Archive for January, 2010

Want to make a fortune? Write a best-seller!

January 31st, 2010

How to become a novelist

Here’s a great money-making idea. It’s easy, you can do it in your own time and the rewards will stagger you. You will become famous, you will get to meet famous people and be invited to luncheons, you will be invited to deliver after-dinner speeches and best of all, you will be rich. Ask Geoffrey Archer and you will understand that it is all possible.

Archer

The British writer Geoffrey Archer was scammed out of his fortune and having no useful training, decided to write a book and make money. Today, he is one of the world’s most-read authors and has never looked back on his decision to write. Of course, he is one of the world’s great story-tellers too. That helped!

What you need to get started

You need to be self-disciplined, motivated and imaginative. You need to read extensively in your chosen genre, current affairs, history, and biography. You must watch films, go to the theatre and observe people, events, fashion and furnishings. If you wish to portray life you will need to become a student of life. You will have to write every day, whether it is a journal, dreams, short stories or poetry and if you have the opportunity, try to attend a creative writing course.

More needs

Read author interviews, and never miss an opportunity to hear authors talk. The Paris Review interviews are indispensable windows into the creative minds of renowned authors. Fascinating author interviews are available on the internet. Read book reviews and join a book club.

Listen

To write dialogue well, you need to listen when people speak. You will learn a lot by going to the sorts of places your characters frequent. Don’t indulge writer’s block and don’t believe the work will write itself.

Qualifications needed

You don’t need formal qualifications – the best school is the real world. Invest in a computer if that’s the way you are going to write or, if like Geoffrey Archer you prefer to write by hand, buy a stack of exercise books and a few boxes of pencils. A good dictionary will come in useful. If you decide that you need formal training, most universities and colleges offer creative writing programs.

The money

It’s impossible to even guess a figure because one book may do better than another. Generally, you are paid a cash advance and if your book does well there will be royalties. Like everything else, it’s all about money. An agent won’t touch your manuscript if he or she thinks they cannot make money out of it. The publisher is like the agent, only about 100 times worse.

I tried it

My book was a thriller, the assassination of a world public figure. The agent liked it, but could I make some changes? I was deep in my fifth round of changes when George W. Bush beat me to it and killed my character. I told you it was easy!

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The sugared nut financial indicator

January 28th, 2010

I can tell when I’m feeling rich!

On Saturdays the mall in our town holds an arts, crafts and home-bake fair. Other stalls sell olives and home squeezed olive oils, cheeses – usually delicious goat-milk cheeses, spice stalls, strawberries, mangoes and other exotic fruits, and nuts.

My regular chore

My regular Saturday morning chore is to buy the newspaper. I buy it for the crossword it features, not the New York Times kind, but an English cryptic crossword that I like doing. I have to weave through the throngs of shoppers from the foot of the escalator to the book store where the papers are sold. And therein lies a problem.

The nut counter

Halfway in this mad dash to get in and buy the paper as quickly as possible is a large counter dealing in nuts. What’s the problem? The sugared nuts. They have a piece of equipment that looks rather like a concrete mixer and into this goes almonds, peanuts, pecans, cashews, sugar and water. Out come the most delicious sugared nuts. “Don’t you dare!” said my wife the first time this kiosk opened for business.

Saturday

I was there on Saturday, as usual, fighting my way through the crowd when I spotted the nuts. I had money in my pocket for a change. Normally I carry only money for the newspaper when I come to the mall. I bought a bowl of mixed sugared nuts. “Do you want an explanation of how to store these so that they last?” asked the storekeeper. He looked at me and laughed, “You mean they won’t even last as far as the elevator up to your apartment!”

The sugared nuts

The sugared nuts are delicious. What’s more one cannot stop eating them until the bowl is empty. The sugared nuts are also expensive, a small bowl costing about $6. We don’t usually buy them although the salad maker in the family likes to sprinkle them on a green salad – “makes it much more interesting”. I buy them only when I have ‘spare’ money. I notice that the nuts have become a sort of indicator of our personal financial situation on Saturdays after a payday advance. If I am not feeling financially strapped, we buy and the buying acts as an on/off switch. Buy the nuts and everything’s fine. Things don’t feel so great – no nuts.

Economic indicators

Economic indicators are a subject all on their own and range from the ridiculous to the sophisticated. One of the best known is the Economist’s Big Mac index which tries to make the theory of exchange-rates easier to understand. It is based on MacDonald’s Big Mac hamburger which is sold in many countries of the world. The prices of the Big Mac in various countries are listed, converted into dollars, mixed with the earning power of the local currency, minced and spat out as a ‘purchasing power parity’, a direct comparison of currencies. My nut indicator is easier to understand – either I’m feeling rich or I’m not!

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About the plumber who lives in my mailbox…

January 27th, 2010

This man is in my consciousness at least once a day

Junk mail is good business they tell me, and by the number of old men pulling shopping carts around town and stopping at mailboxes, junk mail is a thriving business. I clear my mailbox most days and every single time I get a little notice from a plumber telling me about the great service he offers. If I miss taking up the mail for a day, then the next time I do, there will be two notices form the plumber. I hope his pipe-work is as efficient as his flyer delivery service!

The service details

The plumber’s flyer reads: “Emergency 24 hour service, just dial the free-call number; leak detection by means of a thermal camera, 31 years experience in the business, design and upgrading bathrooms, improvements to the water pressure, opening of blockages in pipes and free consultations at your place. Just call us.”

The users

I know what I do with these notices – I usually crumple them up into a little ball and try and flick it into the trash bin that stands close to the row of mailboxes. Most times I miss and then do my daily stretching exercise which is bending down to pick it up. I have never heard of anyone calling this particular plumber, and the truth is that he only has a phone number with no address or name. That’s okay – I understand that his entire organization is in the back of his truck and that he may or may not have a name. I guess when a pipe bursts at 3am and you need a plumber in one burning hurry, it won’t matter if his name is Joe or Cecil, just as long as he gets there in zero seconds and can deal with the water problem.

The flyers

I asked a printer once about the flyer business. It’s great, he said. I print thousands upon thousands of them and its good business. It’s also great for the distributors. If you look around the town you will see many older folk pulling shopping bags. It’s providing them both an income and healthy exercise and keeping them occupied. As far as the advertiser, in your case the plumber is concerned, I understand that they work on a ‘hit’ rate of 1 in ten thousand. If they get 2 hits in ten thousand they are showing a profit. So everybody gains in this situation. The only loser is you, the guy who has to dispose of the unwanted flyer. And that’s no big deal.

The truth?

I have one of these flyers stuck on the door of my fridge just in case the worst happens in the dark hours. I have no doubt that this enterprising plumber who advertises so regularly and so persistently is a good businessman and is also the most expensive plumber, not only in town, but in the entire region. I would call him.

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