Sean McManus's blog

Record Collector Magazine reviews 'University of Death'

2008-05-11T15:01:00.009+01:00

I've always been a keen magazine reader, the kind of person who checks the news-stands every day to see what's new and writes the on-sale dates of some magazines in his diary. Back in the 80s, I read Crash and Amstrad Action avidly; in the 90s, I bought either Melody Maker or NME each week (and often both); and today I read the glossy monthly music mags. One of my favourites is Record Collector, so I'm thrilled that they've published a four-star review of my novel 'University of Death' in the latest issue.

"Raising a number of surprisingly sophisticated issues, this book is enjoyably cynical about the seemingly cold-hearted and impenetrable nature of the record industry and peppered with a number of highly comical cameos from the cream of rock'n'roll, which ensures that it never feels like heavy going."

- Lewis Heritage, books reviewer, Record Collector magazine issue 350 (June 2008)

Record Collector is one of the magazines I trust to tell me about music and books I'll want to read, and it's one I look forward to consulting each month, so I really am delighted that their writer enjoyed my book and has recommended it to other readers.

Writers beware: read the small print

2008-04-24T19:28:00.000+01:00

There was an advert in Metro last week that read:

We are looking for brilliant new writers to submit entries for our first series of short novels and novellas. Deadline: June 1

Adverts seeking 'new writers' are not uncommon - they are typically placed by organisations that sell a publishing service and charge authors to put their books into print. There's not usually any marketing of the title because the company makes its money off printing books and selling them to authors in bulk, and not off selling them to the general public.

The website behind this ad is Roastbooks. From the limited details online, the company's model is to market books through unconventional outlets (eg cafes, airport lounges). White Ladder Press is among the companies pioneering this approach (see The White Ladder Diaries, an entertaining and informative book about setting up a self-publishing operation, which rather unfortunately stops before the operation generates any profit).

I know many people are desperate to get into print, but Roastbooks' terms and conditions are hopelessly optimistic. There's no mention of any advance or royalty rates, but by entering the competition, authors are expected to grant the publisher 'the sole, exclusive option, until two months after the publication of the results of this competition, to enter into a publishing agreement in respect of the submitted manuscript'. I'm not a lawyer, but the language appears to suggest the option belongs to Roastbooks and authors submitting work are basically stuck with the contract the publisher chooses to foist upon them. There's no clause for the rights to revert to the author if the competition results are never announced, or are announced late, either. Roastbooks makes no commitment to a print run, or to any other media, but does require all rights worldwide.

We've seen publishers engaging in rights grabs over the last ten years, but usually from a position of strength. For a new publisher to expect authors to hand over exclusive rights for no return (not even the promise to publish the novel) is highly irregular. The publisher is candid enough to admit that it won't be able to get books into high street book shops, and it's a lot easier for authors to self-publish than it used to be. It's not clear what Roastbooks is doing for the author that the author could not more profitably do for him- or herself.

Few good writers will want to work with an untested publisher that doesn't appear to respect their rights. For that reason, I can't see a future for the company. New publishers would do well to see authors as potential business partners rather than raw materials.

Amazon Kindle: an opportunity for self-publishers?

2008-04-15T18:06:00.001+01:00

I blogged about Amazon's Kindle, a new ebook reader, when it launched. But I didn't look at the opportunity for self-publishers then.

I've published a few ebooks in the past. My ebook 'Journalism Careers - Your questions answered' is sold as a PDF file designed for comfortable on-screen reading. I previously published a guide to putting sound in webpages and a Javascript tutorial through Fatbrain, which was an online ebook store. That folded years ago, and it looks like Barnes & Noble has bought the domain name.

So what's the opportunity at Kindle? Not much for me, it seems. You need to have a US postal address and US bank account details before they will let you publish any content. You can't even publish content for free and use Kindle as a promotional outlet (ebooks must be priced between $0.99 and $200, and you still need to be in the US). Given how slow Amazon's been in internationalising other features like Amazon Honor System, none of that is likely to change any time soon.

My friend John went through the motions of setting up a publication anyway, and has blogged about that experience.

There are a couple of terms that might worry some self-publishers. Firstly:

3. Digital Books; Marketing and Promotion. You agree that we may market and promote your Digital Books by making chapters or portions of your Titles available to prospective customers without charge, and permitting prospective customers to see excerpts of the Digital Book in response to search queries. Amazon will not owe you any fees for the marketing and promotional efforts described above. The Program may include features that allow users to print one or more pages of your Titles.

The short version of that is: Amazon can distribute content from the book and allow users to print it, without charging for it and without paying you for it.

The 'permission to print' seems to go beyond the deal Amazon's already struck for 'Search inside this book' for promoting printed books on its website. It's essential for authors to give away some preview content to demonstrate the value of their books. Indeed, similar terms are usually a part of a conventional publishing contract. But Amazon's a shop, not a publisher. Authors and publishers should decide what material is promotional, and what material is only available for sale. Amazon wants the right to give away whatever content it wants, albeit with the implied motive that it will try to pick content that will help the book sell.

