Ash Dykes - book coming in 2017

    

                                                                                   

Welsh adventurer, extreme athlete, two times World First record holder, TEDx speaker, specialty master scuba diving instructor, Muay Thai fighter (and JBB client!), 26-year-old ASH DYKES will be publishing his first book in 2017 in a deal to be announced soon. FHM magazine called him ‘One of The World’s Most Fearless Outdoors Men’; he was 2015 UK Adventurer of the Year and 2016 Welsh Adventurer of the Year. His book will cover his latest Madagascar adventure, with messages of resilience and determination, as well as talking about how he has made it all happen at such a young age, coming as he did from an ordinary background with no special privileges.

Ash recently returned from China, where he gave a talk at the Nanshen International Mountain Film Festival in Shenzhen. The translated talk went down extremely well, and thanks to Ash's popularity at that event with many questions asked and photos taken, Mobi-Garden, the third biggest outdoor company in China, want him to model their clothing in a 5-day photo shoot in Bali and Bombok, trekking Rinjani volcano in November. He'll also give a talk in Shanghai. During his stay in Shenzhen he met government officials, sponsors and the biggest brands in China, TV companies and production teams. He's starting to learn Mandarin and plans to visit China frequently over the next year. 

In 2016 - Ash became the first person ever to traverse Madagascar's length through its interior, taking on 8 of the highest mountains on the fourth largest island in the world, 1,600 miles in 155 days.

He contracted the deadliest strain of malaria, was held up by the military, had to avoid bandits, was bitten by a spider, built a raft to cross rivers, was almost washed away by a river infested with Nile crocodiles on a night time crossing and had to hack through almost impenetrable jungle among much more. He met up with conservationists along the way, in order to spread the word on the work being done to protect Madagascar’s unique biodiversity.

In 2014 - Ash became the first person ever to complete a solo & unsupported walk across Mongolia, over the Altai Mountains, Gobi Desert & Mongolian Steppe, covering 1,500 miles in 78 days knocking 22 days off the predicted time.

He pulled 120kg in a wheeled trailer carrying all provisions needed to survive, he faced sand storms, snow blizzards, grey wolves, snakes, severe heat exhaustion & loneliness; he became known to the locals as ‘The Lonely Snow Leopard’, due to the wolves keeping a respectful distance from him, as they do the snow leopard.

Ash filmed and blogged his expedition, and people followed his journey from all over the world as he hit major news, and articles were shared globally & translated into a number of different languages. He became the youngest member within Speakers from the Edge and he was soon out on his first UK theatre tour as well as his footage being featured on Discovery Channel and Channel 5.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes: – “This young man’s completion of a ‘first’ solo trek across Mongolia, from the Altai to the Steppe, will have proved both physically & mentally challenging & is an example of great determination.”

Ash's exploits from the age of 19 include:

•           Cycling Cambodia & the length of Vietnam (1130 miles – 15 days)

•           Trekking the Himalayas in North India

•           Cycling 700 miles through Australia

•           Learning to survive in the jungle with a Burmese Hill Tribe

•           Working as a scuba diving instructor for 2.5 years in Thailand where he trained & competed against the locals in Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing)

He has been featured in The Times, Forbes, The Guardian, Mail Online, BBC World News, ITV, Arise TV, Discovery Channel, Channel 5, FHM etc. His Mongolia and Madagascar expeditions gained a global reach of more than 350,000,000.

He toured the UK, visiting 10 different theatres in Scotland, England and Wales, speaking of his world first expedition across Mongolia and will go on tour again in March 2017 with Speakers from the Edge and present to 13 venues.

A few press articles from his most recent expedition: -

The Times - http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4691386.ece

BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-35587330

BBC World News - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-28703519

Forbes - http://www.forbes.com/sites/hilarybrueck/2015/08/30/this-explorer-wants-to-bring-madagascars-lemurs-into-your-living-room/#17dd59ad4ff8

The Guardian - http://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2015/sep/29/welsh-adventurer-madagascar-lemurs-ashdykes

Daily Mail - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3448906/British-adventurer-person-complete-1-600-mile-walk-south-north-Madagascar-beating-malaria-dodging-crocodiles-155-day-journey.html

Wales Online (Cool List) - http://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/cool-list-50-coolest-men-10495495

Discovery Channel Champion - http://www.discoveryuk.com/make-your-world-bigger/champions/ash-dykes/

