Independent book review: My Temporary Life

My Temporary Life
Martin Crosbie, 2012

This was so good.

The traditional publishing model is broken indeed if a string of publishers rejected Martin Crosbie’s excellent first novel. I can’t imagine what made them turn it down. The plot is engaging from the beginning, filled with grabbers like high-school bullying and drunkenness and a strong statement about child abuse.

It’s traditional publishers’ loss, and Crosbie’s gain. He published the book himself and took it to number one on Amazon’s paid list for a whole day last spring.

Synposis

My Temporary Life begins with the narrator, Malcolm Wilson, at age 13 in Kilmarnock, Scotland. He and his best friend, Gerald, spend their days trying to avoid being picked on by the tough kids and the teachers, while somehow being noticed by girls. Crosbie skillfully reveals Malcolm’s back-story in dialogue: his mother came from Canada, met his father, Alex, in Scotland, and about nine months later Malcolm came along. After a few years, Malcolm’s mother moved back to her home town, Vancouver. Malcolm stays with his father, a part-time construction worker, through the school year, and visits his mother and her temporary boyfriend for the summers. Malcolm is left feeling that everything is temporary: he’s only with his mother or his father temporarily. Even when he wishes that his life could be the way it used to be, when his family was united, he realizes that was a temporary situation, as well.

When Malcolm is 13, after a particularly humiliating episode of bullying, Malcolm’s father teaches him how to fight. The next fall, he begins his teen-age growth spurt and discovers his ability at track running. After that, the bullying of Malcom stops—but not so for his friend, Gerald. Nicknamed “Hardly” after he’s found drunk in school, Gerald is not only bullied by his classmates, he’s beaten regularly by both parents.

Malcolm moves to Canada after getting a scholarship to attend a private high school on Vancouver Island. Alex Wilson takes Gerald in to save him from his abusive life, until Gerald is old enough at 15 to join the Army.

At that point, the book jumps ahead about 20 years. Malcolm is now in his 30s, successful in his career as an accountant and a failure in romance. He meets Heather, a 20-something woman with the apparent confidence to dye her hair green and wear high boots even when they’re not in fashion or even in keeping with the weather (it’s set in Vancouver, where you need galoshes more than high boots). Heather draws Malcolm into her attempt to reunite with her 10-year-old daughter.

Style

Crosbie’s style is exactly what publishers say they’re looking for: clear and so smooth you don’t even notice it. Without calling attention to his command of language, Crosbie brings you into Malcolm’s world and his heart.

His dialogue is nearly flawless. I can hear Alex’s brogue and Malcolm’s lilt.
His characterization is just as good. I can believe in characters like George and Rosie, and even Malcolm’s mother, because I feel like I’ve met people just like them before.
The only part that’s hard to believe is the way Malcolm won the scholarship. The whole episode seems too convenient. On the other hand, Crosbie, the author, was born in Scotland and moved to Canada when he was young, so maybe the episode is autobiographical. Still, it was the one weakness in the book.

Bottom line

This is an excellent novel, and I’m looking forward to Crosbie’s next book — which he promises for the end of the year!

I can’t wait.

5*
Find it on Amazon.
And visit Martin's blog.

Guest blogger: Martin Crosbie, author of My Temporary Life

This guest post is from Martin Crosbie, the Kindle Select sensation whose excellent My Temporary Life (I'm reading it now) hit number 1 on Amazon a couple of months ago. Below, Martin explains how he did it.
Martin also interviewed me about my first novel. That interview is on his blog—but read Martin's tale of hitting number one first.

PIRATES, KARMA, AND MY UNLIKELY RISE TO #1

In early February, I enrolled my ebook in KDP Select. Did much happen because of it? Yeppers, in three weeks I experienced more personal accomplishments than I ever could have imagined. First of all, “My Temporary Life,” became available as a free download in an Amazon promotion. The idea is that folks download it for free and with the momentum that builds, when it becomes a paid download, it sells. Well—IT WORKED! It became the most downloaded ebook in North America for one day, a few Sundays ago.

