Category Archives: Writing notes

Unseen Unsung – eBook out now

Posted on by
24

Unseen ebook coverF

Luca, a brilliant and self-absorbed young opera singer, is buried in the rubble of a collapsed building. A girl crawls through the debris to comfort him and then vanishes. perhaps she died in the ruins or maybe she just a figment of his imagination. When he discovers the strange truth, he is unwilling to accept it.

This is a story of love between two people who would never have met and never have found common ground without one of the catastrophes of modern life.

Unseen Unsung celebrates the power of music and the force of human survival in a complex world.

The concept for Unseen Unsung started life way back in 1999 when I imagined people stuck under the rubble after an earthquake in Turkey. I was enjoying myself plotting, writing and character-building when 9/11 jolted the world. I found the axis had shifted; the story felt too light in the changed world and I set the project aside for over a year.

This is a book, not about disasters, but about life and music, about ordinary people coping with what life throws at them, big and small. In it I have allowed my passion for music, in particular opera, (fairly) free rein, but, as one reviewer wrote, “please don’t think you have to be an opera lover to read this book”.

Although Unseen Unsung was published as a print version in 2008, I went to talk to a reading group last year, who had obtained second-hand copies through the Internet, so I am hoping people will still find it enjoyable. I decided to turn it into an ebook in order to learn the ropes for the publication of my new novel Border Line, which will be coming out in December.

The ebook of Unseen Unsung is available at http://www.amazon.com/Unseen-Unsung-Hilary-Custance-Green-ebook/dp/B00LSRI2PO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405942187&sr=8-1&keywords=Unseen+Unsung and https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/unseen-unsung/id899213653?ls=1&mt=11

I hope some of you will try it and enjoy it. Correction. That’s supposed to read – Please buy my book!

 

 

Reading, Writing and (A)rithmetic

Posted on by
11

After a stressful day (actually week) on the book-publishing front, I am baffled. This is clearly an absurd enterprise, since at the same time I am reading – and enjoying:

Middlemarch (George Eliot); Surviving the Sword, Prisoners of the Japanese in the Far East 1942-45 (Brian MacArthur); One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez). I have started Americana (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) and Morning has Broken, (Carol Balawyder); The Sorrows of Young Werther (Goethe). I have dipped into The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt) and I am looking forward to And Then Like My Dreams – a memoir (Margaret-Rose Stringer); A Serious Business (Roderick Hart)… and then there is Bring Up The Bodies (Hilary Mantel) and The Luminaries (Eleanor Catton) staring at me from the bottom of a pile of books on the other side of the room.

Oh and I will be picking up The Rosie Project (Graeme Simsion) from the library and polishing it off for a meeting on the 6th of August… correction I am going to the opera that night – but I will still read it.

With writing like this, the world does not need books by Hilary Custance Green. Any which way you calculate this, it doesn’t add up. I should stick to cultivating my garden, reducing my ‘to read’ pile and my stress levels.

DSCN6050 DSCN6049 DSCN6056 DSCN6148 DSCN6153 - Version 2

However.

I’ve invested too much time (years), energy (and some money) in writing, editing, revising, researching, submitting and rewriting this book, never mind all the pfaff of getting a tax identity in the States, and learning how to create ebooks (nearly there with the older novel), to give up now. Also I am too bloody-minded. Also I owe all the kind friends who have supported me. So I shall add another few straws to the giant hayrick of books swamping the world – even though it fails to add up or make any sense at all.

Some rejected book covers to laugh at. I’ve learned a lot about InDesign

BL whole cover tests8.pr - Version 3 BL Amytest2b BL PScover tests17.pr BL cover tests19.pr - Version 3 BL cover dolltests16.pr_2
PS. I have now finished the Surviving the Sword, sobering and good for realigning one’s priorities.

Getting an eBook out there – a fast process?

Posted on by
18

The idea that you can upload an ebook and be on sale in 24 hours is a bit of a myth. I decided to learn about the process using my last novel Unseen Unsung (published as print book by Threadgold Press in 2008).

Step 1. The original printers, Antony Rowe, converted the novel into the two forms of ebook (.epub and .mobi files) for the ibook and Kindle platforms respectively. This entailed writing a new imprint page as a pdf and a remastered cover as a JPG (I wanted to keep the original cover by Anthony Furness, but sharpen up the graphics so they would be visible in thumbnail pics). This took 2-3 weeks. So far so good. Unseen ebook coverFStep 2. I could now see and read my ebook on my iPad and I could email it to anyone, but to sell it I needed to upload it to iTunes and Amazon KDP. Both of these are US-based and pay taxes in the US (see http://kareninglis.wordpress.com/paying-uk-income-tax-on-book-royalties-uk-authors/). If you live elsewhere you must have either an ITIN number (as a foreign individual), or an EIN number (as a foreign publisher). The first requires a complicated and lengthy process involving posting your passport to the US, the second can be done on the phone to the US. See http://catherineryanhoward.com/2012/02/24/non-us-self-publisher-tax-issues-dont-need-to-be-taxing/ though this is a shifting process, so read the post and the later comments.

