LBF 15 Day 3

Another great day at LBF15 and sadly the last one.

Intrigued by the "What agents and publishers are looking for" discussion.

The strong advice was identify your genre and establish your "competing authors" in your genre. I had to reflect that few people write aviation thrillers any more. Bring back "Biggles"!

Is that a Catch 22?

There may be a book title in that.........

Well worth visiting and I'll be marking the dates for next year on my calendar.

LBF 15 Day 2

I spent another great day at The London Book Fair and, as always, picked up so many tips from experts within the industry.

Probably the "take away" was that celebrity sells. The turn out for Conchita Wurst and the final appluase reinforced the message. Sadly that's not a tool in my arsenal. I had to smile at the Chair person who said "How do you follow Conchita?" I bet he won't get to use that line very often.

The importance of book covers, always a source of pride, frustration, discussion and every other emotion known to human kind, re-emerged as a vital tool of the trade. Examples of good and bad covers were discussed and I still failed to get beyond the thought that it's a personal taste. The accolades for one particular cover will remain a mystery for me.

The section on social media was enlightening. As always, new terms and applications emerged from cyberspace, so eloquently described by yound enthusiastic speakers. One successful author admitted that she still only has a smattering of visitors to her blog so I felt reassured and thankful for those of you who take the time to read.

The highlight of Day 3 has already occurred before I step through the doors of Olympia. I logged on to a notice from a FB friend that "Fighters Over The Falklands", my 2nd book, has been reviewed on The Royal Air Force Association's online magazine, Air Mail. Despite all the dire warnings this week about how not to get too depressed when reviews are less than positive, I was relieved and pleased to see a positive write up. If you'd like to read it scroll down to page 39.

http://www.rafashop.com/site/images/AM_68-2-Webversion.pdf

Book reviews are a life blood and it's all the more special given that it's an RAF charity.

LBF 15 Day 1

Some outstanding presentations yesterday at LBF15. Plenty to see but author HQ was my main venue. Sponsored again by Amazon Kindle, it offered a wide variety of topics pertinent to traditional and self publishing alike.

The stand out was probably the chat on book cover design followed closely by a very enthusisatic pitch on marketing and PR. Great to hear from some really successful self publishers selling thousands of books.

More of the same today with an array of interesting topics and trade stalls.

http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk/

London Book Fair 2015

The big week for the literary scene in UK as the London Book Fair 2015 begins at Olympia.

I'm not sure Conchita Wurst's talk on her autobiography is the highest priority on my agenda.

Looking forward to the events at Author HQ

My First Novel

My first book was, actually, “Defector” which became my first novel and I began writing it when I was still flying, although by then I had transferred to the Tornado F3. My motivation was to take the reader into the cockpit to try to convey the atmosphere and experiences in words. An impossible task but one which few ex aircrew try to achieve. There are many factual aviation stories by former aircrew, often pilots, but there is a total lack of a latter-day “Biggles” character. I grew up on his exploits so why should it be too different today? Enthusiasts still flock to airshows and you will see the Spotter community taking photographs at every airfield in the country.

Set at the RAF Germany fighter base at Wildenrath in West Germany and more specifically on “Delta Dispersal” where I served on my second operational squadron, the book follows the fortunes of a Phantom crew who are pitched into the midst of a Cold War incident when a Soviet test pilot decides to defect to the West bringing the latest Su-27 “Flanker” fighter along with him. It would be remiss of me to write about the Cold War without including elements of the shady intelligence community which strive to manipulate events.

In the first chapter I wrote a description of a training sortie over the North German Plain which was typical of the many sorties I had flown. The sights and sounds returned in my mind’s eye as I bashed the keys. The plot and characters subsequently developed from a core of these flying sequences. It took two years to complete the book and with a new manuscript in hand I tried to find an agent or a publisher. After the usual raft of rejections the book simply sat on my hard drive for many years.

