In a special promotion the eBook version of The Reluctant Terrorist is free to download from Amazon for the next three days.

That's an explosively good deal!

Go, get it.

From the pen of G. M. Dobbs, creator of the Granny Smith series.

Set deep within the picturesque Welsh valleys lies the quiet village of Gilfach. Nothing ever happened in the village until - the peacefulness is shattered by a confusion of killer clowns and a full-scale terrorist hunt.

John Smith is an everyday sort of man with everyday concerns. He spends his time working at the local supermarket, walking his dog and arguing with his domineering wife, Rose. However, John Smith, thanks to a bizarre series of events, most of which were beyond his control, finds himself with the tag of Britain’s most wanted.
John Smith is the reluctant terrorist.

It's an eccentric dimwitted character book. Sort of like a set in Wales version of a Florida set Dave Barry, Carl Hiaasen, Bill Fitzhugh novels. It ends up not being a bad novel at all. ****

 Do your palms sweat at the thought of a new Stephen King hitting the shelves? Do you neglect your friends in order to curl up between the pages? Do you have to charge your Kindle more than twice a month?  Are there books in every room of your house?

 If you answered yes to any of the questions above then you may be addicted to reading.

This addiction is widespread and the side effects are a stronger vocabulary, an imaginative mind and a better understanding of what makes things tick.

 Searching for your next big read is about to change with the success of BookTock - think the popular Tik Tok but for books. Actually Booktok is a new option on the hugely popular Tick Tock app.

On BookTok, TikTok creators post book reviews of books in all genres, but in particular, contemporary romance and young adult fantasy recommendations have taken off. Novels like “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid, “November 9” by Colleen Hoover and “Six of Crows” by Leigh Bardugo have gained incredible popularity on the app, and BookTok creators have been responsible for pushing many of these titles to the New York Times Best Sellers list, even though they were all published between 2015 and 2017. 

Books gaining viral fame on the internet may seem somewhat counterintuitive. With the rise of BookTok, the web has created an increased excitement for the written word, rather than a loss of interest. The rise of BookTok has had a notable impact on book sales, especially on independent booksellers who pay close attention to what their customers are looking for.

If you're wondering what BookTock is well explained simply - BookTok is the fastest book club you will ever visit. In under a minute, users film books they recommend, record time-lapses of themselves reading or show their reactions to the final nail-biting or tear-jerking moment of a novel. It’s all very emotional.

Below is a video showing several BookTock reviews.

 Laura Vanderkam, author of time management titles recently offered up a sobering thought on Twitter.

One day, she tweeted, you realise that you are only going to read so many books. Fifty a year for fifty years is 2,500 titles.

So many books out there...so little time.

 

For years James Norbury lived beneath the poverty line and spent his spare time as a volunteer with the Samaritans where he took phone calls from desperate people looking for someone to listen to their problems.

Norbury, a 44-year-old self-taught artist and writer, who lives in Swansea, has had his life turned around after his collection of drawings of two unlikely friends – a panda and a dragon – captioned with life-enhancing proverbs.

Big Panda and Tiny Dragon will be published in the UK by Penguin Michael Joseph on 16 September. It features two friends, who often find themselves lost, but discover beautiful sights that they never would have found if they had gone the right way. Together, they overcome life’s obstacles.

Norbury plans to buy a house with some land when his advance comes through so he can start a sanctuary.

Well done, that man 

 "One of the most vapid and infantile forms of art ever conceived by the brain of a Hollywood film producer." ...Dwight Macdonald, The Miscellany 1929

"The western remains, I suppose, America's distinctive contribution to the film."...Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Show April 1963

Geographically and historically the concept of "The West" is very loosely defined, when associated with the literary and film genre of the western. With the possible exception of the Eastern Seaboard almost every part of the USA had been called "The West" at some stage in the country's history.

The federal government defines "The West" as including the following states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada,New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. But from the movies and books both Kansas and Nebraska can be added. And maybe Hawaii and Washington should be removed. The West of popular imagination usually contains those areas associated with the final frontiers of American settlement - anything West of the Mississippi River. An area associated with cowboys, Indians, outlaws and lone lawmen.

