Some of you may have seen a version of this when it escaped last year. At the time, I was expecting my novel to be released a lot earlier than it actually was. However, it’s out there now, so it’s probably time to make the website contain more than just self-promotion. Although given that the sole reason for the site is self-promotion, it might not be very much more than that.

Yes it will. I’ll need to write more interesting stuff if I expect people to come back, so I’ll try and do that as well. I might even resurrect my holiday blogs, given that I’m off to both Rome and France this year.

Anyway, back to the main purpose of the blog. Books. As some of you will be aware (let’s be honest, most of you; I’m not under any illusions as to the current readership of this), I’ve written a book. It was about Stockport County, and it was published in 1997. And updated and re-published as a print on demand and a Kindle e-book a couple of years ago. The first version sold about 1500 copies, the reprint a handful.

What might have been slightly more of a surprise to some of you is that I’ve also written another. A novel. Yes, that’s right, a book that isn’t about stuff that’s happened in real life. A story. Made up by me. Out of me own head. It’s called “A Future Offence” and is the story of two boys who meet at secondary school in Manchester in the mid-70s. It’s written in both the third and first persons and uses extensive flashbacks. Don’t let that put you off, though. It’s not that experimental, and feedback I’ve had so far is positive. Most importantly, perhaps, that it’s very readable.

Some background: In 2006 I managed to obtain a place on the MA degree at Sheffield Hallam University (“managed to obtain a place.” You mean, “applied”. No, it’s really prestigious, and difficult to get on, and they don’t accept just anyone. Get lost).

I won’t say getting the place was a lifetime ambition, exactly, but given that I’d known about the course for about ten years – since reading an article about it in the Guardian – but hadn’t previously been in a position to apply, it was certainly a quarter-lifetime ambition. I had a credit card to pay the fees, and was able to negotiate Wednesday afternoons off work. I submitted an application, and got accepted.

The course took the form of a term spent on two subsidiary subjects (short story and “What is Contemporary” – a study of various aspects of contemporary literature and culture), a term spent on taking your personal area of study to Diploma level, and a final “dissertation” which in my case, as I was studying Novel was, unsurprisingly, a complete novel. There’s a story to be told about my final submission, but I’ll save that for another time; suffice to say that the novel I handed in was the first draft (a massive no-no) which I was still actually writing in the early hours of the day of submission. There’s more information about the MA here if anyone’s interested. And joking apart, the course is prestigious and highly regarded.

So there you go. I wrote a novel and it got me an MA. I had a day out wearing a gown, and I can now put those letters after my name. And I had a completed novel. Sitting there, looking at me. Drumming its fingers and occasionally clearing its throat in a pointed manner. So what better to do than publish it?

Next time, I’ll give you an update on how I published my books. It’s a lot more interesting than that makes it sound. Honestly.

And to end with, here’s where I feel cheap. Because I’m doing this all myself, I’m relying on friends, word of mouth and social media to get word out (and thus hopefully lead to sales). It’d be great, therefore, if people could share and like this as much as possible, via Facebook and Twitter. Ta.

Also, one of the best ways of promoting my books is via reviews on Amazon. Saturday Night and Thursday Morning isn’t doing too badly at the moment (14 reviews at the moment; thirteen five star and one four star – JUST SAYING), but A Future Offence could do with some more. Even if they’re bad ones. I don’t mean that, obviously.

But yes, reviews of A Future Offence would be nice. Nice reviews even nicer.