The Race of Truth

I’ve written four books – three novels and an autobiography – and the only thing I’ve gotten out of it is bragging rights. When I started I had this wild idea that I would sell loads and make a bit of money. My wife even thought we would be able to retire early. But in practice I’ve been far too lazy when it comes to attempting to sell any of them.

I get asked quite a few questions when I tell people I’ve written these books and unfortunately the most common isn’t where can I buy one. The most common question other than where do I get my ideas from is how long did it take. That’s what this blog is about.

I’m not sure why but I recorded every writing session’s date and duration, which chapter I was writing and how many words I wrote. I only started after writing 8 chapters so I’ve interpolated the dates, etc. for those.

I wrote for 40 sessions over a 93 day period (just over three months) for a total of 79 hours. I produced 63546 words. About 1588 words per session, 804 words per hour or 13 words per minute.

I have nothing to compare that to so I’ve no idea if that’s quick or slow. Doesn’t really matter it was a comfortable pace while I was doing it.

Most of my writing sessions were on a Saturday and Sunday morning which is what I recall but there were also five sessions during the week and the last 11 chapters were all written on weekdays in a two week rush.

18 months after finishing the novel and having written two others – a sequel and a completely unrelated book, I sent The Race of Truth to a publisher in January 2009.

A month later I received a rejection letter telling me that it was too short. It needed to be 80,000 words or more and my 65,000 just didn’t cut it.  So I sent it to an agency in February and they sent a rejection letter one month later with no explanation.

I lost interest then until August 2009 when I self-published on Lulu. I’ve sold 12 copies between September 2009 and November 2014 for a royalty of 12 dollars which I haven’t collected.

I suppose I should finish by trying to convince you to buy it. The cheapest way to buy a paper copy is from Amazon for £6.29. Although a cheaper alternative is to buy from Apple iBooks where it costs £2.99.

The book is about amateur time trialling which I did for a few years in my 30s until I was knocked off in a road race and hurt my knee. I could have started again six months later but never did, it’s been nearly ten years now.

The blurb on the back of the book says: Amateur cyclist Michael Baxter has been trying to beat the hour in a 25 mile time trial for more years than he can remember. His personal best stands at 1:01:01, all he needs is 62 seconds to be under the hour, but however much he tries he can’t manage it, until one day when an opportunity presents itself which allows him to break the hour and sets him off on a journey that he wishes he had never started.

If you are wondering I never beat the hour mark, the best I ever got was 1:04:13. Although I did average higher than 25 mph in a 10 mile time trial once with a time of 23:56.

My daughter’s friend wants to be a publisher so maybe there’s a chance there – if she likes cycling.