Filter jam

No it’s not something you buy in a jar and spread on your toast. It’s a predicament I’ve been in for the past week.

I bought this camera for my collection. It’s called a Zenith 80 and it’s a Russian copy of the first Hasselblad cameras. It’s lovely piece of kit, but when it arrived, it had a filter stuck on the front of the lens. I tried everything to get it off – rubber gloves, pliers, etc. Someone suggested I use a hacksaw to cut two small grooves in it, then slot a steel rule into the grooves and use that to twist it off. Even that didn't work. I reckon the previous owner must have superglued it on the lens.

In the end, in desperation, I resorted to eBay and, to my delight, found someone selling a standard lens for the camera. I reckon I must have been the only one in the world with a Zenith 80 body looking for a standard lens. I was the sole bidder and got it for £19. It arrived this morning and it fits and works a treat. Also I now have a rather fetching paperweight in the shape of another 80mm f/2.8 lens with a stuck filter on it.

Did I mention that the camera came in an outfit case with spare back, collapsible rubber lens hood and some filters? Also with it came a 65mm wide-angle lens with two whopping great filters in their own little compartment in the lid of the lens case.

I confess that, when it comes to old cameras, as opposed to the digital camera I used for my work, I'm a collector first and a user second, but this is an outfit crying out to be used. Watch this space. Meanwhile, here’s a pic of the outfit.

It pays to publicise yourself

It’s been a busy day today, trying to drum up sales for my eBooks. Time was when a writer could give his words and pictures to a publisher, then sit back and let that publisher worry about getting it all together, designed, promoted and sold. But times change. It’s okay if you are a big name author with a lot of followers. Publishers will fall over themselves to publish your books if they think there are enough people out there waiting for your latest words of wisdom. In the specialist field that I work in it’s a bit different.

I’ve come to believe that for writers like me the way forward is to self publish, and the cheapest way to do that is as an eBook. It’s relatively simple to do that if you have a few basic design skills. My latest tome is a classic camera book called Clockwork Cameras. It’s all about the way manufacturers of the past used clockwork in their designs. I’d already self-published it with a print on demand service, but the unit cost, and therefore the price I was forced to sell it for, was a bit high. So now I've converted it to an eBook. Click here to see the way it appears on Amazon.

So it’s up there on Amazon waiting to be sold. But I have to find buyers. That’s the tricky bit, and here’s what I’ve been doing today.

• Written press releases which will go out tomorrow to photographic magazines with a picture of the cover.

• Written a news story for the newsletter of the BFP, for whom I freelance

• Put an announcement on the Internet Directory of Camera Collectors, which is received by email by camera collectors around the world.

• Prepared artwork for a small advertisement in the newsletter of the Photographic Collectors Club of Great Britain.

• Announced the publication on Twitter.

• Announced the publication on Kindleboards, which is read by people who contribute to, or buy from, the Kindle store.

• Oh yes, and mentioned on this blog.

These days, if you want to be a successful writer, you have to be prepared to also be a strong self-publicist as well – and to know where to aim your publicity. The big question, of course, is will it generate sales? Watch this space.

Suddenly I'm an ebook author

I read a few weeks ago that Kindles are selling like hot cakes and all sorts of authors, both famous and not-so-famous have been making a killing by self-publishing their own ebooks that can be read on these little devices. So I thought I’d give it a go.

Started out with two novels that a couple of ‘proper’ publishers have shown interest in but which at the end of the day, got turned down. I still had them all in a Word format, though, so I turned them into ebooks and now they’re up on the Amazon Kindle Books website.

The first one is called Timeflight and it’s a science fiction novel. Imagine my delight when, 15 minutes after it went live as an ebook on Amazon, someone in America bought it. Wow, I thought, I’m on my way. My first sale in 15 minutes. That was a week ago, and no one has bought a copy since.

My second one is called Breakthrough and this one is a paranormal horror story. I’m still waiting for my first sale on that.

