When I studied for my Masters in Publishing in ’95/’96 it coincided in the fall of the Net Book Agreement – a British fixed book price agreement between publishers and booksellers which set the prices at which books were to be sold to the public. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy was published in 1995, 1998, and 2000, and his forthcoming ‘equal’ is to be published this year, over twenty years since the first. When I look at the inside cover flaps of my first edition hardbacks I can see the history of the price of books very clearly.

Published in 1995, Northern Lights, was £12.99, as was The Subtle Knife in 1998, but by the time The Amber Spyglass was published in 2000, the price had gone up to £14.99. La Belle Sauvage is to be published with a RRP of a round £20! I know that inflation and increased production costs will have something to do with this but I can’t help thinking that this quite dramatic increase has more than a little to do with the 50% discount that online and major retailers are already listing the book as.

If retailers are going to sell books at half the cover price you can only guess at how big a discount they are getting from the publishers, and when you think that it’s only the big retailers with the buying power that get those discounts you can easily see how unfair it is on the smaller, independent booksellers.

How things would be different if we still had the NBA in operation. Yes, we wouldn’t get the predomination of book discounts on offer, but maybe we would have fairer book prices for all across all bookshops. You can argue that the NBA fixed prices and was thus bad, but it does seem that without that in place, it just results in publisher’s pushing the prices higher and higher to sustain their profits after they have given substantial discounts to those that have the buying power to do so.

Meanwhile consumers like myself are left in the conundrum of where to buy La Belle Sauvage on it’s publication day? Do I vote with my pocket and get it for half price from a major retailer, or support my local Indie…?

I am lucky. Not everyone can say those three little words. Like most people I might not have the most money – like most I have to budget and think carefully before splashing the cash, but I do own my own home, I have a gorgeous garden, a small menagerie of pets (okay, I would have more disposable money without the latter but would I be as happy?), and I have a wonderful wife to share all of the above.

It has not been easy for me to get to this position though. I struggled to make friends – do anything, share anything, anytime friends – at school. I went to university twice because I failed to read the questions at job interviews correctly and struggled to land myself a “proper” job. I lived alone for years, not unhappily fortunately because I like my own company, but always wanting something more, like other people have.

That’s why I want to help people who aren’t and haven’t been as fortunate as me. As Spock says in Star Trek, “the good of the many outweighs the good of the one”. But what can I do? I’m of a quiet personality. That’s probably another effect of the Aspergers that is part of me. I’m not sure if I’m made for the big fundraising campaign. But even so I want to help people get the help I need.

I got help, thanks to a cousin who recognised how I might be different, and after a stray word to a manager at work I got a course of intensive coaching into living with and understanding myself better. This lead to a better job and the confidence to find the girl who would become my wife.

The National Autistic Society is “the leading charity” in the UK for people with autism (including Aspergers syndrome) and their families. They provide information, support and pioneering services and campaign for a better world for people with autism.

My novel Mr Tumnal is about a man who undeniably has Aspergers. Not that it’s a story about Aspergers. It’s also not an autobiography, but there is an awful lot of Me in the book. It seems somehow fitting to me to use my book to help raise money to help people like me who haven’t had the help that I have benefitted from, people who have not been as lucky as me.

That is why from now until the end of September I am pledging to give 50% of the profits (and at least £1) from the sale of my book (eBook or paperback – whichever takes your fancy) anywhere in the world to help the National Autistic Society.

97p in every £1 goes directly to helping people affected by autism.

By the end of September I like to have raised £60 because:

• £5 a month pays for 5 anxious parents to get advice from our Autism Helpline.
• £10 a month helps pay for a befriender to meet regularly with someone with autism.
• £20 a month helps us to give practical support to someone with autism who is looking for work.

Help me to help them, and get to read a book too that has been a very special part of Me for the best part of a decade.

BUY MR TUMNAL AND SUPPORT AUTISM

BUY MR TUMNAL AND SUPPORT AUTISM

^†50% Profit share to National Autistic Soiety is for all copies sold between 15 August to 31 September 2015 in either paperback or ebook formats anywhere in the world.
^‡Neither book, Mr Tumnal, nor T E Shepherd are affiliated in any way or endorsed by National Autistic Society.

If, nine years ago, you had told me that my second published book would be about a man who marries his imaginary friend then I think I would have laughed. If you had gone on to say that the idea for this story would have come from a misunderstanding in the car on the way to just another day at the office, then I would have teased you mercilessly. But that, in short is the story of how my Mr Tumnal came about.

A little after 7.30am on Wednesday 9 August 2006 I had just collected my friend Caroline for the car-share to work. It was one of those beautiful summer mornings but with a slight crispness to the air. Some of the leaves had just started turning and the hedgerows were beginning to fill with berries.

I can still remember starting off a conversation and being (understandably, I think…) confused when Caroline replied by asking who Mr Tumnal was! And I was really confused because all I’d said was, ‘It’s a bit autumnal today’. But that little misunderstanding got us both wondering – about whom exactly Mr Tumnal really was. Certain facts came immediately: he was an English teacher, he loved photography, he wore corduroys and a jacket with patches on the elbows, he was old before his time… and a bit of a loner.

It being the summer holidays, we were spared the traffic chaos of the school run, and the commute took exactly 45 minutes and we had the character fleshed out. Another 45 minutes on the return journey and we had the beginnings of what his story was. I obsessed over the character for two days, and after a visit to the fish’n’chips shop on Friday came up with some early first pages – scenes that never even made the first draft of the book, but did see the appearance of his daughter’s friend Caz.

At the time I remember thinking that there might not be a full novel in his story, but certainly a novella. But I was busy writing the final chapters of Blood & Fire (the book that became The End Of All Worlds and my first novel) and so Mr Tumnal went to rest in my notebook for three years until I started writing it on my honeymoon in Scotland.

