New-world Devilry and 2016!!

As a business owner, I often ask myself how we can improve our products, connect with a bigger audience, and increase sales. Of course, having a good product is only half the battle, people must know it's out there. Online markets are controlled and driven by Facebook and Amazon. Success blogs - How I quit my job after my book sold 350, 000 copies in one weekend - are as ubiquitous as get-rich-quick schemes. We all know this, yet this is the world we live in, and as publishers and authors are forced to face. In fact, for all its devilry, it knocks the socks off the old-school industry with its close-knit community of publishers and agents bent only on breaking a certain type of 'new' author and continually rehashing old ones. I like Googling Black Crake Books to see what's happening out there, and when I receive notification that someone in Germany or Australia is reading Three Journeys to Patagonia or Boathouse to Botswana, I am thrilled, even if I have only earned two dollars. It's all about persistence and self-belief.
For the new year we have several big things planned: First, we are going traditional and printing tree books to go into book shops; I know, call us old fashioned!! Second, we are going to raise our international profile by visiting book fairs in Europe and elsewhere; if you are interested in buying foreign rights for any of our titles please get in touch. Also in the pipeline are a poetry-only imprint, and a new Oxford/Botswana female detective novel.
Have a wonderful end-of-festive season and a Happy New Year!! See you online in 2016...NRHG XXxx

Freedom to write purely for fun...

Oxford and Maun author Nick Green says he has written the books he was destined to write and now has the freedom to write purely for fun.

The six titles to his name, of which Tezcatlipoca's Dream - A Mexican Novella is the latest offering, marks the end of a twenty-five-year struggle with the pen which has seen Nick deliver one prose poem and collection of short stories (Warriors), two travel books (Boathouse to Botswana and Three Journeys to Patagonia), one novel (Yellow Dress), and one non-fiction narrative piece which is a must-read for any expats in Southern Africa, entitled King of New Beginnings.

Yet to be confronted by viral sales, or dare-we-suggest fame, Mr Green spends his time as a camp manager deep in Botswana's Okavango Delta where as often as not he is to be found serenading guests on guitar or regaling them with stories from a successful and varied career in hospitality.

Happily married to a beautiful Zambian bride named Princess he is busy working on a detective novel set in England and Botswana and a follow-up to Yellow Dress where the action takes place in the high Andes.

I for one wish him every success!!

Nick Green's books can of course be found at www.blackcrakebooks.com or you can just go straight to Amazon's Kindle store.

Don't forget to leave a review if you are lucky enough to buy and read one of Nick's soon-to-be classics.

Happy Christmas xXXx

 

Hearts and Bones - the rebirth of the Mexican novella

As part of my degree in Latin American studies I wrote a thesis on how expat authors writing about Mexico respond to the previous generation of expat authors’ books as much as they do to the country and the people themselves; the whole process perpetuating a lot of myths.

I wrote to Allen Ginsberg who confirmed that he and Jack Kerouac and Burroughs had all read Under the Volcano before they headed to Mexico, and I also wrote to David Markson, another American author (and only man – I discovered – to have known both Kerouac and Lowry) who sent me a signed copy of his Mexican opus, Going Down.

Twenty years later, Tezcatlipoca’s Dream, is my contribution to the genre. You can read excerpts here and on the website www.blackcrakebooks.com

If you like what you see, please go to Kindle Scout and vote for it so that we stand a chance of receiving a publishing contract with Amazon, here’s the link 

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/TK862O4M3FN8

If we don’t win, TD will be launched online (Kindle) and later as a POD paperback before Christmas.

Muchisimas gracias

Henry

Best BCB Openers...

What's your favourite Black Crake Books opening line?

