My psychological thriller 'SANDMAN' is now an eBook

I published my psychological thriller SANDMAN as an eBook a couple of days ago on Smashwords.com and it already appears on the Sony EBook Downloads list, which makes me impressed with Smashwords. Yesterday I published it as an Amazon Kindle as well (US | UK). It was published in paperback in August 2010. The book is set in and around Christchurch, Bournemouth, Mudeford Sandbank and Hengistbury Head in Dorset, England.

For the full list of options of where you can buy SANDMAN, whether paperback or eBook, please visit this page on my author website. This page also includes many reviews. Bestselling author Sophie King gave it this cover endorsement: 'A gripping psychological read with characters that reach out and grab you. A real page-turner.'

If you buy it I hope you really enjoy it. Smashwords offers a 3-chapter free preview, and buying the eBook only costs you the price of a cup of coffee. If you enjoy it, I'd be really grateful for a reader review - especially on Smashwords.com. Many thanks!

Watch this stunning time-lapse of north American cities waking up

Between late 2010 and early 2011, photographer Dominic Boudreault visited Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Manhattan, and Chicago, shooting gorgeous images of the cityscapes at night using a Canon 5D Mark II. The images were then combined into this beautiful time-lapse video showing the hustle and bustle of highways, sidewalks, streets, and rivers. You really must not miss viewing this!
http://www.petapixel.com/2011/05/05/gorgeous-time-lapse-of-north-american-cities-at-night/

Did I see a UFO over golf course?

Okay, so you're skeptical about UFOs - as we all should be. But I shall never forget the time I took my dog for an evening walk - in total darkness - and saw this strange, bright light beyond a wood and over a golf course for about a minute. I saw it make sudden, very fast, and acute changes of direction several times (eg 30 degrees) before shooting off. It was obviously low, quite near, and not a star or satellite because of its erratic movements. It was all too fast for a helicopter, and there was no sound to be heard. I shall never forget it. What do you make of that?

Adding description while avoiding authorial intrusion

When writing fiction it it best to avoid diving straight into description, since this is total 'authorial intrusion'; in other words, the author's voice shouts out to interrupt the 'suspension of disbelief' you have lulled your reader into while caring about your characters. Looking at a scene through your character's eyes and observations is one way to achieve this. The following is an example taking from the novel I am presently writing:

I suddenly found myself observing her as a stranger might in order to gauge what Julia perceived. I was very ware of the shrillness to her voice and, although her English was excellent, I realised how Julia might notice her speech was still modulated by a German staccato; each word was sharply enunciated. I was also aware of an aroma of stewed apples. She’d always had a thing about apples. I’d practically lived on them as a kid. The house always smelled of apples.

Marchlands - and not cheating the reader/viewer

It is difficult enough for the reader/viewer to avoid confusion when a story flips to and from different time periods, but Marchlands (UK TV) pushed this further with three. The degree to which they interlocked was high and, on the whole, I think it was well done. The concluding episode last week drew in the different strands very well, but it did leave me with one big problem: a cheat. I hate cheats. My definition of a cheat is a scene within a book or drama that show us something that did not actually occur. Marchlands showed us more than one that Alice's grandfather was just innocently walking with her when she ran off, later to be drowned. The concluding episode showed us a completely different scenario, proving the earlier scene never happened (except in his lying head). Implication to throw people off the scent is fair enough in thrillers, but not cheats like this. Such a pity. Also, in the conclusion, I was pretty much unconvinced as to why Alice ended up in the water, let alone drowning. I expected more than an accident.

So far as writers are concerned, I believe it is fair play to misdirect readers - to make them think something misleading by implication (much as a conjuror does) - but a very unfair to describe something (even thoughts) that actually never happened. That is a cheat. I seem to remember Agatha Christie did it in the first book I ever read of hers and that rather put me off her for life, but novelists were still setting the ground rules then). I believe an author has a contract with a reader not to cheat - akin to lying - and I think that should be strictly opbserved. So, Marchlands gets my thumbs down for that cheat - although it kept me gripped. Such a pity after investing all that time.

Why I now spend time on Twitter

Before I began to use Twitter I imagined it would be a total waste of time. Indeed, if you read comments that truly answer the question 'What is happening?' as it suggests, it will be. Who wants to know if career-Mum is giving junior his toast? But many people just use it as a way of expressing wisdom, informing people about useful and interesting things, and so on. It is also a userful marketing platform. Personally I find its 140 character limit means you can make a worthwhile post with minimal interruption to your normal work. This constraint should work well for authors and it might even be a useful tool to help break writer's block: for which, just writing, is the best cure. Indeed, who is better suited than writers to be able to construct something interesting given these stringent constraints? It helps you to become concise.