SideTracked - http://www.sidetracked.com/news/ash-dykes-madagascar-journey/

Bradt Travel Guides - http://www.bradtguides.com/articles/ash-dykes-madagascar/

The Allrounder - http://www.theallrounder.co.uk/ash-dykes-walking-across-madagascar/

National Adventure Awards - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3009420/Ash-Dykes-named-National-Adventurer-Year-walking-Mongolia.html

Daily post - http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/old-colwyn-explorer-ash-dykes-10896009

ITV News - http://www.itv.com/news/wales/story/2014-08-19/welsh-adventurer-breaks-mongolia-world-record/

Guest post on self-publishing by Simon Wilcox, author of MUDLARK RIVER

Simon Wilcox published his first book, MUDLARK RIVER, in October 2014. It tells the story of how, after finding a Victorian map of the Thames in a London antiques shop, he used it as a basis for walking the Thames from source to sea; and how along the way he explored the hidden history of the river. 

Some very prestigious publishers liked the project but in the end he self-published the book. I asked Simon if he'd like to share his thoughts on the experience of self-publishing, and he's contributed this typically eloquent guest blog post. Thank you, Simon - over to you.... 

It is often alone late at night, with a glass of wine in my hand, when an old memory sometime pops into my head. It is of me crossing a finishing line, arms aloft, in the pole position of a race that I shouldn’t have started, let alone win. I was 17 at the time, and pulled in as an eleventh hour replacement to run the 800 metres race for my school in the regional athletics championships. My opponents had no idea who I was; but against all the odds I left them flailing in my wake on the last bend. Overnight I became a school hero, and for about a year afterwards I believed that this was what the rest of my life was going to be like. A series of spectacular dashes to glory.

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out like that. Like most people, I’ve had my moments, but I’ve also had my fair share of disappointments. One of the biggest of these was a couple of years ago when a travel book I had written missed out on getting a traditional book publishing deal when at one point things looked hopeful. I had some nice feedback from book editors, Simon has “a rather charming voice” said one, but in the end I didn’t make the cut. At that point, I had to make the painful decision to self-publish.

Yet, self-publishing can bring its own rewards, not least the sense of personal achievement in doing the whole thing yourself. So how did I go about it? Well, at one end of the spectrum are the services of a publishing package provider, and at the other end is the DIY option, and then there is everything in-between.

To take the fully-assisted path first, there are a number of companies – Silverwood and Matador in the UK are among the ones with good reputations – which can take your manuscript, prepare it for publication, publish it and make it available in book stores and through online retailers. This full service comes at a price – Silverwood’s cheapest package starts at £1795 – but, in return, you get a published book for a minimum amount of hassle. Should your budget not stretch that far, though, the same firms can offer tailored one-off services such as copy-editing, ISBN registration, cover design and book promotion.  

These might be of help if you are doing it all yourself, with a little help here and there. The DIY route was the one I chose, mainly for financial reasons. My first port-of-call was getting someone to look over my manuscript and check it for any mistakes in syntax (copy-editing). For this job I took on the services of an editorial contact (or rather a contact of a contact) who promised to give my copy the once over for a fee of £250.

All my words would have been worthless, however, if they had not been pleasing to the eye when they appeared in book format. My next challenge was the typesetting and formatting of my raw text into a particular typographical style – a challenge made doubly difficult by the fact that I was running to a tight budget. Some in my situation would have done it themselves, using a simple layout software; but in the end I decided to turn to Createspace, the assisted self-publishing arm of Amazon. For £140 upwards, depending on which service you choose, their designers based in Charleston in the US will consult with you over fonts and chapter headings and all that sort of thing, and come up with something that looks professional and readable.

The Charleston outfit can do a lot of other stuff for you too, but it was to a local designer near my home in Warwickshire, England, that I looked to for the design of my book cover. This artwork needs to communicate the ethos of your book so choose your graphic designer carefully. You also need to be aware that designing the cover is not only about looking good but also about getting the dimensions right. In order to comply with Createspace specifications, my designer had to think about the ‘trim size’ and ‘bleed’ and things like that, and that bumped up her fees to about £600.

One of the most important features of the cover is the ISBN product number. This is essential if you want bookshops or Internet retailers to order copies of your publication. Registering with Nielsen, the UK’s ISBN agency, for example, puts you on their international bibliographic database, which is used by libraries and booksellers across the world. You can order a single ISBN number from Nielsen for around £75. The bar code, which is created from the ISBN, can then be sourced from a number of suppliers for £25 or so.