A warrior stands at the top of the steps and breathes deeply – Warriors

You are probably not overly familiar with Wisconsin, Nick? – Boathouse to Botswana

Dirty grey clouds scudded high up in the sky, assembling in black masses – Josie

Speak of Africa to anyone who has known her and at once a wistfulness invades their voice – My Forever Heartache

Beyond the open sash window the distant hum of an electric lawn mower – King of New Beginnings

Night fell somewhere in the desert south of Santiago – Three Journeys to Patagonia

The lack of oxygen to Walter’s brain was enough now for his body to start spasming – Yellow Dress

Boom! The sixteen canons on land signalled farewell to all those at sea – Tezcatlipoca’s Dream

Man is born free and is everywhere in trains – Notes from Overground

Kindle Scout Campaign

Dear Readers

Please help Black Crake in our campaign to win a publishing contract with Amazon for our latest release Tezcatlipoca's Dream - A Mexican novella by Henry Green.

All you have to do is follow the link below and nominate it, but don't stop there, tell all your friends and share the link on social media. Together we can get it into the Hot and Trending list and win a contract. Your reward should Henry win? A free copy ahead of publication.

Many thanks in advance
Black Crake

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/TK862O4M3FN8

Boipuso

Happy Independence Day Botswana!! Enjoy FREE books the whole of next week; just check out the Kindle store...

Tezcatlipoca's Dream

Check out the cover for my new Mexican novella, Tezcatlipoca's Dream...designed as always by my friend Andy Meaden!! Thanks Andy

Summer Sale Continues

Buy a book, buy ten!! Our Summer Sale continues...tomorrow is Prime day on Amazon and throughout July and August we will be running an aggressive new pricing strategy so please don't miss out, and take this opportunity to buy a book!! Let the pages take you there... http://www.amazon.com/Nick-Green/e/B006ZHNZ1S

 

Happy Independence Day!!

Our latest Kindle Countdown Sale starts SATURDAY....have fun and enjoy your books responsibly!!

June 2015 News

June's bestsellers were:

In 1st place: Boathouse to Botswana by Nick Green
Joint 2nd: Notes from Overground by Tiresias, and My Forever Heartache by Bernard Horton
3rd place: Three Journeys to Patagonia by Nick Green

Don't miss the next Kindle Countdown sale beginning next Sunday 4th July!! Happy Independence Day USA...

Best Summer Reads 2015

Chickenshit

There were four of them; Hal, Scott, Benny, and Lucas
and they were in deep shit, behind enemy lines without a
radio. The jungle was untouched, too fresh. Whoever moved
through here had all the time in the world to carefully
replace leaves and gently push branches to one side. They
knew there should have been a village one mile east, which
meant one of two things was happening; either (they were
between the village and the river) the villagers didn’t use
water, or the village was used as a base for Cong operatives
so that every approach to the settlement was watched and
most likely booby trapped.

‘How the fuck did we get left in this dump?’

‘You tell me Benny,’ Hal answered quietly. ‘Weren’t you
guarding the fucking radio?’

‘Man, don’t get on my back, Hally. You saw me leave
the goddam set to try and get Paul a medi-pack, I gave him a
shot, he smiled and died, and that’s when the whole fucking
fox hole was shelled out of the ground. Jesus, I don’t have to
justify my shit to you, you don’t hold rank on me.’

‘But I do, and you two had better shut the fuck up before
we all earn the snipers another medal. We all saw the radio
get hit and without another one we’ll probably all end up
hanging from trees on guitar string so we can quit blaming
each other and find out if we are where we ought to be on
this map. Lucas I want you to trace this bank down to the
river, if you find water check its flow and look for boats or
anything else like that tucked away, if we’re where we think
we are this really is the closest the river gets to the village,
and we’ll need to cross it and find out if the village has a
radio set we can borrow.’ Scott grinned. ‘Benny stay here,
Hal and I are going up to see if there’s any movement over
this rise. I want everybody back in fifteen minutes and two
rounds one second apart if anyone’s compromised o.k.?’

Lucas crept through the undergrowth, stopping every two
yards to listen to the jungle, without breathing, listening for
voices, steps, water. The river was close, he saw it four
minutes after leaving Benny and he’d only had to head due
east to get there. Too easy, he thought. He’d seen none of the
usual booby trap give-aways like roughed-up bark and neat
little openings in otherwise dense forest. It was still thick but
now he lay down to crawl more slowly, every inch of his
body pricked by thorns or nibbled and itched by mosquitoes
and giant ants that he habitually ignored, more concerned
with not losing an eye to the sharp little sticks that he
couldn’t focus on with the sweat running down his face.

