Tag Archives: Hilary Custance Green

Critical reviews wanted in exchange for free books

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Uh?

I published a novel, Border Line, in December 2014. I had a party, a stall at the village Christmas Fair, a book-signing at the local farm shop café, I went to the main book shops in my city, plus a few smaller shops in nearby towns. The local paper and the city paper wrote about me and my third novel. I sold plenty of copies at these events and a respectable number (for me) of print and eBooks on Amazon.

eBook cover

And that was more or less it. To be honest, when I have finished writing a novel, I am ready to put it behind me. No book of the imagination ever reaches the original vision, so the fun is in building a new vision and having another crack at it. So, I didn’t blog, tweet or go on facebook with requests to buy Border Line (and I am not going to do so now). I got on with the next project.

This was the important task of getting my non-fiction book about Far East POWs published. This was a very different task – completed last year and published by Pen & Sword – though the research and the follow-up work goes on.

Yet now, as I return to the writing fiction at last, the old questions about what works and what doesn’t in my writing are hovering over me again. Add into this mix some interesting posts from other bloggers about positive and negative reviews, especially how useful negative reviews (see Tara Sparling’s post) are to readers.

So we come to my idea. I would like to give away (UK or Europe only) six copies of Border Line in return for critical reviews on Amazon or Goodreads – and I mean critical – I DO NOT MIND if this results in two-star reviews (or more or less). I am a perpetual student, knowing what does and doesn’t work, are both equally useful.

I already know, for instance, that the ending of Border Line splits readers. So I am looking for personal views, what you loved or hated, what niggled or irritated you. Why you would or wouldn’t recommend this book to other readers. One line would be good, five to ten would be even better, write an essay if you feel like it.

If you are interested and want more information about the book go to the Border Line page of my website hilarycustancegreen.com

If you would like one of these free copies email me threadgoldpressAtgmailDotcom

If you are outside Europe and want to write a critical review, the eBook is not expensive.

Sunday Living History Interview – Far East Prisoners of War – Hilary Custance Green

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Sally Cronin has once more given my recent work on Far East POWs and my other work the kind of polish I dream about, but never quite achieve. My thanks to her and all her visitors.

Time, You Old Gypsy Man,

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Will you not stay,

Put up your caravan

Just for one day?

etc Ralph Hodgson

It is more than a month since I posted here. My three email inboxes are bulging and I still haven’t posted flyers for Surviving the Death Railway to friends and relatives on my mailing list… A week today on Thursday 28 July, I will be giving a lecture at The National Archives in Kew titled Writing to a Ghost: Far East POWs (by this time a week today it will be over!). But this is the first of five going into November.

At the two launches for my book many people sweetly offered the same theme, with variations: ‘You must be so proud, now you can relax.’ I am proud of the people in the book and very happy that others have been able to recognise their achievements now and  yes, I’m pleased that I played a part in that. Relax? In my dreams.

In between these events I continue to attend the local Toastmasters Club, where I am learning to overcome my fear of public speaking. This is the warmest safest environment imaginable. Many bright young things, often giving speeches in their second language, as well as several of my own age – a very buzzy, happy, honest, international crowd – and that in spite of the nightmare of Brexit and many other world horrors. This provides a good reminder that the newspapers only tell us the bad stuff, there’s plenty of the other. Screen Shot 2016-07-21 at 22.06.36

And, the hedgehog still attends nightly (looking a little anxious about being photographed). I even saw three of them one night. DSCN9629 Of course the garden, a little neglected, will still be there when this caravan limps into a parking space. (These so-green photos were taken before the current heat wave!) DSCN9631 DSCN9606

See you all again soon.

Uh? And an old fence

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I have several posts in waiting, but no time for responding. Still, this I had to share. Uh?Screen Shot 2016-03-11 at 22.22.58 Apart from the weird price, my page on Amazon.co.uk shows only this cover of the print version, and shows it three times (some at normal prices), but does NOT show the internet-friendly ebook cover borderline (you have to click through) . They also put books by Hilary Green (not me) on the same page. I have no idea if I have ever sold books because someone thought I was her, but I know she has had sales because someone thought she was me. Grrr.