When writing, I can get to a scene ending and then make a post. It is light relief. Why bother? Because it potentially brings you loads of followers and, as a writer, what more could you ask? In just under 2 months I have over 1,900 followers. I put in around 90 minutes a day. Okay, they don't all translate into sales but, given time, some may buy. Even if they don't, it is a good way for a writer to raise his/her profile. It is much more time consuming finding something worthwhile to post in a blog, which is why I now Twitter much more than I blog. Please check me out on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/authorkingsley

Don't just use Twitter as a sales tool, though. Okay, you can mention your book, or whatever you have to sell, but you need to regularly post content that is interesting in its own right as well or you will soon turn off potential followers. My best advice? Target/follow users in your niche. If you don't follow others they won't follow you. Good luck!

Working to put back the ‘Great’ in Britain

I am old enough to remember my home town as it used to be when I lived in an avenue of beautiful cherry trees flowering in the spring (they were replaced to save sweeping up the blossom), when litter was the exception not the rule (people had a pride in their neighbourhood and town), and when service in shops was the rule not the exception (or you shopped elsewhere). What happened to those old values and expectations? I seem to recall that when computers first arrived they were heralded as the way processes could be automated so people could work less hard and have more leisure time. What happened? We became slaves to the computer in order to produce more for greedy companies. Commerce ruled.


Years ago I predicted the financial crisis that struck us all, but I am not claiming to have been a visionary, which is the really sad thing. Most people I talked to back then to seemed to be aware of the madness in financial companies offering easy credit no matter what your circumstances. Barely a day went passed without one or more leaflets dropping through the door begging us to take out further credit. Mortgages were easily approved with people exaggerating their earnings without any proper checks. People were given money despite the fact it was clear huge numbers did not have the means to ever pay it back. This was the build-up of a terrific bubble that had to burst when people could not afford what that bought. It did not take a genius to see this was happening, yet governments on both sides of the pond claim they didn’t see it coming, nor did the financial institutions. What? Really? How hopeless or irresponsible were they? Governments, of course, did not want to stop the party when everyone was happy. I think it suited them to turn a blind eye, make hay while the sun-shined, feather their nests - please add all the other applicable clichés.

Once a bank manager was respected as the person to whom you needed to prove financial viability and management expertise before you were given a loan. The bank worked hard to see if it could trust you. What now? We must work hard to see if we can trust a bank. We must consider how safe our money will be in any financial institution. We must weight up whether money in a financial institution is a better or safer investment than the proverbial mattress. What has the world come to when ordinary people are expected to make financial decisions trickier than banks themselves were expected to make?

Now, talking mainly of the UK, although I feel sure a lot may apply to the US, we are in a recession (forget technical definitions, trust the gut-feeling), and we need to reconsider what made us great in the ‘good old days’. A country can only be great, and viable, if it actually produces something useful: by which I mean PRODUCTS. I do not mean paperwork. This country built up arrays of civil servants with gold-plated pensions to push papers. Workable systems were made subject to change even though they worked perfectly well, and that change inevitable involved more paperwork. Take education, where teachers now spend so much time doing an administrative task, where paperwork is given priority over actually teaching. When I went to school teachers just taught. We learned. A great system. It worked! When we went to hospitals, the National Health Service used that old-fashioned method of local delegation, where ward sisters made sure things worked smoothly, and it did not take an army of civil servants in ivory towers to decide who was worthy of an operation and when, just a fair waiting list. Now, it seems, Mr. Cameron believes doctors can sort all that out instead, but, you know what, doctors should be spending their time making patients get well, not being involved in hospital adminstration. Why would a GP have better knowledge of what is needed at a local hospital than the staff there? So both governments, Labour and Coalition, have this one wrong. It was wrong, anyway, to expect the NHS to work like a profitable company. The profit in the NHS should be a fitter population.

Please, Mr. Prime Minister, look back at the models of yesteryear: the ones that worked. Delegation within a working system, not the micro-management and administrative nightmares concocted by Mr. Brown, nor Mr. Cameron’s empowered people keeping our country going for free because the tank is on empty. Yes, the present prime minister has a tremendous problem to sort out, and yes, it will be painful for everyone. We can only accept that – and the fact he inherited the problem. Tough measures are needed. It should, of course, be far more painful for top bankers, since it was their mismanagement that led us all into this problem. Afraid they will go abroad if their bonuses are cut? Maybe there would be newcomers filling their shoes who were prepared to be rewarded fairly for a fair day’s work – so what loss is that?

