Royalties

The ones writers receive not the Royal Family. I have an admiration for all forms of royalties be it those in high places or the cheque one might receive from the proceeds of hard work. I was fortunate enough and humbled to receive a royalty cheque in the mail just yesterday and although it was not vast it was a sign to me that readers, somewhere have seen and purchased copies of my book. That alone is inspiring to me and I'm indebted to my readers forever. What the royalty cheque does not tell me is in what median it was found or even if they were hard copy/s or ePub. This is where I as the author feel to a point I have lost a little control over the sale of my product, my publication. I need to regain this and retain it for life.
Unfortunately, like most I was pretty naive when it came to publishing my first novel, I just wanted to get it out there with the old adage "write it and they will read it" I like most, self published my first novel and again, like most, trusted the publishing company would see me right, that they would look after me and they did to a point. Apparently I retain full rights and ownership of the works written, although I'm not sure how I exercise those rights as I don't seem to be able to adjust the sales cost up or down. I'd rather sell a hundred books at say $1.00 each than ten at $10 each especially ePubs, that means 90 more readers would have read my book instead of just ten and that is my aim, to get people to read them, heck I'd like to make them free for a time and I know people can do this but I don't know how, because I don't have control over the product. But I am learning.
I have a number of novels waiting in the wings so to speak, extracts of some can be found in the (WIP) Writing In Progress section on my website www.rickcanhan.com.au which I might add is up and running again. Cruise on over and check it out, if you do, please drop a comment or two. Cheers again for now and keep on reading, Rick.

That Writing Workshop

I attended a Writing Workshop late April and I said I'd let you know how it went so here it is. It was absolutely awesomely inspiring and I got a lot from it despite it not being aimed at the writer of fiction. Obviously the ultimate aim of the workshop was to take the next step to do the weekend retreat for the ultimate 48 hr author. I can see the concept of the retreat and believe it is an awesome concept, but it wasn't for me, not that I didn't have faith in myself to follow it through, but I guess as Natasa would say "my ducks were not lined up yet" and at $20,000 my ducks had better be lined up straight and true.  But the whole idea certainly gave me food for thought and I'm well on my way to getting myself in a better position to move forward with my writing as its my audience that deserves to be satisfied with what they read. Cheers for now, Rick.

On this day 46 years ago

Well, it was 46 years ago today, I arrived as a ten year old migrant with my family from England.  The documents below show how and when we arrived in this country we now call home.

 

The years have simply flown by or so it seems. I am now a husband, father and a grandfather, and so the family continues to grow. I served 22 years in the Australian Military and saw operational service overseas. My final employment was 11 years with Qantas Airways which is ironic really as we arrived in Australia on QF736 from London to Sydney.

 

I was sort of forced into an early retirement due to ill health and now live on a veterans pension on a half acre block in the beautiful Glass House Mountains. I am also a published author and a keen writer of fiction and non-fiction.