With two of my factual books already traditionally published I, eventually, decided to dip a toe in the water and try self-publishing. I dusted off the manuscript which had been languishing on my computer for years and gave it another harsh edit. Armed with a style guide downloaded from the internet I prepared the document for release, and put together a cover. It was a nervous time as I sent the draft for review but quickly received confirmation that it met the technical specification for Kindle. It was a struggle to find an appropriate category which highlighted to me the lack of aviation fiction on the market. Fiction/War/Military is so vague so I opted for the smaller Aviation History category where it joined my first book “Phantom In Focus” for company. Although the category was populated by principally factual works, I felt my novel had enough factual content that  a serious reader would still gain some factual satisfaction having read it. With trepidation I hit publish. The initial reviews were heartening and it sold quite well for a while. After I considered buying editorial support and admitted it openly, I received a couple of indifferent reviews which criticised a number of errors in editing style. Whether this was just coincidence or more sinister might grace the pages of a novel about the publishing world. Determined to eradicate the source of criticism I published an update fixing the minor problems and subsequent reviews were again positive. It proved to me that there are plenty of readers out there who love aeroplanes.

With the book out on Kindle and selling modestly but steadily I released it on other self publishing platforms, Lulu and Smashwords. Sales there were disappointing so I withdrew it to concentrate on Amazon Kindle Select. With the release of my subsequent novels “Defector” has hung in with sales every day.

The book was also the vehicle to try a few other projects. Createspace offers self publishers an outlet for releasing a title in paperback on a print-on-demand basis. Although the formatting requirements are more stringent, the process is similar so I released the book in paperback. Audiobooks are also a growing sector of the publishing market. The challenge of producing an audiobook version is a whole blog discussion in its own right.

For me “Defector” raises issues which I’m sure many authors face. My inspiration was probably Dale Brown with his stories set in the cockpit of a B52 bomber and his vivid descriptions in “Flight of the Old Dog” made the story stand out from the crowd. “Defector” is based on fact and contains a level of detail which many agents or publishers might want to “dumb down” for the commercial market. To do so loses the essence of life in the cockpit. I was first attracted to Tom Clancy because the story was technically accurate. A critic said of Andy McNab that the reason his fiction is so compelling is because it is based in the real world. For that reason, although “Defector” scratched the itch and allowed me to take the reader into the cockpit, my subsequent novels are still full of detail in the flying sequences.

Was self publishing the right move? I would say yes even though the publishing industry is still dismissive of self-published works. I will raise the topic of self marketing later but with limited exposure it is still possible to attract readers starved of aviation tales.

Check out the description of the book on my website. “Defector” is published by DeeGee Media and available on Kindle and in paperback.

Smashwords Interview

My interview on Smashwords:

The Phantom

I was fortunate recently to be reacquainted with two old friends in the form of the cockpit section of XV490, a McDonnell Douglas F4 Phantom FGR2 and the Phantom Mission Simulator both of which are now on display at Newark Air Museum.

XV490 was first delivered into service with No. 54 Squadron Squadron at RAF Coningsby in the ground attack role. I first flew the aircraft on my first unit, No. 56 Squadron at RAF Wattisham where it had transferred to the air defence role and again on 92 Squadron at RAF Wildenrath in Germany. It continued to follow me through my career to RAF Coningsby where it served again on No. 228 Operational Conversion Unit. The aircraft gave sterling service flying nearly 5000 hours before it was retired in 1992. 

Although it was consigned to the scrap yard, a victim of Cold War defence cuts, the forward section was rescued and has been on display at Newark Air Museum for a number of years. It was a regular to the Waddington Air Show where the owner Mike Davey opens the cockpit to visitor. Back at Newark it will again be open at the annual Cockpitfest at Newark in June 2015 when I will be able to introduce enthusiasts once again to my old “Office”.

The Phantom Mission Simulator was originally located at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire. One of two, it was known as “M1” and came into service shortly after the Phantom arrived in 1968. It is a full scale replica of the real cockpit and was used to train crews in operational scenarios but, more importantly, in emergency procedures. From the first days of training as crews converted onto the aircraft they were schooled in how to respond to failures of the aircraft systems and how to recover the aircraft safely to Terra Firma. The simulator was fitted with a motion system and the whole cockpit section moved on a tilting pedestal driven by hydraulic rams. Originally equipped with an analogue visual system the crews saw a representation of a small area around RAF Coningsby projected onto a screen in front of the cockpit. In those days a small camera flew over a modelled landscape, a far cry from modern digital projections. A section of the landscape survives. The simulator was moved to RAF Wattisham in Suffolk in 1990 where it ended its operational service before being acquired by Newark Air Museum in 1992.

 

If you would like to hear more about either my old aircraft the Phantom, the simulator, my career flying the beast or my books, two interviews by “Aircrew Interview” are posted on You Tube:

The Phantom

The Phantom Mission Simulator