The End of the Catholic Orangemen 53


I have just opened the last of fifty boxes of 24 books which comprised the 1200 privately published hardback copies of The Catholic Orangemen of Togo. They have all sold – not more than half a dozen were given away. This has been a hard slog. Long term readers will know that I had to self-publish after multi-millionaire hired killer Tim Spicer threatened my publishers with a libel action, causing them to pull out. I then published myself and invited Spicer to sue, but he bottled out.

I made the book available free online and I don’t know how many read it that way, but at least fifty thousand while we were keeping a track on the major download avenues. I suspect that increased rather than decreased sales of the hardback, but the real problem was that I found it impossible to get a self-published book accepted by bookshops, despite the commercial success of Murder in Samarkand.

Anyway, the final two dozen are now available. Great Christmas presents! It is a book of which I remain very proud.


Allowed HTML - you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

53 thoughts on “The End of the Catholic Orangemen

1 2
  • Mary

    From Medialens today…..

    Assange & Cohen; Well fancy that….
    Posted by Poster123 on December 5, 2012, 4:18 pm

    while unsuccessfully, and perhaps naively, popping into Foyles to see if I could buy the new Assange book, I was recommended another book apparently on the same subject, namely this one;

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0007308906/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&tag=nickcohen-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0007308906

    I politely refused, and had no luck either in Waterstones or Blackwell’s or Smiths etc

    !!

  • Heretic

    “I made the book available free online”

    People generally will not click on a picture of a book cover unless they are expecting to get redirected to amazon or another bookseller. If you put “Free PDF Download” as a link beneath the cover picture more people will read it.

  • Venceremos

    Bookshops, establishment controlled publishers and print newspapers will all soon be history in the age of tablet computers. Publish a PDF online and download. Promote using a blog, YouTube trailer and Twitter. And not before time.

    I still have all the rejections slips from publishers for my PhD thesis. 🙂 My partner told me I should market it as a cure for insomnia!

  • Frazer

    Well done Clark…but no doubt a Black Hawk full of Spicers mercs are en route to you at the moment…let me know if you survive..LOL..

  • Jonangus Mackay

    Most impressed. The fact is that, particularly as proportion of print-run, 24 left of 1200 is way better than most hardback titles from corporate publishers ever achieve. To blog-readers without a copy: get in there quick & grab yourself one before it’s too late. An important historical document. A collector’s item. A rattling good read. In every way a bargain.
    .
    A Christmas tree, meantime, from Heathcote Williams. Read by Alan Cox:
    http://youtu.be/a4RPNVskzy8

  • Michael Child

    The net book agreement preserved bookselling in the uk thought most of the 1900s, what looked like a price fixing disaster kept bookselling in the hands of many independent individuals.

    During this time we probably had the lowest book prices and the best range of books in the world, with an associated flowering of literature.

    A bookseller could use the profits from bestsellers to offset less profitable stock losses and big chains unable to undercut didn’t bother much with books, discounts were in the order of 35% with academic titles for school supply carrying a handling discount of about 17%.

    Individual booksellers decided which new titles to buy often based on reading proofs.

    Now the whole thing is in the hands of Smiths, Waterstones and Amazon where discount and profit are the main priority.

    I publish about 150 innocuous local history books, and was told that yes they would like to take some of them, if I offered them 60% discount and sent them to them for free.

    It is my contention that if we don’t do something as a country to treat literature as one of the arts we are in for a serious problem.

    The internet is fine in its way, but incredibly difficult to browse for a book you don’t know exists.

  • doug scorgie

    Watch your back in Baghdad Craig. Mr Spicer, or one of his kind, may be offered a bounty for your head. (Not that I want to worry you of course).

  • Clark

    Frazer, I thought those Black Hawks were supposed to be pretty quick, and it’s been over two hour now; I hope they haven’t had an accident. Are they like Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction” thingies that were meant to arrive in 45 minutes? Or is it just the usual security delays at Schiphol?

  • nevermind

    These black hawks are most appreciated, Clark, and they work best in Somalia, as it happens, they really love’ em to bits over there, just look at their smiling faces.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4OKzho4a3o

    maybe they haven’t got the right map, still in Africa, or its too cold, who knows, just put the kettle on, they will turn up eventually and they will be freezing cold, poor lads.

  • Vronsky

    “I thought those Black Hawks were supposed to be pretty quick”

    Remembered fragment of script from ‘Not the Nine o’Clock News’ at the time of the farcically failed raids to free American hostages.

    End of a sketch with man and woman in living room, punch line delivered, man sits down in armchair, sketch seems over. There is a loud splintering sound and several US Marines crash through the door into the room.