When I can snatch time away from my desk, and the weather allows, I rush into the garden to wrestle with ivy – by far the most prolific plant in the garden. We are slowly replacing our fence (or rather experts will replace, we just do the destruction part). The need is urgent, we rather think this part dates back to the 1920s.DSCN8921 DSCN8920 DSCN8932

In case you want to know, even (niche) mainstream publishing means you spend your time at your desk organising publicity materials, mailing lists, launch parties and worrying about who you have forgotten in your acknowledgements.

Spring is coming. DSCN8896

Edit – I have just had an email from the Pen & Sword commissioning editor. He asked, among other things, if Tara, Katie and the team had been in touch [not yet]. There is marketing and promotion, but apparently nearer to the release date. More when this happens.

Marketing, a necessary pain?

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Last autumn I went on writing course run by Patricia Mullin at The Sainsbury Centre in the University of East Anglia. This was a fun and positive experience and Patricia packed in an immense amount of information and writing practise and managed our diverse group in the gentlest, most effective way. She has kindly posted a guest blog from me on her website:

One October day I found myself, aged 52, standing on top of a telegraph pole. Below me the rest of my ‘team’, five youngsters half my age, two of them clinging to the free end of my safety harness, were urging me to jump. At eye level to my right, but way out of reach, dangled the bar of a trapeze.

Another 867 words at Patricia’s blog…

It’s a puzzlement… or two

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I had a letter from the House of Lords. The writer thanked me for the copy of Border Line that I had sent “because we are debating the Assisted Suicide Bill…”, apologised for taking so long to read it, owing to so many other commitments, and gave me his/her comments on the book and the topic.

So far so very surprising and gratifying. BUT I did not, to my knowledge, send them a copy of Border Line. I did write to another member of the House of Lords, to ask them to support the Assisted Dying Bill currently making its way through parliament. I argued from personal experience for individual choice in end of life decisions. I didn’t mention my book – Border Line is fiction and only tangentially related to the topic.

Now memory is a funny thing and it is always possible that I had a whim, parcelled the book up and posted it to this person, and that I failed to record it on my list, or write a letter to go with it, and yet their letter implies that it arrived with at least a note from me. Curiouser and curiouser.

The letter is very generous and kind, and indeed it is astonishing that someone this busy should have read my novel and bothered to write and thank me. However there were also some jarring notes. The bill is for ‘Assisted Dying’, not, as they suggest, ‘Assisted Suicide’ – there is a difference. They interpreted comments made by Joanna Trollope about her own wishes not to be a nuisance in her old age and her preference for being able to choose assisted dying when her time came, as implying that people who had become a nuisance should be put away whether they wished it or not. This is a tricky area, but I believe it will be possible to draft legislation which allows those of us who have expressed a wish to be helped to die when that time comes, to do so, while also protecting anyone who wishes to stay alive as long as possible.

And the second puzzlement? Knitted jackets for railings??! IMG_0946_2 IMG_0946   IMG_0949 IMG_0953
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Catching up… and falling behind

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Progress on one front is always balanced by a lag on another. The sun only shines at erratic intervals in the UK, you need to get out there and get to work. In the last two weeks we have reduced this DSCN7002to this.DSCN7095

I have spread it round the garden and some parts are done (darling crocus – Blue Pearl).

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Others are half done – the veg bed.

DSCN7100While others are hardly begun…
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The DIY is still pending. If you think watching paint dry is boring, trying watching plaster… DSCN7042  DSCN7107
And yet we have made progress in one room.
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On the writing front Alison Williams has   added to her review of Border Line on Rosie Amber’s site, by giving me an interview on her own. https://alisonwilliamswriting.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/rbrt-author-interview-and-review-hilary-custance-green/ and I have done some work on my Far East POW book.

Meanwhile the drizzle of emails has reached blizzard proportions, but the sun is shining and I must get out.

Tomorrow garden, writing, DIY or blog and email catch-up? I’ll have to roll a dice, check the colour of the sky or design a grid to show which is most urgent. This appeared two evenings ago. DSCN7058

Happy author gets review

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Reviews are rare and wonderful things… as in someone has read all those words that you juggled with and let fall onto the page in what you hoped was the right order. When the review is from someone professional, that you have never met and they reach for the heart of your story… your cup runneth over.

I am thrilled by this review of Border Line on Rosie Amber’s book review site by Alison Williams.

