It's been quiet for a bit

I haven't posted much lately for a variety of reasons. I was going to post last Saturday when I got a further rejection from the latest literary agent on my list but I didn't as I find I sometimes struggle to make the time. I promise to myself I will try harder. I have spent most of the last three months scheming and dreaming about new ways to identify readers for my novel and generate interest in it, the blog being initially the main thrust of the campaign. Of late I must confess that I've lost a little faith. I entered the blogoshere with enthusiasm and abandon but the drive to generate traffice to my blog/blogs and eventually to my novel has proved to be a slow process with little real progress. Despite the daily effort I have put into earning credits from surfing to "drive traffic to my site" little progress has been made.
I don't want to sound despondent but let me put something into perspective;
I spent two years devoting every spare moment to my story, revising it, teasing out the narrative and crafting it into what I thought was the best I could make it, I then ordered proof copies and passed them around my exceptional friends for their comment and constructive suggestions, I started an email campaign to try to direct people to my lulu page
http://lulu.com/content/607829 and then I set up two blogs, this one and also http://virtualbooklaunch.blogspot.com/ where you can find the first chapter and for the last three months I've spent as much time as I could; joining traffic exchange schemes, surfing for traffic and promoting my book in the ways outlined in earlier posts. It is fair to say I have not yet made a significant impact on the literary world and this in no way reflects any diminishing confidence in my novel, everyone who has read it has loved it but today I awoke to a story on the radio that has given me cause to rethink.
Wedginald, a piece of cheese that is maturing somewhere in Somerset is featured on cheddarvision.tv, a site that has attracted over one and a half million visitors, you're right I did say 1.5 million people. They have all visited a website depicting a wedge of cheese maturing. A lifeless lump of mouldy milk has, over the last year, attracted visitors far in excess of my aspirations let alone my actual pathetic numbers. Today was an exciting day for "Wedginald watchers" a disembodied hand was going to enter the picture to take a sample for testing, I must confess I took a sneaky peek.
It was an inspiration and so I intend to set up a new site, "Drying paint" I'll paint the front of my novel and invite the 1.5 million "Wedginald watchers" to watch the paint dry, maybe between the excitement they could read my f**king book.

Littering

As the blog doesn't seem to be attracting visitors and joining several traffic-exchanges and surfing till I'm blue in the face hasn't helped I've devised a new method of underground advertising for my novel "Martha's Vineyard" visit the link at http://lulu.com/content/607829

I'm calling it "littering". I've produced a small leaflet called "A bookmark for you" with a life affirming message on one side and an advert for the book on the back and anytime I'm in a book shop I simply slide one into the pages of novels I think might appeal to the people I think my novel will appeal to. It is going to take me a long time and it's hard trying not to look suspicious but don't be surprised if you are ever in Waterstones or Borders or W.H.Smiths and a 1/4 size piece of A4, like this falls out of a book you've picked up.

Back from the Fringe

Back from Edinburgh where despite, sometimes, atrocious weather we had a splendid time. Enjoyed it so much we'll be going back up there this week. 17 shows in five days, Some amazing comedy, the intelligent, political, Steve Hughes, the provocative Reginal D. Hunter, the hilarious Jason Byrne, the comic genius of Stewart Lee, the dynamic and educational Bruce Fummey as well as some great plays and events. Spent a lot of time there pondering my strategy for promoting the novel and decided that the blog, while enjoyable, isn't attracting an audience who are interested in the book. New strategies are clearly required. I have had some ideas though so watch this space!

Holidays

Off to the Edinburgh fringe festival for a few nights tomorrow and so Blog will go quiet unless I can find an Internet cafe, which I suppose is a possibility. The fringe isn't really a holiday it's more like being swirled around in a giant, cultural washing machine. Edinburgh, during the fringe is the most exciting place I've ever been. It's full to the brim of crazy, creative and energetic people all desperate for you to see their show or watch their act. It doesn't really start until Sunday but we are going up early this year to catch some of the pre-shows.
A little competition we enjoy, while there is "Spotting the famous people", I had a spectacular win last year with a sighting of Ronnie Corbett but it's great to be in the queue for tickets behind "someone off the telly" or overhearing a well-known, familiar BBC Radio Four voice talking on their mobile at the table next door to you in a bar. It's really strange seeing people who are so famous in the street. You almost feel obliged to speak to them because they are so familiar to you having been in your living-room so often but of course they have no idea who you are 'cause they can't see you from inside the telly.
Looking forward to lots of shows but also having Cappucino and a brie and red-onion marmalade bagel in Elephants and Bagels, the coffee shop where now famous J.K. Rowling allegedly wrote "Harry Potter" . Of course this year I'm entitled to call myself a novelist having finished my own novel, Martha's Vineyard, ( buy or download it from www.lulu.com/content/607829 ) a couple of months after returning from the Edinburgh fringe last year. That was the easy bit, marketing it and getting an agent and publisher is proving to be the hard bit, I guess. Back next week, bye for now.

