Borders Pulls Out All the Stops!

Today my parents happened to call into the Teesside retail park branch of Borders – the way you do, when you happen to be the parents of an extremely talented author   (And, before you ask, no, they haven’t any other offspring!) You can imagine their delight when they discovered that If I Never already has its own very prominent and quite flash display.

My father, ever prepared for such circumstances, whipped out his camera and took a few photos.

The If I Never book display.

Sandra, my mother (left) and and Teresa, the Sales and HR Supervisor (right), lending my gritty novel a touch of elegance.

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

If I Never — Playing with the Big Boys.

Today I found myself (okay, not me personally — I was sat at home, taking a breather and reading Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum) — sandwiched between Dan Brown and Nick Hornby in Mcloughlin’s bookshop in County Mayo. My source informs me that it’s actually doing very well for a ‘noob’, thanks, I hasten to add to the excellent efforts of the chaps at Mcloughlin’s themselves, who have been simply wonderful — pushing the book at every opportunity. Cheers, guys!

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

What You Can Do.

Once a novel has been launched — with all the excitement of people actually receiving their copies and starting to talk about it — there’s a period (which I’m now beginning to enter) when the author starts to wonder if the initial momentum can be maintained and built upon.

I still have a few things ahead of me. More interviews, promised reviews and so on and so forth. But I’m constantly looking for opportunities to discuss If I Never and promote it.

With this in mind, I thought I’d use this post to suggest a few ways that you, my readers, can help — always assuming you want to.

So, if you’ve already read If I Never and enjoyed it, or if you are just interested in what I’m doing and would like to learn more, here are a few suggestions:

• Are you a blogger? I’m always interested in discussing my work and the part it plays in my life. If you’d like to interview me, I’d happily consider it — no blog too small! In this game, it’s the enthusiastic one or two the can make a significant difference.
• Do you run a small press publication? Would you be interested in reviewing? Contact me and I may be able to arrange a review copy. Failing that, once again, I’ll gladly consider taking part in an interview.
• Have you finished reading If I Never? If so, not review it on the Amazon, The Book Depository and Waterstones websites? If you feel comfortable doing this, please bear in mind these few reviewing tips: 1) Pay particular attention to spelling and punctuation. A review that reads “dis buck woz ded gud” probably isn’t going to do the book a lot of good 2) You’re addressing potential readers, not the author. “Oh, you are simply amazing, Gary,” isn’t appropriate. Send comments like that here 3) Try not to give anything away; if you do, however, include a spoiler alert at the beginning of the review.
• Do you write for a college magazine, the parish magazine or any other small, local publication? A free paper? Once again, I love discussing my work and sharing my thoughts on writing, literature and, well, pretty much anything.
• Are you a member of book group? If so, drop me a line here and I’ll do my best to talk my publisher into giving a discount on orders over a certain number of books.
• If you use the Good Reads website or similar, why not discuss my novel there?
• If none of these things apply or appeal to you, but you still want to help, don’t worry — you still can! Word-of-mouth is incredibly important. Books like If I Never (i.e. books without the huge marketing budget of Dan Brown) rise or fall on people telling their friends about it. So, if you’ve read it and enjoyed it, talk about it.

And, finally — thank you for taking the time and interest. Your help and support is, as ever, greatly appreciated.

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2009 Gary William Murning

Final Competition Questions.

Today I’m going to revisit the earlier questions in my If I Never competition and give you the final two questions. Once you have your answers email them to me by clicking here and, once I’ve sorted them, I’ll send those with the correct answers over to my publisher who will then randomly draw the winner out of a hat — or something suitably hat-like. Competition closing date is Friday the 11th of September. Good luck!

1) Which (living and working) American author frequently uses the following motifs in many of his novels: prostitutes, bears and absent parents?

2) Which Joseph Heller novel features the travails of the first-ever Jewish Secretary of State?

3) Which 1962 novel, set in an asylum, explores the possibilities and effects of subtly coercive discipline and the emasculation of men in society?

4) “I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning I travelled down there from Westchester to scope out the terrain.” The opening sentence of which 2005 postmodernist novel?

5) A black, chemical cloud and a professor in Hitler’s Studies. Which National Book Award (US) winning novel and author?

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2009 Gary William Murning

Today’s Reader Photograph.

