CARVED - an ebook is born.

Things are now at a crucial phase of my writing 'career', I say career but its more of toe dipping experiment to see how my wares will be received. My book "CARVED" is complete and has been edited by Joe Konraths editor Diana Cox, its now currently being formatted by a very close friend of mine, Paul Rhodes who runs Orb Entertainment here in the UK. Paul's publishing experience is second to none and since paul heads up the digital book side of things over at Walker Books I know I'm in good hands. I've decided to start small, the book is a novella of sorts so its fairly easy on the eyes.

The book is all about my personal experiences and the subsequent criminal investigation into the Thames torso case that happened almost a decade ago when I discovered the butchered torso of a 5 year old boy floating in the River Thames. As a story I think it has a very unique pitch. I say unique because its story could quite easily be percieved as fiction, but its not, in its very real sense its a personal journey, a bid by me at finally getting closure in what what was one of London's worst crime for over 40 years.
Writing about this traumatic experience has been somewhat cathartic, a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Guilt is a terrible thing to live with, the guilt of wondering if you did enough, the questions and blame you place on yourself eat away at you for years, gnawing away when you're alone in thought. For me the book reinforces certain facts, the doubts I had are now erased and all from putting words on paper.

Carved will be available from September on all major e-reader formats such as Kindle, Smashwords, Nook, Createspace,B&N and Overdrive.

There's blood in the water...

I've finally taken the first steps into taking my ebook publishing 'career' a step closer, my short story "Carved" is now with an editor and no doubt undergoing some grammatical surgery to bring out what I'm hoping will be the best of my writing in a very personal account of one of the UK's biggest murder investigations.

Carved tells my side of the story as a witness in the Thames torso murder that happened ten years ago in September shortly after the 9/11 attacks when I discovered the butchered torso of a 5 year old boy in the River Thames.
The book will be released onto Kindle,Createspace,Nook,B&N,Smashwords and Overdrive through ORB publishing.

I've got to say that while the prospect of launching an Ebook is a somewhat gigantic leap into the unknown the whole thing fills me with a certain amount of dread as well, the fact I'm putting my name on something and releasing it into the big wide world will either be one of the best things I ever did or I'll just curl up and die when the reviews come in.
But then I guess that's what it's all about isn't it, laying it all out there for your peers and critics to love or loathe.

My main saving grace is that it provides me with a unique opportunity to write about a very personal and life changing event that very few people ever experience. If the book was fictional then I'd have a problem, it would have nothing trully unique to make it stand out from all the other crime novellas and short stories on the market. The fact that its non fiction and based on a true event means that it's far more appealing, or at least that's the hope. Thats not to say that the market for fictional novellas is weak, far from it but the very real personal aspect of my story meant that it was far easier to write with just enough content that it isn't padded out with uneccessary filler.

Someone once said "there's a book inside each of us" I guess the ultimate trick is to figure out how you get it out and get it working for you.