Richard Nye Blog

Tribulations of a newbie author Part 2

Getting nowhere fast at the moment. I felt I needed to get some reviews on Amazon - hopefully positive - to encourage punters to buy, read and review the adventures of Charlie K.  I succumbed to the offers from the 'OnlineBook Club' to review the book and post a positive review on Amazon, in exchange for money of course. I eventually received a review of a full 4*.  The review was laughable, although complimentary, obviously by someone with little understanding of the book, or for that matter, the world outside USA. The review recommended it to readers interested in the history of Africa!! The book never mentions Africa, the action taking place in Papua New Guinea.  The book even includes a map showing PNG just north of Australia!  I am now plagued by emails trying to sell me adverts on their site.   The owner of the OnlineBook Club doubtless makes a nice living from it.

So, onward and upward. I'm now signed up to Instagram and shall continue to struggle with Facebook to increase my number of followers. A gleam in the eye is an Audible version.  I am listening to recommended voice actors before deciding.  Watch this space.

Tribulations of a newbie author

I see others who blog almost daily - this is my first for about six weeks!  The big challenge now is to tell the reading world about my opus.  Social media is apparently the answer.  I'm told there are over six billion users of Facebook and now I'm one of them, trying find some friends to whom I can subtly hint that they would enjoy the adventures of Charlie Kikira.  According to Google Analytics I have visitors to this website from far afield as one each from Kazakstan and South Africa. Anyway, if you haven't read about the said Charlie - please do - I'm desperate for reviews, good or bad!  Family and friends seem to have enjoyed him although I have to wonder if they just don't what to depress me!

28th August 2021

28/08/21 - Today's the day - a published author!  Please form an orderly queue to buy my book .....!

Fame??

As I've said on Twitter and elsewhere - it's not exactly the Sunday Times - but it's a start ......

Ebook

I've moved into the digital age - you now can read my book on your Kindle.  As my daughter aptly remarked, Jeff Bezos will surely appreciate me further subsidising his next trip into space.  Perhaps he and Richard Branson should stay up there.

In Print!

So, at last my book is in print although for the next 4/5 weeks only available online direct from Troubador Publishers and 2 local bookshops.  A Kindle version is 3/4 weeks away. My impatience knows no bounds at the glacial speeds of the publishing and book retailing industry.

What stirred me to write Charlie K

I look back at Papua New Guinea as it was 60 years ago as I saw it as a young man. I try to visualise it now, from what I see in the media. The contrast appears stark. As a member of this capitalist, consumerist society I feel a pang of guilt when I learn of the apparent changes that our western industrial culture has imposed on the mostly peaceful, traditional values that dominated life in those days. The good old days or the bad old days? A citizen of PNG today might correct me and say that today life is happier and healthier. This may be true of the few but of the many? I will welcome such correction. It is too easy for me to express unfounded generalities from my armchair. I hope readers in PNG will forgive my imagination, for that is all it is – just a story.

I am concerned to read of foreign ambitions to exploit the PNG’s natural resources. I trust that today’s leaders will resist these or at least ensure maximum benefit to the population and not to foreign company shareholders.

What comes next?

Charlie had another life after he became a politician. He had major concerns about destruction of PNG’s rich natural environment. We follow his endeavours to protect his country and its people from exploitation. He encounters violent and ruthless opposition to his efforts.