... I went into hospital the other day
For tests they said,
And maybe an operation.
They gave me a shot in the arm.
Which made me feel a bit woozy
So I reached for my iPad
To play solitaire...
But I was filled with inspiration.
In an hour I'd written a thousand words,
A thousand more in two.
By the end of my stay
I had a novella.
and emailed it to an agent.
"Brilliant" was her one word reply
"Random House have bought it.
Fox Media want the serial rights...
... Would you like a cup of tea?"
"What?" I answered drowsily.
"You're in hospital Mr Catshill...
And have had an operation...."

New Website

A few days ago, I built a website for a friend, and looked carefully at my own tired old pages. I've spend a bit of time revising them, and I'd be interested in getting some feed back. http://www.philipcatshill.com
I've added Website builder as a skill on LinkedIn.

The main character in my novels, Mike Newman, received a blow on the head when he was 30, which left him half paralysed with a stroke. I'm trying to keep the character realistic. I had a stroke myself at the same age, so I have first hand experience, but everyone's stroke experience is different. My own is described in C.V.A. A hard way back. Please feel free to comment about the characters in my books, but please.... as you will see if you read C.V.A. A hard way back, you will realise why I can't discuss your stroke. If you want to describe your own stroke experience, please write your own book!

On Tuesday, Rosalind Kim Nazilli  issued a challenge to the Facebook group, Beta Readers Writers Club:  Fifty words ending with the line.... 'With that - She shot him!'
Here is my answer to the challenge.

The dreaded moment had finally arrived. She knew it had to happen one day. Years of training had prepared her for it. Looking once more into those soulful, deep brown eyes, she guessed that his broken leg no longer caused pain. He whinnied once again. With that - she shot him.

Click here to visit the group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/thebrwc/:

Rather than giving my full length work away for free on Amazon, Andra Parnell gave me a great idea - write a prequel! So here it is .... Free for all time . https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/168145                       

Does anyone know how to list an EBook FREE on Amazon? I don't mean the KDP Select program but my short ROMANCE which is an introduction to the some of the characters in my acclaimed crime series. I have listed it FREE on Smashwords, but I can't seem to do the same on Amazon. Does it have to be Public Domain?                   

Before I had my Kindle, I was buying around 30 paperbacks each year - mainly crime and Napoleonic stories. Not as many as some, I know, but more than many. My Kindle cost less than a single year's reading. Thanks to the Kindle Select programme, I have now downloaded over 300 FREE books on promotions by contemporary authors. I read at around 30000 words a day, around a hundred conventional pages so each of these books is going to take about three or four days to finish. So I have three years reading ahead of me and each day, more of my fellow authors insist on putting their work out there for free. Why? My wife bought many more books and read far more than I did, but now has a Kindle and has a hundred FREE books to read. Both my daughter and daughter-in-law have done the same. Between the ...four of us, in the age of paper, we would have bought around 200 to 300 books in a year. Since authors have been so willing to give their hard work away for zilch, they, like me, have not bought a single one! As I have not taken part in the Amazon Select Scheme, can someone please explain what the advantage is. I accept that books are listed in the online libraries and royalties are paid if the are borrowed, but I would like to know if anyone other than Amazon has benefitted from giving their work away for free? As far as I can see, giving your books away for free spells the death of the writing profession. Who is going to buy while the freebies are out there?

Review on Goodreads

This review for my book says it is worth 10 stars!