For reference works, the value could be significantly eroded if Amazon allows excerpts to be printed without any payment. We can only hope that Amazon is working on a way of administering micropayments so that people can buy book excerpts and authors can be rewarded appropriately.

Also, Amazon will keep 65% of the retail price. By comparison, Lulu charges a fee of 25% of what you get (which is then added to the sale price, so it's actually less than 25% of the ebook price). If you're a self-publisher, 35% is probably not too bad a return given that there's no work to do with moving printed books and there's no cost to incur in creating them, but it's far from competitive. It also seems to overstate the costs incurred in operating the infrastructure and underestimate the costs involved in creating content.

10. Technology. You acknowledge that we will be entitled to utilize DRM technology in connection with the distribution of Digital Books but are not obligated to do so. Accordingly, there may be no technology or other limitation imposed by us on copying or transfer of any Digital Book we distribute.

Personally, I don't approve of digital rights management technology. But when publishers are selling ebooks, they'll want to know what rights they're licensing and what controls will be used to enforce them and this term seems somewhat vague. There 'might or might not be DRM' isn't really a good basis for making a decision about whether you want to sell through Amazon, particularly if piracy or consumer rights is something you feel strongly about.

The use of the words 'irrevocable licence' set off alarm bells, but it seems this is about protecting consumers and ensuring that they will be able to download content they've bought easily in future. The irrevocable licence does not extend to making the ebook available for sale (so you can withdraw it later).

If anyone's actually self-publishing through Amazon Kindle, I'd be interested in hearing about your results in the comments.

Test your vocabulary and feed the world

2008-04-08T20:00:00.000+01:00

This vocabulary quiz will test the most avid readers or writers to their limits. It starts easy, but it soon gets tough.

It looks like you have to answer three vocabulary questions correctly in a row to go up a level, and if you get one wrong, you drop down again. The answers are too short to properly teach you new words, but you can always look up any intriguing words you don't know. An integrated dictionary link would be a nice addition.

The twist with this is that for every round you play, you generate a donation of 20 grains of rice. The site is operated as a non-profit and the money that advertisers pay to show their ads with each quiz round is used to donate free rice to the United Nations World Food Programme.

It's an interesting extension of the Hunger Site's principle, where instead of just clicking each day, you can play a game and spend more time there to increase your donation. And from a business point of view, it's probably more robust because the intelligence required to consistently answer questions should help screen out fraudulent clicks. I wonder whether the adverts are targeted according to how smart you appear to be..?

Book promotion: Do Private Eye adverts work?

2008-03-29T17:22:00.004Z

I'm a keen reader of and subscriber to Private Eye. Given that my novel 'University of Death' has a subplot involving politics and uses a lot of humour in telling its story about the music business, the Eye's 798,000 readers could be an ideal advertising target. Adverts start at £26 for 10 words, which is within the reach of self-publishers.

And indeed, many self-publishers do promote their works there. But I had my suspicions the ads don't work. There's relatively high turnover of advertisers in the Eye Read section compared to some other sections (eg speechwriting), which suggests advertisers aren't seeing results. Additionally, the margin on book sales is such that I'd need to sell more than 13 copies directly attributable to Private Eye to break even. You only need to sell one speech per advert to make your money back, maybe even less if you're booking a series of ads.

I did a spot of market research and emailed five authors who have recently promoted their books in Private Eye and who had a website address. Four were kind enough to reply in some detail, and there was a clear consensus.

Lazz Hewings is a cartoonist researching a book about British Pub culture. He advertised to ask for responses to his questionnaire. He told me:

I was very disappointed with the response, considering the publication has a circulation of close to a million - I had 4 replies! Yes that's right - four! This, I thought, was interesting in its own right.

Chris Snowden has written a book documenting the war against smoking and liberty. He said:

I actually got very little response from that advert although I have used Private Eye for business ads before and found them to be quite good. What the response would be for your novel I really couldn't say.

Kevin Duffy, author of the novel 'Anthills and Stars' and small press manager, placed a couple of adverts for different books in the same issue. He said:

To be honest, for £120 the response wasn't that great, but that could be my ad, they went to the website and thought what was on offer was a pile of shite...however, glad I did it, I have had some great responses, e mail converstaions etc, but if you're thinking was it cost effective the answer is no it wasn't.

Ian Poole used Private Eye to promote his 'radical interpretation of the events in Jesus's life'. He told me:

In answer to your query about the efficacy of Private Eye adverts, I can report that, sadly, it was a waste of £52. As far as I can make out not a single copy sold because of it. Obviously they tend to circulate for a while so it may produce a few, but it certainly has not been a success. Worth a try I suppose. The book has rather narrow appeal, so I think that it may have been the wrong place.

