Why Don’t You Fall in Love With Me?

Now normally, if you hear or read something like that, I'd advise you to start running and don't look back. This time though, I'm asking you to stick around, mostly because it's me who is sounding like a cheesy psycho in a bad book.

Let me explain why.

I've been reading about marketing for the last few days (I should make it clear by the way, I am not a fan of marketing, but I am a writer who has a second book out, and this is the sort of thing HarperCollins tells me to read.) Anyway, while I was reading about marketing, I stumbled across the following fact:

"Over sixty percent of the sixty million people who are regular Thriller/Suspense readers in the USA, say they are reluctant to buy a book by an author they haven't read before..."

That means that approximately thirty six million people in the USA don't trust me.

Which, if I'm honest, makes me feel like a puppy who has pee'd on the carpet once, and now can't innocently sniff the rug without being thrown in the yard.

Anyway, why am I telling you this? Well, basically, because I am needy, and my feelings have been hurt.

You see, I know you love James Patterson, Michael Connelly, Nicholas Sparks, Patricia Cornwell and Ken Follett. I also know I'm the snotty nosed kid HarperCollins have given a bat to and said: "Get out there kid, show 'em what you can do."

I know all that, but the problem is I can't show you what I can do, if you won't pitch me the ball. 

It doesn't matter that the Wall Street Journal called my last book a "memorable novel..." or that the Fort Worth Star Telegraph said it was "an exhilarating roller-coaster ride that would have made a great Hitchcock movie..."

None of that matters if you won't pick it up and see for yourself.

Now I know why you might be reluctant to do that, $20 on a book is a lot of money, and I might be a terrible writer (my first novel is out in soft-back/kindle for a lot less than that, and I promise you I'm not a terrible writer), but I want to remind you of something.

I want you to cast your mind back to the day you discovered your favourite author. I want you to think about the moment you looked up from the book, broke into a big smile and said "wow!" to yourself. I want you to remember how good that feeling was, and then I want to ask you a question America:

Why don't you try a new writer, and see if you can fall in love all over again? 

The Darkest Hour (Harper Collins) is Tony Schumacher's first novel. It took him forty six years to write, of which nine months were spent typing. The rest of the time was taken up being a failure at school, travelling the world, being a builder, a bar man, a bin man, and a British Bobby (he's also had lots of jobs that didn't begin with the letter "B" but they are far too many to list here). He's written for The Guardian, the Huffington Post, and both Liverpool and Manchester Confidential magazines. He's been a stand-up comedian, acted in a movie you won't have seen, and made some films for the BBC Politics Show North West. He can often be heard on BBC Radio, LBC radio and singing in the bath. His second book, The British Lion, was released worldwide in October 2015.