"has anyone seen Joe Young lately? His book High John the Conqueror is being released by Jonathan Cape, but not until summer....I think."

Well, that's the peril of signing on with a pseudonym - it's Jim Younger who wrote High John the Conqueror (ex-Joe Youncz, who was my cyberspace 'nom de guerre' for a while in a number of locations) - my subscription is up soon, so I'll be signing on this next time as meatspace me - no need for me to be shy, you-all have proven a decent bunch over the last year.

Yes, High John is out in May - slow business this publishing malarkey. I haven't been around much from Nov to Jan because I've been hit by umpteen viruses and I've been working like a dog (check out Defra's review of the Heather and Grass Burning Regulations and Code). Anyway, you're all welcome to read it - but for this project I'll just just join the queue and look forward to 'Other Buggers Efforts' (OBE, geddit?). Anyway, good luck to anyone with a book coming out, Roger, Dee et al.

My pal Mike Anderson (blues guitarist of this parish) pre-ordered what must have been the first sale of HJC - but he changed addresses and had to cancel, sending HJC plummeting from the Amazon high 260Ks into the netherworld of the low 270Ks.

'Such is life' as Ned Kelly is reported to have said just before they hanged him.

Jim


<Added>

And Emma of course with MOL in July(?)

J

Another one added to my Amazon wishlist. Nice one, Jim, and good luck with it.

Dee

Yes, great news, Jim - good luck!

LoL

A
xxx

Great blurb, Jim. I am chewing the carpet with frustration at how much there is on Amazon about yours and Roger's, compared to TMOL - not so much as a cover image! Sooo jealous. (Yes, TMOL is due July 3rd).

Emma

<Added>

And it doesn't come up at all if you just search on the title - how disheartening is that? I'm sulking.

Emma, why is there no image?

I don't know - there isn't one on the Tesco listing either - (though I'm so thrilled Tesco have bought it that I've forgiven them). Presumably Headline are still getting it together; they've only just got it listed on their own website.

Emma

Emma

With the advance publicity and word in the trade, and a high class book, I don't think you have much to worry about. Excellent website, and extract, by the way.

Still, it's got to be a jittery moment for anyone. Best just to 'restez Zen'.

Here's a little story about the vanity of human wishes:

I recorded an LP for Polydor with a trio called The Peelers back in 1972 - 'Banished Misfortune', a collectable disc now - what isn't? I just bought Barry Manilow's 'Bermuda Triangle' - but a mint copy of 'Banished ...' could cost £180 last time I looked. Anyway, a year after the big floperoo, I'd quit the music business and was working for the Genito Urinary Surgical Instrument Mfg Co near Harley St - close to the recording studio - and one lunchtime I went in a Europa supermarket, and I heard the record playing over the muzak system. Only it wasn't the record as released - it was a tape of the two other guys (Tom Madden and Joe Palmer), before my concertina (etc) was mixed in.

How did I feel? It's funny now, but if I'm honest ... yeah, it was funny then too. You really couldn't make it up. On another thread there was a post about 'obliteration by random chance'. And my postmodern guru tells me "absence is the highest form of presence", so no regerets, as Scot Walker (?) sang.

Jim

Dee

Thank you for your good wishes.

Jim

Anne - thanks for the thought. Good luck - to you and John Jarrold (agent).

Jim

Stop press: High John the Conqueror drops to 1 million three hundred thousand something in the Amazon chart. Time to ring the estate agent and cancel the viewing on that house over the road from Ian McEwan.

Hey, Roger, you're about six hundred thousand places above me. How do you do it?

Jim

Thanks so much for the good wishes, Jim - I'm finding it an astonishingly disheartening process, and am filled with open-mouthed admiration for the good news of others. Am just hoping some of it might rub off some day soon!

)

LoL

A
xxx

Anne - you've got a good guy behind you with John Jarrold, so what can you do except keep on trying - but I know what you mean, it is disheartening to get knocked back. As I've said elsewhere, it will have been twenty years between finishing the first draft of HJC and seeing it published. So, courage and "l'audace, toujours l'audace!"

Jim

Ooh, I do love a bit of French, Jim!! Thanks again for the encouragement.

)

A
xxx

Roger,

Have you ever come across a website called EbonyWrites? Its founder is an author, Yinka Sonomu (sp) who set up the site in celebration of black and ethnic minority writers. In the past she has been fairly open and ready to share how she went about drumming up support for it. She is also a journalist who has lots of contacts so she might just talk to you. Hope this helps. S

<Added>

oops sorry. It's Ebony Reads with a very nice picture of Denzel on the front...S

Well, Anne, so do I love a bit of French, as it happens - and the French were the first real fans of one of my favourite writers - Edgar Poe. Years ago I sat in a tutorial and listened to a British critic conspire with my tutorial partner against my hero (and rubbish another fave of mine, De Quincey [Poe being cut-price De Q according to her]) and I didn't have the courage at the time to argue. Leaving the tutorial I had an "esprit d'escalier" moment - you know, where you suddenly think of all the things you could have said. It was thirty years ago - get over it! but French writers are often so good, in translation too, which is where I admit I read most of my French literature. But I like to make the effort once in a while.

Nice opening scene of yours, by the way, with the male kiss.

Jim