In my role as Threadgold Press I opted for the latter, but it took up to a week of getting my head round the forms (SS-4 and W-8BEN), the process and choosing the right time and day to phone. Once I had got to this point, it went as planned and I obtained the magic EIN number for my SS-4, in order to fill in the W-8BEN, so I will not be liable to tax in the US.

Step 3. Try to upload to iTunes. This should have been straightforward, but for reasons still unclear, I am not receiving a verification email from them. I am in touch with their helpline and have had a call and several emails from the iTunes Support, who are on the case and will I am sure sort this out. This has lasted a week.

Step 4. Try and upload to Amazon KDP. I have spent a couple of hours filling in details and, rather importantly, reading their Terms, which are frankly alarming. I have now ‘agreed’ and waived my right to almost everything you can think of. I have filled in their online W-8BEN with my magic EIN number and now have to wait for approval of this. I have no idea how long this will take – but I understand it may be weeks.

This is the simplified version of events so far, it doesn’t include things like the revised W-8BEN having no box for an EIN number… I hope the next post will show the end of the process.

greenhouse shame

Posted on by
7

This was going to be a boring post about TAX and ebooks, but I’ll save that until I have made a call to the US tax authorities.

In April I was putting up photos of my wonderful new greenhouse. Soon after this I started planting seeds like fury. I decided to try and use up all my old seeds (some very ancient indeed). After an anxious week or so a few little seedlings made an appearance in a couple of trays, but I didn’t really know when to take the lids of the propagators and one lot damped off. The others died on the very hot day we went into town forgetting to open the greenhouse ventilators. Absolutely nothing appeared in the other trays.

I tried again with fresher seed but had similar results. So my total greenhouse haul this year so far is four weeds, DSCN5900

the sweet pepper a friend gave me, DSCN5901

and behind that one of the two tomatoes I managed to grow, DSCN5899the other is in the vegetable patch. I did manage to grow a pot full of purple sprouting broccoli and that is in the veg bed along with some direct sown leeks, carrots etc, but still, it’s embarrassing.

DSCN6033

The good thing about gardens is that there is always another season and something else to admire. I rather like this last glimpse of the sun. DSCN6034 - Version 2The lilies are trying to make up for other failures,

DSCN6016 - Version 2

and the giant host is flowering madly.

DSCN6013

Thrilling post about tax coming in the next few days.

Musical joie de vivre in Peasmarsh and bonus

Posted on by
13

We have just had one of those rare experiences – a mini holiday that exceeds all expectations. From the moment we arrived for a two day visit to old friends (plus two days in London afterwards), life, which was OK, became sublime.

DSCN5963

DSCN5919

The weather helped as we sat out long into the evening, after a great meal, just talking. The following day we relaxed yet further. I had forgotten deck chairs even existed. We were able to catch up on tasks, ask advice for vexed questions (such as book covers), and forget briefly the list of things undone that are never absent at home.  DSCN5906

Later we visited the astonishing gardens of Great Dixter. The ultimate challenge to the tidy or colour-match-obsessed gardener.

DSCN5955In the evening we arrived at the Church of St Peter & St Paul, Peasmarsh for the last concert in the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival http://www.peasmarshfestival.co.uk. We picnicked in the churchyard on delicious foods made by our friends, then went into the church for a Brahms violin Concerto, some exquisitely played Debussy and, after an interval, a Schumann quintet.

The church is tiny, the dais for the musicians, already accommodating the Steinway Grand, is tiny and we had front row seats (click on the link above to see rolling photos of the church and dais). The cello was less than two feet in front of me. I have never, never, experienced such a powerful, energetic musical rendition. Each performer was at their peak in this final piece of their final festival concert. Their joie de vivre was quite extraordinary.

The players were international: Anthony Marwood (violin), Richard Lester (cello), Magnus Johnston (violin), Benedetto Lupo (piano), CarlaMaria Rodrigues (viola); the venue a tiny parish church in a small village in East Sussex; the effect an astonishing musical experience and a privilege.

Then back with our friends to their wonderful garden.DSCN5913 DSCN5914 DSCN5925

Threadgold Press, bees and a hornet

Posted on by
12
Threadgold Press logo

Threadgold Press logo

M-R, you asked what Threadgold Press is. Well, in 2002 I had my first novel published by a stupendously chaotic one-man independent publisher (he had a colleague, but she resigned). So with my second novel, after I had  tallied up a few rejection slips, I became a (fairly chaotic) publisher myself. Threadgold Press is a small thing, but mine own. You can be a publisher by giving yourself a name, and applying for ISBN’s, jumping through a whole load of hoops and publishing a book. I published Unseen Unsung (Hilary Custance Green) in 2008, I’ve sold around 400 copies, and reckon I have broken even. Amazon.co.uk currently offers 7 copies (used) for .01p and 1 (new) for £999. Uh? (I won’t see a penny from these either way).

On a different (more important) subject, I am deeply worried that I cannot go into the garden without stumbling over a dead bee. These are usually smaller bumble bees and I see one or two most days. Is anyone else finding these? We don’t use pesticides.

