Surely we can’t allow the religions to corner the market?

But in reality, death is real. Death is the end of everything. All we have is the time between birth and death. We really have to make the most of it.

31.10.01

Grand Canyon and mules – extract from Farther from the Sun

Posted on by Opher

We arrived at Grand Canyon, parked up and moved into a travel lodge – my parents, the kids, Liz and me. A snowstorm had gone through and coated everything in a couple of inches of pristine white. Icicles hung off the lodge. The sun shone and the sheer faces of the canyon glowed red in the evening light.

It was decided that my dad and I would go down on the two-day mule ride while the rest stayed up at the lodge.

We got on our mules bright and early and set off on the crisp and icy trail. It was exceedingly narrow and the mules were wide. I kept looking down into the seven thousand foot drop and wondering about the footing of our mules on the glassy ice. There were times when I was hanging out over the drop. One slip and you fell thousands of feet to your death. But the mules were sure footed and as we progressed down the temperature rose so that the ice turned to slush and then was gone altogether and I began to feel more secure.

It took a long time to zig-zag down and I had ample time to look at the amazing view of the steep, red, striated sides. Did one river really do all this? It seemed hard to believe.

At the bottom we got off our mules, our backsides sore and aching. We were not looking forward to the return trip the next morning.

Though it was late afternoon the sun still burned – thick winter coats at the top and T-shirt weather at the bottom.

We stood on the bridge and watched the red rocks glow in the evening light, fluorescent, like they were shining with some inner light. The shadows crept across the whole bottom but still shone on the escarpment on one side. It was magical.

Neither of us spoke. We looked down at the muddy waters of the Colorado, rich swirling chocolate and soaked it in. It was one of those shared moments that live in you forever.

Later we watched the moon reflected in the river and stared up at the stars through a clear sky from the bottom of this great crevice in the world’s crust. The sky was a mystical pool.

At least we’d experienced it together.

I wonder if it meant the same to him as it did to me?

The next morning we set off early, back up the same trail, with our legs stretched wide over the leathery hide of our mules, our sore arses bumping and aching muscles cramping. The ordeal did not feel so bad. The memories eased the pain. We finally reached the top and dismounted. Though I did not know it at the time, our last adventure was over.

I have a photo, taken by Liz, of my dad bent, bowlegged wincing as he stood at the top, having just dismounted from his mule. I doubt that I looked much better.

5.9.01

 

So what makes me angry? Rudeness, injustice, cruelty. I can’t see why a human being would want to do those things – to hurt other people. I wanna put them right. A lot of people see that as weird. Wanting to put things right, that is.

“Why? Just grab what you can for yourself. It’s your life. Forget the losers!” They say. “They deserve it!”

Nope. They don’t deserve it. It bothers me. I am compelled to at least say something about it.

I believe in gestures.

18.9.01

Falklands War fever – extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

I have a dream of a world where enjoying yourself is not frowned upon and laws are just and equally applied to all – where a person has freedoms.

21.9.01

 

We hadn’t been back from America long when the Falklands crisis blew up. Those evil Argentineans had dared to land on a set of islands they arrogantly called the Malvinas when everybody knew they were really called the Falklands. For some obscure reason the Argentinians made some historical claim to these islands and, it seems, they have been a bone of contention in Argentina for years, just because they happened to be situated a short distance off the coast of Argentina and a whopping six thousand miles away from Britain.

Trust the Argentineans to get it wrong.

Didn’t they know the British had landed on those islands, run their flag up, and laid claim to them hundreds of years ago? They must have known that because that’s what the British did everywhere they landed, regardless of who was living there – particularly if the indigenous people were black or brown. In the days of the British Empire black or brown people obviously weren’t civilised so they did not count at all.

Now, I don’t mean to be too harsh on the British here. Not because I am British, you understand. Conquering was an evil practice that the British did better than anybody. It was not even a colour or race thing. Slavery and the conquering of other nations was what all humans did to each other regardless of race or colour. The blacks did it to other blacks, and browns to blacks and other browns, whites to other whites, reds to reds, and so on. Even the slave trade was inaugurated and sponsored by black tribes preying on other black tribes and selling black slaves to the Arabs who sold them on to the white traders. It was more that the British, and later the Americans, did it more thoroughly and efficiently. It was not something to be proud of, but we British conquered, enslaved and exploited better than anybody else at that point in history.

