Scrumptious

In the Clavier book, there will be no picture of me - and no biography.

This will, says Tom the publisher, give me an air of mystery. Well it's possible. But I think that what he really means is that I'm not very photogenic. Too true.

My kids on the otherhand ... they are scrumptious. (Though I am aware that there isn't a dad in the land who wouldn't say that.)

But it's something to bear in mind for the second edition - and any other books, come to that. Big pictures of the kids ... and me lurking grey in the background, the eminence gris.

Lurking in the shadows

Just how many times to I have to tell Tom the publisher that the Clavier book is not my story?
He’s a like a dog with a bone on this one, and is terrified that some Eton piano teacher is suddenly going to come out swinging with a libel writ.
All I can do is repeat - over and over again - that although it’s a true story, it never happened to me.
No, it happened to a friend.
That’s not to say that I don’t share quite a few traits with the story’s 17-year-old hero. I was at Eton in 1982; I was pretty useless at playing the piano; and I was quite, quite desperate for a girlfriend.
But still - it was not my story.
Though how I wish it had been. It must be the ultimate fantasy of every horny teenage boy’s across the country: To be take

Let's go viral

I am not in any way, shape or form a tecchie.

I treat my lap-top like a sort of lightweight typewriter. I go on the net to file my stories. And that's about it.

Which might generally indicate that my chances of getting the Clavier book to go "viral" are slim.

However. I have one cracking trump card up my sleeve. The Edinburgh Coffee Morning. They're a bunch of people who meet up in Centotre in Edinburgh every Friday morning - and they know EVERYTHING about computers. My mind is befuddled after just ten minutes talking to them.

For some bizarre reason, a number of them have rather taken to the Clavier book. None of them have read a word of it, mind. But every week, they have a fistful more crazy ideas to turn it into a "Go". I shall dedicate my next love story to them.

Agent number one

Most authors have an agent. I guess if they're really smoking, they might have two.

I, bizarrely, have acquired THREE of 'em!

And this is me with good Jenny Brown, Scotland's premier agent, who is currently hawking various bits of my stuff around the place. (She's on www.jennybrownassociates.com)

Down South, I've got Darin, who managed to place the Clavier book. (He's on www.theinspiragroup.com)

And I've also got a children's agent, Lucy, who pitches my kids' stories. (And she's with Jenny.)

Anyway, these three agents are all just chomping at the bit for the Well-Tempered Clavier to be a hit - because then there will suddenly be an AVALANCHE of Coles books on the market.

I tell you - I won't have to write another word for the next decade!

Charming. Moving. Uplifting

If you're a first-time author, then somehow you have to try and dig up some quotes from a celebrity or a journalist to stick on the front cover.

These quotes can really help sell a book - and they are incredibly difficult to come by.

You plead, you grovel, you weasel, and at the end of it all, you might just get a quote from your local paper. If you're lucky.

Well I've been grovelling for well over a month, and, with just two days to go, I still didn't have a word to put on the front cover.

And then ... nothing short of an absolute miracle. I got the quote: "Charming. Moving. Uplifting. Why can't all love stories be like this?"

And from not a bad paper either ... The Wall Street Journal.

Is it really based on a true story?

Hi - I've got a book out in one month's time, and this blog is, I hope, going to help turn The Well-Tempered Clavier into a bestseller. It's a love story, the tale of a 17-year-old Eton schoolboy and his 23-year-old piano mistress.

And the picture you see here is of me as a teenager - the same age, as it happens, as Kim, who is the hero of my book.

Now this story is set in 1982, and it's very much based on a true story.

But my publisher Tom is very concerned to know whether it is in fact my story - or whether I've pinched it from somebody else.

How many times do I have to tell him? "Tom," I said last week when we were in the pub. "Read my lips! It's not my story! It is the story of a "Friend"." Was it helpful to add those quote marks to the word "Friend"?

A short promo video ...