15 years ago I started to scribble down some ideas for a novel. I did a bit, then a bit more, then had a real blast, and finally left it alone for several years! But a couple of years ago I got really stuck in to what I had written, updated and finished it.
On 30th November I finally uploaded all 137,000 words to www.smashwords.com went through their program they call ‘meatgrinder’, only to discover I hadn’t been as clever as I thought with the formatting and in particular the table of contents. I then spent the next 36 hours sweating blood to make the corrections to meet the exacting requirements of several retailers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but I am sore with myself to have been so stupid in not being more precise.
So, my first novel is now available in eBook form, and will soon, hopefully, if it finally passes the ‘manual review’, be available via some of the major eBook retailers such as the iBookstore.
The experts predict there will be 200 million tablets sold by the end of this year, rising to 760 million by 2016. So, I reckon if my tome is up to it, and obviously I think it’s not a bad story, or I wouldn’t have taken the risk publishing, then it’s possible I might sell a few copies.
What’s it all about I hear you ask? Well, does anyone remember a man called Sir Anthony Blunt, named by PM Thatcher as the ‘fourth’ man in the infamous ‘circle of five’ spies recruited in Cambridge - Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Harold ‘Kim’ Philby, and John Cairncross.
It is believed Blunt was recruited by the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB when he visited Russia in 1933, already a committed Marxist. It wasn’t until 1979 when Mrs T exposed him as the ‘fourth man’ that the public knew he had been an undercover Soviet mole for all of that time, working in Buckingham Palace for most of it!
Well my story is not about Blunt! However, if you study the facts about Blunt, it has to be more than likely the Soviet Union recruited many more undercover moles between Blunt’s recruitment and the end of the Soviet era over the timespan of more than 50 years! Some of those moles could well be alive today, holding key positions, just waiting for the call to arms!
My story, is a total work of fiction, is titled ‘A Mole in the Hand’, and is written under the pseudonym of Walter Frederick. The eBook format is now available, and the story predicates a planned coup d’état taking place in Britain in 2014. The central hero is a PR executive called Richard Mastin who gets caught up in trying to stop the coup happening.
I wonder if there are any volunteers out there who would care to review the book for me. I recognise I might be taking a chance, but I have enough confidence in my story to take that chance. Volunteers please need to have an eReader device, and should let me have their email addresses. I will then send a gift copy of the eBook from www.smashword.com direct to the email address of the first three to volunteer, who will then need to download it from the email received.
Please send reviews to Smashwords!