I don’t mean to digress, merely to explain. We had landed there and run up the flag, hence it was British forever. Those were the rules. We should know. We made up those rules.

Then again there were a lot of people living on the island and it has to be said that some of them were Argentinean but the majority were, or considered themselves to be, British. They lived a quiet rural life farming or fishing. There wasn’t an awful lot to do out there.

It all went along very smoothly with commerce with the mainland, ferrying goods back and forth between Argentina and the Falklands. Britain was much too far away to have meaningful commerce with, but the people still thought of themselves as British and the majority did not want to be ruled from Argentina. For some reason they wanted their masters to be British.

When the Argentinians landed and laid claim to the place people were up in arms.

In a democracy you ask the people.

Matter solved. Ask the Argentineans to go home.

After all, what was so important about a desolate island somewhere out in the ocean six thousand miles away from Britain? Why cause bother?

It surely wasn’t anything to do with the Antarctic, natural resources, oil, gas and mineral wealth? Surely not? No. This was democracy. The people had a right to choose. If they wanted to be British then British they had the right to be. Mrs Thatcher said so. The pesky Argentinians had invaded British sovereign territory. A lesson had to be taught.

A task force was rapidly put together and prepared for war as the British war effort swung into action.

Now back in England I decided to hold a debate in my classroom and explore the situation from all sides. To maybe weigh up the various options and apply a bit of logic to what was becoming a volatile situation. I gathered the class in and began a good old British debate where cool, calm reason was brought to bear, to tease out the possibilities and current intricacies of the situation and arrive at the best solution.

Before a few minutes had passed I found myself presiding over a bunch of hysterical demons baying for blood and chanting ‘Argies out!’ as if these people had always been our enemies and were the devil incarnate. Reason did not seem to be the main thrust of their argument. It was yet another scene from Orwell’s vision of the future. Of course, I repeated it throughout the day even though it was a bit depressing.

This thoughtless war fever could never happen here! But it did.

30.10.01

 

Sometimes it is necessary to keep restating the obvious otherwise what were once obvious ceases to exist.

29.10.01

 

I have a vision of a world where cultures are not homogenised into some twenty-first century plastic universe, where nature is not covered in concrete or fenced into reserves for human consumption.

21.9.01

The Iran Hostage situation and war fever – extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

Someone has stuck a huge pin in the map in my American classroom. That map is a map of the world, and I had stuck that map up on the wall deliberately. It was a statement of intent. I intended to broaden the minds I was temporarily in contact with, to widen their perspectives. A map of the world symbolised that. This was quite a strange thing to find in America for, when you are there, you could easily think that the rest of the world does not exist. All that is reported is American news. Even the sport is only a record of American victories with token mention of other countries. For fuck’s sake, they even call the baseball and American Football the World Series and World Championship despite the fact that no other country is allowed to compete. It is more than a little Americocentric. The pin has a big flag on it. Written on the flag in bold letters is: ‘NUKE IRAN’.

The pin is stuck in Tehran. You’ve got to give them credit for that. A few weeks ago and they wouldn’t have had a clue that there was even a country called Iran let alone a city named Tehran. At least they can now find it on the map.

These are my kids that have done that. We are in the middle of the Iran hostage situation. My great friendly American kids are all wrought up with war fever. They want to kill.

I am in a privileged position as a foreigner in their midst. I can be detached. I am not directly involved so I can bring logic to bear in the midst of emotion.

I look at the flag. The class look at me. I decide that today we will abandon Biology to discuss war.

I bring them around the front. Their eyes are already gleaming as they sense what is coming. If I had any sense I would have given up that stupid idea straight away and gone right on with the lesson I had planned but these were my kids. Some of them were very bright. We’d enjoyed good discussions. We’d gone through stuff on drugs, race and religion. We’d got through some difficult topics and built up a good relationship. I was sure I could handle this.

