All Things Hollywood: Shakedown, that is.

Hollywood Shakedown was my first book. 

Well, that's not true. My first novel was a horror novel I wrote based on the Black Sabbath album cover when I was twenty, er, a few years ago. 

A friend read it, slated it and said I should stick to studying Psychology. 

I didn't write a single word again until about twenty three years later when my friend Paul Vani, from Houston, Texas, set me a challenge. 

I've written about this elsewhere so I won't go on, but Hollywood Shakedown was the result. 

The Radio Interview

Hollywood is all over this blog, so instead of internal links, I'll point you in the direction of a radio interview I carried out with the brilliant Phil Naessens of the eponymous Radio Show. 

https://phillipnaessens.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/the-phil-naessens-show-november-23-2012-hollywood-shakedown/

Phil is a top sports DJ who is syndicated around the US. A genuine Indie success story, when Phil first started, he dabbled in Indielit and interviewed me (and my good friends Mary Ann Bernal, K-Trina Meador and Brenda Perlin, who featured on GWP a month ago) on his radio show.  That's me on November 23rd 2012, some six months after Hollywood Shakedown was published.

Latest Reviews

Two of my favourite people - and blogs - reviewed the book lately. This is from Sheffield's finest E Lindley, author of many well received thrillers and romances and member of Rosie Amber's Review Site.

http://lindleyreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/hollywood-shakedown-by-mark-barry.html

She runs a terrific review blog too with some eclectic choices from Trad and Indie publications - she really does do a book justice - getting inside the head of the writer, often picking up stuff most reviewers miss (and I don't mean full stops etc). I recommend following her stuff.

...and this came from Georgia Rose, author of the Grayson Trilogy (including soon, the long awaited third part of the trilogy) and all round top author and massive Indie supporter. Georgia has read all my stuff and I strongly recommend following her well written and upbeat blog. There is some terrific travel writing in there at the moment.

http://www.georgiarosebooks.com/bookreview-for-hollywood-shakedown-by-mark-barry-greenwizard62/

The Amazon Review Crackdown

I'm going to write my opinions on the Amazon crackdown on review protocols. They may prove controversial.  Coming soon.

Here's what Indie commentator, faction writer and supporter Brenda Perlin had to say on the subject on Indie support magazine, Indies Unlimited. 

The comments are excellent, for the most part, and they are well worth a read.

http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2015/07/07/amazon-steps-in-as-big-brother/

The Original Hollywood Cover

I still like that cover, the best of all of the first wave - except for the sunny cover of Kid Atomic, which I may re-release next year for history's sake (if I ever actually do any writing again). The above is still featured as the face of HS on Amazon.com, but it's no longer on my publishing bookshelf.

Thanks for reading,

Mark

*The Goldfinch, for me, only takes off when the action takes place in Las Vegas. The characters in those chapters are working class, hustlers, bums, addicts and losers - pretty much like normal folks. When the action switches to the rarified world of the rich and famous (a common problem, I find, with many "name" US writers), it grinds to a crashing halt. See, for example - Paul Auster, Invisible and James Frey, My Friend Leonard.

For EL Lindley :-)

Stop Press:

The Literacy Project Phil Pidluznyj and me deliver called Brilliant Books is now featured (unexpectedly) on A Woman's Wisdom Blog today. 

https://awomanswisdom.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/guest-blog-brilliant-books-how-did-it-go-by-author-mark-barry/

EL LIndley Reviews Ultra Violence - Includes link to popular anti-bullying chapter

You might never make it rich in this caper (unless you started playing the Indie caper in 2008 or something), but if you are any good, you will have made great friends and readers and that is something you can't actually buy. 

And these friends might actually come to visit you as you live in your big skip eating supermarket throwaways* and wearing jackets from Scope.  

Or then again...

So it is that EL Lindley (below) from Sheffield, writer of six commercial fiction novels, (two I have read so far and strongly recommend), wrote a series of reviews of my work, the latest being on Ultra Violence, the novelbased on the antics of football hooligans attached to a small Midlands football club (Notts County - incidentally, the oldest football league club in the world, without whom no other football clubs would ever exist, ever). 

Here she is.
http://www.amazon.com/E.L.-Lindley/e/B006S2GRCE

...and here's her review of the old girl, which is now nearly four years old. I still can't believe it.

http://lindleyreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/ultra-violence-by-mark-barry.html

E follows up the review with this discussion here - like most of her blog articles, it is well worth a read.

http://ellindley.weebly.com/blog/is-violence-part-of-the-human-condition

And finally, for those who read the review, here's a link to the bullying chapter from UV, The Best Years Of Our Lives, which many readers have commented upon -and been kind about. 

A friend of mine (there we go again, all the friends we make in Indie!) was campaigning against bullying at the time, so I offered this piece and as a consequence, it is perhaps my most read piece of work.

http://greenwizardpublishing.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/bullying-sequence-from-ultra-violence.html

Here is the opening sequence. 

There is more, if you have time, and an explanatory passage. 

Incidentally, the manuscript was written in Courier, one of the original typewriter fonts, but I was persuaded not to use it in the finished article. I sometimes regret it. I visualise the text in Courier.

You are thirteen and it is your turn today.

You don’t know why it’s your turn today but all you know is that it is.

The atmosphere has been building up for weeks.

Those little incidents.

Brief encounters.

Minor skirmishes.

You’ve never experienced anything like this anticipation before and you’re scared. Your stomach is turning over as if you’re staring down the side of a skyscraper. You are tense and dizzy and you wish you hadn’t had seconds in the dinner hall.

Manchester Tart. 

Two slices.

You’re thirteen, sitting at a large school desk, your satchel packed and blazer on.

Five boys are staring at you. You know it’s your turn.

You’re paralysed. Panic. You cannot move. You’ve never known a feeling like it. Trepidation courses through your veins. Your body is charged and you want to cry. But you don’t. Weeping will only make things worse.

Writers may be interested in the book, which I think is a quid or a couple of quid now, because it is written in 2Po - second person omniescent. 

You'll either dig it or you'll hate it. 

There are very few indie novels - or trad, for that matter - written in this style. 

You can buy it here.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultra-Violence-Mark-Barry-ebook/dp/B00EA82L5A/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Thanks, E :-)

Mark

Soundtrack to UV :-) For EL Lindley

Bez's real name is Mark Berry, which is what people who don't know me,

like tax collectors, phone salesman and people who send me parcels, call me.