Kindling

After writing a novel and a daily blog entry last week, it’s hard not to feel like a bit of a slacker this week. There’s been no novel, no play, no monologue. In fact, there’s barely been an email and just a single tweet. It’s almost like I don’t exist.

Lots of thinking has happened this week though and it mainly surrounds the issue of what to do with the big lump of writing I completed last week. It turns out that I may not need to go through the whole rigmarole (I’ve always wanted to type that word) of applying to dozens of publishers, receiving rejection letters and finding myself curled up in a little ball underneath the desk, as the lovely people at Amazon have gone and created something called Kindle Direct Publishing that may well provide an alternative path to glory. Or, at least, provide an opportunity for me to ‘get it out there’, as they say, and enable people to read this thing once and for all (or twice, if you fancy a re-read). I may have naively missed something crucial about all this that sends me crawling back to the space beneath the table but as it stands it looks quite tempting. It’s also possible to use a website such as Createspace or Lulu to provide print copies of the book on demand, so that might be an additional option.

So, what do people think about Kindle anyway? Sales have been amazing and it looks like the way to go but I haven’t gone there yet myself and so I’ve not really got much of a sense of what it’s like to sit down and read something on one for more than 30 seconds. The good thing, it seems, is that you don’t actually need a Kindle to read something on Kindle, as you can download Kindle software for your PC or laptop and read it on there. It still seems a bit weird though and I wonder how many people would take a punt on an unknown author, however captivating the name ‘Sam Lenton’ might be?

Lots of thinking has also gone into creating at least one website, possibly two, over the next couple of months and so I hope to be able to provide you with a link soon. Obviously, anything you can do to tell the world about me would be greatly appreciated. Try, if possible, to focus on the positives…

A brief cat update: we had a glorious repeat of the tongue-stuck-on-collar incident of a couple of weeks ago last night. Unfortunately, she seems to now be able to shake her tongue off the collar herself (admittedly with some effort) and so it’s clear that she needs me even less than I thought she did. On the plus side, hopefully the chances of ‘death by tongue-on-collar’ are diminishing by the day.

I’m afraid there’ll be a bit of a blog break for the next two weeks, as we are heading off on a much-needed holiday. The house will still be occupied though (by more than just the cat), so I’m afraid there’s no point publicising this news to your burglar friends. If, by the way, you do have burglar friends then can I please encourage you to work with them to get them to reform and change their ways? Burglary is wrong. There, I said it.

If the news of the blog break is coming as a devastating shock, remember that the previous 34 entries are still alive and well and so you can re-read and reminisce at your pleasure. Also, every entry apart from last week’s special blogs has the title of a song as it’s title, so I have effectively prepared a summer playlist for you. Why not try it out on Spotify? And, if that’s not enough, then I guess you could just compose a sonnet or whatever it is that the kids get up to these days.

See you in August!