We were still in the midst of the cold war. I took the map off the wall and showed them where Russia was in relation to Iran. I asked them how America might react if the Russians took out Mexico. I mentioned Cuba. I talked of the effect of using nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, it seemed that this wasn’t the time for reason.

They howled at me. They stood on chairs and pointed and chanted. There was a pack mentality. They gave off a scent of madness.

I stood there standing in front of them, taking in their hysteria and was amazed. These were intelligent students but they were full of adrenaline and as high as kites. This was naked aggression. It was not directed at me. I was safe. But I had set loose a pent-up force that was now uncontained and raging and there was no way of getting it back in the bottle. It had to take its course. It was just that there was so much power in their rage, so much hatred, and it was like a monster with many heads and no brain. There was nothing to reason with. It had no ears. Its brain circuitry was fused.

There could be no discussion. There was nothing to discuss. The Iranians had dared to insult America by taking their people hostage. It was an outrage. They wanted them obliterated.

I could certainly see how easy it was for dictators to wind up their people. I could feel the group dynamic. When I’d seen all those crowds on the streets in Iran, Iraq and Palestine it had been just like this.

I had never experienced anything like it before. I felt as if I was trapped within Orwell’s 1984 and they were beaming in that period of group hate. This was the half-hour of hate. The aroma of adrenaline filled the classroom. The crowd were all directing hate in some sort of hysterical, self-perpetuating cloud.

Debate was not possible. It was not open to question. They didn’t even care if the hostages were blown to atoms in the process just so long as the whole world knew, and revenge was seen to have been carried out.

I had never experienced the irrationality of war fever. It was foreign to me and very scary. At that moment, it was obvious that Carter could get himself elected by a landslide, simply by sending in the marines or actually nuking a few cities, and hang the consequences. Instead, he had a fiasco of a rescue mission in the desert that went horribly wrong and got himself kicked out of office.

I respect him for that decision though. The alternative, if he had have gone in with full force, might have been another Vietnam or could have easily blown out of control into that fabled third world war. But it didn’t.

I repeated the lesson throughout the day with every class I taught. I never learn. It always met with the same impassioned response. America was beset with war fever.

I came home shaking my head.

That could only happen in America. The British were far too level-headed and rational to get carried away on such a jingoistic tide of emotion I thought. How wrong I was.

29.10.01

 

I have a dream of a world where enjoying yourself is not frowned upon and laws are just and equally applied to all – where a person has freedoms.

21.9.01

The car – an extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

Because there is no purpose to life does that preclude all purpose? Can we not stand back from it and invent our own purpose? Take control and script it ourselves?

We could elect a director! We don’t need to rely on god, ‘the director that isn’t there’ to determine our fate. We can build better tomorrows out of sad todays.

29.10.01

 

Sometimes, in a road movie, your car can take the starring role.

We didn’t have a car – couldn’t afford one, not with three kids. So we borrowed one.

It was Liz’s mum’s black automatic Morris Oxford – a bland and plodding, run-of-the-mill car.

We set off for the Lake District. We were going to camp, do a bit of walking and visit friends. A week away. Yipeee!

We arrived at the lakes and found a field to camp in. We set up the tent in the drizzle. It was beautiful. We had found a field overlooking Lake Ennerdale – the green rolling hills with rocky outcrops around the tranquil waters of the lake – nobody in sight. Apart from the rain, it seemed idyllic. We could have been in the middle of nowhere if it wasn’t for the dry stone walls and the odd curl of smoke from a farmhouse in the distance we could be all on our own.

The drizzle was a nuisance but we had a perfect spot up on one of the hills. The whole lake was spread out below us with the hills as a backdrop. Gorgeous!

The kids were alright, but the tent was a little cramped. It wasn’t really designed for five. But this was an adventure. It was a bit weird in the tent, particularly when you were trying to get to sleep because the ground sloped, but what the hell. We’d sleep with our heads facing up the hill.

