How do I think this book compares to the last one? I think it stands up pretty well. I don’t know which one I prefer more; Angela prefers The Stone Man, and whilst I think this one is more exciting, I can’t decide which is the better story. Both books have a strong element of What’s going on that drive them, and whilst I think the mystery element of TPOTD (RAAAAAAAA!!!) is stronger and more complex, I think that this book is a bit more of a romp, at least. By the way, if you were to recommend either to a friend, I would suggest they start with this one. TPOTD takes a little while to get going—though I think it’s the more rewarding book once it does—and for someone reading a new writer, or someone with less patience, they might not stick with it. If they like this book, they’ll like TPOTD.
The release of this second book is very exciting for two reasons; one, obviously I want to know what people make of it, but two, I’m extremely interested to see what happens with its initial sales. You see, once enrolled in the Amazon Kindle Store KDP Select program, you can list your books for free for five days every three months. This is a great feature, and really helped get the book out there … I think. That’s because, over the two times I’ve been able to list it for free, I’ve had about 5,000 to 6,000 downloads in total. Great, you might think, and so did I … but then a friend pointed out quite reliably that, in a nutshell, those are quite likely to be piracy bots, downloading it for repackaging and various other nefarious functions.
Plus, let’s put it another way; say a lot of those were legit downloads. Okay. But as far as I can tell, when these downloads happened, there’s no way for Amazon customers to say ‘Alert me when this guy releases a new book.’ So I don’t know if there’s a load of people out there desperate to read new stuff by me (Hey! It could happen!) that haven’t been in touch with me, so I can’t tell them that this book is out, and so they won’t know about this new book coming out. So after all of this. I really can’t wait to see what actually happens when this book hits the virtual shelves (Prediction: disappointment).
All of which leads me nicely onto something else I wanted to mention. I’m currently unpublished by conventional means, and so I’m currently trying to build my own ‘fanbase’ if you like, and maybe give this whole self-published-online thing a bit of a go, and maybe even see if I can’t eventually even make a living out of this (Hey! It could goddamn HAPPEN!). And, along similar lines, I like to support other people trying to carve their own creative career path. I think it’s only fair if I’m asking people to post reviews—brief or otherwise—to help me out. So as an avid listener of podcasts, I’ve always tried to leave reviews for the ones I like, to help out guys and girls who are trying to build their own following.
And then a funny thing happened; I found out that a lot of the podcasts I listen to are made by people that have already achieved an impressive degree of success. This is because either the ones I like happen to be by British people I know of already (I KNOW these guys have made it ’cos they’re on the BBC) or US podcasts where I don’t know the hosts from Adam. And from the way their podcasts are produced, I’ve always thought they were being made in their bedrooms or something … then over time I’ve found out that they work for Comedy Central, or have their own radio show, or are staff writers for David Letterman. And that doesn’t mean I don’t still support their work—I do—but it got me thinking that anyone that reads my stuff doesn’t really know anything about me.
Hell, I’ve even bought cheap Kindle books thinking that I’m helping out a fellow unknown whose work I might like … and then found out they have five books already in print with major publishing houses. (And then I get into a jealous rage and feed my Kindle to the dog.) So here’s who I am.
I’m thirty-jfahgfasdjdgjhg, currently live in Coventry with my girlfriend and two dogs, I work as a self-employed musician/singer (available for hire, by the way) and am unpublished. I have no media connections, literary or otherwise, and when it comes to getting ahead in the writing game, I am relying entirely on the support of those who like my work when it comes to getting it out there.
(This is the crawling, begging part. Yes, yes, I know. Let’s just get this over with, eh?)
If you’ve enjoyed this book, please do at least one of the following, listed here in order of priority:
1. Put a nice review and star rating on Amazon. A sentence, even! That’ll do!!
2. Mention it in a Facebook status or tweet about it (with a link.)
3. Recommend it to a friend.
(Common response you will get from friends in this situation:
“I don’t have a Kindle.”
Your Response: “Aha, but the Kindle App is free, turning your smartphone or tablet into a perfect eReader.”
Their response: “Oh … well, I only have an Android smar—”
You: “It’s on the Android store too.”
Them: “Ah. Um. Well … these days, I don’t have much time to re—”
You: (Pulling out blunt object) “Buy. The bastard. Book.”)
4. Add me on twitter (@travellingluke) or Facebook (Luke Smitherd Book Stuff)
5. Visit www.lukesmitherd.com and put yourself on the Spam-Free Book Release Newsletter mailing list. You will NEVER be spammed, and this will ONLY be used when there’s news about an upcoming book, so let’s face it, you’re hardly going to be inundated …
Seriously, though; you guys doing any of those is a MASSIVE deal to me. As long as I know people are enjoying my stuff, I’ll keep making it. So if you want to read more, click the button marked ‘5 stars’ on Amazon. (Or four, I suppose. Jeez.) As for the future, this time I am going straight into writing the next one (spare me your cynicism! It’s happening, right??) and it’s going to be one of two novels.