Today I have the pleasure of introducing Katie McCullough (sans quiff, alas)  with her copy or If I Never –  the novel by that Gary William Murning bloke.

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2009 Gary William Murning except for photograph.

Ask the Author (Part Two.)

No audio today, I’m afraid. I’m all little on the tired side after a busy week and my voice is a little more croaky than usual. My voice recognition software can understand me — just — but I’m not about to take any chances when it comes to you understanding me, especially with such fantastic questions!

So, continuing where I left off in the previous podcast… the next questions comes from Stephie:

Hi Gary, what keeps you focused and confident about your writing? How does it stay fresh in your mind if you are constantly rereading and checking your work?

I suppose I have a very tried and tested way of working, now. It’s something I’ve been doing for a very long time and I’ve developed a pattern and attitude to my writing that feels very natural — so natural, in fact, that I actually feel very strange when I’m not writing.

Focus and confidence is something that comes with time. I can still very easily be distracted but it is much easier for me to pick up where I left off, these days. Planning thoroughly beforehand helps, of course. I’m much more confident when I have a solid outline to work from.

As for keeping it fresh — well, I try not to reread and check too much whilst I’m actually writing the novel. I write a thousand words, read through and make possibly minor changes, read through the week’s work over the weekend and then tend not to look at it again until I around the halfway mark when I quite often do a thorough readthrough (though not a major edit at this stage.) I never do any major anything until the first draft is complete — and I always allow enough room in the outline for improvisation and unexpected developments.

And that’s it for today. Thanks to Stephie for her questions and watch out for more of my replies a very shortly.

The most important factor in keeping it fresh, I’d have to say, though, is love of character. If the characters interest and fascinate me, that’s half the battle. If I like hanging around with them, the freshness comes naturally.

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2009 Gary William Murning

In the Gloom Cupboard and Writers’ Forum.

Today, I had the good fortune to be featured in both Gloom Cupboard — an excellent online literary magazine — and the wonderful Writers Forum magazine.

To read my interview in the Gloom Cupboard (one of the most enjoyable I’ve so far done, I have to say), please click here.

I will, hopefully, have a scan of the Writers Forum magazine piece very shortly. When I do, I’ll post it here.

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2009 Gary William Murning

Review and Reader Photographs.

Today I took an afternoon away from the computer, telephone etc and escaped to the country. A pleasant if tenebrous afternoon — with low, dark clouds, rain and, you know, atmosphere. Felt myself winding down with every second. Just what the doctor ordered. So to speak.

Returning home, the afternoon was rounded off quite perfectly with news that the first review of If I Never was in. You can read the review by clicking here.

Also, it seems that many of you are now receiving your copies of If I Never. And, as promised, I plan on posting a few photographs of readers/friends with their copies. If you want to be included, just send me a photo or a link.

To get the ball rolling, here’s Franny with her copy of If I Never. They look like they were meant for each other, don’t you think?

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2009 Gary William Murning except for photograph.

Next Question and Roundup.

Since many of you were away or busy over the Bank Holiday weekend in England, I thought I’d just take a few minutes to reprise “the events” of the past few days — in bullet points, to prevent me from waffling on too much!

• Saturday. If I Never launched and promptly sold out on Amazon.co.uk.
• Many people turned up on Twitter, letting me know where they were getting their books from, who had had theirs dispatched and who, even, had already received theirs!
• As Amazon was sold out, started directing people over to Book Depository. Said site promptly crashed (not sure if we were actually responsible, but I claimed it anyway!)
• Posted the first question in the If I Never competition.
• Sunday. Knackered after the busy day before, I nevertheless posted my first “Ask the Author” podcast.
• Monday. Posted the second question in the If I Never competition. An interview with me was also featured on the Fuel Your Writing website.

Today has been fairly quiet. I finished yet another interview (with some really fascinating questions you won’t want to miss… trust me!) this morning and sent out more promotional material.

So it only remains to post the third question in the If I Never competition. This one is a little easier. Especially if you know the answer

Which 1962 novel, set in an asylum, explores the possibilities and effects of subtly coercive discipline and the emasculation of men in society?

(Incidentally — if you’re having problems with the questions, for heaven’s sake Google them. Like your teacher used to tell you way, way back, if you don’t know the answer, look it up! )

A sample chapter of If I Never can be read here.

To buy your copy of If I Never, please click here.

© 2009 Gary William Murning