Bedbugs, Blisters and Brain Surgery: a new book set on the Camino

[Martin Moorman]

Forum members maybe interested in this book, due for publication before Easter. It tells the astonishing story of my 20 year old son Jake, who as a teenager survived 2 bouts of serious brain surgery in 2014 and 2016 to walk the Camino Frances in 2017. His story is mostly set on the Camino Frances and tells it from a father and son perspective. Pre pubclication copies are available at a 40-50% discount circa £10. Every penny of profit is going to support Brain Tumour Research across Yorkshire.
It’s an upifting story and testament to the power of the human spirit. Of course I would say that......I wrote it
If you are interested please email me (martinmoorman@talktalk.net) for more information. Thanks Martin

 

[douglasjack53]

I'm interested. I don't see it on Amazon yet. Please let me know how to get a copy.

 

[Martin Moorman]

Hi Douglas, thanks for your interest in the book. I’ve been offered a pre publication discount for 100 books or more and will be ordering these next week. If you wish order this book at the 40% discounted rate please click the link below and follow the instructions. It does work!the book works out at £10.20 with additional postage options for UK, Europe or Worldwide. For Camino fans it should be of interest as the bulk of it is framed around the CF with a second part linked to the Camino Finisterre

https://goo.gl/forms/mi06QnfcHUXgLm2C2

Any difficulties or queries please contact me. (martinmoorman@talktalk.net)

The closing date for online (discounted) orders is Friday 1 March. After this date any orders will only be available at the normal RRP of £16.99 and only available from the publisher who is based in Switzerland.

Thanks again for your interest.

Hope you like it if you do decide to proceed.

Ps every penny of profit is going to Brain Tumour Research and Support in Yorkshire. We aren’t taking a penny!

 

[douglasjack53]

Placed the order just now. I leave for SJPdP on Monday, so - sadly - I will not be able to read it until after I return home from my Camino. Thanks for the information and best wishes with your book.

 

[David Tallan]

Will it be available as an e-book? I don't have enough bookshelves for all of the camino books I want to read!

 

[Terry Callery]

As a fellow Camino author, I wish you the most success with your book. Doing the Camino is hard, but writing about your self doubt, emotional pain and the crosses
you carry is even harder. I know, I wrote some brutally honest stuff about my struggles with alcohol, my divorce and my search for meaning in my two Camino books.
You are to be commended, particularly if you are not a professional writer.
Martin - I have to say that I just do not like the title of the book from a marketing standpoint aside from the over reach of the alliteration and the fact that it is too long and somewhat confusing.
I only send this critique in hopes that since it is still pre-publication you might consider a change. What does your editor say?
So many Camino books have this hackneyed formula.
"I walked for 8 hours, got blisters, hooked up with my Camino family, could not sleep in the Albergue because the fat Dutch guy snored, but I have learned to follow the arrows life gives because the Camino provides."
The formula is amateurish sophomoric platitudes and it is worn out.
Martin your book sounds totally different . So authentic and from the heart...well really genuine.
But the title sounds like your wrote the hackneyed version of 100 Camino books out there - all the same pretty much.
I want to read it!
How about something like:
COURAGE DEFINED -subtile
ONE MORE STEP-subtilte
CAMINO LONGSHOT-subtitle
Amateur authors like you and me can work in such vacuums, getting little constructive criticism. I wish the title of my second Camino book wasn't so long and nebulous.
By the way, join Goodreads as an author, great way to promote your book.
Putting up a website helps, and doing slide lectures gets your name in the news and make your Google searches go up
Good Luck
Terence Callery

 

[Sha-Ron]

Your book sounds very interesting. Having walked 2 camino's and planning a third with a son who has special needs, i look forward to reading about your experiences. Good luck with the marketing of your book!

 

[Martin Moorman]

Placed the order just now. I leave for SJPdP on Monday, so - sadly - I will not be able to read it until after I return home from my Camino. Thanks for the information and best wishes with your book.

Thanks for the order Douglas. It will get sorted in the next few weeks I hope. In the meantime enjoy your Camino. I’m envious, very envious, but I will be back. Cheesr
Martin

Hi Douglas, thanks for your interest in the book. I’ve been offered a pre publication discount for 100 books or more and will be ordering these next week. If you wish order this book at the 40% discounted rate please click the link below and follow the instructions. It does work!the book works out at £10.20 with additional postage options for UK, Europe or Worldwide. For Camino fans it should be of interest as the bulk of it is framed around the CF with a second part linked to the Camino Finisterre

https://goo.gl/forms/mi06QnfcHUXgLm2C2

Any difficulties or queries please contact me. (martinmoorman@talktalk.net)

The closing date for online (discounted) orders is Friday 1 March. After this date any orders will only be available at the normal RRP of £16.99 and only available from the publisher who is based in Switzerland.

Thanks again for your interest.

Hope you like it if you do decide to proceed.

Ps every penny of profit is going to Brain Tumour Research and Support in Yorkshire. We aren’t taking a penny!

 

[Martin Moorman]

Your book sounds very interesting. Having walked 2 camino's and planning a third with a son who has special needs, i look forward to reading about your experiences. Good luck with the marketing of your book!