One the upside, a few days ago, my husband called from the glass area near the back door. He had heard what he described as a four-engine job. An enormous fat golden stripey hornet was bombing around in there. It looked magnificent and sort of new-born, metallic shiny; it also sounded very fed up. Sadly, I do not have a picture. I love bees, wasps, spiders etc but I’m an all-out wuss when it comes to hornets. I gazed in admiration from a distance as my husband wielded the butterfly nets we keep for such events. I am now steeling myself to look into the loft (not my husband’s territory). I saw a big ‘something’ flying around near the eaves and then popping in.

Fitz… and a frog

Posted on by
12


DSCN5830 - Version 2

Many years ago I met an author (and brilliant photographer), Jenifer Roberts, at The Society of Authors (UK) and we exchanged addresses. A year or so later I received a flyer for her book Glass

. I bought a copy, loved it, and we became friends. We self-published our second books at the same time, though hers, The Madness of Queen Maria, was later taken up by a mainstream publisher in Portugal.  It is with enormous pride that I can report on the success of her latest book, Fitz. I can remember the beginnings of Fitz, the enormous lengths to which Jenifer went in researching this book, the endless drafts and improvements and the long cycle of agents and publishers who said… great writing, terrific story, but we are not sure it has a market… or similar. Well, after years of work and waiting it has found its natural home in New Zealand. The New Zealand Listener (see below) says of it “…This is history as it should be, alert, well-observed and informed…” about this man who was an “…infuriatingly mercurial personality but eminently loveable man.”

listener review 4

It is also in the top ten New Zealand non-fiction best seller lists. I can vouch for this as a great and entertaining read. Jenifer has set a brilliant example for aspiring writers and I am so happy to see this story reach the public it deserves.

Now for something completely different. We live (I say, as the rain it raineth ev-ery day) in a very dry area of the UK, and we have no pond and no obvious ground level source of water, yet every year I meet at least one frog in the garden. I don’t meet him/her in one particular damp spot, but anywhere in the third of an acre that is ours. So, there must be quite a few frogs living here. This is the best I could do in the way of a photo – he is in there – honestly.

DSCN5829_2

Titles, covers and how to get it wrong.

Posted on by
20

I am in the process of self publishing a novel. This has the title Border Line, which should (I hope) give rise to thoughts about the borders of a country, the edges of sanity and the distance between of success and failure.

I am setting the text using InDesign, but as I can’t afford Photoshop to do the cover work, I  downloaded the free illustration software, Gimp. In order to familiarise myself with the basics I knocked up a random cover by grabbing a recent photo and putting in some text in a couple of colours. Feeling quite pleased with myself for getting this far, I emailed the result to a friend and my husband…

Gimp testjpeg

… to whom it is obvious that I have written a book on gardening – How to Keep Your Border in Line!

A few days before this effort, I mocked up some simple photo and text covers in InDesign, and printed these off (along with one professional) one to show to a group of friends. I asked them which ones(s) they would pick up and turn over to read the blurb. Several unerringly picked the professional one (a lovely image, but not related to the story). They then made clear that what mattered to them, apart from the cover’s initial attraction, was that it should be relevant to the story. Nothing seemed to irritate more than a misleading image (which, as I feared, counts out the lovely image).

Does the relevance of the cover image matter to you? Here is a pdf of the covers, if anyone feels like spotting the professional one.

cover tests

 

My irregular heart and a random spider

Posted on by
19

This morning I was searching for a file and came across an old poem of sorts. I read it and felt again when I had felt then. I am happy to publish prose, but I find myself very reluctant to put up a poem. So, in the interests of overcoming this anxiety, here it is. (For non-lovers of half-baked poetry there is a photo below of a charming spider I saw the other day. Name?)

My Irregular Heart

You’re eighteen now,
old enough to give blood, my father said.
So I did.
In some years lovers delayed me,
or babies distracted me,
or illness prevented me.
Still, pint by pint I shared a little of myself
and always felt better as I left.

Today the nurse spoke kindly,
we can’t take your blood anymore,
I’m so sorry, but
‘Heart, irregular’ is on our list.
You’ve done well –
forty-seven donations,
I’m sorry you did not reach your fifty.

So I walked my irregular heart
out of the building,
and took it home to contemplate
no longer contributing,
no longer belonging to the giving population.
I have walked to the other side of the equation
And found there,
an unexpected sense of loss.

DSCN5765

Almost writing again…book cover queries… new arrival.

Posted on by
19

I have been utterly committed to the garden (and, of course, to our visitors) for the last two months and writing has been low on the agenda – but not forgotten. Just over a week ago I finally bought InDesign (publishing software) and my extraordinarily patient cousin has come all the way from Sweden and is walking me through the basics of setting the text of my novel into a printable format, and creating a cover.

He created the cover of my previous novel.
 Unseen coverpic

We have also discussed (argued about) the desirable qualities of a cover illustration. How much should it indicate either genre or content? Do people really pick up a book (or reject it) because of it’s cover. All opinions welcomed!

The novel will be titled Border Line. I shall be glad to know if this suggests a genre to people… and if so, which?

As I will need to create an ebook too, I have finally justified the purchase of an iPad mini. DSCN5735

And it’s past midnight and my husband and cousin are asleep… oh for a few more hours in the day.