'A splendid romp. Vive la France!' Peter Mayle, author of 'A Year in Provence' and many other bestsellers 'Mike Buchanan is the best kind of opinionated, middle-aged, middle-class Englishman abroad: the funny kind.' Andy Heslop 'If you have a sense of humour, this book will put a big smile on your face. I laughed out loud many times. A refreshing absence of political correctness.' The lovely Maureen Padley Political correctness is a curse of the modern era. This book is not politically correct. And it celebrates la belle France: the beautiful ladies, the fine food and wine, the glorious scenery and weather, and more besides. If you're offended by the book's contents, kindly moan about it to someone else, not the author. He's had more than his fill of being moaned at over the years. Mike Buchanan is a 50-year-old overweight diabetic short-sighted businessman and published author, who lives in Bedford. He's been a Francophile for as long as he can remember, and is rarely happier than when holidaying in France. In August 2007, following the breakdown of his second marriage, he took a holiday in France with his chauffeur, the (equally) politically-incorrect Thunderin' Paul Carrington. The two men enjoyed themselves so much that they took a second holiday in France in July 2008. This book relates the story of both holidays, in chapters with the following titles: 1 Our first week with Anne and Mark Phillips 2 Why my dinner cost 40 times more than Paul's 3 Hobnobbing with Ivana Trump in Monte Carlo 4 'Would you like to have sex with my wife?' 5 We witness a miracle in Lourdes 6 In defence of pate de foie gras 7 Paul worries about becoming a gay icon 8 Nuits-St-Georges is twinned with Hitchin 9 'It's always better if you have a big one!'

Self-publishing can be more rewarding than being published - creatively, financially, and in other respects - if you go about it the right way. You could well be confused, as many self-publishers are, by the multiplicity of options available to you. The good news is that you can now make your books visible and available to book buyers around the world at minimal cost. An ebook (PDF) edition of this book was made available worldwide at no cost, an edition for the Kindle, iPad, Nook, Sony eReader and other e-readers made available for GBP95.00, a paperback edition made available worldwide for GBP42.00. As a self-publisher, what are your options for new books? Should you choose an offset lithography print run, a digital print run, or maybe print-on-demand (POD)? Hardback or paperback, or other formats? Possibly an ebook too? And, crucially, how will you get your books distributed cost-effectively to buyers around the world? This book will take you through the options and explain their relative advantages and disadvantages. It provides guidance on selecting book topics with strong sales potential; writing distinctively; obtaining a professional critique of your work; writing content-rich non-fiction; writing in a number of genres; choosing between hardback and paperback and other formats; choosing the optimal printing method; book content formatting; book specifications; colour plate section options; distribution; print-on-demand ('POD'); order fulfilment; dealing with Amazon, Lightning Source, Nielsen, and Bowker; printers; copy-editors and proofreaders; typesetters; cover designers; photographers; pricing and marketing your books; and a whole lot more besides. The book includes a sample chapter from the author's international bestseller Two Men in a Car (a businessman, a chauffeur, and their holidays in France) along with the plate section from the book. Mike Buchanan, a British writer and former business consultant, is the author of eight books since 2008. He's been published internationally by a leading publisher (in English and Chinese editions), and he's self-published. He much prefers self-publishing for a variety of reasons. In January 2010, at the age of 52, he took early retirement and now writes and self-publishes full-time. He developed the model of 'commercial self-publishing' outlined in this book. The model has been designed to help self-publishers enjoy their writing more, increase their output of strong titles, and maximise their profits.

Extracts from Erin Pizzey's Foreword: ‘Mike Buchanan is a very brave man. I've known other men who've tried to draw the public's attention to the damage done by the radical feminist movement. Many lost their jobs and none of them were able to find a publisher for their books. Men have been thrown out of their own houses and unjustly accused of domestic violence towards their partners, and some of sexually abusing their children. The legitimate interests of men in Western society are being systematically assaulted by radical feminists and this book goes a long way to providing the evidence. Men are starting to campaign more effectively for their interests, though they have a long way to go before they halt the tide of radical feminist influence, let alone start to reverse it. Feminists can also expect more challenging from another quarter. An increasing number of women are summoning up the courage to openly criticise them. This shouldn't surprise us, given that the vast majority of women don't share the radical feminists' political ideology. With every year that passes more women become aware of the damage man-hating and family-hating radical feminists wreak on society in general, and women's interests in particular. These women are becoming more vocal, and their number is on the rise... How much more damage will feminists be allowed to wreak before they're more widely recognised as the evil women they are?' This book provides long-awaited answers to over 50 of the most challenging questions in the modern era including: 1. Are you a misogynist if you only hate feminists? 2. What is feminism in the modern era? 3. How do radical feminists view the world? 4. Are feminists less intelligent than normal women? 5. Are feminists less attractive than normal women? 6. Do feminists suffer from PPS (Permanent Premenstrual Syndrome)? 7. Why do feminists deny the different natures of men and women? 8. Why must taxpayers stop financing Women's Studies and Gender Studies courses? 9. What are the big fat feminist fantasies, lies, delusions and myths? 10. Are feminists delusional? Is the pope a Catholic? Do bears crap in woods? 11. How are feminists killing men and women? 12. Are some feminists (e.g. Tracey Emin) a pain in the arts? The book contains an appendix of quotations and ends with a sample chapter titled ‘Would you like to have sex with my wife?' from Mike Buchanan's international bestseller ‘Two Men in a Car (a businessman, a chauffeur, and their holidays in France)'. It also contains the plate section from the book (16 photographs).