I was particularly interested to see that Chris Snowden had found the business ads effective and Kevin Duffy's statement that it had generated some interesting correspondence. That suggests people do read the adverts, so for the right kind of book and right ad copy, there might be an opportunity there to pick up sales. But the experience of recent advertisers should be taken as a warning to authors and publishers that 798,000 circulated adverts does not necessarily translate into even a handful of sales.

U2 3D - even better than the real thing?

2008-03-29T12:46:00.006Z

U23D is the first live action 3D Imax movie, and it captures the band in concert in Argentina on the Vertigo tour. After a dazzling few introductory minutes where the shots chopped and changed too quickly for my eyes to focus, the filming settled down and it was magical. You have access all areas: in the front row, on stage with the band and high above the crowd.

When you fly over the drumkit, it's clear enough to see the pulsating ripples in Larry's orange drink. When the camera flies back over the audience, you feel as if you're among them, watching Larry drum on one platform while Bono sings from another.

Pop video effects are used well, with shots fading into each other at different perspective levels. Mercifully, they've resisted the temptation to do too much 3D 'trickery'. There's an effective sequence where Bono reaches out his hand to you, and another at the end where the big-screen visuals fly in your face, but the effects help immerse you in the experience, rather than detracting from its realism, as is often the case with 3D films.

The 80-minute show draws on the band's whole back catalogue, including a surprise appearance of 'Miss Sarajevo', with Bono singing Pavarotti's lines brilliantly. The three songs from the band's most recent album 'How to dismantle an atomic bomb' were thrilling even though I didn't know them before seeing the film. My favourite U2 era of 'Achtung Baby' gets a good showing, but I surprised myself at how moved I was by some of the older stuff. I'd forgotten how much I liked songs like 'New Year's Day' and 'Pride' until the iconic riffs kicked in.

I saw the film in London at the BFI Imax, and it's running for another week there. I strongly recommend you go. Here's an official taster of what's on offer...

It's a bit late for Easter eggs, but when you get bored of that, maybe try clicking on the logo in the top left for three seconds..? U23D

Jean-Michel Jarre grants fans permission to make derivative works

2008-03-27T18:00:00.002Z

Following the removal of several videos from youtube that (I believe) showed fans playing Jean-Michel Jarre's music on a keyboard, he's gone on record to say that the videos were not spiked at his request. He says fans are now free to adapt, edit and perform his work providing they give him credit. The terms of this are a bit vague - he just asks everyone to play fair, which presumably means you need to add value with your reproduction, and need to give him credit.

This is a landmark announcement: Jarre has recognised not only the power of the web to distribute content, but also the way it enables artists to engage creatively with other musicians who happen to be fans. Bands often invite fans to post widgets that stream music to their blogs under the band's control, but rarely do they cede this much creative control. It'll be interesting to see what works this announcement inspires. He's offering a prize for the three best works to emerge before the current tour ends, too.

The Cure at Wembley

2008-03-24T11:32:00.003Z

On Thursday, I went to see The Cure at Wembley. The sound suffered from apparently having no full time keyboard player (although, with nearly all the lights behind the band, pointing out at the crowd, they could have had a shire horse on stage and I wouldn't have seen it from where I was). On a couple of songs there were samples or keyboards, but the setup was basically two guitars, bass and drums. It gave a raw edge to songs like 'Never enough' and 'Love cats', with the drums really driving it, but the pace was relentless. On past tours, slower and more subtle songs like 'Apart' and the slow version of 'Close to me' have given the set more shape and variety. Songs like 'Hot hot hot' and 'Why can't I be you' sounded extremely sparse with all the synths and horns stripped away. With the sound being so basic, it was hard to get into many of the new songs (although, to be fair, many of them were probably just new to me).

Can't fault the choice of songs, though: Opening with 'Plainsong', playing a rocked-up version of 'Push', 'Prayers for rain' including a long howl of 'Raaaaiiiiin', and pretty much all the hits present and correct. 'Lullaby' and 'Friday I'm in love' got a raucous reception, and it was slightly surreal to see The Cure being treated by many of those around me as a party band.

One of the jokes in 'University of Death' is about how people never buy music just for music - it's always an accompaniment to something else, and at the last few gigs I've been to, there have been lots of people who were 'only here for the beer'. If you're chatting through 'Prayers for rain', you're in the wrong gig. Perhaps instead of limiting demand by pushing ticket prices ever higher, we should make concert-goers sit exams about the bands they want to see? After all, we consider it reasonable to make people sit exams for schools, universities and jobs, where there's far more at stake. Who could possibly object to five multiple choice questions on Disintegration before being allowed to buy a Cure ticket?

