On Fri 7th Nov I did my school visit stuff at Bay House School, in Gosport: three sessions of around 45 mins apiece with about ninety students in each session. It was TERRIFIC! All three groups were wonderfully attentive and asked all sorts of excellent questions. If anyone who was there happens to be reading this, it was a pleasure speaking to you: thank you! 🙂

As followers of this blog will know (perhaps all too well! ;p) when I post about a school visit it’s at this point that I traditionally put up a bunch of pics of me talking and gesticulating, vibrating, scratching, or waving my arms about like an idiot as usual.

Well: here, by way of a change, is….!

The above is just one of a selection of AWESOME posters that Bay House Ninja Librarians Caroline and Fleur had put up all around the school to promote my visit. Isn’t it great? And here (below), I kid you not, is a MOBILE they’d constructed to represent Tim being attacked by Professor Mallahide’s nanobots…!

Here (below) is a backdrop with more images from Tim – and some from Black Tat, too: I stood in front of it while I did my talks. My photo doesn’t really do it justice, but if you look closely you can make out the Kraken, the (or a-!) Dragon, Esme’s butterflies and more besides.

And here’s a pic of how the whole day made me feel! 🙂

A VAST AND GLEEFUL THANK YOU to Caroline and Fleur for their poster genius, and to everyone I met and spoke to, but especially to Joy Hammond for inviting me to Bay House and giving me such a wonderful warm welcome. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. I hope everyone got something out of listening to me! 😉

First up, take look at THIS:

Step up and take a bow Matthew of Runcorn, Cheshire (UK), for this fantastic pic of one of the Chinj from Black Tat. You can bet it’ll be up on the Black Tat site’s Reader Art Page for posterity to savour just as soon as THE WEBSPHINX gets back from maternity leave. -I mean, isn’t it terrific? 🙂 🙂

Now: Q&A time again – and given the current international financial shenanigans it’s a fairly topical one, being as it is about money. Gemma, from Osbourne, one of the schools I visited on my Isle of Wight Tour, asks:

When someone buys one of your books, does all the money go to you?

The answer, unfortunately for me I guess(!) is No. I get a percentage, sure, but it’s not massive – it varies, but a guideline figure would be around ten percent of cover price. That means that for each copy of the UK paperback of Black Tat, for example – current cover price five pounds ninety-nine – I theoretically get something like sixty pence. Factor in stuff like paying my agents, my taxes and other costs, and it’s less – maybe 40p a copy.

Seems unfair? Actually it’s nothing like as bad as it sounds. Don’t forget, books cost money to make, as well as write. From the proceeds of each copy sold the publishers also have to pay – to name just a few – editors, proofreaders, designers, artists, printers, the marketing team, the sales force, booksellers (in the form of discounts) and many more other costs besides. A huge amount of work and commitment and effort goes into every single book, from lots of people besides the writer.

But, yeah. If you’re thinking that you would have to sell a lot of books to get really stinking rich at this “author” caper, you’d be absolutely right. So: I would never recommend writing as a sensible career choice for anyone. On the contrary, as a kindly author once told me when I was starting out, Don’t do it unless you can possibly avoid it! Big names like Rowling, Patterson, Meyer or Paolini might make headlines for their fortunes, but they are exceptional. If you want to make money there are much easier ways to do it than writing books.

For myself, money is, naturally, great when it comes. But the only way I can sanely proceed with my own sinister masterplan to conquer the universe is with insane ambition (of course!) but without any actual expectations other than the continuing chase after my own passion for, and belief in, what I’m doing.

Anything else – including awesome Reader Art (thanks, Matthew!) and excellent questions like this (thanks, Gemma!) – I tend to see as a bonus. YAY! 🙂

Here are some pics from yesterday’s AWESOME visit to Alcester Grammar School, near Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire. I did three talks, with around sixty young people in each audience, followed by a signing session in the library. I’d thoroughly enjoyed coming to the school to do my stuff back in October ’06, so was keenly looking forward to my return – and let me tell you, I wasn’t disappointed.

AGS students are an absolute pleasure to speak to. They love to ask questions! At each talk hands shot up straight away…

…so many, in fact, that I occasionally was a bit nonplussed about who to answer first…!

…But I did my best to respond, albeit in my traditional manner:

Spike Milligan wrote a poem once about a baboon who wanted to fly to the sun. It was a formative influence on me in my childhood years, as I think the above image demonstrates somewhat conclusively. 😉

All three sessions were an absolute blast, as I fielded questions on everything from where ideas come from to what car I drive (btw: heh! I don’t! ;p) But a particular highlight of the day was seeing a display of giant monster artwork that students had put together to celebrate Tim.

My hasty photo does no justice whatsoever to the glory of these monsterpieces (can you make out that green dude with the manga-style hair?? And look at that one top right of Tim asleep as he appears in chapter one! Fantastic!!) HOWEVER…

Inspired by the sight of the above, THE WEBSPHINX and I have had an idea. We would LOVE to create a Reader Art Page for the Tim website if we can (along the lines of this one for Black Tat). We’re raring to go: all we need is some art! So: if TIM has inspired you to create some giant monster artwork of your own, and you fancy seeing it displayed for the amazement and edification of all, then simply scan it into a computer and send it to the following brand new email address: readerart@timdefenderoftheearth.com -We can hardly wait to hear from you!

Meanwhile, a MONSTER thank you to the students and staff of Alcester Grammar School (and particularly Mrs Doubleday) for what was another thoroughly brilliant visit. HEE HEE HEE! 🙂