One is a book-length story (working title Everyone Is Your Killer) that was the other story I prepped whilst I should have been prepping this one. It’s about 70% plotted, I have the ending, and I just need to work out a few of the finer details so it’s ready to go. The second is, to my own surprise, an anthology book of short stories. I have a list of about seven story ideas that I don’t think will make long enough books, so I’m thinking ‘Why not follow the lead of one of my writing heroes and release a book of short stories in between every few novels?’ Don’t worry, they’ll all be along the unusual, slightly twisted lines of my previous work. Or maybe you should worry, I don’t know. Although I’m reliably informed that the better option is ‘Be Happy’.
But. I’m putting an actual, no foolin’, chiselled-in-stone deadline on the next one. The date today—before I go back and redraft the whole thing—is the 20th of November 2012. I’m aiming to have this published online by the end of the month. Then it’s Christmas, always a very busy time of year in my line of work, and then we’re obviously into 2013. So … I’m saying to you that the next book will be finished by … hmm … right, no later than the end of June 2013. There. And you know what, don’t be surprised if it’s up a few months earlier than that (of course, the best way to find out release date news would be to be updated as it happens, and you know what to do to find out about that.)
One thing a few people suggested I add—and I feel pretty uncomfortable mentioning it, to be honest, but I’d probably be stupid not to—is a PayPal address for donations, seeing as the book price is so low. Well, on one hand, as far as I’m concerned, the fact that you paid even a tiny amount for this book makes me very happy indeed … but, at the same time, if you WANT to send me a couple of bucks, then who am I to stop you, eh? You can PayPal it to [email protected] if you feel so inclined, and if not, you’re still my favourite reader. You, reading this, right now. You’re the best one.
In the meantime, thank you very much for purchasing, and reading, and I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. If not, I’m sorry it disappointed, but thank you anyway for giving it a chance (just go easy on the review, eh? Or even better … just, y’know, keep it to yourself? Please?!?) See, I think I’m starting to get into a bit of a groove now with the pr
acticalities of the whole writing game, and I think that maybe … maybe … I’m starting to get the hang of it. We’ll see.
Speak to you soon, and remember, enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.
Stay Hungry,
Luke Smitherd
Findern,
Derby,
November 20th, 2012
AND NOW FOR THAT EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT FROM THE BEGINNING OF ONE OF LUKE SMITHERD’S OTHER NOVELS, THE BLACK ROOM, PART ONE: IN THE BLACK ROOM, AVAILABLE NOW ON THE AMAZON KINDLE STORE.
THE BLACK ROOM, PART ONE: IN THE BLACK ROOM
Chapter One: An Unexpected Point Of View, Proof That You Can Never Go Home Again, and The Importance Of The Work/Life Balance
***
Charlie opened his eyes, and was immediately confused. A quick re-assessment of the view, however, confirmed he was right; he suddenly had breasts. Not very noticeable ones, perhaps, but when he’d spent over thirty years without them, even the appearance of a couple of A-cups was a real attention grabber. As he continued to look down, the very next thing to come to his attention was the material covering them; a purple, stretchy cotton fabric, something he had never worn, nor had he ever harboured any plans to do so. As he watched his hands adjust the top, he came to the most alarming realisation of all; those weren’t his hands doing the adjusting. The giveaway wasn’t in the slenderness of the fingers, or the medium-length (if a little ragged) fingernails upon their tips, or even the complete lack of any sensation in them as he watched the digits tug and pull the purple top into position. It was the fact that, whilst they were clearly stuck to the end of arms that were attached to his shoulders (or at least, the painfully skinny shoulders that he could see either side of his head’s peripheral vision; his shoulders were bigger than that, surely?) they were moving entirely of their own accord.
Stunned so much that he almost felt calm, the bizarreness of the situation passing straight out of this is crazy and out the other side into the utterly incomprehensible, Charlie stared dumbly for a several seconds as his mind was caught in a feeble loop, trying and failing as it to get its bearings (What…sorry, what….sorry, WHAT…) Whilst, in that moment, he never really came any closer to coming to terms with the situation, his mind did at least manage to reach the next inevitable conclusion: this wasn’t his body.
The loop got louder as these unthinkable, too-big-for-conscious-process thoughts instantly doubled in size, but got nowhere (WHAT…WHAT…WHAT THE FUCK) and all Charlie was capable of doing was staring at the view, as the image before him changed from a downward angle, swinging upwards to reveal a door that was already being opened onto a view of a narrow hallway. A second doorway was then passed through, and now Charlie found himself in a bathroom. He wanted to look down again, to see the feet that were carrying him forward, to help understand that he wasn’t doing the walking, to aid him in any kind of conscious comprehension of his situation, but realised that he couldn’t affect the line of sight in any way. The viewing angle was completely out of his control. Instinctively, he tried to move the arms, to take control of the limbs that were attached to him like he would have done on any other minute of any other day since his birth, but there was no response, only the illusion of control; the moment when one of the hands reached for the door handle at the same time that he would have, as he reflexively thought of performing the motion simultaenously. What the fuck was going on? What the fuck was going on?
The crazy, unthinkable answer came again, despite his crashed mind, even in a moment of sheer madness—what other conclusion was there to reach?—as he saw the feminine hands reach for a toothbrush on the sink: he was in someone else’s body—a woman’s body—and he was not in control.