University of Death: Author interview at Mass Customisation blog

2008-03-20T12:32:00.004Z

In my novel, a major record label conspires to sell computer-generated music, tailored for each customer's taste, by using spyware on fans' computers. Over the course of the writing project, it seemed the story was slowly coming true: first Sony BMG was caught putting software on music CDs which was widely considered to be spyware, and then I found Trust Media's ecommerce system that enables fans to create and buy unique mixes of songs.

Mass customisation, or industrialised personalisation, is something I've been following with interest for many years. When I first wrote about it in 2000 for Personal Computer World magazine, a lot of the applications were quite gimmicky. You could have a few letters of your choice put onto training shoes, for example. In some cases, you got the impression that the web was used as an interface for specifying the product, with mostly manual work going on behind it later.

Now, mass customisation technology is widely used and highly automated - if you buy a Dell computer, or a t-shirt from cafepress, or upload photos for printing and delivery by post, you're using a kind of mass customisation. Indeed, my novel is printed using a mass customisation technology, where each copy is printed on demand, even if they're not personalised for each customer.

Frank Piller, professor of management at the Technology & Innovation Management Group of RWTH Aachen University, Germany, has been documenting and defining the area of mass customisation and co-creation for over ten years. I'm delighted that he's conducted an interview with me about the customisation aspects of my novel for his blog. The interview reveals more about what happens in the story than previous interviews have, and also looks at how mass customisation has been applied in the music industry already.

While you're there, check out the other stories on Frank's site: he reports regularly on new applications for mass customisation, and publishes a free email newsletter.

University of Death:
Download the first two chapters | Author interview | Buy now

Making (non)sense of the budget

2008-03-12T15:51:00.003Z

I know that when I want sound financial advice, I turn to the likes of reality TV star Jade Goody, daytime TV host Trisha Goddard and record-breaking hurdler Colin Jackson. Congratulations to the BBC for inviting them to comment on today's budget.

Sponsor my friend to run 10km

2008-03-11T13:58:00.003Z

My friend John is running 10km on April 6th, which is an awfully long way given that he doesn't particularly enjoy running. It's going to hurt. But it'll hurt him a bit less if you send a few quid to Oxfam and/or Amnesty International through his sponsorship form. Remember, John's running so you don't have to. A few quid from you (yes, you! even, or perhaps especially if you don't know him) will make his day, quite apart from possibly saving somebody's life somewhere in the world. See John's blog post about the run here, and a piece from Leamington's local paper about the 10km event here. It's worth reading that newspaper story just to confirm that the race really is sponsored by a solicitors' firm called Wright Hassall. Crazy name, crazy guys.

Last chance for discount shipping rate on University of Death

2008-03-05T09:23:00.002Z

Just a quickie to say that Lulu will be ending its EU Saver Promotion on shipping on Monday 10 March. At the moment, it costs £2.75 to have your copy of 'University of Death' packaged and delivered to your door, anywhere in the EU. From next week, it'll cost £3.50 to have a single book posted to the EU. Lulu will ship your book in a protective cardboard wrapper and this new rate is still good value.

New shipping discounts apply for buying multiple copies. These new postage rates will apply to all books published on Lulu, and you can benefit from the new shipping discounts by buying different books together. It will cost £4.50 for two books, and £5.25 for three books. After that, you'll probably want the Express shipping at £6.30 which is valid for at least ten books.

Funny how we say 'shipping' when it goes by car, and 'cargo' when it goes by ship, eh?

University of Death:
Download the first two chapters | Author interview | Buy now

Nine Inch Nails in the coffin of the music industry

2008-03-04T16:47:00.007Z

Nine Inch Nails (NIN) has taken Radiohead's digital distribution model and improved upon it.

NIN leader Trent Reznor has created a 36-track instrumental album called 'Ghosts I-IV'. The official website is providing the first nine tracks as a free download, and taking orders for the full album at a range of price points. If you're a hardcore fan, you can spend $300 on a signed edition that includes artwork prints, vinyl LPs and even the WAV files for each track so you can make your own remixes. If you just think the first nine tracks sound kinda interesting, the full album's yours to download for $5.

Some of the same problems remain: as with the Radiohead album launch, the website's fallen over. If bands want to take on digital distribution, they need to have web hosting that can cope with massive spikes in demand. Having a closer relationship with fans is great, but let's not forget that ultimately they're customers and they'll get angry if they can't download the stuff they've bought.

Some things are better this time around than with Radiohead: Firstly, there's much more clarity about what you're getting. One of my gripes with Radiohead was that they didn't tell people what file formats or DRM they might have to cope with in advance (MP3, and none, as it turned out). NIN offers several different download formats (MP3, FLAC and Apple Lossless), and is clear that there are no technical restrictions on copying or use.

