Book promotions!

We’ve all heard the story about a pretty young girl who gets spotted by an agency as she walks down the street and is then catapulted to international stardom via the catwalks. Within a year or so she’s a multi-zillionaire; she has a yacht, diamonds the size of golf balls and a social life to rival any WAG.

It happens, not often, but it happens.

But it happened once, so others hope that it is going to happen to them too. Cue hundreds of girls walking down that same street in the hope that the very same person who did the spotting is still there.

A little clothes shop owner sees what’s happening and starts to talk to the girls.

‘You’ve got to dress better; I have all the latest fashions here that are guaranteed to get you noticed. Make up too, tons of the stuff, all new and the latest products; wrinkle free skin and a suntan too. What more do you need? Oh, a new hairstyle? I can sort that too, I know someone cheap, does a wonderful job with hair.’

He starts to make lots of money from all these girls and each and every one of them appreciates that he sees something in them, he convinces them that they have talent and that he is really only helping them out.

All the while his till is going ‘ker-ching ker-ching,’ hundreds of times a day. He’s getting rich beyond imaging and all because he saw the girls and realised what they were hoping for. He was savvy enough to realise that they had virtually no chance of ever meeting the agency spotter but he was making money, so why should he care. He’s spotted a gap in his market and he was going to grab all the money he could from it while he had the chance.

Seem familiar?

Paid book promotion.

Now I have no doubt that there are some book promoters out there who are genuinely interested in, and good, at helping an author sell their books. I would guess that they also charge a lot of money for their services, but they have the contacts, they have access to that elusive group of people who are actually willing to part company with their cash for books; i.e. readers.

There are also those book promoters who bring together all the authors they can and charge them a small fee, miniscule in the great realm of things, and offer to promote their books for them. They offer to put the book on a website that has on the banner-heading the word “Readers” so all the authors flock to them. Books are now listed all over the site. But who actually sees them? Not readers, that’s for sure! Sometimes (or once) they tweet to their followers, thousands of them to let them know your book is available on their site; er….their thousands of followers who also happen to be authors.

The author then tweets and facebooks and google+’s etc that their books are on this site which then encourages other authors to sign up in the hope that they too can find the holy grail. ‘Ker-ching!’

Thus the book promoter has a steady stream of hopefuls (mugs) signing up to give them MONEY freely.

This book promoter is now making so much money from hundreds, if not thousands of authors who hope to get noticed by that elusive group of people called “readers”, that they rub their hands in glee as their till continually goes ‘ker-ching ker-ching’, they don’t have to do much now as more and more trusting authors sign up to their services and promote THEIR website. (See what’s happened there? The author is now promoting the book promoter!)  The book promoter can now sit back and watch the dosh come rolling in; and he doesn’t have to do a thing!

That’s the trouble with most hopeful authors; they’re a trusting bunch of people and only see the good in others.

These book promoters know that.

They will promise you the earth, but give you only a speck of dust; and even that grudgingly.

Look very carefully at any book promotion service. If it looks and sounds too good to be true, then it generally is…..or am I just being a cynical old git?

Time Management for Writers

Time Management for Writers

Writers must always have time to write, and we need to be careful of getting too involved in selling our wares rather than creating our wares. 878 MORE WORDS

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Oops!

Ambulance memoir.

• I have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity and privacy I’ve changed the names of individuals and sometimes places, I may have changed some identifying characteristics, so the people described do not necessarily reflect the actual person or persons involved. Incidents and situations are as I recall.
• Swearing happens. I have used, and will use, some words that some people may find offensive.

Early 1980’s

Driving back to station after depositing a patient with non-specific abdominal pain at the hospital, we were enjoying the sunshine. In those days the doors of the vehicle were of the sliding variety and we had a hook which would keep the doors wide open. This was also the time before seatbelts were compulsory, so like most people, we didn’t wear them.

Wide open doors and no seatbelt could be interesting as you hurtled down the road and around sharp bends. Fortunately there were grab handles and these were regularly put to use. More than once did I miss as I felt myself leaning over to the left a little bit more than I should have done, resulting in a lot of swearing and a few strange and panicky looks from pedestrians. It’s not an everyday occurrence to see an ambulanceman hanging out of the door and desperately trying to grab hold of something tangible to stop being thrown out at sixty miles an hour or so.

I was working with Jim, another old hand, and we were merrily chatting away. Jim liked to smoke a pipe and it was practically a permanent fixture. Jim was driving and puffing away like an express train while I was in the passenger seat with a roll-up clamped between my teeth; the smoke billowing out of the doors and being carried away on the wind.

Smoking wasn’t prohibited on the vehicles at that time. Standing Orders allowed it under certain circumstances, and like most crews we stretched the rules to the limit.

The radio crackled to life. ‘Message from the Chief Office,’ intoned control to all the vehicles in the county.

Our ears pricked up. Something was amiss. The Chief very rarely had anything to do with crews and if he wanted to say something it normally went down through the ranks for us crews to ignore.

‘Would the crew currently driving past Hemel Hempstead railway station kindly extinguish their cigarettes and close their doors.’

Jim and I looked at each other. We then looked out of the vehicle; we had just driven past the railway station and it took a few seconds to realise that we were the recipient of this message. I looked at the radio and then back at Jim.

‘Bollocks to him,’ said Jim. ‘Anyway, I’m smoking a pipe. He’s on about you Clive!’

Reality bites

Ambulance memoir.