Thanks Sharon. Good luck with your third. My third will be in 2020 once work doesn’t get in the way!
Cheesr
Martín

 

[Martin Moorman]

As a fellow Camino author, I wish you the most success with your book. Doing the Camino is hard, but writing about your self doubt, emotional pain and the crosses
you carry is even harder. I know, I wrote some brutally honest stuff about my struggles with alcohol, my divorce and my search for meaning in my two Camino books.
You are to be commended, particularly if you are not a professional writer.
Martin - I have to say that I just do not like the title of the book from a marketing standpoint aside from the over reach of the alliteration and the fact that it is too long and somewhat confusing.
I only send this critique in hopes that since it is still pre-publication you might consider a change. What does your editor say?
So many Camino books have this hackneyed formula.
"I walked for 8 hours, got blisters, hooked up with my Camino family, could not sleep in the Albergue because the fat Dutch guy snored, but I have learned to follow the arrows life gives because the Camino provides."
The formula is amateurish sophomoric platitudes and it is worn out.
Martin your book sounds totally different . So authentic and from the heart...well really genuine.
But the title sounds like your wrote the hackneyed version of 100 Camino books out there - all the same pretty much.
I want to read it!
How about something like:
COURAGE DEFINED -subtile
ONE MORE STEP-subtilte
CAMINO LONGSHOT-subtitle
Amateur authors like you and me can work in such vacuums, getting little constructive criticism. I wish the title of my second Camino book wasn't so long and nebulous.
By the way, join Goodreads as an author, great way to promote your book.
Putting up a website helps, and doing slide lectures gets your name in the news and make your Google searches go up
Good Luck
Terence Callery

Thanks Terrance for your goodwishes and observations. I appreciate both.
The title was chosen very deliberately. Not to be ‘hackneyed’ but more to be ironic. The book itself explains my pre Camino fear of Bedbugs, Blisters and Bogs (Toilets to us Brits!) none of the, materialised though we did have to prevent seriousblisters with some daily attention to our feet. We never saw a bedbugs and the story emphasises that!
I wanted the book to refer to Jake’s Brain Surgery without actually focusing on that negative part of his story. I also wanted to linkit to the Camino. Hence the title.
I canvassed opinion far and wide and only received 2 negative responses to the proposed title, one was from my wife. Everyone else (over 50 people) liked it. My publisher instructed me to choose a title that would grab the attention of the reader. Hence my choice.
The die is now cast anyway and the title sticks. It is too late to change it. But hopefully you now understand my irony a little better and can at least see my perspective. Ps you will have to blame my English teachers as a child for my love of alliteration! Last year I organised our 4th Big Bike Bash at the special school where I work! I really do love a bit of alliteration I guess
Cheesr Terence. Thanks for the critique. I’m also taking open to constructive feedback
Martin

 

[Saint Mike II]

Hola @Martin Moorman . Best wishes for the success of the book. Without wishing to downplay your son's medicals - I am beginning to think that the Camino affects our brains in a number of ways. Cheers

 

[Terry Callery]

Hi Martin,
Thanks for taking my critique in the spirit it was intended. I almost did not post it thinking you might take offense.
Don't get me wrong, your subtitle is provocative and well done. I get what you were trying to do. There is something to be said for the literary technique of hitting the reader with a couple of bullets and then dropping the big reveal bombshell.
It is because your book isn't really about blisters or bedbugs that I did not like the title. It is about defiance, hope, resilience, courage and affirmation.
As a former marketing guy ( I was Vice President of Marketing for Great Eastern Mussel Farms in Maine) I like e things terse and paired down. Like Volswagon "
"Think Small" or Nike " Just do it"
The Budhist say there are three types of suffering. Physical pain ( blisters), then Emotional pain or loss (phobia/fear of bed bugs) and Spiritual pain ( God why did you give me the cherished gift of a son, only to almost take him away from me.
Can I believe in a God such as this? Existential Angst.
So actually Martin the title is quite Zen. Perhaps you hit on the idea of non-attachment and no-self as the way out of suffering? The Beneditine monks taught me about "Contemptus Mundi" detachment from worldly things.
I took a very Zen attitude in my Caminos, it is not an adding to the self, but a winnowing of the ego that leads to enlightenment. Getting away from the illusionary personal narrative (we are not our Facebook page) and dialing down to the foundational self.
I ended up self publishing on Kindle Direct Publishing who did a free Kindle version of my manuscript along with the paperback. I sell as many Kindle versions as paperback so it doulble sales right off the bat. They "print on demand" so
Unlike your Swiss publisher there is no 500 book press run, and no inventory of books anywhere.
90% of all books today are sold on line, primarily by Amazon/Kindle. Sadly book stores are going out of business.
I can get paperback copies of my books for just $4 US. And the Kindle version has the hi-resolution color photos of the Camino. KDP publishing allows an author to do-it- yourself Internal design, picking fonts and margins and paginating. And also for free you can design your own cover, just dropping in the author photos and the cover graphics. All this for free. My only cost to get to publishing was paying a New York Literary Magazine Editor 2 cents per word to clean up my writing. That bill was
$1500 US.
The best thing about KDP Publishing is the pay per hit adveritisng program.
Good Luck with the book
Terence Callery