Next step is a non-fiction book for camera collectors, one of my specialities. It’s called Clockwork Cameras and it’s about how camera makers of the past used clockwork in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways. This one was a bit more difficult to convert into an ebook because it contains a lot of pictures. But after a bit of trial and error, it’s now up there with the other two. Here's a picture of the cover...

Next step is to send out press releases on the camera collecting book to all the photo magazines. 

If anyone is interested, clicking on the titles above will take you to the books on Amazon.

Three’s company

You see, the thing is, we never meant to have three dogs. We only started off with one. He was a lovely little Shih Tsu called Benji. This is Benji…

Anyway, when he got to about four years old, my wife suggested it would be nice to get him a little friend. To be honest, I wasn’t keen on the idea, but she started looking at a website where people advertise dogs for sale. Every so often she’d say, “Oh look, isn’t he cute”, and I’d say, “He’s too expensive”, or “He’s too far away” etc...

Then one day she saw these two Llasa Apsos called Teddy and Tilly and I had to admit they did look nice. Over the next few days, she kept going back to the website and so, one evening, when she was out, and I’d had a couple of glasses of vino collapso, I rung up the woman who was advertising Teddy and Tilly for sale.

“Sorry,” she said. “Teddy is already spoken for. Someone is coming to pick him up on Sunday.”

That was the point when I should have said, “Okay. Sorry to have bothered you. Goodbye.” What I actually said was, “If you can persuade this other person that they would be better off if they weren’t separated, I’ll have them both.”

I left her my name and phone number. Ten minutes later, she called back to say the other buyer quite understood and it would be so much better if they weren’t separated, and so if I wanted them and didn’t mind driving three hours to get them and three hours back, I could have them.

Two dogs? To add to one we already had and who might not get along with them? Three hours drive away? I should have said no way. What I said was, “See you Saturday.”

And this is Teddy and Tilly…

They all get on fine and I really don’t know how anyone would ever want just the one dog. Mind you, taking three for a walk at the same time is a bit of a do. You remember maypole dancing, the way kids used to dance around a pole holding ribbons, in and out of each other so that the ribbons made a pattern? Well, think of it like that, but with leads instead of ribbons and with a dog on the end of each one.

Writing is a matter of application

Okay, the funny start to the day has now abated, so I can talk about what I’m up to. As it says in my profile, I’m a freelance writer and photographer. I mostly write and illustrate artcles for magazines here in the UK and in America. I also sell pictures through the Alamy website as well as direct to markets such as greetings card companies.

I used to write a lot for photographic magazines here in the UK, until I discovered that American photo mags pay a lot more. I also write nostalgic stuff for magazines like Best of British and have found an American magazine called British Heritage that has started to accept work from me. I also write about writing in a magazine called Writing Magazine. I write corporate copy for a couple of big-names companies, which is lucrative, but boring. (That's why I haven't mentioned the company names!)

It’s easy this freelance writing lark, isn’t it? No, actually it isn’t. It took three months of rejected proposals to that American magazine before I got accepted, and it took nearly four months to find the right time to be able to get the pictures, not to mention the research on the internet to find the words. Freelance writing is actually a matter of application – in essence, the application of your bum to a chair and getting going. It’s something I find a lot of people can’t bring themselves to do.

“I could write a book,” they say, “if only I had the time.” It’s not like that. If you have writing in your blood, you simply make time, and you get on with it. That’s how I make my living. Stick with me and if you are interested, I might give away a few secrets.

Got to go now, the dogs need a walk. Did I mention I have dogs? Two Llasa Apsos and a Shih Tzu. They’re wonderful. I’ve also got a burning interest in antique and classic cameras. No doubt they’ll crop up a bit in future blogs. Must go. Keep watching this space.

Morning all

Okay, I've only just launched this blog. The title tells you something about the bloke I am and how I live my life. Trouble is I'm having a bity of a funny day today, so I'll have to come back later to expand and expound.