With my bar code in place, I was now ready to publish at what I regarded as a reasonable cost. But as I said earlier, there are a number of paths a would-be independent publisher can follow. Mine was just one of them, and another might or might not have saved me more money. For every person who takes the DIY route, there is another who will buy a full package from a self-publishing company. For every Createspace, meanwhile, there is another print-on-demand provider such as Lulu. And for every Kindle Direct Publishing there is another e-book platform such as Kobo, or a distributor like Ingram Spark who can help you reach a lot of different platforms at the same time. If you need more advice then seek out the Alliance of Independent Authors, the professional association for authors who self-publish.

But how did my efforts turn out, I hear you ask. Well, through the Createspace service, I uploaded the print version of my book – Mudlark River – to the Amazon online bookstore, and then shortly afterwards an e-book version of it to Kindle. The uploading was free by the way, but there were a few costs that seemed to appear out of nowhere which served to dampen earnings. With Createspace’s print books you earn 60% royalties, but that’s after you’ve coughed up two printing charges – one, a fixed fee per book, and the other is a charge per page which, though tiny, soon mounts up when you have 343 of them. So, think carefully about pricing. E-book earnings are much better. An author earns 70% royalties with Kindle Publishing and there are no costs to speak of.

So, to sum up, self-publishing is never going to fund a retirement in the Caribbean.

But then I never thought it would. Some writers, I have heard, are making a good living out of self-publishing. These are the people who are beginning to challenge and redefine the rather cloistered, cliquey world of publishing.

But for me, going it alone was always about building a presence for myself. After I published my book, I shelled out £160 to a book publicity firm to pitch particular magazines and newspapers with a press release, and I also built a rudimentary website with the help of a geeky friend, registering my url with a web hosting service for under £50.

Small steps, but progress. In my mind’s eye, I am still running that school race. Self-publishing has given me the legs and the stamina, but what will happen next is anyone’s guess. 

A Siberian Winter's Tale - a gripping travel adventure by Helen Lloyd

A Siberian Winter’s Tale: Cycling to the Edge of Insanity and the End of the World is a new book about the three months Helen Lloyd spent cycling across one of the most remote, coldest inhabited regions of the planet - Siberia - in the depth of winter. The book - which I edited last year - is an extraordinary tale of adventure filled with the characters she met along the Road of Bones; a journey of discovery, driven by the call of the wild.

In temperatures down to -50C, she battled the cold, overcoming her fear of wolves and of falling through the ice of a frozen lake. Alone  in a hibernating land with little to stimulate the senses, her biggest challenges were with her own mind as she struggled with the solitude.

“For hours now – days even, weeks perhaps, for time is frozen here like the rivers – my world has been evaporating into nothing. Now, there is no sound except the beating of my heart, heavy breathing and the crackle of my bike tyres over the packed snow …

This is how I imagine the end of the world will be ... all white – pure and untouched – seeing everything; seeing nothing. We'll each stand alone, in peace, surrounded by a blank canvas that can be transformed into any image our mind desires. But when you hear or see something emerge from this white nothingness, how will you know if it's real or in your head?”

In a touching story full of warm-hearted moments, humour and riveting descriptions that will have you living each moment with her, she also shows the joys of her astonishing adventure. A Siberian Winter's Tale is Helen's second book. Her debut book, Desert Snow, about her 25,000-kilometre bicycle ride through Africa, was a finalist in the Readers' Favorite Book Awards in the Cultural Non-Fiction category, and has received numerous five-star reviews.

"Cycling through Siberia in winter … encapsulates the very best of extreme adventure travel. Helen has proved herself to be a voracious traveller, a tough adventurer, and a fine writer." - Alastair Humphreys, British adventurer

"[Helen Lloyd] is brave, funny, thoughtful and writes in clear detail about how life is being a long-distance cyclist. I think Helen is one of the most interesting explorers

on earth today, on the young scene.” - Mikael Strandberg, Swedish explorer

For more information: http://www.takeoncreative.com/books/a-siberian-winters-tale/

www.helenstakeon.com

Extraordinary, Inspiring Journeys

On 8th April I made a comment on Twitter that marathon season was upon us again (who knew that days later, the world would be shaken by events in Boston?), and directed those who love running marathons to a book I commissioned for Summersdale by author Phil Hewitt called KEEP ON RUNNING - a great book that has kept on selling since it was published a year ago.

