The new stuff

I once knew a guy called Matt White. Really. I never got around to asking if his parents were malicious enough to name his brother Gloss, his sister Satin and the dog Non-Drip. But that’s neither here nor there.

I’ve now finished the internal editing for Margo Jackson’s book ‘The Mark’. It was, as I said before, a quick edit. No changes to the story, it’s sharp and cleverly done. Like the film ‘The Sixth Sense’, you need to read it twice because the clues were all there, you just didn’t see them first time round.

Just trivial little changes to typos (very few) and format. It’ll be about 220 pages or so and will sell in paperback and eBook for about the same as Mark Ellott’s ‘Ransom’. All I have to do now is get the covers ready, and that won’t take too long. It could be available as soon as next week.

Seven months since the first book, ‘The Underdog Anthology’, and Leg Iron Books now has a catalogue of seven books. I’m averaging one a month. Going places. Heading for the big time. There are still my own books, two of which (Jessica’s Trap and Samuel’s Girl) are out of contract with their previous publisher. They’ll need new covers, the old covers belong to the cover artist and I can’t pay to keep them, but otherwise they’ll be republished under Leg Iron Books.

I can also assign the other stuff to Leg Iron Books, it’s not as easy as it sounds but it can be done. I have copyright on the covers of all my self-published ones so nothing will change apart from them coming under the banner of the rook.

The catalogue is going to expand quickly. I have a short story collection from Mark Ellott and another novel from Margo Jackson in the ‘to-do’ list and more from Dirk Vleugels too. There will be a Halloween Underdog Anthology for certain and a Christmas one this year. I’ll make sure of that.

Yes, there is a possibility of science work. I have potential to produce spores for blue-cheese making using knowledge I have from both university level microbiology and ground level food shop work, and similarly the possibility of producing a skin infection cure that will blast the hell out of the current emollients. It depends if they can believe I can really do it. I might do it anyway, neither of them are hard and neither would cost me much to do independently.

That will not stop the publication business. Leg Iron Books is here to stay. I’m 57 years old. A drone would be looking to retire. I’m starting a new business venture while keeping the other stuff going too. Okay, I have to eventually die of something but it won’t be boredom.

I don’t care about fame. I’m not a Kardashian. I would like, one day, to not have to care about money and how I pay the next bill, but I know I am not alone in that wish. There are so very many of us.

I intend to do something about it. I intend to use what I know how to be. I’m a boffin, a backroom boy, not a front man. I don’t know how to be famous so I’ll make you famous instead and let you take the glory. We’ll split the money. You get half, for now. I’ll reduce my cut when it gets too big, I don’t want the tax issues and I don’t need to be rich.

I have been amazed at the quality of writing I have seen and I am surprised no publisher beat me to it. Also quite pleased. A big name might offer to take over a title one day and if the author is okay with it, we should both profit. That’s all good. Leg Iron Books is not the lead singer in this band.

I’m the bassman.