Amongst the earliest western literature with artistic merit were the works of James Fennimore Cooper, his most famous works being 1826's Last of the Mohicans - though by the true definition of the genre none of the author's works are strictly westerns. The books were set in colonial America and featured the British rule but true westerns are set in independent America.

EZC Judson, writing under the pen name Ned Buntline was an early writer of traditional westerns. He earned himself the nickname of, 'Father of the Dime Novel' and turned Buffalo Bill into a figure of mythic proportions. However the first western with the classic ingredients was Owen Wister's The Virginian in 1902, which largely invented the guidelines that western writers still follow today.



The names Louis L'amour and Zane Grey have dominated the genre for many years and still do to some extent. But an early European champion of the genre was Karl May with his popular Shatterhand books. He wrote over 60 books but Shatterhand remains his most famous character. Indeed Shatterhand was revived by B.J. Holmes in a series of books for the successful UK western house, Black Horse Westerns.

The cinema has always had a love affair with the western and during the silent era there were many hundreds of westerns made. Most of these have been lost but there are still some prime examples of early westerns to be sought out by fans.

Some of the most important silent westerns that still exist and can be found on DVD or in many cases for free download from archive.org include:

The Iron Horse (1924) directed by John Ford
The Covered Wagon (1923) directed by James Cruze
Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1914) directed by D W Griffith

In cinematic terms there is little doubt that the Golden Age of the western took place between the years 1940 - 1970. There were many classics before and since but during these years there was never a time when most major studios didn't have at least one western in production.

During the Fifties and Sixties in particular the western also dominated the small screen with many western TV series being aired. Among the most well known are:
Bonanza
Gunsmoke
The Big Country
The Virginian
The Rifleman
Have Gun will Travel
Wyatt Earp
Wanted Dead or Alive

The modern era has also seen many classics of the genre, both on the screen and between the covers - Lonesome Dove, Sons of Texas, Blood Meridian, Tombstone, The Unforgiven to name but a few. And of course in recent years we've seen the Coen's re-make of True Grit, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight. Those though are just the tip of the hay bale - for instance check out the excellent Netflix westerns series, Godless.

The Western truly is THE GENRE TOO TOUGH TO DIE. Kevin Costner is working on a new western and there is a remake of Butch and Sundance in the works. American greats like Dusty Richards and  Larry McMurtry continue to write quality western works. And British western house, Black Horse Westerns are continuing to bring out new western fiction written by writers from all over the world. Among these you will find such loved writers as B. J. Holmes, Ben Bridges, Jack Giles,Nik Morton,  Ian Parnham, Mathew P. Mayo, Chap O'Keefe, Jim Lawless and myself, Jack Martin. And this is just a small selection of the writers producing all new traditional westerns under The Black Horse banner. And of course there is the story of John Locke who became the worlds' first self published writer to sell a million eBooks on Amazon, and several of his titles are westerns. Mind you Locke was recently discredited when it emerged that he had paid for many positive reviews which helped sell his books.




Westerns have also made the transition to eBooks and the excellent publishing house, Piccadilly Publishing is reissuing western classics in the new electronic format, and of course the popular Edge series is also available in eBook. The Edge books, for instance, are a particular favorite of mine and I am proud to say that I was instrumental in initially bring the series to eBooks, but the reissue program is now in the industrious hands of Malcolm Davy.

So if you've never tried  a western then maybe now is the time to do - they've never been so easily available and online giant Amazon has many titles at good prices.

Come on saddle up and let's ride.

Take a look at my Jack Martin page at Amazon - click HERE

Figures from the Publishers Association recently revealed that UK book sales last year reached £5.7billion -  The record breaking year, claimed the association's CEO, Stephen Lotinga, 'Shows  the love of books, in all forms.'

Hardcover sales soared to £97million, while sales of audiobook were also healthy with a 25% increase in sales to total £31million. School digital books were also up 32%, while non-fiction digital sales rose 4%, suggesting that younger readers consume books on eReaders, tablets and smartphones. And overseas sales rose 8% to £3.4billion which consolidates the UK's place as the world's biggest exporter of books.