Incapable of speech, Charlie watched as the view swung up from the sink to look into the plastic-framed bathroom mirror, and whilst he began to notice and detail his surroundings properly—tiny bathroom, cheap, slightly grubby tiles, and candles, candles everywhere—the main focus of his concern was the face looking back at him.
The eyes he was looking through belonged to a woman of hard-to-place age; she looked to be in her mid to late twenties, but even to Charlie’s goggling, shell shocked point of view, there was clearly darkness both under and inside her green eyes (physically and metaphorically speaking) that made her look older. Her skin was pale, and the tight, bouncy, but frazzled curls of her shoulder length black hair all added to the haunted manner that this woman seemed to possess.
All of which Charlie didn’t give a flying shit about, of course; thoughts were beginning to stir, his mind already rallying and coming back on-line. Whilst Charlie would never describe himself as a practical man, having spent most of his life more concerned with where the next laugh was coming from rather than the next paycheque, he had always been resourceful, capable of taking an objective step back in a tight spot and saying Ok, let’s have a look at this. Whilst he was beyond that now—had he been in his own body, that body would have been hyperventilating—he was aware enough now to want to know, as he’d asked rapidly himself many times already, what was going on.
As the woman continued to brush her teeth, Charlie watched, and thought one thing to himself that instantly made everything else easier:
This is probably a dream. This is fucking mental, so it’s got to be a dream. So there’s nothing to worry about is there?
Whilst he didn’t fully believe that—the view was too real, the surroundings too complete and detailed, the grit and grime too fleshed out and realised—it enabled him to take the necessary mental step back, and put his foot on the brake of his runaway mind a little.
Okay. Think. Think. This can’t actually be happening. It can’t. It’s a lucid dream, that’s what it is. Calm down. Calm down. That means you can decide what happens, right? You’re supposed to be able to control a lucid dream, aren’t you? So let’s make…the wall turn purple. That’ll do. Wall. Turn purple… Now.
The wall remained exactly the same, and the view shifted downward briefly to reveal an emerging spray of water and foaming toothpaste. The woman had just spat.
Right. Maybe it’s not quite one of those dreams, just a very, very realistic one. Don’t panic. You can prove this. Think back. Think back through your day, think what you’d been doing, and you’ll remember going to bed. Think, what were you last doing?
He’d met the boys, gone for a drink that he’d been excited about turning into many, the first night out for a little while. Jack had been over from London too, which was both a good excuse and good news for the quality of the night. They had been on a heavy pub crawl and somebody had said something about going back to their place…Neil. That guy Neil had said it. And they’d gone to Neil’s, and then…
Nothing. Nothing from there. And now he was here. As he felt hysteria start to rise again—escalating from the panic he already felt—Charlie frantically tried to put a lid on it before it could get badly out of control.
You passed out. You had some more and you passed out. That’s why you can’t remember what happened at Dan’s, and this is the resultant booze-induced crazy dream. So wake up. Wake your ass up. Slap yourself in the face and wake the fuck up.
Charlie did so, his hand slamming into the side of his head with the force of fear behind it, and as the ringing sting rocked him he became aware that he suddenly had a physical presence of his own. If he had a hand to swing and a head to hit, then he had a body. Where the hell had that come from?
There’d been nothing before, no response from anything when he’d tried to move the woman’s arms earlier. He’d been a disembodied mind, a ghost inside this woman’s head, but now when he looked down he saw his own torso, naked and standing in a space consisting of nothing but blackness. Looking around himself to confirm it, seeing the darkness stretching away behind him and to his left and right, and now having a body to respond to his emotion, Charlie collapsed onto an unseen floor and lay gasping and whooping in lungfuls of non-existent air, his body trembling.
His wide, terri
fied eyes stared straight ahead, the view that had previously seemed to be going directly into his own eyes now appearing suspended in the air, a vast image the size of a cinema screen with edges that faded away into the inky black space around him. Its glow was ethereal, like nothing he’d ever seen before. How had he thought that had been his own-eye view? It had clearly been there all along, hanging there in the darkness. Had just been standing too close? Had something changed? Either way, there was no mistake now; it was just him, the enormous screen showing the woman’s point of view, and the black room in which he lay.
Charlie pulled his knees up into a ball and could do nothing but watch as he lay there whimpering. That slap had hurt, and badly, and instead of waking him it had added a whole new dimension to the situation. He was terrified, in mental and physical shock, and for now at least, everything was beyond him. The words he feebly tried to repeat to himself fell on deaf ears—It’s a dream it’s a dream it’s a dream—and so he lay there for a while, doing nothing but watch and tremble as the woman fed her cat, looked at her watch and moved to sit in front of her TV, flicked through channels, checked her phone for texts, thumbed through her Facebook feed. As this time passed, and Charlie watched, incapable of anything else for the time being, he came back to himself a little more. He noticed that, whilst he was naked, he wasn’t cold. He wasn’t warm either, however; in fact, the concept of either sensation seemed hard to comprehend, like trying to understand what Red sounded like. Thoughts crept in again.
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