Mike Murphy's writing diary

Saturday, 12 September 2015

Holding the first copy of A New Era for Manny Youngman in my hand was one of the greatest feelings I have experienced. At last I have done it. I have a book with my name on it to show for all my years of writing and being rejected. OK so I had to publish it myself but that didn't diminish the feeling.
The first sale came as soon as I posted the news on the Rockingham Writers Centre Facebook page. Then Bec's friend Leslie came round to buy a copy and yesterday I sold four more at the ukulele group, with orders for at least two more. I also have two invitations to talk about the book - one to the local Probus group and another to the Donnybrook Writers Group.
AND the book is on Kobo as an e-book selling at $4.99. I haven't found it anywhere else, particularly on Amazon which I am told has the most sales, but I assume it is just taking its time.
I have also sent lots of copies to friends, so the first box of 25 is severely depleted. It will empty even more today when the family arrive for a lunch-time launch.
I have a marketing plan but had to hold off until it was somewhere as an e-book. I certainly don't want to be spending a lot of time mailing copies to people as direct sales. Also, an e-book is much more accessible to potential reviewers. Now I can get out there and start promoting it,
As far as I know, no-one has actually read it yet, so I can't tell what the reaction is. I dread the thought that people won't say anything - which will probably mean they hated it and don't want to tell me.
Too late now. It's out there.

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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.