'Publishers are catering to modern consumers who are reading books in different forms across different platforms,' Mr Lotinga said. 'However there is still a very real attachment to the printed word, as we continue to see the resiliance and popularity of print across puplishing sectors.'

The Top Five fiction paperbacks of last year were: (Figures from The Sunday Times)

1 The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
2 Night School by Lee Child
3 The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
4 The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
5 I See You by Clare Mackintosh 

Sidney Sheldon is now an official ghost, something that every dead writer covets to be. The pop maestro of fast-paced thrillers—so addictive that his fanclub extends to the hermetic interiors of North Korea—will delight his readers from beyond the grave with a new book The Silent Widow, penned by Tilly Bagshawe. The book will be released this month.Commissioned by Sheldon's publisher, Bagshawe explores the underbelly of Los Angeles, a city in which the author resided. A successful television writer, Sheldon found fame when he shifted to fiction at 50.

Sheldon is not the only writer with a rather lucrative afterlife in the offing. There is Enid Blyton, who has shaped childhoods across the world, introducing goblins, elves and adventures to kids. Over the years, there have been several authors who have chosen to continue her series to much success. Blyton originals, however, are still a rite of passage for millions across the world. The first writer to have chosen to go down her magical path was Claude Voilier, who wrote in French. The books were later translated into English.

Then, there are the immortal writers. Agatha Christie continues to be the queen of crime, courtesy of crime writer and poet Sophie Hannah. James Bond, created by Ian Fleming, continues to romance and spy uninterrupted. From Kingsley Amis, who wrote under pseudonym Robert Markham, to Sebastian Faulks, and now Antony Horowitz. Bond has had a number of literary handlers including John Gardner and Raymond Benson. Then there is Sherlock, who refuses to retire. Written by Antony Horowitz, The House of Silk and Moriarty did very well.

And then there's James Patterson who hasn't even waited to die before getting other writers to write his books for him, but that's another topic for another day.

 It seems that being dead is no great handicap to bestselling authors.

The question is, do they work? What do readers think?

Shortlists have been announced for this year's English and Welsh-language Wales Book of the Year Awards.Two independent judging panels have selected nine works for each language in categories for poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction.

The shortlists include works by award-winning author Horatio Clare, former national poet Gwyneth Lewis, and Prof M Wynn Thomas, an expert in the literature of modern Wales.
The winners will be announced in June.

The Roland Mathias Poetry Award

• All fours by Nia Davies
• The Mabinogi by Matthew Francis
• Diary of the Last Man by Robert Minhinnick

Fiction Award

• Hummingbird by Tristan Hughes
• Light Switches Are My Kryptonite by Crystal Jeans
• Bad Ideas \ Chemicals by Lloyd Markham

The Creative Non-Fiction Award

• Icebreaker by Horatio Clare
• David Jones: Engraver, Soldier, Painter, Poet by Thomas Dilworth
• All that is Wales: The Collected Essays of M. Wynn Thomas

Welsh-language Poetry Award

• Llif Coch Awst by Hywel Griffiths
• Treiglo by Gwyneth Lewis
• Caeth a Rhydd by Peredur Lynch

Welsh-language Fiction Award

• Gwales by Catrin Dafydd
• Fabula by Llyr Gwyn Lewis
• Hen Bethau Anghofiedig by Mihangel Morgan

Welsh-language Creative Non-Fiction Award

• Meddyginiaethau Gwerin Cymru by Anne Elizabeth Williams
• Blodau Cymru: Byd y Planhigion by Goronwy Wynne
• Ar Drywydd Niclas y Glais by Hefin Wyn

Every author dreams of making the New York Times best-seller list. The odds are not good: Over 100,000 new titles are published each year, but fewer than 500 crack the Times' tally.

Who writes them? How do they get there? How long do they typically stay? In the journal EPJ Data Science, researchers from Northeastern University analyzed eight years worth of data to provide some intriguing answers


FULL STORY.

