Moral sense prevails over X

Last week I was heartened to see that Pan Macmillan, publisher of my Secret War books, decided to take a stance against unsocial media, and the toxic behaviour some social media companies are blatantly demonstrating. It will be no surprise to some reading this, that I refer to the X-Twitter platform that I and other writers have vacated since Elon Musk took over.

This is not about freedom of speech, and it never was. It's about responsible speech. Or in this case, a platform that encourages toxic behaviour (not disruption, no, but encouraging behaviour that is damaging to society, or the unwillingness to do anything about hate). Social media companies have a particular problem with that, and X is not alone in being irresponsible. However, at least they're not encouraging it. When a platform's owner starts spreading disinformation, alarm bells ring.

So I am glad that Pan Mac has taken this position. Other publishers should also start seriously thinking about this. As a writer, I am led by a moral compass as much as financial means, and when I start hiking around books next year I will make decisions based on how a publisher promotes my works and where, rather than how big or successful they are.

As for this writer, I've now taken to Instagram's Threads. It is what Twitter used to be before it turned to the Darkside. It's a place where you'll feel a lot safer (although let's just be honest here, any social media platform is a magnet for trolls and attention seekers), and it's also more creatively unshackled. 

You'll find me on there now. Just as you will find some of my other writer-friends there. It's the new home of writers and writing, so join us over on Threads. You'll find us a friendly, helpful bunch - because writing isn't just a solitary gig, you know?

Writers Threads

Crime Scene 2: the death of art (or how the fans can fight back)

Let's imagine this crime scene together, shall we...?

J.K. Rowling has announced that Harry Potter book 8 is to be released this Friday. Fans young and old are clamouring (and clambering) for what will be the publishing event of the year. On Friday, online sales begin at 9am... 

But at 9:30am all copies of the book are sold out. 

At 9:40am a site on the internet (let's call it eBay) starts selling copies at 5 times the cover price, at around the £100 mark. Most of the people who have ordered copies have ordered around eight so they can scalp people on the internet (the scalpers call it reselling). The fans don't get their copies, and the author doesn't get any of the profit. In other words, everyone but the scalpers loses out.

Sound familiar?

Thankfully, I work in an industry where this isn't a real problem - it has other problems, let's be honest about that, but doesn't suffer the scalping scourge that hits other parts of entertainment. And I don't think it suffers this because there isn't the opportunity to. I'm pretty certain if Harry Potter Book 8 is published, then there will be plenty of vultures trying to squeeze money out of fans and the author... It's just that fans who are readers aren't that stupid.

And let's face it, you'd have to be really stupid to buy a resell ticket for seven or eight times the value via those scalping sites such as Viagogo. 

Unfortunately, there are people who are that stupid, which is why I and other writers are still in jobs, because we make money out of stupid people too (just as we make money out of the vultures we write about). We don't exploit them, no. We just write about them.

Do you want to know what's better than reading about yourself in a novel because you are one of those people? 

I'll tell ya, it's not being one of those stupid people. It's not being a vulture either.

It would make me, and other authors I think, happier if it wasn't that easy to write about stupid people, so please don't be one of them. Avoid the scourge of scalpers that society would be better off without. Avoid the businesses that lets them thrive (Live Nation, that means you), and for the artists who are allowing this exploitation, please treat your fans with more respect. Sure, some might be stupid, but they're loyally so. 

Fans are an artist's lifeblood. And what are you without them?

Crime Scenes

Like someone revisiting the scene of a crime, the last month has had me revisiting a forgotten library of incomplete works, fragments, malformed ideas, and Frankenstein’s monsters. There are many. And there’s simply not enough hours in the day, or years in a lifetime to complete them all, alas.

Despite some attempts, over the last few years, it hasn’t been possible for me to concentrate on writing. Indeed, the muse and catalysts for my imagination have found their way to the attic, to dusty shelves, or hidden in dark corners. My imagination has ticked over in other ways, but not exercised sufficiently in any free sense of the word, always running up and down in the confines of pragmatism, shared worlds, and the practicalities of the day job.

Last month, however, saw my unrestrained imagination running freely over hills of corruption, into bright lights, horrors, and beauty without borders, and finally to a place where it is steadied, hungry, and yet stronger and more disciplined than before. Despite not having written much in the last few years, I am a better writer… strangely. I put that down to having experienced more about life in the last few years than in the previous thirty or so. I know more about what it is to be a person, and that’s translating nicely into story.

It’s also easier to find inspiration and easier to order my thoughts. Writing is an old game, but technology has helped me organise it more than ever. 

And inspire too. I’ve always found book covers an inspiration (and if you want to know why, check out Grady Hendrix’s book Paperbacks From Hell). In my early days, my publisher consulted with me on book covers, which I took very seriously. I’m not a fan of lazy covers – and yes, I do judge a book by its cover, because a cover for me shows the care, the attention, and the interest for words inside. If the cover is lazy, then I expect the story to be. If the cover is strange and unusual, I hope that it reflects the words within.

Now that I’m writing again, and I’ve discovered my writing mojo, my book-cover mojo has returned with a vengeance. Whether I enter the realm of self-publishing or not, it will be useful to have a mock-up of a book cover. It will remind me of the prime objective (to get my words in print for you, dear friend) and inspire me. That is the purpose of book covers, to inspire, to draw you in. 

I’ve probably created a blog-sized rod for my back now, but here’s a cover I’m working on for one of those fragments that I’m not currently writing, but might be in the future. 

Won’t say much more, but after trawling through thirty or so unfinished projects, most now have prototype book covers, courtesy of hours of iteration via Co-pilot to tweak them until I get what I want. (Just to say, using Co-Pilot is not so different from how some of my covers were commissioned in the past… except the fine-tuning takes minutes not weeks.)

So now I have thirty projects, and I have thirty book covers, but more importantly, I have the thirst for words and stories again. As I get to the 100-page milestone of the new book, I feel inspired, and reinvigorated, to keep going. And better still, by hook (a trad publisher) or by crook (self-published) the new book will likely be out there at some point next year or so, dear friends. 

Something I never thought I’d say again…

where you'll find me

Several years away from publishing has done me a favour. It's allowed me to think about where I spend my time.

Time is precious to a writer. Most of us don't do this for a living so there's a balance to be struck between the social and the storytelling, and the dayjob. And you can't tell stories if all you're are doing is talking about writing.

And you can't write about life if you're not living it.

So my social footprint has shrunk. Considerably.

You will no longer find me on Facebook. You won't find me on Twitter, X, or whatever the hell it calls itself now (let's call it TwoXic). You'll not find me on writing forums. And TikTok - seriously? 

But you will find me here on Blogger and the website hosted by WordPress. Instagram might get more use for those snapshotty moments, and you could also see me soon on Substack. But everything has a purpose. As it gives me more time to write and spread the word. And that's all any writer can ask for.