Also, the band has put some real effort into making the download a desirable option. When you opened your zipped Radiohead album, all you got was a bunch of MP3s. When you open your NIN zip file, it's a bit more like the experience you have when you buy a CD. There's artwork there. There's stuff to read. Every song has its own photographic artwork, and there's a bunch of graphics you can use for wallpaper, or avatars or plugging the new album (see above). As someone brought up on records, tapes and CDs, the artwork and sleevenotes are an important part of the music experience for me. NIN understands that.

What about the music itself? Some of it (including the superb siren song at the start) works much better than other bits. Instrumental stuff is hard to pull off, and at first I thought that some of tracks didn't have a strong enough melody to be songs and didn't sustain or develop the ideas long enough to be considered ambient pieces, either. But it's growing on me, and third time through, I'm really enjoying it. I'm curious enough to hear the other 27 tracks that I'd consider buying them now. So it's been a successful promotion for me, then, considering yesterday I hadn't ever heard a NIN album and the only song I knew was Johnny Cash's heartbreaking cover of 'Hurt'.

The distribution model matches the creative work perfectly here: NIN can give away an album's worth of material, and still have something to sell. And selling the source tracks for remixing is a great idea: it's valuable content, that the band has already created, and which will encourage fans to have a more interactive relationship with the work. It will lead to fan remixes, which will in turn promote the original album.

The band sold out of its super-special $300 edition in under two days. That's $750,000 worth of business the band has taken without any of it going through the conventional music industry. Clearly, there are significant costs involved in creating these lavish box sets and that's not all profit. But as with Prince and Radiohead, NIN has shown that it doesn't need the music industry to sell music. Or, at least, it doesn't need the industry any more.

UPDATE: You have to go through the ordering process to discover that the $10 CDs cost $13.50 in postage to the UK, which is a lot more than I'd ever pay for P&P at Amazon. The CDs are cheap enough that the double album still only costs about £12 including postage to the UK, but that's more than I'd usually gamble on an album I'm just curious about. The postage makes the CD a significantly less attractive option than downloading the lot for £2.50, so perhaps I'll do that instead.

Why I called my book 'University of Death'

2008-03-02T18:22:00.004Z

One of the most challenging things about writing my novel was coming up with a title for it. While I was writing it, I didn't even have a meaningful working title. I just filed everything under 'grumpy underpants' or more often tagged it 'grumpy'. 'Grumpy underpants' was an idea I had for an appalling band name, but even as I was writing the story in a folder with that name, I knew the name was too awful to include, even in passing.

The best idea I had for a title for the book was to call it 'Limited Edition'. That would sum up the central concept of creating music on demand, and would also be a friendly nod to the way CDs have been marketed in the past. It would also mirror how each book is printed on demand. Research suggests figurative titles sell better too. In short, it's the perfect title.

But from a business point of view, it's rubbish. If you type 'Limited Edition' into Google, you get all sorts of stuff. I'd be up against the likes of Virgin and a magazine of that title. And since this book is only available online, it was important that people could find it easily.

'University of Death' is the band at the centre of the my story. The book doesn't relate where the band got its name from (perhaps Dove will enlighten us on his Myspace blog soon?), but I always thought of it as a pun on 'University of Life' and liked it because of the theatrical stage show it inspired.

Some people appreciate the title but others have been put off by it. I tried hard but I really couldn't think of anything else that could label the book and would enable people to find it relatively easily. If you've got any suggestions, feel free to post them in the comments. Not that it can be changed now. Changing the book title in the middle of its distribution would be like renaming a child - not really the done thing. Even if you've called him Griffon.

University of Death:
Download the first two chapters | Author interview | Buy now

University of Death: reviews online now

2008-02-26T18:11:00.005Z

I've just uploaded a page of reviews and testimonials of my novel 'University of Death', which I hope I'll be able to add to over time.

I'm particularly grateful to Mike Edwards, best known for his work with Jesus Jones, and Colin Vearncombe, best known for his string of hits as 'Black', for taking the time to read the book and put a thoughtful testimonial together. Although I have written for music magazines in the past, I'm not exactly a music industry insider, so these testimonials do a lot to add credibility to the book's view inside the music industry. Colin said:

"I cried 'til I laughed. There are some great ideas in here... and a few I hope the industry never hears about!"

Mike said:

University of Death is the most enjoyable, imaginative and perceptive insight into the plight and possible future of the music industry, a novel that illuminates as well as entertains. The best thing about it is its insight into how the music industry works, why it is dying and where it may very well be going.

I particularly enjoyed the way it shows how technology is abused by marketers to manipulate our subconscious. This rang true because some of the technology used in the story already exists and has been used in similar, albeit not quite as sinister (yet?), ways.

University of Death has a love-hate relationship with the music business, being cynical and reverential at the same time. The portrayal of the industry is both accurate and funny - it's hard not to identify with many of the characters in there.

The twist at the end fooled me but fitted in perfectly with the themes of the book. When I finished reading, the story made me feel optimistic, that there was an exciting new beginning for the music business.