2015 was a busy year for me - as well as penning a new western, Riding the Vengeance Trail (out May 2016), I found myself working on two major non fiction projects Cardiff and the Valleys in the Great War saw publication from Pen and Sword Books during the summer, while Dark Valleys, a look at historical murders that have taken place in and around the South Wales Valleys will see print during 2016.

I'm still writing and polishing the latter title - my deadline looms a month away, and I'm pleased with the way the work is shaping up. The research threw up some interesting avenues of investigation, and I was able to share some new information with the police regarding a cold case from 1993 - but you'll
be able to read about that later in 2016 when the book sees print. Ive also signed another contract for a follow up to my first world war study, -  Cardiff at War 1939-1945 will likely see print during mid 2017, but I'll be starting the work on this title immediately following the delivery of the manuscript for Dark Valleys to my publisher.

During the summer, May to be precise my western, The Man From Jerusalem saw print, and sadly turned out to be my last western for Robert Hale, the publishing house that first put me into print. In Dec 2015 Robert Hale shut up shop after more than 80 years in the publishing business. They had my forthcoming, Riding the Vengeance Trail under contract and to say I was dismayed is an understatement. Still there was a silver lining in the shape of Crowood Publishing who are to continue the Black Horse Western line and my book is to see publication in May as originally scheduled. Still I'm going to miss Robert Hale and owe them a great deal.

Several of my older titles are to be republished by the wonderful Piccadilly Publishing - Tarnished Star and Wild Bill Williams will be the first two - Tarnished Star now goes under a different name, LawMaster in order to tie into a film version, that director Neil Jones is developing.

I'm pleased to be publishing with Piccadilly Publishing and plan to pen a new western for them during the first few month of 2016. And I'm hoping that the company will be able to put me westerns before a new and larger audience.

Piccadilly Publishing is the brainchild of longtime Western fans and Amazon Kindle Number One bestselling Western writers Mike Stotter and David Whitehead (a.k.a. Ben Bridges). Since 2012 the company has been bringing back into 'e-print' some of the most popular and best-loved Western and action-adventure series fiction of the last forty years.

They certainly have a high profile on the Internet and as you can see from the new cover art for, Wild Bill Williams they  mean business. As soon as the new editions are available I'll let you all know.

What have I enjoyed this year? Well there was a new Bond movie, Spectre and although not as strong as Skyfall it was a damn entertaining ride, Quentin Tarantino delivered a great western in The Hateful Eight and there was another bloody Star Wars movie. I didn't visit the big screen as much as usual in 2015 (Im getting tired of superhero movies) but I did follow some great TV - the second season of Fargo was even better than the excellent first, and The Walking Dead returned for a new season and seemed to be back on form. Hell on Wheels also returned to the small screen and so far the first half of the fifth and final season has been aired - I enjoyed it overall but think the show is starting to power down. Still the mid-season climax was exciting stuff and I'm eager for the conclusion early in the new year. There was also a TV pilot, thanks to Amazon, of Edge, the western character created by George G. Gilman. And whilst not brilliant the pilot did show promise so fingers crossed.

What books stick in my mind? Well I very much enjoyed the new Bond novel, Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz. Stupid title aside it was a bloody good read that managed to feel like Fleming was once again pounding the keyboard. This year also saw Stephen King publishing the first two books in the Bill Hodges Trilogy and I think these books are among the best he's ever written - Mr Mercedes and Finders Keepers kept me turning the pages. A lot was made of the fact that these were straightforward crime thrillers with no supernatural elements, but to me they felt like vintage King and the characters were as good as ever. End of Watch, the final book in the trilogy will be published this coming summer and I can't wait to finish the story.


I also read a fair few westerns this year - going through the entire Lonesome Dove series in chronological order rather than publication order, and found that I was noticing a lot of continuity errors when read in this way. I also caught up with classic westerns thanks to new eBook editions and have especially enjoyed rediscovering Herne the Hunter. I also  read a lot of crime fiction this year - The Girl in the Spider's Web was a worthy continuation of Stieg Larsson's Millenium series. No one could have expected this book to stand up alongside the original classics but author, David Lagerchrantz seems to have managed it. We lost Ruth Rendell this year and Dark Corners was published as a posthumous work. The author had all but completed the book when she died in May and all that remained was for some polishing. I very much enjoyed this book and was deeply saddened by the death of the author. The world of fiction also lost another of its great voices this year, when Terry Pratchett passed away in March. His final Discworld novel, The Shepard's Crown came out during August and although I picked up a copy on publication day I have yet to read it. It sits in my TBR pile and will be tackled soon.