And on the subject of making cuts and savings, I would ask why decommissioned and fully functional military equipment could not just be moth-balled rather than cut up for scrap. It might come in useful one day in this troubled world.

It is inevitable people will be made unemployed in a recession, since paper-pushing people who are not really needed within a more efficient system really do need to get into more practical employment. What they need is different jobs, not the dole. They are not the kind of people used to, or wanting that. So let’s get back to what makes a country great: PRODUCTS. China and India are in the early phase where they see that these make wealth and happiness, although, of course, they have not got to the QUALITY phase yet; lots of what they make is rubbish. Germany realises quality and trustworthy products are the way to profitability. Why not us? We once got to the quality phase on both sides of the pond but now, because we are out-priced, we are suffering the rubbish phase with poor quality goods replacing those we knew and loved. Know what? There is still a marked to quality goods, and there is still an export market for them – and we know how to produce quality better than up-and-coming countries. It might be ironic if we supply high-quality goods to the countries feeding us low-quality goods for a while, but at least that would be TRADE: leading to us upping out standards again, in due course. Quality costs a little more, but it is what people really want, and many will pay extra for that, especially abroad. Some UK manufacturers who moved production to China, India, etc, to save on labour costs, are learning this to their cost how this affects quality and are bringing manufacture back to Europe and the home country where they can control it.

Yes, we do need to tighten our belts, we must not allow or be part of strikes asking for more money, we must be pleased we actually have jobs when we look upon those who do not. But what is the answer to the larger problem? Apart from banks helping financing sound and proven companies who are actually in the position to expand, and new companies with good business models and plans, I suggest it lies in investment within our infrastructure. We are still expecting Victorian sewers to function today when that was not the design aim. We expect the wires laid in the days of shared-line telephones to still deliver broadband services in those areas of the UK not yet upgraded (like mine). We loose precious water through leaky Victorian water pipes. We risk serious explosion through leaks from aging gas pipes. We plug holes in the roads instead of making them good again. Now we see a growing number people being paid for being unemployed – either through lost jobs or because they have yet to get their first job. True, the cost of paying their unemployment might be less than the waste of paying them to needlessly push papers, but how much better if they contributed to either producing products for export, or in restoring the aging infrastructure of our country. The UK government should invest in the better future they hope and pray for by using this available labour force to bring our infrastructure up-to-date. Then people are paid to contribute towards the better future to which we aspire. This is not just spending our way out of recession, as the previous government used to talk, but investing in our way out: there is a pay-off. That way they could work to make this country great again and it will be sounder for eventual growth and prosperity.

The modern world teaches everyone to expect everything NOW. We must learn again that you need to work for the luxuries of life – and WAIT a little. You can actually be happy with less. Less really is more. Work diligently now, and Mr. Cameron, please put people into work which will improve our country not just pay people to stay at home.

Know what? A country that pulls itself up by its bootstraps might also be a country that has some pride again. A country with less crime because there is more work and more money earned instead of illegally gained. Pride to keep its streets clean, its youngsters in order: less necessary with places to go and things to do. Pride in being known for quality goods and concern for our neighbours. Pride in being British again and feeling the word ‘great’ still applies to ‘Great Britain’.

(Please link to this article if you agree.)

Tweeting more than Blogging

I have to admit that I am tweeting more than I am blogging now. Since my New Year Resolution to Tweet, I have found it less time-consuming. With its 140-character limit, it forces you to be concise, and creating a Tweet is far less arduous. Follow me on Twitter.

Tiny URLs - great for a Tweet

You are all aware of how cumbersome some URLs can be. Well, since the advent of Twitter, with its 140 character limit to tweets, the bit.ly URL shortener can be a boon. The results look meaningless, but sometimes it can be useful: especially in Tweets. Here is an example. The following is a link to the page about my novel called SANDMAN: http://www.iankingsley.com/books/sandman/ and its shortened version is http://bit.ly/goVmA8. Take a much longer URL like the following link to my Amazon.co.uk page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sandman-Ian-Kingsley/dp/1907756752/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1 and the tiny version is only http://amzn.to/fDQZVA.
OK, they're not the easiest things to type, and they are case-sensitive, but they have their uses.

My New Year's Resolution: to Twitter!

Firstly, a very Happy New Year to everyone. An important New Year's Resolution for me is to take the time to Twitter. Click here to find me on Twitter. I shall post more regularly there than in this blog - because it it so much quicker!