University of Death is well worth buying if you like pop music itself or if you're interested in the machinations of the music industry.

On a personal level, it means a lot to me to get these reviews because these are the singer/songwriters behind two of my favourite albums ever, and whose entire careers I've followed. Black's second album 'Comedy' is sublime: moody and ambitious production matched with charismatic songs. And the third Jesus Jones album 'Perverse' still fizzes with energy, even after 15 years of listening to it.

I've also uploaded the reviews posted on Lulu by other readers on the new reviews page.

Today, I also found the first press coverage for the book, which is at local news site Herts24.

PS: Visit Colin's site to download his live album for free, including songs new and old played with a full band line-up. You can read my review of this April 2007 tour on my blog. Mike is currently in the studio with County & Western band The Blazing Zoos. Its debut album is due for release in Spring 2008.

University of Death:
Download the first two chapters | Author interview | Buy now

Gamekeeper turned poacher

2008-02-23T10:45:00.002Z

I had my first interview about my novel 'University of Death' yesterday. It was a strange experience being on the other end of the interview: usually, I'm the one trying to pose questions that will make the interviewee stop and really think hard about giving an original answer. This time, I was the one thinking 'gosh - didn't expect to be asked that'.

Although there were surprises, it wasn't too difficult. The journalist was well prepared and extremely professional. She gave me time to answer without interrupting and left a nice long pause after I'd replied to check I really had finished speaking (just like I do when I'm doing interviews).

I gabbled away no problem, but at the end had a suspicion that I hadn't answered the question some of the time. It's easy to do: you get so carried away with all the stuff you could say, that you fail to bring it back to why you started talking about that stuff in the first place. I was caught in the middle of a writing deadline frenzy when the phone rang, which didn't help, but for the next one (he says, presumptiously), I'll try to slow down and speak much more in 'bullet points'. And I'll use a notepad so I can write down the question at the start to make sure I'm actually answering it.

One of the questions I was asked was whether I'd been in a band before and whether that's where the whole 'struggling band' storyline came from. I hadn't expected that.

I was in a band at university for about a term, but none of us took it very seriously. There were four or five of us, and we had nothing in common except that we all wanted to play at least one gig. We used to rehearse in my tiny campus bedroom (without the drummer).

There was a singer called Zoe, a guitarist called Richard, a drummer we borrowed from another band, and me on keyboards. There might have been someone else - I can't remember. We played in the students' union bar on a 'band club' night, and there were probably about 30 people there. We only played covers: 'Thinking about you' by Radiohead, 'Weather with you' by Crowded House, 'More than Words' by Extreme, 'Twist in my sobriety' by Tanita Tikaram and 'Wish you were here' by Pink Floyd. You could have called us lots of things, but 'punk' wasn't one of them. The setlist was a distillation of what four people with nothing in common could agree on, and what we could reasonably attempt with our limited talent. We put as much imagination into our name as we did the setlist: we went out as a covers band called 'Blanket'.

I remember it being too dark to see the keys properly, and remember my fingers being sweaty and sliding on the keyboard. But once we'd got through the first song (can't remember which it was) and got some applause, it all got a lot easier.

At the end, this guy came up to me and told me that 'Wish you were here' was his favourite song ever. That made me nervous. I knew I'd fumbled one of the notes at the start and I knew how I felt about my favourite songs: pretty defensive. "Thanks for playing it," he said. "I love that song and I've never heard it live before. That was brilliant." He'd had a few, but he meant it. We'd made his night. And he'd made mine.

My experience was completely different to the performers in the novel. I wasn't good enough to wing it, so I had to concentrate on what I'd practised and repeat that. The characters in my novel (even those jamming in obscurity) are all talented musicians, who can play intuitively and really relax into a performance and turn it into something creative, feeding off the energy of the crowd. In many ways, Simon's band Goblin is an ambassador for all those fantastic bands on MySpace who have about 50 fans and who deserve a bigger audience that just isn't there for them.

I didn't tell the journalist all this. I just told her I was in a band at uni, but we didn't take it very seriously and we weren't very good. But maybe, for that one night, we were good enough. If that guy heard his favourite song played live, and it made him feel something, then perhaps the odd bum note and complete lack of chemistry on the stage don't matter. If you're in the audience, half the gig's in your head anyway: it's about how you respond to the music, and the thoughts and feelings it evokes in you.

University of Death:
Download the first two chapters | Author interview | Buy now

Putting the guff into guffaw

2008-02-22T20:24:00.002Z

Be honest. Read that advert and tell me the first bodily function you thought of was blowing your nose.

You're not the only one

2008-02-19T17:59:00.004Z

Remember Shaggy Blog Stories, the compendium of humorous blog posts created in aid of Comic Relief? The book went on to raise over £2200 for charity, and continues to sell.