After a whole minute at the edge of the water, Lucas risked
kneeling long enough to establish that there weren’t any
obvious signs of boats or even of people, and that yes, they
probably could cross there. It was narrow with enough
vegetation on both banks to set up a rope and then give each
other cover.

At dusk they were only a hundred yards outside the
village. From their rise they looked down onto the main
cluster of houses and realised now, why the river where they
had crossed it was not busy. A crude canal brought water to
the edge of the fields from where it was then run along
wooden troughs into the village itself. A bamboo water
wheel provided the necessary push. Their vantage point was
trees on the edge of the jungle proper and no one worked the
fields nearest them. Prolonged surveillance through
binoculars had shown no sign of any armed factions. By now
they were all keen to get on with it.

‘We go as soon as it’s dark,’ Scott smiled. ‘We don’t
know what to expect going in, but it probably won’t be
armed resistance. If it is, we’re probably better armed than
they are and whatever happens I don’t want any shooting
that isn’t return fire, the last thing we want is confusion of
any kind. We go in formation, me and Lucas entering each
building in turn starting with the biggest in the middle there,
then the two to the right and finally the two to the left which
look the least inhabited, you two cover our backs at every
door. The one thing we can expect, regardless of whether we
find a radio or not, is company on the way out. Again, we
stick together, if there is a radio, Benny you of course carry
it. If Benny gets hit, Lucas you take it. That way Hal can
look after the heavy toys and we should move like a fucking
tank until we get to cover again over on the west side where
those four trees stand taller. Right, do we all know what
we’re doing?’

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The Angel of the North

There was no wind and the persistent snowfall made the

forest quiet. Big individual flakes fell in a steady rain,

weighing down his eyelashes and wetting the sentry’s

already frozen beard. It was mid-afternoon and dark below

canopy level. The North was colder than he’d expected and

so far his experience of this posting was doing nothing to

refute the claim by the other soldiers that the seasons

disappeared up here, that there was only one long winter. He

looked down at the gateway, shuffled his feet and beat his

arms across his chest to increase the flow of blood to his

numbed hands. Was there a hooded shape through the snowy

mist? Could he really hear a woman singing? He shouted,

hailing the stranger but there was no answer and he felt his

voice inadequate against the snow’s impenetrable silence.

Above the treetops there was still some daylight left. He

marvelled at the impressive strips of red and pink sky

stretching out across the far corner of the horizon. These

sunsets reminded him of home and restored his faith in the

gods that had brought him so far away from it. Dusk showed

the mountains to good advantage. It was a humbling time of

day, made all the more poignant by the fact that it heralded

the onslaught of night, and with it the everpresent danger of

attack and death. He looked down again at the gateway. This

time the shape moved and he shouted for whoever was there

to state their business. Nothing.

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King of New Beginnings

Beyond the open sash window the distant hum of an electric lawn mower; the smell of freshly cut grass blows into the bedroom and the curtains flick gently in the breeze. In short the perfect English summer’s day. Sarah twists on the bed.

It’s clear from her body-language that I am expected to take her from behind while she watches – admiringly, intrigued – in the mirror. I oblige unsure if this is for her or me, suspecting the latter. In the middle distance the sun catches white windmills and then the sea. The room is beautiful with thick, luxuriant carpets. We are naked and comfortable with it. Drinks, laughter. Cadborough Farm in Rye, East Sussex is the location for this surprise break. Somewhere I’ve never been, before or since, but a place of significance for me at the time. I am so overwhelmed that I write the owners a thank you note one year later on the anniversary of our stay, but by then I’m already battling to keep Sarah. How had she chosen Rye? I was confused.

‘Did you know that this was the village where Conrad Aiken taught Malcolm Lowry how to write?’ I’d asked her.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I saw it in one of the books you’re reading.’