    Marine Sergeant: Is this Tehran?
    Man (puzzled): Er, no – Brentford.
    Marine Sergeant: Shit!
    (they leave. End of sketch)

  • nevermind

    a flood ravaged, austerity challenged, single engine diesel engine manufacture in Chenzen is managing to breach the captcha?

    Like the sketch Vronsky

  • Mary

    Not satire.

    Hillary Clinton to give human rights speech at DCU

    The US Secretary of State will deliver an address in the Helix this Thursday.

    Mon, 3:00 PM8,188 Views 66 Comments
    Share870 Tweet88

    Image: Carolyn Kaster/AP/Press Association Images

    US SECRETARY OF State Hillary Clinton is to deliver an address on human rights in the Helix theatre at Dublin City University (DCU) this Thursday, it has been confirmed.

    In a major coup for the university, Clinton is set to deliver the speech in the early afternoon of Thursday as part of her visit to Ireland for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe conference being held at the RDS.

    The two-day meeting will see some 50 foreign ministers visiting the capital with Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore set to hold bilateral talks with Clinton, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

    The US Secretary of State confirmed her European trip last week and will also travel to Prague, Brussels and Belfast during her five-day stay.

    In Dublin, she will meet with Irish officials to discuss areas of cooperation in promoting peace, human rights, and economic growth.

    As part of her visit it has now been confirmed that she will also deliver a major speech on US achievements in support of human rights globally in the Helix as part of an event being co-ordinated by the US Embassy in Dublin.

    DCU is hopeful that it will be able to get a significant number of staff and students in the audience for the event which, in an email to students and staff, DCU President, Professor Brian MacCraith, described as a “wonderful opportunity to project the University and its reputation”.

    ~~~

    This is in the country who had some further IMF screws tightened yesterday, as did the UK.

    Earlier, at a NATO meeting, Shillary was deluged in farewell gifts in gratitude to her for being such an excellent war criminal.

    ‘She was presented with a giant pillow, an inflatable walrus, pink and white roses which matched her outfit and condiments which US quarantine regulations would prevent her from taking back home. There were also compliments and best wishes galore for Hillary Clinton on her last appearance at a Nato conference.

    The soon to be former US Secretary of State spoke of just how much she had enjoyed working with others in the alliance and listed all that they had done together, from military action in Afghanistan and Libya to opening up to former Warsaw Pact states and embarking on a new relationship with Russia. She dwelt on the latest significant act: the deployment of Patriot missiles to the Syrian border while, like every other of her colleagues, insisting it was not the start of “mission creep” into a bloody civil war.

    State Department officials were being diplomatically coy about the origins and the likely destinations of the various gifts. The pillow bore the motifs of Estonia and the roses are believed to have come from Nato. The condiments, described as flavouring, and the inflatable had been presented by dignitaries. While diplomats said they did not know who the donors were, anything received was “much appreciated”.

    The one thing Ms Clinton maintained firm silence on was whether stepping down from her post was in preparation for a bid for the White House in 2016, ensuring she remains untouched by travails that may befall the Obama administration in its second term.

    Ms Clinton has another international meeting in Dublin and a Middle-East tour before finishing her watch. The topics raised at her final press conference illustrated the thorny problems her successor will face. There is the Arab winter, with constitutional crisis in Egypt and the Syrian conflict in the forefront. There is also Afghanistan where the West will end its combat role in 2014.’

    {http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/flowers-an-estonian-pillow-and-an-inflatable-walrus-nato-waves-goodbye-to-hillary-clinton-8386749.html}

  • conjunction

    its a terrific book Craig, and stands with my favourite books on Africa by the anthropologist Turnbull, Pakenham and Doris Lessing. And Graham Greene, but his books are somehow more about ‘the white man’ in Africa than Africa itself, ditto Conrad.

  • Uzbek in the UK

    Uzbek Senate decided to allow amnesty to some prisoners but those who were imprisoned under Crimes Against Governmental System which includes most of political prisoners will not be touched by this amnesty.

    “Human Rights Watch: Free Uzbek Political Prisoners on Constitution Day” http://enews.fergananews.com/articles/2798

  • Uzbek in the UK

    Mary,
    .
    I am not sure what turns bloody Gulnara on but one thing is certain that money Gerard was paid for this photo session and for his future pleasuring of Gulnara will come out of the funds saturated with peoples blood. Some sources suggest that this year (from October to end of November) at least 5 people have been beaten to death by police officers for refusing to pick cotton due to poor health. One of them was 17 years old boy.
    .
    Does Gerard know about it? Should we all tell him this on his twitter https://twitter.com/Gerard_Depardie

1 2

Comments are closed.