MEET BERNIE MORRIS

I have to admire this author, my mouth fell open when I read the info she sent me – not only is she writing books she’s also a publisher.  I can’t even cope with one aspect and she is juggling two.  Over to Bernie.

Hello, I’m Bernie Morris (pen name and real name) and am dedicated to creative writing in many forms as well as helping new authors.

While I was still in the rat race (employed) and outside having a fag break, which was the only time you got to chat with a colleague (back then), a friend said to me, “So when you get your book published, you’ll be rich – yeah?” Even then, I knew that nothing could be further from the truth, and that was long before I knew what I know now. So I just smiled and thanked him for his faith, then had a laugh later 🙂

Anyway, I have written poetry since my school-days, but never thought about writing fiction until 1987 when I was suddenly inspired to write 3 or 4 novels, one of them being ‘Bobby’s Girl‘. This started off as an autobiography, but then I added more, and then I added even more just to colour it up a bit. So in 2009, I decided to publish Bobby’s Girl as a novel, as by this time I hated the original which was absolutely outrageous and I didn’t want to be associated with it. The rest is history.

Since 2007, when a dear friend and colleague died, I have started Bronwyn Editions that is my own publishing company for other authors (as well as myself).  Trouble is, there is only one of me and loads of authors depending on me, so chance would be a fine thing to promote myself. One author actually asked me: ‘How long do I have to keep promoting before my book takes off on its own?’

I told him, ‘Forever’. Because unless you are a best-seller in your particular genre, you are just one among thousands of others. As you can imagine, he was not too pleased about this, and totally blamed his nasty publisher (me). So obviously it’s all my fault (grrr!).

Bobby’s Girl has never, ever had a bad review, or less than 5 stars, but is still not selling. I can only suppose that this is because I am so busy getting on with other authors’ work that I just don’t have time to promote it, so Mea Culpa. In case you don’t know Latin, that means it’s all my fault again (sigh).

I have started writing a screenplay for Bobby’s Girl as I really think it would make a good film. I have done one scene so far, but then got distracted by other jobs (like you do). https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0956299318

I’m sure Bernie speaks for all of us who are also on the hamster wheel of promoting, as we go round and round and round forever telling the world about our books.  Hop off for a quick flurry in the sawdust and the rankings slide at the speed of light.

Best of luck Bernie and your book looks great fun, and will bring back lots of memories of growing up in the 50’s and 60’s in UK – Bernie describes it as based on soul-shattering personal experience. Go take a look.