As a biochemist specialising in neuroscience, Sarah was pretty sharp but I found it hard to imagine her thumbing through the Lowry biography Pursued by Furies and registering that he’d been in Rye – maybe. Maybe it was just coincidence. But I don’t believe these things ever happen by accident, some things are pre-ordained, others are meant, just as some are not meant. The universe had simply aligned itself in such a way that I was treading cobbled streets in Lowry and Aitken’s footsteps and falling deeper in love with Sarah.

We kissed in public, which was out of bounds in Oxford, and made love in the sand dunes (caught or nearly caught red handed by a priest); laughing at all the local pubs with their blackboard adverts for ‘pie and liquor.’ It was one of those hot English summers which only come around every five or ten years.

Such were the thrills associated with falling in love with Sarah. It would take me years to recover once it all went wrong, as it inevitably does.

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Or email nicolasgreen@hotmail.co.uk to order your FREE review copy

Boathouse

“You are probably not overly familiar with Wisconsin, Nick?”

“That’s something of an understatement, Jim.” I reply meeting him at the fire to top up his champagne.

We are in the kgotla at Savuti Bush Camp celebrating Jim and Mary’s 50^th wedding anniversary. Jim is a giant of a man with a deep voice and big hands. He has made his living selling snow-clearing equipment in a four-state area; Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas. Later in the evening we discover that he and several other of the guests, from New Zealand, are all keen skiers.

His wife, the diminutive Mary, is playing “pick a card” with the female staff who are coming one by one from the staff village to see her. She has already won them over by cleaning dishes back-of-house and presenting them with sweets, clothing, pens and pencils. The cards are postcards from their home state and each one represents a plant or animal native to Colorado.

It’s Monday, which is traditional dinner night, and there is much to celebrate as another couple in camp are celebrating forty years of marriage. The staff, including me, sing and dance round the fire. It’s a good performance and tears are shed under our star-studded backdrop.

The next morning at breakfast one of the Kiwi men congratulates me on a wonderful evening saying that I really do do a great job with the “liquor and beverage.”

It’s a simple slip of the tongue (I am the F n B, or food and beverage manager, after all), but one that quickly enters the camp vernacular.

“Oh wow,” one of the American girls pipes up referring to F n B, “I wouldn’t mind a little bit of that, whatever it is!”

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Three Journeys

I am eighteen and my love affair with Latin America has just begun. It is intoxicating. The heat – 45-plus – hits me like a hammer, it is much hotter than anything I’ve experienced before. The tropical location, the glamorous, half-naked, beautiful black people on white sandy beaches, four-lane highways of cars racing the strip along Ipanema and Copacabana, the palm trees, the music, the city rising up into the hills dripping with favelas like hanging gardens and higher up, the jungle proper. It is insane. The whole spectacle overseen by a giant Jesus statue against a backdrop of electrifying tropical storms. It is hot, and humid as hell.

The fact that I am (was) in Brazil is Harriet’s fault. The somewhat beautiful older sister of my next-door neighbour, on whom I had an entirely predictable, mainly hormonal teenage crush who had recently returned from a three month over-landing trip to South America with Exodus Travel. She raved about it and much to her mother’s dismay now planned to elope to New Zealand with her ice-cream and pizza-parlour magnate boyfriend, Giovanni, who she’d met and fallen madly in love with on the truck.

I was a hopeless virgin, clumsy and shy with girls. A friend from school, Alice, had managed to track me down and book herself into my room in the hotel as a surprise. She was also travelling with Exodus, on a different truck, but we shared the same itinerary for the first couple of months. At 18, the difference between us in terms of mental maturity might as well have been twenty years, even though we were the same age. We were both headstrong and chose to hang out with different people most of the time. On the beach she stubbornly ignored all advice and got sunburnt back and front determined that she’d just go brown the next day. It must have hurt.