We woke up for our first day and it was still raining. It looked as if the rain was set in for the day but we were not going to allow that to deflate our spirits and decided on a walk. No rain was going to spoil our holiday. We set off around the lake, grumbling kids in tow. It was quite a long walk and we were pretty wet and exhausted by the time we got back.

We crammed in the tent and tried to dry ourselves off. By now the drizzle had turned to hard rain and the little tent was leaking. Every time someone brushed against the canvas, water came through, and it wasn’t possible to keep the kids from brushing against the walls. The tent was much too small.

We had something to eat as the rain teemed down. We tried heating coffee on the primus stove. We tried keeping the kids entertained. It rained harder. Everything was getting damp. The kids were bored.

After a couple more hours we decided to modify our itinerary. Perhaps it was best to go and visit friends first? The weather might clear up later in the week.

Once thought of, the idea rapidly became more and more appealing. Stuck here in this tent we were becoming wetter and more miserable by the minute. Adventure was fast giving way to misery.

It was decided.

We started packing up. Everything in the tent was put in boxes. I went to load them into the car.

There was no car.

I stood and stared at the place the car had been. It wasn’t there.

It had to be there. Nobody could have driven it off without us hearing. I was sure it was there when we got back from our walk.

I stood in the rain clutching a box of cooking utensils and stared at the space where the car had been.

I convinced myself I had left it in the lane. It wasn’t there either.

Bewildered and with a deep gnawing panic, I went back to the tent and asked Liz to help. She came out and looked around but agreed that there was no car.

I looked down the hill to the lake and there in the distance, I could just make out a tiny model car up against a dry stone wall that separated the field from the lakeshore.

‘SHIIT!!’

‘SHHHHIIIIIIIITTTT!!!’ I shrieked as I began to gallop down the hill and career madly in the direction of the tiny model car. This could not be happening. That minute thing in the distance could not be the car – not Liz’s Mum’s car.

The hill was steep and my galloping run soon became an out of control series of leaps.

‘SHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTT!!!!’ I was screaming, my mind shrieking.

I should have broken my neck but somehow I stayed on my feet and didn’t crash over on the wet grass or on to the rocks.

The nearer I got to the vehicle the more certain it was that it was the car – our car, Liz’s mum’s car. No matter how much I willed it not to be, it insisted on being.

I arrived and stared at it. Surely it was not.

It was.

At the bottom of the hill, the ground levelled off and became a series of rocky outcrops. The car was up on top of these rocky outcrops. All four wheels were off the ground. It had come to a stop on top of a pile of big boulders, right up against the dry stone wall.

I came to a dead halt, hands up in the air, mouth open – my mind frozen.

I was stricken.  I stared at it in disbelief. This could not be happening. I slowly walked around it, inspecting it from all sides. I noticed that the headlights were actually touching the stone wall but hey were not broken. I opened the door and looked in. You could see the floor all dented up where the rocks had smashed it up but apart from that, it looked OK. The bodywork was unmarked. The car looked fine – but it was up on the rocks with all four wheels in the air. How was this possible?

I checked the hand brake. It was on. It just could not have been on quite enough. It was an automatic. I hadn’t put it in gear. Somehow it had rolled.

I did not know what to do.

We had wrecked Liz’s mum’s car.

Liz and the kids caught up with me. Together, equally aghast, we surveyed the car. It was up on the rocks, wrecked, but, yet, strangely, it looked perfectly alright. What could we do?

‘I’ll get the farmer to bring a tractor,’ I ventured.

Liz nodded.

I ran up the hill and along the lane to the farm.

The farmer must have seen the panic I was in. He came straight away and thoughtfully surveyed the car. He went and got his powerful tractor and chains. He prepared to drag the car straight off the rocks. I had to prevail on him to first use some planks and jack it up so that we could get it off the rocks without ripping it to bits.

He looked at me as if I was an idiot. The idea of the car being salvageable was beyond belief. It had crashed down the hill and on to the mass of rocks. How was it going to be alright? But he shook his head and went along with us.

Gradually, amazingly, we coaxed it off the rocks without further damage and towed it up the hill.

