Interview With Author Glenn Ashton
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Born in South Africa, Glenn emigrated to Canada in his mid-thirties, landing with high hopes, no assets and little cash in Toronto. One of Canada’s large commercial banks viewed with favour his law degree coupled with an MBA and offered him a job. A few years later he moved to the Royal Bank of Canada, the largest bank, and was later appointed Vice President of Corporate Finance, handling large commercial and project finance loans. While there he travelled on business to several European countries and also to China.
When the bank downsized, he wrote several exams to Canadianize his law degree, and after moving to Calgary worked with a law firm for five years and then became the internal counsel for a local company before retiring.
Glenn loved reading thrillers, and decided to write some himself, ending up self-publishing books, all of which are available as Kindle eBooks and also as printed books.
Their titles are: The Theft of Souls: The Trial of Lawrence of Arabia; Modern Proverbs; LittleTown (a kids’ book about animals building their own town, far from humans); Cupid’s Crescent (the kidnapping of the son of a banker by a German terrorist group); Silent Lips (New Yorkers race against time to save the city from a genetically engineered virus, with the President using the army to enforce the city’s quarantine); Obelisk Seven, an illustrated book about mysterious signals being sent between seven obelisks in Rome, London, New York and Egypt, while a new microbe threatens the world’s oil supply; and Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales.
His latest thriller, published this year, is Churchill’s Ferret, about a young woman who wishes to kill Hitler when he meets with Prime Minister Chamberlain to negotiate the 1938 Munich Accord. The two Mitford sisters (Unity and Diana) are prime suspects.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
It is August 1938.
A young British woman is stalking Adolf Hitler.
Commander Charles Burton knows 3 things:
she wishes to kill Hitler,
she might be an aristocrat,
the Germans must not find out she is British.
What he does not know is
Who, Why, When, Where, and How.
And time is running out.
This thriller delves into four matters:
• Why Prime Minister Chamberlain signed the Munich Accord with Hitler in September 1938.
• Which highly influential persons in Britain supported Chamberlain and the Munich Accord, and why so many did.
• The significant role of the Mitford sisters (Unity and Diana) in the years leading up to the Munich Accord.
• Why so many Germans supported Hitler.
The illustrated edition has many images of people, places and events, to deepen one’s reading experience.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I plan my books, after doing extensive research. This allows me to write various scenes without having to start at the beginning and end up at the end. Very flexible writing style and saves enormous time in the process.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Google Save the Cat! by author Blake Snyder, and then google “Glenn Ashton” AND “Save the Cat” for my notes about his book. Worth every penny, Save the Cat! will solve your problem, take away all your concerns, make you self confident in your writing progress. It is the best book I have ever read or read about dealing with writing…. Your life is about to be changed, positively, if you dive into this book.
What are you working on now?
Nothing. Churchill’s Ferret was my latest, last and best book. Now I dip into Facebook postings and do a bit of marketing for the Ferret.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
See below.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Marketing your book is a challenge. A whiles back I read articles by published authors about how they set about marketing their own books, with and without any agent, and then collected the ideas in my own book. Authors might find useful hints in it!
A suggestion: google these words all in one search: “Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales” AND “Glenn Ashton”
Click on Small Steps to Bigger Book sales book cover. Check it out for ideas you might use to market your books. Consider buying the book – the eBook is cheap.
Chapter 25 of Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales is the Small Steps Plan template. The Plan template is in the book itself. You can change it to suit your needs.
A FREE summary of the template is shown in my earlier Facebook post – check it out – under the introduction heading Template form of my Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales book. You can copy this and print it out. Costs you nothing!
The second useful item is Chapter 26 of Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales– the weekly engagement checklist of 120 items that you use to market your books in places where your readers are.
Small Steps to Bigger Book Sales is for every author with books to sell, or anyone who wishes to improve their participation in social networks.
You will be guided to do 20 Tasks, as part of your very own Small Steps Plan to market your books. You will start with the first 10 tasks over 3 months and the next 10 over the next next 6 months. Then you review and revise your next Small Steps Plan.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder. And its successor Save The Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. Essential tools for writers (both starting and published writers),
What are you reading now?
Goodbye Dolly Gray
What’s next for you as a writer?
Messing around with occasional marketing spurts for my 8 books.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes by Opie.
The Little Drummer Girl.
Postwar A History of Europe since 1945 by Tony Judt.
Sherlock Holmes Rge Complete Stories.
A set of encyclopedias.
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