Rejection letters.

I got my latest rejection letter this morning. I'd had a really positive message last night from someone who's reading the book and then the postman arrived this morning. I heard the loud thud of my manuscript hitting the hall floor and guessed before I went to retrieve it that it would be my self-addressed envelope containing the first three chapters, pitch letter and summaries of the other chapters of "Martha's Vineyard". So it was but it also contained a standard form letter from the agent,

"Dear Neil Griffin," ( that is handwritten the rest apart from a squiggle at the bottom was a standard typed response)

"Thank you for your recent submission which we have considered with care. I fear we do not feel able to offer the representation you seek. We wish you every good fortune with your work in the future."

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a crushing blow or anything, I mean there are a million worse things happening to millions of people as we speak but it always a little disappointing. Anyway I'm anticipating a large collection of rejection letters before I find an agent to represent the book, (that accounts for the blog really) and at least they'd had the decency to turn it around in three weeks but I do wonder what it is they "fear". Have they been stalked by rejected writers in the past or are they just naturally timid? It seems ironic that people with such influence in the publishing industry were terrorised by my submission. Rather than feeling angry at the rejection I feel guilty about frightening them so!
My initial reaction was anger of course. Nobody likes rejection do they? "What do they know? Everyone who's read it has really enjoyed it, even people who don't know me, why aren't they interested?" But I suppose one must be sympathetic in the end; they get a lot of manuscripts and there are so many variables, what time they pick your submission from the pile, how many they are already considering, what mood they are in when they pick yours up, Monday morning Friday afternoon syndrome and as I have often said sending off a submission is always an act of hope over expectation. Never mind, I'm still only on agencies beginning with "A" and there are plenty more on the list before I get on to the rest of the alphabet. And so I'm off to the post office as I want to catch the lunch-time post. See Ya!

Bloody Statcounter!

I'm starting to wish I'd never installed the bloody statcounter! If it is to be believed then all my attempts to attract traffic have been in vain. There are a pitifully small number of visitors these days and those I do get don't seem to stay. I am also concerned that I might be frightening people off by making my blog something of a soapbox, or is there such a thing as a blogbox? Maybe people don't want to be bothered with my rantings about whatever appears to have gotten my "knickers in a twist" on any particular day. Maybe I should try and be more disciplined and restrict my posts to the progress of my attempts to direct people to take an interest in my novel but I'm not sure that would be any better, I'd only go off on another rant about the publishing industry or suchlike.
However all is not lost. As an antidote to my depression about lack of visitors and interest in my perambulations I've entered a bit of spice into the proceedings. I've started up another blog to go into competition with my marketingmynovel site. This one is simply a photographic journey around County Durham, where I live. I've put it out here and I'm going to promote both with the same amount of effort. An experiment in what might interest surfers. The competition between the two will add a little interest to my daily disappointment at reading the bloody statcounter. At least there'll be some competition. The new blog is http://beautifulcountydurham.blogspot.com/ let's see what happens shall we? If there's anybody out there.
Mind you, none of this is getting my second, bloody novel written!

Need I say more?

Woke this morning to the news informing me that cannabis users can be up to three times more likely to develop a psychotic illness, such as schizophrenia. This in a week when at least nine members of Gordon Brown's new cabinet, the nerve centre of British politics, admitted smoking cannabis while at University. There are 23 members of the cabinet which means nearly half of them collapse firmly into into the cannabis-user zone. When the news about their youthful indiscretions first broke I thought it kind of humanised them, made them more interesting, more in touch with the rest of society. I also expected some really interesting new legislation, new laws encouraging us to take more time to smell the flowers, or policies suggesting we stay up late eating cold beans from the tin while listening to the Floyd very loud but no! Instead it has served as a preamble to a tightening up stance on cannabis. You'd think it would have taught them something wouldn't you? Instead it seems to have turned them all into zealots. Despite the dangers, (and to be honest I'm more worried about the tobacco than the dope) young people who want will still get access to cannabis and a host of other nasty and dangerous substances just as those cabinet members did in their day but instead of the radical approach of having the nerve to make it licenced and controlled by the state it will continue to be supplied, to those who want it, by gangsters and criminals. It will mean that in order to get it they will need to mix with pushers and dealers I would have thought that was fairly dangerous. I know young people don't have to use cannabis, in fact they probably shouldn't but if they want to they will and maybe those who confessed last week should remember who they used to be. That might help them to think of strategies to help all young people, not just those who use cannabis, to learn from the mistakes they are bound to make rather than this hypocritical and hysterical preaching. There again maybe they are all psychotic.