Two trashy blonds and an interview

Ok first of all this is a trashy blond. It's a nice beer.

I went to London yesterday to meet and interview author AMP Mills. Andrew's first novel "Hell Bent On Success" came out this year and we loved it. Also with us was Marc who supplied the photos and his own views on many subjects and who is an old web friend of mine I was delighted to finally meet in person.

In addition to this typed (not strictly speaking) interview I will be posting the audio file so you can join us at the bar for the whole conversation. That should be up in a couple of days and I hope you will listen to at least some of it, we had a lot of fun and I think it comes across. Andrew is a delightful interviewee and there is a strong, casual chat in the pub feel to the whole thing that I can't possibly do justice to in type.

Anyway on with things.

Asked to explain the book Andrew described it as "absurdist fiction" based in London just before the collapse of the global markets and with a cast that includes "an ordinary accountant" a long dead king and the devil. The book is humorous and "targeting people who work in London". One of the more unique aspects of the book n the deliberate "tube style" chapter lengths intended to be completable in the average tube trip.

I pointed out the similarity between the cover and the Financial Times (and marc backs me up on this) but Andrew wryly pointed out that he hadn't noticed/doesn't wanted to be sued/ ok yes it's salmon pink.

Asked about the incredible timing of the book Andrew admitted it worked in his favour but felt that "anybody who works in financial serivces knew this was coming" and he's benfitted from a fluke in the when. Of course when he first pitched the idea everyone thought is was complete fantasy and the collapse wouldn't happen.

I asked whether he felt the book would appeal to everyone (I think anyone who has ever dealt with red tape and filing will get it) and Andrew confessed that his editor has made him take out a lot of the jargon, which made it much more accessable. Some of the jokes are funnier if you are familar with the industry but there is plenty in there for anyone who likes fantasy.
The three of us got distracted sharing favourite aspects, lawyers in hell, vanishing file cabinets and so on.

I then put Andrew on the spot asking him to explain hedge funds. At the end of the explanation and tangents about short selling I think we all agreed on Really Nasty and involving large amounts of money (although not alwyas real money).

We moved on to discuss the publishing process, this being Andrew's first novel. He talked a little about the differences of being with a small publisher and the need for self promoting (incidentally according to Google there are 303 Waterstones stores in the UK in 2009). Bigger publishers have bigger marketing budgets and can provide more support, in this case Andrew has been left to do a fair amount himself, on top of his day job. I thin kthis has been particularly difficult because there is not a similar support network among the authors themselves as can be found in some places at the moment (New Macmillan Writers and The League of Reluctant Adults for example).

Andrew has ideas for two more books, one a companion book for HBoS focussing on the lawyer Gordon, the other he wouldn't be drawn on but he's finding it quite distracting at the moment and is focussed on turning out first drafts.

If you listen to the audio file this is where we start to drift of on some very random tangents and my phone goes off (oops). Andrew explains why he believes his wife is trying to kill him (i'm convinced) and we then try to get things back on track. It's probably a good time to point out that Andrew and Marc know each other quite well, working together and enjoy some friendly banter and abuse. If you are particularly humourless or sensitive about international relations you might want to stop listening at this point (I promise it will be up soon and all this will make sense).

Ok, so back to the interview. I asked Andrew about the day job, he's in IT and that very neatly brought us onto the role of the internet in publishing.
Andrew talked about his surprise that only 20% of books sold in the UK are sold on line and the reast still through "Bricks and mortar" stores, who he believes will always play a large part in book selling because people like to go in and browse, an experience which can't really be replicated online. He does however want a kindle because he loves his gadgets. Marc on the other hand has had his mobile phone for 11 years which lead us to a stunned silence followed by cries of Luddite.

At this point we are all starting to forget it's meant to be an interview and it turns into a debate on the relative benefits of a calculator over an abacus and Andrew confuses the streotype by claiming he "can't drink beer outside", although that's not quite what he meant.

Andrew also talked about the benefit of the interenet in marketing, bloggers and the like being able ot focus on "ncihe audiences" where newspapers have a small amount of space to appeal to the maximum number of people. There is a bit of google bashing i think the term was "hell incarnated" and some general discussion about self publishing. At this point on the audio file the other people in the pub started being very loud so it gets kind of fuzzy.

We talked about blogging and reviewing and whether it's ok to be rude to authors with naturally differing views around the table.Honestly by now we have had a few beers are throughly enjoying ourselves and trying to draw anything sensible to put here out of it is a hopeless task. Really you have to listen to it.

We may have created a new character in trying to explain the term "friendly bearded man" to Andrew, I shall explain again now for the benfit of the non brits. We have an organisation for Real Ale called CAMRA, among the people who belong to it are people known as "Tickers" they record and grade each beer they drink. In extreme cases they can be seen out with small plastic bottles, into which they pour part of a beer they think is particularly good and take it away for when they meet up with the others so they can all have a try and tick and grade it in their note books. It's train spotting for beer drinkers. Traditionally these are the kinds of people who are very pleasant and sport beards hence the term coined I believe by Jeremy Clarkson "Freindly Bearded Man".

Andrew explained a bit of how he came to be in England (apart from obviously his wife is English) and it turns out his grandfather is from Jersey, which he dared to suggest is really part of France by merit of location. From there you have a reasonable period of tangets and digressions and silliness finally wrapping up with a plug for the book which is very entertaining (Andrew promises he wouldn't recommend it if it was rubbish) and a few comments on the anxieties that come with the book going out and the first reviews coming in, but he's delighted that so far no one has said they hate it, even Marc who isn't it's target demographic.

I hope that has whetted your appetite for the upcoming audio file and if you want to know more check out our review or the press release or indeed the companion website for the book.
Marc's review is also available online.