Print cover

Print cover

eBook cover

eBook cover

 

Amazon UK continue to confuse me. Border Line appears under its eBook cover and you can find, and buy the print version (for £8.50), by clicking through to it. However, they also show the print version separately priced at… £22.50… !?%$£@!?

 

For M-R https://rosieamber.wordpress.com/2015/02/21/rosies-book-review-team-rbrt-alison-reviews-borderline-by-hilary-custance-green/

Reader, I met my readers.

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Almost the first question an agent or publisher asks is who are your readers? I can’t be the only writer who fails to conjure up a collective market-speak noun for the person who has just turned the last page of my novel with (I hope) a sigh of satisfaction.

The people who read, and give me feedback, are people who know me. They have read my books because they are kind friends or relatives, fellow-writers or new online friends. They are male and female, aged 16 to 90, and include a wide spectrum of interests and incomes. As a writer I could not survive without these people, but they are not the distinct target group the agent or publisher is looking for. What is more, I really didn’t know who else in the world, would want to read my novels… but I got lucky.

In December I wrote about the moment when dreams and real life coincided (Writer (almost) faints). I met a reader totally unknown to me who loved my second novel, Unseen Unsung, and so, apparently, did her book group.

Last night I was the surprise guest, invited by this reader, to a birthday meal for a member of her book group. So I met Tracy, Susanne, Janet, Sarah, Marie, Tracey and Judy (who couldn’t stay to the meal).  My presence was for the fun of it, I didn’t have to perform, or sell myself, I was able to eat, relax, and discover who my readers were as people.                   IMG_0938 IMG_0926                           Tracy                                                      birthday girl Suzanne (Goldie)IMG_0933  IMG_0939 - Version 2   Janet                                                        (left to right) Tracey, Marie and Sarah

So what, if anything, makes Tracy, Susanne, Janet, Sarah, Marie, Tracey and Judy a group. They were vibrant, funny, unsentimental, open and tolerant people. Their energies and concerns were first for their family members, then for each other, and after that any individual in their orbit who was in need. In doing all this they also looked after themselves and made their own fun. They worked, played and read widely. In every other sense each was a distinct personality. We were in Tracy’s house, her mother was upstairs, recovering from an operation, her father appeared from time to time as did a fifteen-year-old son, an undergraduate son and her husband (and there was a daughter elsewhere). Apart from her own spaniel (?), she was temporarily caring for a couple of pugs to help a friend.

The Chinese proverb runs – Women hold up half the sky. These women were certainly holding up more than they share share of the sky and I feel all the better, as a writer, for being their choice.

Pains and joys – more lessons for the writer and self-publisher

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When Border Line came back from the printers, I couldn’t bear to open it for fear of coming across a gigantic error or a name missing from the acknowledgements. So I opened one box, took one copy out and gave it my husband, then shut the box. A week later I bumped into my dear supporter, neighbour and kind reader of early drafts, Maureen Katrak, and knew as I talked to her that I has missed her name from the acknowledgements.

Three days ago I discovered I had forgotten someone equally deserving of my thanks, David King. From the other side of the Atlantic, battling with MS and unable to read without voice software, David has read and given me feedback on at least three drafts of Border Line over the years.

I don’t know by what malign convolution my brain has managed to let slip these names as I wrote up my acknowledgements, I only know that these two people should have been there at the top of the list and I owe them both heartfelt thanks for all they have done.

So, dear writing friends, don’t be an idiot like me, keep a scrupulous record of those amazing people who give you their time, their thoughts, their honest opinions and their kindness.

On Saturday, still reeling from the mortification this last discovery, I attended The Linton Kitchen Christmas Fair on a sunny but freezing day.
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I set up the tiniest stall possible with 15 copies of Border Line and two or three of my previous novel Unseen Unsung, mostly to prop up the newspaper article about me. In spite of thermals, my fingers froze and my toes seized up on the cobbles. I expected, if I was lucky, to sell half a dozen books. After a hurried re-supply from my husband, I sold 23 copies of Border Line IMG_0834and 6 of Unseen Unsung. For a small-scale self-published author these are significant numbers. So selling in a local venue where your face is familiar (notwithstanding the threat of frostbite) is a better bet than a getting your books onto a shelf in a book shop.

I had two copies left when I took this photo.