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I can’t believe it! This is my first newsletter of the year! I finished ‘Jesus the Troublemaker” on 29th December. Since then I have not written a word for publication, but have been very busy all the time. So what have I been doing?
Corrections, Corrections, Corrections
Back in December I sent most of the book to my nephew’s wife who does some proof reading. She picked up a number of typos, and my designer got to work on it and sent me the numbered pdf on 11th January. Clare did a marvellous and very creative job on designing the book. But that was not the end of the story! Next I had to provide the illustrations, either from photos or from my excellent artist Daniel, including a specially commissioned map of Jerusalem in 30 A.D (cost £200). Then the appropriate captions, including copyright information where appropriate. There was also the need to check all the footnotes, making sure that the number in the text corresponded with the number in the footnotes section. At the end of March my friend David sent me two dozen corrections needed that he had spotted while reading the book. Also I needed to check that Aramaic and Hebrew spellings were consistent throughout, e.g. that Shim’on was not spelt Shi’mon (for Simon) etc. And medium sized errors, as when I quoted six psalms at the end of the Last Supper when there were probably only five…
Early in March I decided to make it an audiobook as well, partly inspired by a Youtube ad I saw on 15th February. Which also inspired me change the sub-heading of the book cover from ‘An Exercise in Historical Imagination’ to ‘The Drama of Holy Week Reimagined’. Linda preferred the first. My brother and Ros instantly plumped for the second. Which do you think is better? Do email me. Of course, this meant revising the book again, because you can’t put footnotes on an audio book. So I read the whole book aloud to myself to check that everything made sense when spoken, and that the footnotes about Aramaic and Hebrew words were part of the spoken text. As a result on 8th April I came up with a further 60 corrections! I now realise that I will have to allow a minimum of a month for proofreading when a book is apparently finished.
Printing
Following the advice of Chris Day, my publisher and mentor, I initially published it through Amazon’s KDP. This stands for Kindle Direct Print, but I found it a Krazily Difficult Process! The Kindle version was a doddle, but the print version was not. This is because Clare’s design was not a normal standard one, and we struggled to get the right size margins. It took three weeks of puzzlement from Clare, Chris and myself before we finally cracked it. Here is an email I wrote on 11th March: “Doom and Gloom again!” Finally sorted the following day.
Marketing
As soon as I had finished writing the book I had 25 copies printed My aim was to send it out to fourteen of the great and the good, having already emailed them in December. Apart from my friend Sister Hilda Mary and my brother, I drew a blank, apart from an intriguing comment from Rabbi Helen Freeman of the West London Synagogue who called it ‘interesting and challenging’.
My personal efforts have reaped a dozen hopefully satisfied customers. I don’t know yet who has bought from Amazon, either here or in the US.
One success has been to start doing Facelive videos on Facebook. Apparently their algorithms love it! But there is always more to do.
Full colour!
I am producing a larger full colour version with 24 of my photos of Jerusalem. E.g. One is of the Citadel or Tower of David by the Jaffa Gate; this is part of Herod the Great’s palace, where I believe the trial of Jesus by Pilate took place. All the photos in the original book are now in colour. I see this more as a marketing opportunity than a major seller. I think bookshops may be inclined to stock it as it will stand out a bit more from other books. It will at any rate be rather beautiful!
Audio
An Australian lady I spoke to in Earls Court asked “Is it on audio?” Following the YouTube ad on 11th February I have been trying to move towards that, but found it hard to find somebody who would do it for me. What you are paying for is not only someone recording it , but their preparation, and most importantly, the editing and production process, which can be equally long. Having drawn three blanks from people I knew of – all too busy- a friend suggested I look at the website Fiverr. And found an excellent narrator instantly, Peter Walters. He will do it in June for a price of £500, half of what I was quoted before. I listened to his narration of the mad hatter’s tea party in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ – just excellent!
Blogs
Despite no newsletters this year, I have been prolific with blogs. With a leaning towards marketing my books. So in January I focussed on the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and quoted a passage from my ‘Week of Prayer in Jerusalem’. In February it was the turn of ‘Discovering Psalms as Prayer’ and then the twin problems of Location and Time which I faced while writing ‘Jesus the Troublemaker’. In March I sent out weekly blogs on the last eight days of Jesus’ life entitled ‘Travelling to Jerusalem’. Not hard as I had already written the passages I quoted. So in total I sent out eleven blogs in thirteen weeks!
I will now revert to normally doing two blogs a month, one a blog on the Old Testament and one a reflection on my month as a writer. As you can see, writing is only one part of a writer’s life!
Church
I continue to give monthly support to the large/small church of Holy Trinity Prince Consort Road during their interregnum. (Large – it is an enormous and incredibly high building. Small in that there are usually only about a dozen worshippers. It is right by Imperial College). I was privileged to take Holy Week for them: Eucharist on Maundy Thursday, a two hour reflection on Good Friday and then Easter Day; plus a daily half hour talk on Zoom on the first three days. It really made my Holy Week!
I continue to have a small Zoom service on Wednesdays at 10.00 a.m. We have a simple and informal service focussing on a saint of the week, ranging from St Catherine of Siena to Oscar Romero and end it with each of us having bread and wine – not communion – but a simple breaking of the bread and the Jewish kiddish when we raise our glasses and say “l’chaim – to life!” We then have coffee together and chat for half an hour. It is really pleasant. Anyone is welcome to join in. Just email me and I will send you the Zoom link.
Have a happy and healthy May!
Andy