As soon as we got to the top I crawled underneath to have a look. The floor was all staved in and one of the steering arms was bent, the sump had taken a big bang that had knocked the engine up six inches to put a dent in the bonnet but it did not appear to be broken. I lifted the bonnet and had a look but I couldn’t see any other damage. I walked all around the car and could not find a single dent or scratch. It was miraculous.

I did not dare to hope that it might be alright.

With a great deal of trepidation, I put the key in the lock and started it up. It fired first time, gave a shrill whine and then settled into its normal idling. I waited for it to blow up. It sounded sweet. I put it in gear and inched it forward. It seemed fine. Even the bent steering arm didn’t appear to affect it. I drove down the lane and back. The lights worked. The steering worked. Nothing dropped off. There were no other strange noises. The only thing I could detect, apart from the floor being dented up, was that the horn did not work.

We thanked the farmer profusely, forgot to tip him for his trouble, we were in such a state, piled into the car and drove to a garage. They beat the floor down with wooden mallets, rewired the horn and replaced the bent steering arm.

The car looked, apart from a small dent on the bonnet, as good as when we had started out. It worked fine.

We could not believe it but were so shaken up by the experience that we curtailed the holiday.

We drove home, rather gingerly, and delivered it back to Liz’s mum.

I still cannot believe how that could possibly have happened.

29.10.01

 

A decision can kill. Some decisions kill a million or two. I wonder how much thought goes into that – killing a million or two? And who the beneficiaries of such decisions really are?

Possessions and collecting – an extract from ‘Farther from the Sun’.

Posted on by Opher

I am sitting here in my study. I give it a grandiose title for what is a room crammed with my stuff; all the stuff that Liz doesn’t like cluttering up the rest of the house. There are a few thousand books, thousands of CDs and a few thousand vinyl albums, some photos, a sound system, computer and desk and my books – the 30 or so that I have written.

I collect. I don’t know why. It is something like hunting, finding bargains, and filling in gaps. I am surrounded with my possessions like extensions of my personality. They say something about me – insane perhaps? Child-like probably? Who knows? These possessions are important to me. I have built up the knowledge and content through the decades. Some are actually precious to me.

When I am gone they will be sold, given away, distributed and the importance I placed on them will be of no value to anybody else.

And what of my 30 books? The work of a lifetime, written in the precious hours gleaned, usually through the early hours of the morning, from a cluttered day. What value will they have? A trunk of faded, tattered wads of paper, 26 letters and a dozen symbols with 10 numbers, endlessly rearranged into stories, ideas and memories, so personal they mark a telescope into the neurones of a cerebrum. When I’ve gone, and the connections are broken, there will only be the echoes in the words, with no one to value them or understand what they really meant to me, what I was trying to say.

Will my children take them for nostalgia’s sake? I somehow hope so. Maybe they will read these words, maybe my grandchildren will read these words, and find a little of me trapped within the symbols.

‘Hello. I speak to you from beyond the grave, down the eras. I have a message. The message is that there are no answers. There are not even any questions. There are no short cuts. There are no reasons and there is no purpose.’

I suppose that all sounds depressing. Let me elaborate further. ‘There is a lot of mystery, a lot of fun to be had, the discovery that fulfilment is more fun than fun, and a whole universe to discover. The journey is all. The journey is all there is. Enjoy it. There are no answers but there are plenty of partial solutions and reasons.’

There. I have spoken. Will these books moulder in their trunk or be thrown into some landfill site, or be burnt or read? What the hell difference will any of it make anyway?

By writing it down, or reading, or experiencing, there is an outside chance that some of this life can make sense – without the religious bigotry and drivel – without the despair at our politicians and leaders. We can learn to build a better world for all living creatures, to share and to love. There are worthy causes to take up, whether there is a purpose to this process of living or not.

But then all this love stuff is just old hackneyed cliché after all. You’d think I would have grown out of it by now.

5.9.01

 

It is human beings that want everything to be tidy. We are programmed to seek purpose in chaos, order in random patterns. It is a survival characteristic that results in religion.

29.10.01

Writing a Book takes a Team!!

Posted on by Opher

Writing a Book takes a Team!!