During 2015 eBook sales seem to have levelled off but the industry is still strong - of course the year started with the tremors resonating from the Amazon/Hatchette book pricing row but now that the industry has matured somewhat it was inevitable that sales would even off. Though eBooks are still doing the business and look set to continue doing so. All in all though it was a calm year with Amazon upgrading the excellent paperwhite device, and admitting that their prestige Voyage eBook reader failed to find the market. In truth the Paperwhite device is so good that there is no need to try and top it. And whilst the Voyage may be the best eBook reader out there it is simply too expensive and is, let's face it, not that much better than the Paperwhite.

And so we fast forward into 2016 - on a personal note I've got the birth of my first grandchild to look forward to, and I'm hoping to get a couple more books written. As well as the contracted titles, I've set myself a target of writing at least three novels during the coming year. I certainly need to get the fourth Granny Smith novel done and somewhere in the back of my mind I can feel another Jack Martin novel taking shape-still we'll talk about all that at the end of the year.

The latest Neilsen Bookscan review which looked at the book market during 2014 shows a decline in sales for adult print books, whilst the market for adult digital fiction has taken another jump with predictions that the consumer eBook market will be worth £350m this year. Out of all the adult print books published during 2014 only three titles sold more than 100,000 copies. These big sellers were from Lee Child, Martina Cole and CJ Sansom.

'Any drop in sales of adult fiction can mainly be put down to the migration to eBooks,' Said The Booksellers, Phillip Jones in reponse to the Neilsen report.

Alison Flood, writing in the Guardian reported - 'Within digital adult fiction there was growth in three unexpected genres - short stories, graphic novels and westerns while sales year on year of literary fiction fell, as did sales of romantic fiction, crime and science fiction.'

 I'll be bringing the Archive back to life this week, after weeks of being snowed under with work and I've got some exciting western related news coming, including stirrings from the Chap O'keefe camp, as well as a look at the latest titles from the astounding line built up by Piccadilly Publishing.

And so to kick things off I'd like to direct western fanatics to the new book from Chuck Tyrell. The book's available as a low priced eBook, and anyone wanting a western fix should check it out.


 Four riders pounded toward us from the east, raising a cloud of dust and firing like they had all the bullets in the world. I took a bead on the lead horse, a three-color paint, and squeezed off a shot. The horse went down and the rider tumbled head over heels to the ground. When he scrambled to his feet, I put him down again with a shot in the brisket. I jacked another shell into my Winchester. 
    I switched my aim to another rider, not worrying about the one I’d shot. He was dead.
    The other three scattered. There wasn’t all that much cover on the flat, but they ran for what there was. Andy was firing, but the running horses showed that his lead took little effect.
    “Aim for the horses,” I hollered.
    A six-gun cracked and a bullet plowed into the dirt not an inch from my left foot. I whirled and pulled the trigger when the Winchester’s muzzle lined up with Denny, whose hand worked at earing back the hammer of an old Colt Army M1861. My bullet took him just above the belt buckle and knocked him on his butt, where he sat, staring with disbelieving eyes at the blood stain spreading on his shirt.


The eBook is available now - it's on my own Kindle and I'll be getting to it pretty soon - things have been so frantic lately that I haven't had any time to read fiction of any kind - (rare for me since I've always got a book on the go). And I can recommend this book with confidence because Chuck Tyrell, a man who also, like myself, publishes westerns with Black Horse Westerns always delievers a totally readable and enjoyable book. But don't just take my word for it - Chuck's won an award or two.



