Greetings from Lancashire, England

[Michael J Hunt]

I spotted my name on the site and felt I should sign up to thank the reader concerned. I shall do so properly on the appropriate thread later.

My book is Matabele Gold and the reader enjoyed it - which is great.

Michael J Hunt

[Lady Blue]

to Mobileread, Michael J Hunt.

[beachwanderer]

Hi Michael,

writers are always welcome here .

I hope you get some useful feedback, promotion of course and new ideas about how to bring your work to your readership!

Do you have experience with ereaders / ereading yourself?

Greetings from the baltic sea!

beachwanderer

[happy_terd]

Hello and welcome to MR!!!

[MickeyC]

Hi Michael and welcome to MobileRead

[Katti's Cat]

Hi Michael & welcome to MR

[Almas]

Hi Michael and welcome to MR!!

[Michael J Hunt]

What a lovely warm welcome. I note that my publisher and friend, Neil Marr, is a contributor here. We met in one of those crazy ways - I submitted the ms of my first book to BeWrite and got an immediate response from N to say that mine was the first submission he'd received from his home town (Wigan in Lancashire). He asked me if I knew an old musician friend of his, and, would you believe, he's a neighbour and we've been friends for years. I'd hasten to add that it wasn't on those grounds that Neil published the book (at least, he says it wasn't).

I do have one confession, though. I don't have an e-reader. Partly because I'm a bit of a technophobe, partly through inertia, partly because I'm a bit of a fuddy-duddy and like the 'book-in-hand' and partly because I always seem to be losing things - I don't have a mobile (cell) phone, either, for the same reasons (apart from the book-thing) which drives my family bonkers, since they always seem to want to know where I am.

It's nice to meet you folks and I promise I'll be dropping by now and then. Good luck with your reading. Oh, Neil said I should join the 'shameless' set, so I'll pop over there now to shamelessly add my long list of conquests (three, to be precise).

MJ

[neilmarr]

Good to see you here, Michael. You really should give a reader a fair crack o' the whip, though. I guarantee you'd go through the same change of mind I did. No way now would I read a treebook from choice.

I'm going into hospital for a week or two after the weekend, as you might know ... and I'm actually looking forward to it. I'll take along a hundred or two books in the reader (which will tuck neatly into my shaving bag) and be able to pick and choose at leisure. I could take a thousand or two more if I was to be in for any great length of time.

There'll be a drip in my arm, of course, but what the heck. You hold the reader in one hand and turn the pages with the thumb of that hand. Whenever a nurse of doc interrups, there's no messing with bookmarks or dogearing a page, I just switch off. When I switch on again, there's me at the page I was reading from.

I can turn pages 7,000 times on a single charge, so I probably won't need to charge it up over the two weeks I'm in bed. No bother, though -- plug it into the electric shaver point in my bathroom and it's back at full power within an hour.

And as for losing it -- place your bet. This wee gizmo is fasr too important to me. I could no more lost it than I could my favourite pipe.

Go on, Mike. Give it a try. If you find you're one of te very few who's not hooked within a week, you could always re-sell it here or elsewhere because they tend to hold their value.

Cheers for now. Catch you when I'm back in the Land of the Living. Neil

[Michael J Hunt]

Hi again, Neil.

I promise to think very seriously about it. Which model would you recommend?

I passed on my best wishes for your incarceration on another thread or site. I'll repeat it here, though. Good Luck from the 1st onwards. I saw Willie this morning and he asked me to pass on his and Joan's best wishes, too.

Can I be very cheeky indeed and suggest you take my 'It's Happened Before' draft (I assume that you can down-load a Words document into your gizzmo). At least it might give you a chuckle from time to time (not so much as would shake loose any crucial life-support thingummy, though). The beginning needs a bit of a re-vamp, but I'm happy with most of the rest.

Once again, good luck from (currently) sunny Wigan.

MJ

[neilmarr]

Hi Mike. I swear by my wee Sony PRS-505. It's out of production now for some daft reason, but you can still pick one up in the Flea Market forum here at MR, eBay and elsewhere. It has a very high reputation with users at MR.

But you must take a look at all the advice in the *Which should I buy* forum here. Unbiased expert advice and all questions generously answered by those expert in each of the many readers out there. Much depends on what you will use your reader for. If it's merely for novels, you'll have absolutely no problems finding the perfect machine for you. If it's for more complex reading -- including, say, graphs and tables -- you would read another kind of device.

I was planning to take a stack of editing work into hospital with me on a netbook, Michael, and was about to load it all onto memory sticks yersterday when the motherboard on my PC died on me. So -- apart from a couple of hard copy ARCs I have to proof -- I only have bits and bats with me. Not sure now if I can get internet access in hospital. But at least I won't get bored. Lot's of books for recreational reading in my reader.

Also, it's pretty heavy surgery and I'm not sure I'll be up to much for a couple of weeks at least.

Cheers. Neil

[Kevin2960]

Welcome Micheal

Hope you'll be with us here on MR Micheal for years to come, Let us know about your books, anything your working on etc, Your in my "to READ" list which is rather large, Hey-Ho,

Good Luck

[neilmarr]

Hya Kevin: You'll find Michael's books all over the place in paperback and all ebook formats. Best place to start looking, though is at our own site (www.bewrite.net).

Unfortunately, like me next week, the site is undergoing major surgery and reconstruction right now, but all the elements are there apart from some functions in the book store section, and Michael's bography and extracts from the books might not be properly linked for a few days.

His novels are *Matabele Gold*, *The African Journals of Petros Aam* and Two Days in Tehran*. A fourth, currently in edit, has the working title *It's happened before* (working titles seldom survive the editorial process, though).

Michael's one of those generous successful authors who gives back -- he runs a writers' circle for developing authors, has a small press (Towpath) to put some in print for encouragement, and founded and runs his town's popular annual literary festival. All round nice chap is Michael. It's good to have his company here. And here's karma to you for asking ...

Cheers. Neil

[Michael J Hunt]

Neil,

Whatever you do in hospital (and I suppose you won't be doing much) don't get involved in anything 'heavy' - intellectually, that is. So DON'T do what I suggested about my ms. I can wait, and IT can wait, until you're fit and well and running around Menton again.

Thanks for the very fulsome and undeserved compliments. While it's all true, it's taken place (as has the writing) over a good many years and it's been almost entirely a pleasure.

Good luck, again.

MJ

[Michael J Hunt]

Hello Kevin from Leicester,

One of my sons was at college in Leicester until a couple of years ago (Simon de Montfort), so I visited your city from time to time, usually with a car crammed full of his goods and chattels. I never stayed to enjoy its verious attractions, though.

If you should get around to reading one of my books, I do hope you enjoy it and I'd love to hear your impressions.

I wish I had more time for reading, but maybe one day I shall. As for how to fit more reading time into a day, I'm hopeless at it, but my wife has advanced qualifications in the subject. Sometimes I find her knealing in the hall, or sitting on the stairs, with her latest book. She reads about ten to my one!

Let's both wish Neil well in his forthcoming surgery. He's been a fantastic publisher and we've become friends over the last few years (by a strange coincidence, he also comes from Wigan, which is where I live at the moment). I can thoroughly recommend BeWrite Books to anyone interested in being published by a non main-stream outfit. Their editorial input is second to none, as is the standard of their books. Neil is probably one of the earliest believers in the e-reader (he told me about it years before they became generally known about).

All the best.

MJ