After a lot of work, my second self published novel “Being Hamish” is now available.
Check it out via Amazon for $2.99 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E0NVLI8 or free with Amazon Prime.
It is always a bittersweet moment to release something out into the wide world. Is it “finished”? Could it be better? All those questions have been going through my mind. But I’ve reached the point where I’m happy that the novel gets across the themes that I wanted to get across and the pages should more or less make sense when read in a logical sequence.
This is of course a wide departure from my previous novel “When Got Gets Bored”. This time around I’m actually telling a story. It concerns Hamish Jones, a young boy just trying to fit in and find his place in the world. It isn’t a coming of age story though, it all takes place within a week and he doesn’t learn any new magical powers or skills. What he does learn is a little about himself and I think that might just be enough.
Just like Hamish, I learnt a lot about myself in the writing of this work. Writing for young adults, especially young boys is something I’ve always wanted to do. One of the barriers I see to getting boys to read is simply that a lot of quality targeted books just don’t exist. Whilst I don’t make any grandiose claims towards “quality” it is certainly targeted and I hope somebody from the age group reads and enjoys it. If just one person gets something out of it, then it is all more than worthwhile.
If nothing else, writing a work that I would perhaps never seek out to read has been an interesting experience. It forced me to be disciplined with my approach and to write for others, not just myself. This has previously been a failing of mine that I’ve wanted to address. Hopefully this keeps me on the right track to keep getting better and better with what I do.
For publishing, I decided to go with Amazon and their KDP select plan. This enforces a 90 exclusivity period but in return allows me to do promotions that could have interesting results if done correctly. I can’t say I’m massively confident about how successful it will be compared to the usual route of Smashwords/Itunes/Kobo. But time will tell and it is good to mix things up. I’ll post up more in detail about my plans here when the dust settles.
For now? It is done, it is out and I’m really enjoying the feeling. I’m not sure if I’ll one day return to the characters, or even the same genre. But wherever my writing takes me next, I’ll always have a big place in my heart for Hamish and his friends.
From the back of the ebook:
Hamish Jones had a problem. His problem was that being Hamish just wasn’t getting the job done. For somebody who was considered to be completely average, he was noticing a distinct inability to reach the expected levels of girlfriends and acceptable weekly beatings from the local bullies. Clearly for him, something had to change.
He had tried many schemes and plans to improve his image around the schoolyard, but to date none of them had even seemed close to working. Even a brief period of just being true to himself had ended in especially spectacular failure.
What he needed was a new start to his life. Being together with the girl of his dreams was a solid enough goal to achieve, but that would only be the beginning. From there he could really turn things around and achieve the fame and fortune that his years of persistence meant he truly deserved.
But to do that he needed a plan and planning things out just wasn’t his thing. Hamish knew all he needed was one great idea. One idea that was so brilliant that he was the first person to ever conceive of it and follow it through to the end.
When one day he finally found that idea, it started an adventure that would lead him and his friends to face truths about the world and the wider universe above. It also got him into a lot of trouble. But that was ok; Hamish was more than used to that.
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