Summary
Inflicted by the British disease that equates confidence in one's work with arrogance, there is a natural inclination to maintain a certain reserve and stand quietly in line while others decide my fate. This is a nonsense and I am learning to have the courage to say what I feel. However, it is not my opinion that counts but yours.
If you add the figures stated on this site, you will realise that to repay 250 people, $500 each by a factor of 10 by using half the income from my work, I am ultimately valuing that work at a sum in excess of $2.5 million. This is quite deliberate and I genuinely believe it. However, do you?
To clarify the situation, lest people think that I have been submitting my manuscripts to every publisher in the world and this is a last resort. I have never submitted either of these novels to a publisher.
Last year, on completing 10 Downing St, I sent 10 emails to agents asking if they would be interested in reading my manuscript. Many British agents will not deal with email submissions. Some ignored the email and others told me that their books were full and would not take up the offer to look. One agent said to approach her in a few months.
At this point, sensing that I needed to do something radical, I wandered into the Highlands with my tent to think. Waiting for, and then trapped in a storm, I had two days in complete isolation, during which I came up with the idea for Tom Corven. Excited by the concept, I decided that the time was right to do something completely new.
That was just over a year ago and Tom Corven is complete. Reluctant to follow a selection path that even publishers seem to have little faith in, I decided to forge a new one.
You have the power to make this happen; to put your name to a radical concept that could help shape the face of publishing. To do this, you do not have to risk $500 or even $100 but $13.96 (paperback) or $6.25 (E-Book) - the price of the appraisal copies of Tom Corven. Only on reading the book will you be able to put what I've said here in context and decide to join me in this adventure or not.