My Temporary Life, built up momentum like a rocket taking off. There was nothing gradual about it at all. By the second day, it was second overall in free downloads. On the third day, well you know what happened, because you heard me. Yep, doesn’t matter where you were, you probably heard me. We hit #1 overall.

So, then, “paid” day happened. It changed over at midnight on Sunday and paid sales slowly started to trickle in. The next morning I expected to see 15 or 20 sales. We had over 200. Over 200 folks pulled out their credit cards and took a chance on my self-published book, which over 120 publishers and agents had turned down. (Oh, did I forget to mention that part?)

Sales continued all day, and the days after. We peaked in the overall rankings at #9, but it didn’t stop there. An independent website emailed to tell us that we were the #7 most downloaded independent ebook of the week; we did a bunch of online interviews, emails and reviews stacked up like crazy, the momentum was deafening.

We hit 60,000 downloads, 51,500 of which were free. There were so many requests for information that we issued a press release. Yep, we issued a press release talking about the book that I wrote in the spare bedroom of my house. A Dallas, Texas television station ran the story. They were interested in the fact that over 120 agents and publishers rejected “My Temporary Life,” yet all these folks were downloading it. We were on the Movers and Shakers list. We were one of the top 10 self-published ebooks on Amazon. We were #2 in Romance/Suspense. We were #2 in Mystery/Thriller. And more 5-star reviews came in every day. 

 

At dinner one night, Jacquie and I sat and read the newest reviews. Two of them made us cry. It’s an amazing experience to read about how your work can touch another person. The sales figures really are amazing, but the almost overwhelming part is that you have an opportunity to touch so many people. 

Helping things along

Now, while all this momentum was happening, it was also getting a little help: I was spreading the word. You see, although I do trust in Amazon, I was helping it along. I was posting interviews, sales figures, anything I could. I was on Amazon discussion boards, Kindleboards, KDP’s Community site, Facebook, Twitter, even Craigslist! All I wanted to do was tell people about my book. And, in doing all of this, not a lot of other things were happening, including writing. And, you see, there are a couple of things that I have to do in my life to function. One of them is sleeping, and the other is writing. I was sleeping a little bit-four or five hours a night, but not writing at all. That was the first problem. The second problem was the pirates.

“My Temporary Life” showed up on a piracy site. Someone had taken my work, changed some things, and was giving it away. So, we quickly sent a letter to them, and the owners of the site were kind enough to take it down right away. I remember years ago, sitting in front of my computer and playing with Napster, and I felt karma kicking me solidly on my rear end.

The next thing that happened was we started receiving a lot of emails from other authors asking me what I’d done, or more specifically what I did differently. There are two things that I can definitely recommend. One is Bob Mayer and Jen Talty’s The Shelfless Book. This is it: https://whodareswinspublishing.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=164

The book is actually the contents of their course that I took just before my epbublishing adventure began. 

 

My other recommendation is to do everything you can think of to spread the word. I can tell you that it truly does make a difference when you have a Facebook event or tweet it, or come up with some other novel and original way to reach readers.

Currently, over 90,000 people have downloaded My Temporary Life. Our sales have tapered off a little bit lately, but we are still high in the rankings and we have over 80 five-star reviews now, too, and, oh yes, the sequel has been started. My Name Is Hardly is underway. I’m aiming for a December release (gulp). So, thank you everybody for Facebooking, and Tweeting, and emailing your friends. Every time you’ve told someone about my book it made a huge difference, and the book that over 120 agents and, oh never mind, that doesn’t matter now, the word is out there, and people are enjoying the book. Thank you all, it’s truly appreciated!

Martin's interview of me is on his blog, here.

My Temporary Life is excellent. I recommend it. You can find it on Amazon, of course.