Even when I finished writing that second novel in the summer of 2013 (in a thunderstorm in the garden if I remember rightly…) Mr Tumnal’s story was only ever going to be a standalone adventure. It’s only in the last few months that the characters of the book have demanded I write two more stories based in his world. I never thought that would happen nine years ago today!

Here’s to mishearings and car shares! Cheers, Louis Tumnal!

If you had heard me correctly then we may never have spent the next 45 minute commute discovering who Mr Tumnal was… And then, a further 45 minutes in the afternoon working out what his story is. Thank you.

READ MR TUMNAL FOR FREE FOR ONE DAY ONLY

To celebrate Mr Tumnal’s 9th anniversary, you can download and read the eBook for free for one day only today, Sunday 9 August 2015!

READ MR TUMNAL FOR FREE FOR ONE DAY ONLY

Five star reviews! The joy, the ecstasy of it! People actually *like* my story…

Very Very Clever, Very Different – I Want To Read More!

Really really loved the story (very memorable, and very different) – certainly kept me gripped, and the characters were well rounded, fully formed and interesting

the dark, mystical elements which I have missed since childhood classics from writers like Susan Cooper and Alan Garner … this is a book in the same genre but for adults, which is refreshing

I was sad to have finished it

A great read that hooked me and I couldn’t put it down

instantly grabbing. You’re lured into two separate worlds between Lewis and Louis, and the plot keeps moving at a comfortable pace

You can read the reviews in full – have you read it yet? I’d love to hear what you think it too!

But whilst I revel in people enjoying my story of a man who marries his imaginary friend, I also have the agony of discovering that I released my story with some lingering typos. I hasten to add – and this is from my readers too – that none of the typos hinder the enjoyment of the story but they are annoying and frustrating nonetheless. It’s the pain of the Indie Author: even with an editor, I am just one man at war with words. I’ve since corrected a good number of them and notified Amazon. Hopefully anyone who has downloaded the Kindle version will soon get an opportunity to update their edition, whilst owners of the paperback edition will have rare first editions.

Mr Tumnal is available as both a paperback and an eBook for Kindle.

Mr Tumnal

Shepherd, T E (Cover illustration by Silviu Sadoschi)
Publication date: May 2012
Ebook ISBN 978 0 9571756 6 2 (£2.99) Amazon UK | Amazon.com
Paperback ISBN 978 0 9571756 7 9 (£8.99) Amazon UK | Amazon.com

Of course I hope that if you’ve got as far as reading my blog, and following my social media channels then you will already have decided you just have to read the book. But if you haven’t, maybe I could tempt you by reading a bit from it.

I’ve chosen a scene that comes towards the end of Part Two, when things have reached a climax in the Louis/Lewis relationship with Kathryn. It’s tense and dramatic, although for the bit that actually made me break down in tears as I was writing it you have to wait until Part Four!

Mr Tumnal is available as both a paperback and an eBook for Kindle.

Mr Tumnal

Shepherd, T E (Cover illustration by Silviu Sadoschi)
Publication date: May 2012
Ebook ISBN 978 0 9571756 6 2 (£2.99) Amazon UK | Amazon.com
Paperback ISBN 978 0 9571756 7 9 (£8.99) Amazon UK | Amazon.com

Don’t own a Kindle but still want to read this book? You can download a FREE Kindle App for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android.

For your music collection and mine, love Kathryn xxx

For whatever reason, the iPod is never given, but the engraving is perfect to go alongside the playlist of the book. I feel sad when people have a narrow view of what their taste in music is. The very best music collections should be eclectic and contain examples from every genre, even if it was because that one track reminded you of one happy, sad, or otherwise memorable event.

The actual playlist that I used to write Mr Tumnal comprised some 86 tracks and that’s not counting the 251 song wedding playlist, or the general ‘Writing and Inspiration’ playlist. From that I’ve whittled it down to the ones that fit best with Mr Tumnal’s story.

There’s a dedicated page which explains each song choice, but please, even though I’ve been careful in the writing of it, be cautious of spoilers. Some songs are directly relevant to particular characters or scenes in the stories, but others just reflect the inspiration for the story. Others are linked to how I was writing it, like the time, as I approached those immortal words, The End, when writing in the heat of summer under an umbrella for shade I was so caught up in the story I failed to realise that I was now in the middle of a thunderstorm! Hey, it happens!

Mr Tumnal is published on Thursday 27 November 2014 as for Kindle and Paperback and is available for pre-order now on Amazon UK and Amazon.com (also available on other local territories).

That though, is not the weird thing that I have to tell you. On the very night that I finished revising what was to be the final draft before sending it off to the editor, I was literally just finishing off the last bit the book, and my wife Emma was in the kitchen doing the washing up (I cooked the dinner just so you know), and she thought she heard an oboe or a clarinet playing and came through to see what I was doing. I had no music on; just my laptop and my novel. Anyway she obsessed over this snatch of music for a bit and then grabbed a free keyboard app on her tablet and tried to play the tune that she heard that evening. I knew straight away, even though Emma had not at tha time read the book, that it was Mr Tumnal’s Theme that I was hearing.

I recorded what Emma played and later attempted at a rough transcription of the main tune. It’s kind of vaguely Swan Lake-ish I think, but its not. What I do find it is haunting and spooky and awesomely unsettling.

I am luckily enough to have many friends musical than I am, and Neil Brownless, my conductor at the wind band that I go to kindly offered to try and work the original theme up into something bigger. It’s still very much a work-in-progress, but his variation too, is as unsettling as you will find Miss Leroy to be in the book…

Mr Tumnal is published on Thursday 27 November 2014 as for Kindle and Paperback and is available for pre-order now on Amazon UK and Amazon.com (also available on other local territories).