It was Alice who read In Patagonia while we were in Patagonia and afterwards recommended it to me and lent me the book, which in conjunction with the place itself, has been a real inspiration ever since. To the extent that I’m now writing my own book about Patagonia, it was a moment that changed my life.

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May 2015 News

BCB had a good month in May with the launch of Nick Green's King of New Beginnings and continued sales of the Kindle ebooks.

May's bestsellers were:

Joint 1st; Notes from Overground by Tiresias, and My Forever Heartache by Bernard Horton
2nd: Three Journeys to Patagonia by Nick Green
3rd: Yellow Dress by Nick Green

Thank you for the continued support and keep following us, sharing links etc. and stay posted for more new book news in the form of Tezcatlipoca's Mask...

Pulp Fiction Friday...

Juan had bought the bar in 1976 with his last hundred pesos. He knew that the door had been in need of fixing for the past fifteen years but his third wife had drained any desire left in him to do anything let alone DIY – he just floated along in a kind of limbo waiting for the day that…in fact he didn’t know what he was waiting for any more. He’d once thought about taking a motorcycle to ride the length of the Panamerican highway but his bike hadn’t started for…since he couldn’t even remember when, and it wasn’t really big enough – the engine – for that kind of long distance. Besides, Toluca wasn’t the sort of place where things happened. Dreams were buried here along with their owners. A black cat chased a gecko from the shade to the brightness of the street.

Without warning the door was kicked off its remaining hinges – somewhat unnecessarily Juan thought – and two strangers loomed up at the bar their silhouettes blocking the light from the doorway.

‘Are you the owner of this fucking joint?’ One of the black shapes addressed Juan.

Juan didn’t say anything and continued to chew on his toothpick, but he was thinking ‘Are you fucking retarded?’

To be continued…

Introducing The Long Straight Road of Life and Death

The long straight (snaking) road becomes the long snaking (straight) road of life and death. In God we trust emblazoned quietly across the windshield of the old blue Ford without wheels. Judging by the length of the grass it may have been saying that for quite a long time. Afterwards she says it’s like two people fighting. Apparently it’s the first time in over 100 years that there has been a lunar eclipse and a full moon on New Year’s Eve. Her whole body, below the neck, carries the scars of a serious car-crash. It’s these scars that I watch and feel in the darkness as we make love. The child-bearing belly is small but visible none-the-less plus there’s a caesarian scar or is it evidence of an appendix removal? Her breasts are small with long black nipples that have been sucked by babies but they still retain some of their youthfulness. Her legs and back bear scars like a child’s drawing of train tracks where pins have been inserted and removed. She pulls me towards her with a longing that borders on the violent, a long, sucking kiss like she is thirsty for water. She is so skinny that even her panties are not figure hugging, but that’s partly from being washed too many times by hand. It’s hot and we fuck each other like rabbits, banging hard on the soft mattress and when it’s over she tells me in English that sex is like two people fighting. She is right, I think. In the hot night, in the poverty shack with no electric light or running water. With the moon. How in hell have I ended up here? And what are we both fighting? I’ve just driven five hundred miles and I haven’t even been home yet.

The long straight road of life, becomes the long straight road of life and death. In a town that relies on the ebb and flow of its three rivers, where women traditionally leave unwanted babies in the reed beds, it’s this long, straight road which provides the incessant certainty of death. The river meanders, it dries up, it floods, it deviates. Not the road. It flies fast and straight.

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So you’ve written a fifth book, so what, fuck you

Who gives a shit?

Ten years of your life shared

Your soul bared

You needn’t have bothered

We’re not going to buy it

Did you really think after the first four flopped

That this was the one to rise to the top

I mean it’s not like you need the money or anything

Not working while you try to create art

Chasing your dreams while your life fell apart

You can live on jeers and sneers can’t you?

When you climbed naked through the spring flower hills

Weren’t rejection letters paying the bills?

Otters swim at dawn with us

After a cold sleepless night on the bus

Leaving behind Kasane

Zambia beckoning through a lens of red mist

An unknown land to charm me

Want to crush the King of New Beginnings?

You and whose army?