I note that several bloggers are also artists, and I enjoy seeing their paintings and drawings on their sites. There are also a lot of good writers who amuse and inform with essays, humorous pieces and short stories, but not novels, of course.

Publishing has always been a chancy business, which is why instead of the thousands of small, specialised publishing houses that served the English speaking world a century ago, there are only a handful of gigantic publishing corporations whose sole motive is profit.  

The U.S.A.’s four hundred million people provide a market for even the most poorly written stuff, but in Australia with an adult population of around 9 million, the market is so tiny that no book is published unless it was written by someone already so famous that everyone will buy it, no matter what it’s like.

Just when things seemed to be hopeless for aspiring authors, the U.S.A. came to the rescue with P.O.D. Print on Demand computer technology that is so smart that booksellers don’t need to hold copies of the book, all they have to do is email an order and within a few days it is printed, posted and on their shelf. The savings on paper alone are gigantic. With the previous system millions of tons of remaindered books are being dumped every year.

Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other internet bookshops have virtual showrooms with excerpts, downloads, reviews... of thousands of titles from authors otherwise unable to get into print.

I'm one of those, having written a couple of novels that, although praised by the publishers here, would never have been commercially viable – especially as the main characters are gay. It was Martin who put me on to Lulu.com, where anyone can browse the ‘storefront’, search for titles, download for virtually nothing, or purchase a book and have it sent anywhere on the planet in a remarkably short time.

My most popular novel to date is ‘Between Enemy Lines’, reviewed by AJ a week or so ago on his Lunarhunk blog. Anyone wanting to read a thriller with gay heroes can take a look here: https://www.lulu.com/content/740144

The blurb summarises the plot reasonably well:

“Set in subtropical Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, Between Enemy Lines is not only a nail-biting thriller, it’s also a love story in which two young men discover that love is about more than sex. In his new school, Robert has trouble conforming to the expectations of his peers and is severely provoked by a fellow student; an acolyte of the fundamentalist Headmaster whose dogmatic Old Testament beliefs have led him to the brink of insanity.

Relationships, morality, values, courage, friendship and what it takes to be a ‘man’, are but some of the themes explored in this gripping tale.

When he falls in love, Robert's life falls into place - until attempts on both young men’s lives force them to take extreme measures, the consequences of which pose an ethical dilemma that could destroy their new found happiness.”