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| Haynes Home Plumbing Manual |
I’d just like to take advantage of the New Year celebrations
to offer a large ‘thank you’ to all 29 people who have taken the time to log
onto Amazon’s site and give my manual a rating, especially the 22 of you who
gave it a 5 star.
Despite being a fairly eager reviewer myself I am pretty
sceptical of these reviews, for the simple reason that they seem very easy to
fake. So it was with some surprise that I discovered that I’d never even heard
of the vast majority of my reviewers – yes one or two at the beginning were
from friends, but then, at the beginning, they were the only people buying the
damn thing. Since then I can say with hand on heart that I haven’t a bloody
clue who these people are, although they are clearly wonderful examples of
humanity with fine taste and sparkling intellect.
One of the best reviews for the manual is also the lowest star
rating (3), which I think works quite well. Apparently she thought the manual
was excellent but felt that I might make lots of money out of it and put
plumbers out of business. Sadly, she is very wrong!
One of the many myths about writing is that you’ll make lots
of money from it and sure enough some authors do seem to be doing very, very,
well. Alas, this isn’t typical. In fact I’d go far as to say that taking up the
pen in order to live a life of vast wealth and fame is like serving chicken at
KFC because you’ve heard that there are people in the fast-food industry who are
making millions.
Of course I was blissfully unaware of these financial limitations
when my manual first came out. Ok, I wasn’t naive enough to think that people
would be queuing up outside Waterstones at midnight, dressed as plumbers – aside
from myself - but I did think that the manual would sell far better than it has.
Much of this was down to Amazon’s ranking system. By all
accounts there are 6.5 million books available from Amazon, so when I saw that my
manual was in the top 10,000 I naturally assumed that I was onto a winner.
After all, if I was coming 10,000th in a Marathon that involved 6.5
million competitors, I’d be pretty chuffed.
Sadly, it doesn’t quite work like that. For starters most
people who enter a marathon are fairly fit and have a reasonable expectation of
finishing the race. The same cannot be said of many of the books offered by
Amazon. To continue the analogy, many are well into their dotage, with a
hacking cough, high blood pressure and a nasty limp. At least 4 million of them
don’t even own a set of trainers and a couple of million are not even aware
that there is a race going on, in other words, of those 6.5 million books only
about 100,000 are actually being bought with any kind of regularity. At this
point, whilst being ranked at 10,000th isn’t bad, it becomes clear
that a lap of honour is unlikely and that medals are going to be in pretty
short supply.
All in all, as a working plumber I probably make more money
clearing blocked toilets during the year than I do from writing about them,
which is a bit of a shame as writing is far easier on the old knees and, as a
career, is almost effluent free.
On the plus side many of my own dreams have been realised; I
have a published book! Ok, it involves slightly fewer buxom maidens and far
more close coupled toilets than I’d originally imagined my first book would
contain but at least I can say I am a published author. It also regularly
outsells “A Tale of Two Cities” and Wilbur Smiths “When a Lion Feeds” and I
must admit that I never thought I’d be able to say that. Ok, there is a rather
large caveat here; it regularly outsells them on Amazon’s UK site. I dare say
that whilst a large number of people in Japan and Brazil might be tempted to
buy “When a Lion Feeds” (one of the all time favourite books from my childhood)
few, if any, are going to pick up a book on UK plumbing – which I feel is a sad
indictment of modern society... well maybe not.
So, once again, thanks to all those people who have bought
the book and enjoyed it enough to go on-line and rate it. For those people who
are merely thinking of buying the book, go for it! Don’t for one second think
that the vast wealth that I’ll accrue as a result of your purchase will go to
my head, cos it won’t... although I may be able to afford a bag of crisps to go
with my Friday night beer down at the local, albeit not a big bag.