Charles T. Whipple, an international prize-winning author, uses the pen name of Chuck Tyrell for his Western novels. Whipple was born and reared in Arizona’s White Mountain country only 19 miles from Fort Apache. He won his first writing award while in high school, and has won several since, including a 4th place in the World Annual Report competition, a 2nd place in the JAXA Naoko Yamazaki Commemorative Haiku competition, the first-place Agave Award in the 2010 Oaxaca International Literature Competition, and the 2011 Global eBook Award in western fiction. Raised on a ranch, Whipple brings his own experience into play when writing about the hardy people of 19th Century Arizona. Although he currently lives in Japan, Whipple maintains close ties with the West through family, relatives, former schoolmates, and readers of his western fiction. Whipple belongs to Western Fictioneers, Western Writers of America, Arizona Authors Association, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Asian American Journalists Association, and Tauranga Writers Inc.

I found this article HERE written by bestselling hybrid author, Sylvia Day to be illuminating.

As if physical books didn't have enough to deal with now that the digital revolution is in full swing, but the New York Times are reporting that physical books could introduce a lot of nasties into your life.

 The NY Times is reporting that libraries are trying to deal with the problem of bedbugs infesting their returned books.  Evidently, the parasitic insects like to crawl out at night and hide in books. According to the article, some library patrons have decided never to borrow a book again after receiving an infested book. Reports of infestations have come from libraries in Wichita, Los Angeles, Seattle, and others. According to The Gothamist, NYC seems to be doing pretty well with only a few infestations.

I couldn't believe it - Perfect People by Peter James, a five hundred plus page book. from the pen of one of Britain's finest thriller writers for 20p. Of course I bought it immediately, but afterwards I felt a little bad about the purchase. The book was dirt cheap, almost a giveaway but had I, in being seduced by predatory publishing, helped hasten the demise of the bookshops and in the long term traditional publishing as we know it?

Perfect People is published by Macmillan, who are one of the big six publishers hotly contesting the US DOJ price fixing case - and other books from the same publishers are being sold on Amazon for the same price.

So is this, I wonder, Amazon showing their strength by devaluing Macmillan stock?

The Bookseller recently published an article that makes for disturbing reading to anyone who loves books - they reveal that these 20p bestsellers are a result of a war between Amazon and Sony. A war where all of publishing could go down as collateral damage.

Apparently Amazon are matching Sony's prices which makes for some bargains for readers, but it's just so wrong. You know I'm against price fixing in principle but this is just so wrong and no matter what the likes of Amazon and Sony say it is devaluing the book.

Check out the Bookseller story HERE

Those titles currently on the 20p cut-price list come from three major publishers—Quercus, Pan Macmillan, and Canongate.And according to the BOOKSELLER, Amazon are training readers to search for the lowest price. It is already hard enough for most writers to make a living without this nonsense going on.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Amazon are a great company with brilliant customer service - but this predatory pricing should leave a bad taste with book lovers.

The bookstore wars are over. Independents are battered, Borders is dead, Barnes & Noble weakened but still standing and Amazon triumphant. Yet still there is no peace; a new war rages for the future of publishing.

In 1994 Americans bought $19 billion worth of books. Barnes & Noble and the Borders Group had by then captured a quarter of the market, with independent stores struggling to make up just over another fifth and a skein of book clubs, supermarkets and other outlets accounting for the rest. That same year, 513 million individual books were sold, and seventeen bestsellers each sold more than 1 million copies. READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE

This kid is a star and this video, posted by his parents has gone viral on You Tube - check it out

Lots of writers reread their favorite books — and not just once or twice. Stephen King, who wears a T-shirt with the slogan Quot libros, quam breve tempus (“So many books, so little time”), has read “Lord of the Flies” eight or nine times, he said via e-mail, and “Lord of the Rings” three or four. King has also read Ian McEwan’s “Enduring Love” and Robert Penn Warren’s “All the King’s Men” three or four times each; James M. Cain’s “Double Indemnity” four or five times; and John D. MacDonald’s 1960 thriller “The End of the Night” some half a dozen times. Of that book, about a college dropout’s killing spree, King said: “It’s one of the greatest American novels of the 20th century. This is a novel Émile Zola would have relished.”

The above comes from an interesting article at The New York Times Online which you can find HERE