Mike Buchanan is a Bedford-based author who interviewed eight well-known local guitarists, and wrote accounts of their colourful lives: - Finger Pickin' Good Paul Bonas - Hollerin' Bob Foley - Amazin' Max Milligan - Blindin' Dave King - Lightnin' Hands Pete Rose - Mumblin' Cliff Hanson - Thunderin' Paul Carrington (star of the author's travelogue Two Men in a Car: a businessman, a chauffeur, and their holidays in France) - Laughin' John Verity

A panoramic revisionist portrait of the nineteenth-century invention that is transforming the twenty-first-century world “Excellent . . . calls to mind Bill Bryson, John McPhee, Rebecca Solnit.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker The bicycle is a vestige of the Victorian era, seemingly at odds with our age of smartphones and ride-sharing apps and driverless cars. Yet we live on a bicycle planet. Across the world, more people travel by bicycle than any other form of transportation. Almost anyone can learn to ride a bike—and nearly everyone does. In Two Wheels Good, journalist and critic Jody Rosen reshapes our understanding of this ubiquitous machine, an ever-present force in humanity’s life and dream life—and a flash point in culture wars—for more than two hundred years. Combining history, reportage, travelogue, and memoir, Rosen’s book sweeps across centuries and around the globe, unfolding the bicycle’s saga from its invention in 1817 to its present-day renaissance as a “green machine,” an emblem of sustainability in a world afflicted by pandemic and climate change. Readers meet unforgettable characters: feminist rebels who steered bikes to the barricades in the 1890s, a prospector who pedaled across the frozen Yukon to join the Klondike gold rush, a Bhutanese king who races mountain bikes in the Himalayas, a cycle-rickshaw driver who navigates the seething streets of the world’s fastest-growing megacity, astronauts who ride a floating bicycle in zero gravity aboard the International Space Station. Two Wheels Good examines the bicycle’s past and peers into its future, challenging myths and clichés while uncovering cycling’s connection to colonial conquest and the gentrification of cities. But the book is also a love letter: a reflection on the sensual and spiritual pleasures of bike riding and an ode to an engineering marvel—a wondrous vehicle whose passenger is also its engine.

More than three dozen of the best and most popular stories by the acknowledged master of the short science fiction story. The thirty-nine works contained in this volume—twenty-six from the author’s ten other Open Road collections, plus thirteen additional pieces unique to this volume—include these vintage Sheckley stories: “The Eye of Reality,” “The Language of Love,” “The Accountant,” “A Wind Is Rising,” “The Robot Who Looked Like Me,” “The Mnemone,” “Warm,” “The Native Problem,” “Fishing Season,” “Shape,” “Beside Still Waters,” “Silversmith Wishes,” “Meanwhile, Back at the Bromide,” “Fool’s Mate,” “Pilgrimage to Earth,” “All the Things You Are,” “The Store of the Worlds,” “Seventh Victim,” “Cordle to Onion to Carrot,” “Is That What People Do?”, “The Prize of Peril,” “Fear in the Night,” “Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?”, “The Battle,” “The Monsters,” and “The Petrified World.” This volume also includes the following uncollected Sheckley tales: “Five Minutes Early,” “Miss Mouse and the Fourth Dimension,” “The Skag Castle,” “The Helping Hand,” “The Last Days of (Parallel?) Earth,” “The Future Lost,” “Wild Talents, Inc.,” “The Swamp,” “The Future of Sex: Speculative Journalism,” “The Life of Anybody,” “Goodbye Forever to Mr. Pain,” “The Shaggy Average American Man Story,” “Shootout in the Toy Shop,” and “How Pro Writers Really Write—or Try To.” From the very beginning of his career, Robert Sheckley was recognized by fans, reviewers, and fellow authors as a master storyteller and the wittiest satirist working in the science fiction field. Open Road is proud to republish his acclaimed body of work, with nearly thirty volumes of full-length fiction and short story collections. Rediscover, or discover for the first time, a master of science fiction who, according to the New York Times, was “a precursor to Douglas Adams.”

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