Mike Murphy's writing diary

Wednesday 12 August 2015

Have started on the self-publishing process for A New Era For Manny Youngman. It isn't simple, not for someone who hasn't a lot of computer skills outside straight word processing and desktop publishing, There is a lot of software and online sites around but knowing which is the right one is not easy, Started off in something called Canva but discovered when it said design a book cover it meant a kindle cover, not a full back and sides with spine book cover. However, they did have a good picture I was able to purchase for only $1. Finally found Adobe Cloud In-design which allows for the full cover design and the internal text design. Being helped by my daughter who is more tech savvy and by Karen McDermott of Serenity Press who has been down this road many times for herself and others and has given valuable advice like the fact that I need an ISBN number. Seems we have to decide the inside first before we can see how many pages there will be, which will decide the width of the spine.
This afternoon I wrote the dedication and the blurb about myself and the book to go on the inside and back cover. Also re-edited the final draft to single spacing and deleted the title page I sued for submissions. Somehow I always thought someone else would be doing all this but if this is they way I have to go to see myself in print, then so be it.

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Authors I like

Anna Jacobs

A mentor in my early writing days and still one of my favourite authors. Her sagas about family life in Lancashire are among my favourites but she is a prolific writer and it's all good.

Michael Robotham

Michael urged me to keep writing when I was in a depressed period after another publisher's knock-back. He is basically why I kept writing and turned to self-publishing. I've read all his books and I'm always waiting eagerly for the next one.

Dave Warner

I only recently discovered Dave as a writer after having had his Dave Warner and The Suburbs album since it was on vinyl. It's interesting having another writer who sets his stories in Western Australia.

Dick Francis

I've read all his books at least twice and sometime more often. He's the writer I always return to when I need to feel totally in my comfort zone. Good stories, tight plots, easy writing style. I'd love to know if it really was his wife Mary who wrote them. His son Felix is doing a great job of keeping the family business going.

Leslie Thomas

Ever since Virgin Soldiers I've been hooked on Leslie Thomas and his Dangerous Davies series are among my all-time favourites.

I am because I write

I come across a lot of people who would like to be writers and I often wonder why. For me there has been no question. Since a very young age I have been a writer. Certainly not a famous or even successful one but while other people were doctors or teachers or sportspeople, the thing I did best and was most comfortable doing was writing. For some reason I had a natural flair for it and that raw talent was honed when I became a journalist and learned that what bubbled out of my head was not what was needed. I had to to be able to write to order. One of my earliest lessons came from Bob Duffield, a reporter who took the story of the closure of Perth's Roe Street brothels and wrote different versions of it for convervative, sensationalist, religious and sociological publications. I learned that writing was a craft to be learned, and I have spent many years learning not only the craft of writing, but of story-telling, which is an art in itself. Whether it's a poem, a short story, a novel, my family history, one of my blogs or web sites, I will always be writing something. It's simply who I am and what I do.