 

What is quite apparent is that writing a book requires a team of people. Rarely does one person have a complete skill set to handle the task.

Writing a book entails:

Having the imagination to envisage the novel.

Having the ability to create a plot.

Having the writing ability to create interest in a reader.

Being able to invent characters.

Being perceptive to see flaws in the plot.

Having the knowledge of grammar, punctuation and spelling to be able to correct mistakes.

Possessing the ability to make the language flow and create pace.

Being able to describe the novel in such a way as to create interest without introducing spoilers.

To possess the artistic skills to design a cover.

To build up the social media connections and other media connections to market the book.

Creative people rarely have the objectivity or skills to redraft, edit or see the flaws in their writing. They require a methodical editor to point out necessary improvements and corrections.

A person skilled at writing may not be at all skilled at design or even able to create an enticing and succinct back cover blurb.

Building up social networks, writing press releases, doing book signings and developing contacts, takes time. Most writers would rather be writing and might well be hopeless at communicating in other ways.

A team can hone and present a book to optimise its potential.

Writing a good book and selling it requires a good team. That’s why writers form relationships with publishers and Literary Agents.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=Ron+Forsythe&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

Marketing your book.

Posted on by Opher

Marketing your book.

 

You have written your book, rewritten it, redrafted it, and edited it. You have sweated over the cover notes and strained your brain over designing the front cover.

You now hold the finished product in your hand. It looks good. It reads well. It sounds interesting. You are filled with great satisfaction. All those hours have resulted in this. You created it. It is your baby. You conjured it out of thin air.

It isn’t over.

Having your book, and being delighted with the product of all those hundreds of hours of work, is the easy bit. Now you have to market it. If you do not market it then it will be unread. Nobody will even know your book exists.

Marketing is all about presenting it to your audience. You have to promote it and make people want to read it.

You have to sell it.

Marketing is a merry-go-round. It involves press releases, social media, book signings, blogs, interviews, calling cards and endless promotion.

You can work harder on marketing than you did on writing.

This is where I go wrong. I have written over sixty books. I enjoy writing. I don’t enjoy marketing! I don’t have the time, energy or inclination.

Designing the cover

Posted on by Opher

Designing the cover

 

No matter how good your book is nobody is going to know that until they start to read it. The only things they have got to go on is the book cover and what you have written about the book on the back cover. If you are not a well-known name you have to rely on attracting potential readers through the visual medium.

An eye-catching cover, along with enticing back-cover notes, might just convince a reader to take a chance on you as a new writer.

I remember having a depressing conversation with an editor. He asked me how many Sci-Fi books an average Sci-Fi fan might read in their lifetime. I enthusiastically replied ‘thousands’. He was more sceptical but asked me how many good Sci-Fi books, by established writers, were already published and out there. We left that hanging.

He then asked me to imagine I was going on a long flight and I wanted to buy a novel for the journey. He told me to imagine I was browsing the Sci-Fi section at a book shop. Would I be more attracted to an Isaac Asimov or an Iain Banks that I had not read than taking a chance on a Ron Forsythe?

It was a tad disheartening.

All one can do is to design a cover that attracts, like a flower touting for bees. The cover can be a make or break. It has to stand out from the crowd.

A cover should say something; it should visually relate to the story. It is a statement. It tells the reader what the book is about within a scan of the eye.

The cover should also capture something of the author.

A picture says more than a thousand words.

Designing a cover is crucially important.

Here are the covers I have designed for my books:

The Back Cover Notes

Posted on by Opher

The Back Cover Notes

  

Having written the book, redrafted it and thoroughly edited it, you might think you have finished, but you haven’t. You might have written the best novel ever written but nobody would know. In order for anybody to know how good it is you have to persuade them to take a look.

There are millions of books out there. Why should anybody select yours to read?

One way that people select a book to read is by reading the cover notes.

There is an art to writing cover notes. You have to reveal, tantalize, entice and yet not spoil the plot.

A well-written back cover will make a reader want to find out more.

The power of the back cover notes should not be underestimated. They are crucial. Without good back cover notes your book will not be selected.