Now it's inspired a new collection entitled 'You are not the only one', and dedicated to raising money for War Child. There's a call for submissions online now, and you've got two weeks to dig out your best stuff from your blog archive. Keep it short, and you'll stand more chance of getting in, they say.

Here's the run-down:

We would like you to submit (to us at bloggersforcharity@yahoo.co.uk) a written piece about something you've been through from any aspect of your life that you want to share. It can literally be about anything: your relationships, your past, a road not taken, being a parent, an illness or your regrets etc. We've called it "You're Not The Only One" to reflect the camaraderie of blogging.

See the more detailed guidelines here. If you don't have a blog, keep an eye on the site for news of when it goes on sale. It's bound to be special.

I have submitted my Tribute to Syd Barrett for consideration. I'm not the kind of blogger that shares their private life extensively, but I do know it meant something to me to be able to write that story while listening to Piper on the day I heard Syd had died.

A fresh breath of Oxygene

2008-02-03T11:30:00.001Z

I meant to write this before Christmas, but didn't get around to it. Now I have...

The red and white lights of cars travelling on the Champs-Elysees combined with the blue Christmas lights in the trees to make a twinkling French flag. My schoolboy French and a swift internet browser had got me ticket number 94 to see Jean-Michel Jarre performing Oxygene in Paris. As I approached the theatre, near Place de la Concorde where Jarre entertained a million in 1979, there were spotlights reaching up from the theatre's pillars, reminiscent of the lights used at Docklands.

I collected my ticket. As the man on the desk whistled Oxygene IV to himself, I studied the cardboard model of the auditorium. I was in row four. Not bad. Not bad at all. The theatre sat 1000 and was a surprisingly intimate venue for a musician more noted for using skyscrapers as projection screens.

The 45 minute ambient piece 'Waiting for Cousteau' was played in the foyer and theatre before the show. There were a few familiar faces from the Teo & Tea showcase in the audience, which I attended in March.

When the curtain went up, there was an egg shaped chair on the stage which spun around to show JMJ sat on it. It was a nice entrance, but there was no reaction from the audience until he spoke. The weird thing about theatre gigs is that people treat them like plays, and only clap at the end of the acts or when prompted. He delivered a spoken introduction (in French, but with a short English greeting to foreign visitors), brought on the band, and then set up at one of the banks of synthesisers.

There's always been an element of, shall we say... 'computer assisted performance' about a JMJ gig. Quite a few fans maintain that the Teo & Tea showcase was mimed, although it felt pretty real to me at the time. The full spectacle of the typical Jarre concert could only be achieved using some kind of computer synchronisation, but I choose to believe the music is mostly live, most of the time. With your favourite bands, as with religion, faith is everything.

For this show, there would be no fancy slideshows or lasers to hide behind: just a lot of analogue instruments and four musicians. It's trendy for bands to play albums from start to finish at the moment, but that robs the set of most surprises. For Oxygene, one of the first albums I owned, it was good to hear the spontaneity in this performance. Three new variations were included too, which were previously only released on DVD, and the whole set was concluded with one of the tracks from the 1997 sequel album to Oxygene.

At one point, a mirror was lowered over the stage so that everybody could see what was being played. It was odd to see the bass notes on the right hand side of the keyboards, but it reinforced the feeling that this was real. During the show, Jean-Michel played a theramin, some kind of weird stick instrument and a number of other instruments and synths. When he played, he concentrated hard. There was the feeling that this was a show where he was taking real risks and things could go wrong.

The crowd cheered for Oxygene IV, which was an odd reaction. I would have thought any real fan would be mostly tired of it by now (as I am), and would prefer the more mellow Oxygene II and Oxygene VI. But the hit single did sound fresh and the bassline was hypnotic.

Last year, Jarre released a re-recording of Oxygene, including a DVD edition that filmed the performance in 3D and provided red and green glasses for watching it. The 3D effects were fun but gave me a headache after a while. The film (also available in a flat version on the 3D disc and separately) is a fine memento of the show I saw. Alongside the DVD edition, a single CD edition of the re-recording was released.

JMJ's now announced that he's going to tour this production worldwide, with gigs announced in the UK, Denmark and Belgium. To promote this, he released the Oxygene re-recording for free with the Mail on Sunday the other week. It's an approach that Prince tried with his new studio album, but it seems JMJ's trying to have his cake and eat it. This isn't previously unavailable material, as Prince's album was: it's a CD that was released for sale just eight weeks ago. Those who bought the album in December are going to be a bit miffed to find it's available for free now. There might well be shops carrying stock that is now virtually worthless too, given that you can buy the CD on Ebay cheaper than you could have bought the newspaper. (The DVD content is still exclusively available through retail).

Newspapers have a unique channel for distributing millions of copies of an album. I'm pleased that some of my favourite acts can reach new audiences this way, but isn't it time for newspapers to start being a bit more creative? The day that an up-and-coming band releases its album for free through a newspaper, and the newspaper has the vision to recognise the opportunity there, will be a scary day for the music industry. Until then, giveaways are basically publicity stunts and artists should be careful whose hand they bite.

