HI ALL,
From today you can get my new book The Stamp Collective absolutely free. This is an exclusive five day offer.
If you have a Kindle or the Kindle app on your smartphone then please download it.
At this stage I just want to spread my writing like a fever. I want as many people as possible to share in this experience with me and you can be a part of that.
Download it now and enjoy.
Share the news.
On Friday I held a book launch at The Alex in Southend. It was something I have wanted to do ever since I attended the amazing event that Joe Gardner held last year for his book Jet Tea. Basically I was jealous.
It turns out that hosting a book launch is bloody brilliant. You get a room full of your best and brightest friends, you get one of them to sing some lovely songs, you get another to introduce you and then everyone gets drunk on wine and high on spring rolls.
I was particularly taken with the stamp cupcakes that Kate made because she is an absolute treasure.
The book is now available on Amazon, in both paperback and as a Kindle download. From Monday it will be free to download for five days as part of a promotion. All i want is for people to read and enjoy my work. If you have a copy then please pass it along or lend it out when you are finished. If you don’t have a copy then just ask.
I would like to thank everyone who came along and give a big thumbs up to Nat for helping to save the event from being an absolute lame duck.
Last night I celebrated the launch of my first novel at The Alex in Southend. Here’s my speech:
I was told last night it was a requirement at a book launch to give a speech. Twenty minutes ago I started writing one.
I stand before you tonight as a man who has written a book. Before that, I was a man writing a book and before that still I was a man.
If you haven’t written a book then you are in that position, unless you are a woman, in which case you are still a woman. Regardless of any way you have been chosen to be represented you are full of potential. I would like to dedicate tonight to anyone who is sat on a good idea. I would like to tell you to go for it. It’s only because I am surrounded by such incredible people that I was able to start realising my own potential. I look around this room and see all of you who do.
I would like to thank you for being a part of this, especially Ben for introducing me, to Kate for believing in and for dealing with me in the capacity of both a girlfriend and a carer. To my friends and to my family, especially Robert and Edward who are never entirely aware of how much I am watching them and noting down every stupid word they say in the hopes I can turn it into literature.
I would like you to raise a toast to The Stamp Collective.
To celebrate the birthday of my heroes; my dad and Bob Dylan, I covered Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright on my dad’s old acoustic guitar.
With a week to go before the launch of my first novel I finally received the proof copy.
I invited artist and all round good egg Adam Gardner, who designed the cover, to be part of the special moment and tell me I look like I’m in late 80’s Dexy’s Midnight Runners.
As an aside, I have purposely cut any shots of the book or mention of the cover to protect the mystery around it. All will be revealed on 30 May.
On Wednesday evening I sat down over some marinaded chicken livers with Adam Gardner, my friend and go to designer, to talk about the ideas he said he had sketched for the cover of my new book The Stamp Collective.
As I sipped at my bottomless Coke Zero he took a bound notebook from his satchel and presented me with what he referred to as “the rough idea”. He turned one page towards me and what I saw was an image that has raced across my mind since before I sat down in August 2013 to start writing the novel. His vision and line-work were as though he had traced it from a projection shot out of my brain.
Quite simply, it is sublime.
The additional notes he gave me on the overall look and feel only backed up my decision in offering him the role of designing what will be my first independently published novel. He designed the cover for my book of short stories Where Did All The Money Go? as well as the artwork for the Stalin musical I co-wrote and put on as a two man show in November last year.
This design is something else.
As such, I have decided to keep it under wraps which in itself is an in-joke considering the concept art which will be lost on you until you read the book. This goes against everything I usually do. I’m one to take the first chance to blast an image or an idea everywhere as soon as the opportunity is afforded to me. I want to take a slower path and build towards this as an event.
The Stamp Collective is coming.
Get it down yer lad.
This week has been pretty full on for me.
If you know me at all you will know that I like to have irons in the fire, or fingers in pies, or whatever other metaphor you choose to use for staying busy. It just so happens that this week involved a number of those different fires or pies burning me.
That’s not to say that anything bad happened, just that I had an awful lot on, more than usual. It will all hopefully reveal itself in time.
What I have come to realise, and this is where the longest lesson part comes in, is that my thoughts of how bad it is going to be are always far worse than the reality of the task or the problem.
I sat down on Saturday with a daunting headline ahead of me, and thoughts of what I would do if I didn’t make it and whether there was any room to manoeuvre within, but for the week before I had been building it up, along with everything else to make it seem an awful lot harder than it actually turned out to be.
I suppose what I am trying to say is that the longest lesson, and one I am still learning is, it doesn’t matter how hard something may seem or how much work there is to be done, you can do it. Stop thinking about how hard it is going to be and get along.
You’ll find that the tasks can soon be knocked down if you just have the power to stand up.
You are not being treated to a post right now because my Kindle is out of batteries and it’s a long commute to just sit and twiddle my thumbs.
I hope you’re wondering why there wasn’t the usual update this week. I’m sure you were refreshing and pondering what gold I was going to spray at you.
You didn’t miss it. There wasn’t one. I have finally been absorbed into my so called work. I can’t explain it all because neither of us have the time. I do however have a new title.
As of this moment I am the Arts & Culture editor for What’s Up What’s On magazine. It’s a massive opportunity at a brilliant up and comer and I can’t wait to get completely absorbed in the work.
My boss (Steve (why are they always called Steve)) is a cool cat and is giving me a lot of room to choose what I write about while being sure I turn over something of quality and stick to the ever threatening deadlines. There’s a lot of room for development. The discussions we have had are exciting and we will see what becomes of it all.
Today has been a day of progress. My next book, The Stamp Collective, has been returned to me by the proof reader I hired to check it before I independently publish it.
I’ve received confirmation that the contract on my flat is good to go and I could be moving in two weeks.
I’m still getting a steady number of rejection letters for my latest manuscript, Yours Sincerely, Southend but it’s hard to be down about anything when everywhere else is blooming so nicely.
Something is happening and I’m in orbit.
I'm Paul Schiernecker, who the hell are you?