• I have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity and privacy I’ve changed the names of individuals and sometimes places, I may have changed some identifying characteristics, so the people described do not necessarily reflect the actual person or persons involved. Incidents and situations are as I recall.
• Swearing happens. I have used, and will use, some words that some people may find offensive.

early 1980’s

I learnt pretty early in my career that there are jobs that people don’t mind doing and there are jobs that nobody wants to do. Even serious jobs can be interesting in a strange sort of way; something to the get the old grey matter working and something to give you a sense of satisfaction when the job’s done. However, there are some jobs that are serious and give you absolutely no sense of job satisfaction at all; these are the jobs that fill you with despair.

I was on an early turn. My crewmate was on leave and I was working with Chris who was on overtime, which meant that he attended while I was the driver and tea maker for the shift. Spring has sprung and it was a mild sunny morning. The night crew had gone home and we were settling down for a doze before the day crew came in. I’d just slurped the last dregs from my mug and had stubbed out the ciggie when the phone intruded into the peace.

‘Red call,’ called Chris. ‘Difficulty in breathing.’

I jumped up, yawned and went through to the appliance room. I opened the door and took the vehicle out; then Chris came running up and jumped in.

‘More info; this is a baby – could be a cardiac arrest.’

My heart sank.

I switched the blue lights on and we roared out of the station, heading off to the address. Neither of us said a word. I negotiated the rush hour traffic; swerving, braking, hammering my foot down on the accelerator and mentally swearing at all the cars on the road. The silence in the cab was deafening. A few cars refused to get out of the way and I blasted them with the two-tones again and again. Eventually we got off the main drag and into the side streets, I switched the noise off but I kept my foot hard down on the pedal. We lurched around a few corners and then into the street we were aiming for. A lone person was standing outside of the address waving frantically. I hit the brake and we pulled up. Chris jumped out before I had the handbrake on and I followed as soon as I could.

There are exceptions to the ambulance rule of not running to an incident. The walking time is time to think, to weigh up the situation, to gauge how things stand. This was one incident when the rule was cast aside. Chris ran and then I ran too.

Inside the house were the family; the mother, the father and two toddlers who knew something was wrong but couldn’t fathom out just what it was. The man outside was a neighbour.

The weeping mother thrust the baby at Chris who took the little bundle into his arms. The form was like a rag doll, blue of lips with staring unblinking eyes. It was naked apart from its nappy. A dribble of milky vomit came from its mouth. Chris began mouth to mouth resuscitation and compressed the chest with his fingers. I turned and ran out to open the back doors of the ambulance. Hurriedly Chris jumped on and the mother followed. I jumped into the driver’s seat and we sped off.

‘Six week old baby; cardiac arrest. Team standing by. ETA twelve minutes,’ I barked into the radio.

‘Understood,’ came the sympathetic reply.

Chris had laid the baby on the stretcher and was doing CPR. The mother was perched on the edge of the seat and weeping. I could hear the occasional desperate plea; ‘My baby, my baby! Please help my baby!’

Doing CPR in the back of a fast moving vehicle is fraught with danger. Unrestrained you can be thrown around. I called out to Chris from the front. ‘Left-hand bend.’ ‘Overtaking.’ ‘Braking;’ with the occasional, ‘You bastard. Get out the fucking way!’ to keep him informed.

The journey seemed to take forever, but eventually the vehicle fair screeched into the hospital. Word had got out about what we were bringing in and the entrance was cleared of ambulances. I drove straight in, not bothering to reverse up to the entrance. Outside were some of the team, waiting for us. The doors were ripped open and Chris grabbed the baby and jumped out. A doctor ran alongside him as they disappeared into the entrance. A nurse helped the mother out and hurried her in too. I followed and we all went straight to the crash room. The room was filled with doctors and nurses and the urgent task of trying to save the baby’s life continued.

I looked at Chris’ face; it was blank as he stood back from the trolley. I think mine was the same. The battle was in earnest; the tension in the room palpable. Lines were inserted into the baby’s groin, adrenaline administered. An intubation tube was put in and connected to the resuscitator, the defibrillator applied. Everything that could be done was being done. That little scrap was surrounded by experts who battled for its little life. Time was stretched but it didn’t matter. The fight for life was more important.

Chris and I watched from the corner of the room. We were well out of the way but were desperate for a positive outcome; but in our heart of hearts we knew that it wasn’t going to be. Unfortunately we were proved right.

After nearly an hour the consultant uttered the fateful words. ‘I think we’ve done enough. Is there anyone who doesn’t agree?’ This he directed to everyone in the room; the other doctors, the nurses and even Chris and me; the mother had been taken outside for a while. We all nodded our consent; if anyone voiced an objection the attempt would continue, but with great reluctance, the forlorn attempt to save the life of a six week old baby came to an end.

Dejectedly I went outside to clear up the back of the motor while Chris went to get some tea. Some nice person had moved our vehicle; they had turned it around and had reversed it up to the entrance, they’d also cleared up the mess in the back. I didn’t know who, but I was grateful for their kindness. I sat on the step and rolled a ciggie. I lit up, took a long deep drag and then felt my eyes prick. The emotion of the situation flooded through me and for the first time I began to question my career choice. Up until now the job had been a lot of fun, it was interesting and I had met some wonderful people, but when reality bites, it can bite hard! I tried to hold things back but it was no good; so, and not for the last time in my career, I sat on the rear step and cried.