Thanks to Duncan Walls for permission to use these photos. See more at Duncan's flickr stream and visit his site JarreUK for the latest tour news.

Time to check the Oyster source code...

2008-01-29T17:58:00.000Z

So, they've built this massive infrastructure for electronic payments on the tube. When you think of the scale of the thing, it's amazing. It works at every station on the tube network and you can charge up cards at stations or online. You can even charge up your cards in newsagents. The system debits your journey price from the card balance, and shows you how much credit is left when you leave the station.

I've just registered for automatic top-up. That means that when my balance gets below £5, they'll charge my credit card £20 and credit it to my Oyster card. Clearly, I need to have a lot of trust in them to grant them this authority. Firstly, that they're counting the cost correctly, and secondly that they won't mischarge or overcharge me.

So, what's my first experience with autocharging? Receiving the following email (I've made no edits to this):

You have successfully uploaded Auto top-up from <PickupStationName> station on your Oyster card, number <OysterCardNumber> and topped up your pay as you go. Auto top-up is now active on your card.<br><br>Whenever you travel on the Tube, DLR, Tram or Bus GBP<AutoloadTopupAmount> will automatically be added to your Oyster card at any station, using your credit or debit card ending in <HashedCCNumber>, when you enter a station and your pay as you go balance is below GBP5.00. You can change your Auto top-up arrangements at www.tfl.gov.uk/oyster.

This tells me that nobody has ever tested this system end-to-end, otherwise they would spot that the email merge isn't working. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

University of Death: second edition coming up

2008-01-27T18:58:00.001Z

I'm going to be making some amendments to the cover of University of Death, so if you would like a first edition, I'd recommend ordering now. (There won't be any changes to the inside of the book for this edition).

I've been spending some time working on various promotions for the book, including going to Abbey Road today with Karen to take an author photo, which is why the blog's been a bit quiet. More news and stuff to come soon...

My prog rock masterpiece

2008-01-06T09:07:00.000Z

There's this meme doing the rounds where you make up a band, album title and tracks by just using what comes up when you press the random link button in Wikipedia's navbar. The rules are you're supposed to use them in order and not miss any out. Thanks to Patroclus for bringing it to my attention.

Band: Nongpoh
Album: Walter Jona

Tracks:

Bonus tracks on CD release:

Funnily enough, I tried this when I needed to find an automated way to generate band names for my novel. I didn't get such good results then but I did come up with another way to generate band names and listed over 100 of the best ones I didn't use in the back of the book.

I had a look to see if there was a button to deliver a random creative commons image on Flickr which could be the album cover, but there doesn't seem to be. Perhaps it's better left to the imagination. I'm sure there are more airbrushed dragons on Nongpoh's vinyl sleeve than there are in the whole of Flickr.

University of Death: Author interview

2008-01-03T08:59:00.001Z

Thank you to those of you who sent me questions for this: I've now published the 'University of Death' author interview. The interview reveals more about the book's characters, themes and inspiration and reveals what's in the ten pages of bonus content at the end of the novel!

I've also uploaded some suggestions for how you can help spread the word about this book. Simple things like mentioning it on your blog, making friends with Dove on MySpace, or posting a link to the sample chapters in Facebook, can make a big difference. Because this is self-published, there's no real marketing budget. Any help you can offer in stimulating word of mouth is greatly appreciated.

There are two reader reviews now on the book's Lulu page. Thank you to Kim and Anonymous for writing those. Thanks too to John and Julie for mentioning the book on their blogs.

If you haven't already done so, please check out the free sample first couple of chapters. You can browse them on screen or download a PDF to print out.

"Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg..."

2007-12-29T19:27:00.001Z

Many people decorate their houses on the outside with lights, but few go to the trouble of erecting a wooden facade in front of the garage and painting a Simpsons nativity scene on it. My neighbours did. The front garden also includes a life size Santa who moves his head, waves his arm and sings; a sleigh and an inflatable reindeer.

UPDATE: Come to think of it, a better Bartism for the headline might have been 'You would even say it glows - like a lightbulb!'

Photos of Paris

2007-12-23T10:46:00.001Z

I've just returned from a trip to Paris visiting friends, where I had an opportunity to play tourist and 'do' the Eiffel Tower, Louvre and Arc de Triomphe.

On my city walks, I also came across a shop that sold shop dummies, a plastic waiter wearing a feather boa, and a war monument shaped like a country into which someone had drilled an eye hole so it looked like a bunny rabbit. You can view my Paris photographs here. The light was fantastic: the sky was blue and the sunshine was crisp, although it faded early.

Here's one of my favourites - a photo of a saxophonist busking, which was taken from a balcony on the Pompidou Centre.