So, Nepal - what comes next?

I've been home a couple of weeks - surely I've had time to think?

There's never an end to thinking (that's part of the fun of it) but a few ideas are beginning to take clearer shapes.

The first - I'm going to fund rebuilding one house in Nepal. I've seen the devastation and it would be easy to throw up ones hands in helplessness in the face of such need. How can one person make a difference in the middle of all that? I can't rebuild a town - I can't even rebuild a village.

But I can - and will - raise enough money to rebuild one house.

I happen to know which house this is - but I'm not going to tell you anything about the family who live there, nor post a picture of their temporary home, nor go on about the struggle to keep going in one room under a tin roof. I'll not exploit individual misery like that. You'll simply have to believe that the hope we can give to this family will ripple out to others.

How? For starters, I've set up a GoFundMe page - for anyone who is able to spare a pound or two. You can the link here.

But - I hear you spluttering - I'm only aiming for £1500.00!! Because that is all it will cost. The man can rebuild his home himself, so what is really needed is materials. Again, you will have to believe that I've checked this with those in the know.

As well as GoFundMe I'm writing a little ebook about my visit, and all proceeds will go towards the house-build (I know one person who will be pleased, as she has been nagging me - in a kindly way - to write this).

And here I have a very big ask: because this will be a small ebook I cannot sell it for more than about 99p which gives me about 34p. In the past I've always paid full price for a copy editor - but this can easily swallow over £300 - and I'll leave you to work out how many books I need to sell before I make a penny. And so if anyone knows a copy editor who can reduce his or her fees, and work fairly quickly (I'm well into a first draft and want this out as soon as possible), I'd be deeply grateful. I am, of course, aware that copy editors - like the rest of us - have to earn a living, and so will understand if they are all, to a man and woman, struggling to make their own ends meet as Christmas approaches.

So - that's where things stand at the moment. I'll be indebted to anyone can share/tweet/generally publicise the GoFundMe page, or who feels able to support this in any other way. If I could I'd send everyone cake.

Winners!!

Two winners, as promised, in my little competition:

Jacqueline Pye - who got it absolutely right, when she said Hove and Brighton (I was actually in Hove, and looking towards Brighton).

And Terry Tyler, who came out of the hat first of those who just said Brighton.

I'll be in touch with both of you - and this is what you will win:

Another book?

Yes, another book - a real book in response to all those who have asked me to put my Over the Hill ebooks into print. So here you will find my adventures in the Himalayas, including a rather alarming encounter with a tiger, how I shared a room with a rat in Laos, and finally my salsa through Cuba.

But, some will say, these are all available as ebooks - and you are right. They are. But many people have asked for print copies, to put on their shelves, to share with friends, and so I've put these three journeys together.

So, you might be asking, if I've read the ebooks do I find anything new in From the Inside Looking Out. No - only a brief introduction. If ebook are your thing, then there's no point in buying this purely for decoration. (Aren't I shooting myself in the foot - suggesting people don't buy it if they've read the ebooks? Maybe, but I'd rather be honest with a shot foot than have you accuse me of implying that I've deceived you)

I've got the proofs, and it's at the final tinkering stage - so my winners will have to wait a week or two. But I'll get in contact both of you to get your addresses and send it off to you as soon as the final copies arrive.

Why Hidden Tiger is an ebook

I have been asked - by those without an e-reader - to publish Hidden Tiger as a print book. They have heard it is exciting, that I had adventures, returned feeling older but maybe no wiser. (Well, yes, wiser - I'll never creep up on a tiger again ...)

Firstly, I must thank all those who have said wonderful things about my little ebook. There is nothing more encouraging than knowing someone has read and enjoyed one's work - especially those outside family and friends who have no reason to be kind.

And I do understand those who, on hearing all this, are asking for a print book. I can only say - I'm sorry. I was away for just one month - long enough for a few excitements, but not long enough to fill all the pages of a 'proper book', given that reading what I ate for breakfast or the spider that scuttled across the floor and into my shoes in the mountains is of limited interest.

This little ebook is only 78 pages long - if I were to print it there'd be barely room on the spine for the title. It would be a flimsy little book, an apology for a book - but, because of the cost of printing I would have to charge you almost as much as I do for Over the Hill. If you ordered it from Amazon, you would open the cardboard wrapper and find such a puny offering you would look beyond it - it must be a mistake, this book is too thin. You have paid all that money, you might say, for a pamphlet.

But short ebooks work. I can sell it cheaply, as it costs nothing to produce; and so you are less likely to complain about the lack of extra pages.

Which leaves those of you with no ereader feeling left out? By now I am grovelling with an apology - but it remains uneconomic to produce a print book. But if you wait ... it's just possible that I'll write more. After all, I'm off to Thailand and Laos after Christmas, and still have dreams of making it to Madagascar. If I get two more ebooks out of those trips, then I promise to put them together in a print book. And might even negotiate a special price for anyone who has asked me very nicely at this stage to print Hidden Tiger. Does that help? (And Over the Hill is still available as a print book, in case you haven't read it yet - or know someone you'd like to send it to for Christmas.)

Publishing ebooks.

I've had an email from someone asking me to blog about my experience of self-publishing on Kindle - the pros, the cons, and is it cost-effective. So - here goes.

I must begin by saying that this is only my experience. There are thousands of us uploading, downloading, groaning into our cocoa trying to make the bloody technology work and then realising we forgot to press the save button ... We all have different stories to tell.

The decision to self-publish was easy: I won a place on a mentoring scheme, as a result of which Over the Hill was lashed into shape. It was my mentor who told me that, ten years ago, I would have found a publisher. But not now - I'm neither young nor famous. But this was good enough to see the light of day and so I should do it myself. So I did - there are some early blogposts of the general angst but I made it.

And don't regret it. I've made mistakes, learned along the way, but have generally enjoyed myself. Putting the second book on Kindle was an easier decision: it's too short to be a print book but was such fun to write it made sense to give Over the Hill a follow-up.

But - there has to be a 'but' - is it cost-effective? It's not going to make me rich. In fact, if I cost the time it took the write, then paying the copy editor, then the time formatting and uploading, then it's a crazy way to spend my time if I want to make money. Amazon, of course, makes money. Cheap books (less than $3.50, I think) earn me only 35% - so that's 35p for a book costing £1; that's how many books to pay for one cup of coffee? And how many cups of coffee are needed to write one book? Pricier books earn 70%, but you still have to sell them in the hundreds or more to make serious money. Mine are niche books - they are never going to sell in huge numbers. (Well, would they if I spent hours marketing? I'll never know - that's the bit I'm truly rubbish at).

So, why do it? I'm lucky - and I know it. I have enough to live on and so am not dependent on my writing to pay the grocery bill. I can do it because it's fun, because I love it when people send emails saying they've enjoyed the book, or asking more about my travels - and yes, emails that prompted this post. And because I love the writing - I can make myself laugh. (I am already working out how to write a trip to the physio where I must ask her to get my knees strong enough to manage squat toilets ...)

That's how it was for me. How was it for you?