Phil, aka @marathon_addict, tweeted in reply: 'Have you got a marathon in you somewhere, Jen?' Shudder - nope, not for me! You may catch me running down the beach with the dog, but rarely much farther than that. To be honest, I'd no sooner run a marathon than ski 'ALONE IN ANTARCTICA' like Felicity Aston, an upcoming Summersdale book I've worked on recently. 

      So why do I love working on these books?

Many of the books I commission and edit for Summersdale are extraordinary journeys - whether it's Phil Harwood's CANOEING THE CONGO, which speaks for itself (ha!), or Emma Woolf's AN APPLE A DAY, her journey of recovery from anorexia. They are memoirs of people who did something extraordinary - in Phil's case, running a heck of a lot of marathons, in Felicity's case, becoming the first woman to ski solo across Antarctica - and can communicate what that experience did to them, what it felt like, and what they learned. They are all inspiring, and we take away something important from each. 

Because I have recently finished working on ALONE IN ANTARCTICA, the message is still with me - I won't give away the ending of the book, but it applies to all of us, whatever trials and tribulations we are facing in life. The week after I finished working on it, I was going through some personal difficulties myself, and I tried to remember her words. 

Do you like to read inspiring journeys? What's the most inspiring journey you've read? Are there any Summersdale books you've found inspiring? I'd love to hear what you, as readers, look for.

Have you made an inspiring journey yourself, and can you write about it?

Turning a Blog of Your Incredible Journey into a Book? Some Tips...

I was recently approached by an author who had done an amazing trip with a friend, and was in the process of turning his blogs about the experience into a book. He wanted some advice - and it occurred to me some tips might be useful to others:

It’s sometimes difficult to know how to develop diaries and blog entries into a full-length book. First, read a few books of adventurous journeys and think  about what appeals to you. 

Bear in mind is that the world of publishing moves slowly; we have to ‘sell in’ a book to the trade six months before publication, and the book retailers don’t like to take travel books during the 'Christmas' period between September and February. And you want that book to stay on the shelves for a good few years too. So avoid too many dates and events that will make the book feel dated. Try to make it a timeless story – one that will still inspire 5 years from now. That means you don’t have to rush it, although obviously it would be good to get the book out there before your followers have forgotten what you did… Think about whether a traditional publisher is right for you, if you need to get the book out quickly.

Make sure it’s a great story. You’ve probably got loads of material. Trim the stuff we don’t really need to know. An ideal length for a book like this is 80,000 words. Develop your best anecdotes into scenes with dialogue and description, so we feel we are there with you on the road. Let us feel we are on the journey with you. But a real journey has plenty of boring bits, and they don’t make for good reading (do we really need to go through the experience of visa applications with you?). Get us on the road with you as soon as you can, then tell the bits about setting up the journey in flashback perhaps. Though do include some of the difficult times – the highs and the lows – and if one of the lows is boredom, it’s fine to show that.

 Good characters are essential – the main characters are you and whoever you went on the journey with (if anyone), so make sure we get a good sense of you. If you did the trip with someone else, we'll need to know if that other person is thinking of writing a competing book - not a good idea! Ideally, if you're both interested in writing a book, you'll want to be working together to maximise potential.

Adventure stories are great, but we also want to understand why you’re doing this journey. It's an interesting measure of our times that people are doing extraordinary journeys all the time. We get dozens of proposals from people who've cycled the world, or walked around Britain. So there has to be a reason why people will want to read your story, what makes it special and inspiring – and you have to tell it in a compelling way. 

No pressure, eh?!

If you're thinking of sending to Summersdale, I'd like to see a proposal and two sample chapters, ideally the first two. Let me know what plans you have for the future. 

And good luck with it. 

My Home Office

It's well over a year now since I moved to a little Greek island to set up as a freelance writer and editor in a home office.

For the first year, I divulged my whereabouts only on a need-to-know basis. Thanks to the magic of Gotomypc.com, when I'm doing Summersdale work, it looks like I'm working from an office in Chichester. To a lot of agents, if you're not in London, it doesn't really matter where you are - most London agents (most Londoners, in fact) aren't quite sure where Chichester is.

I'd realised that most of my job was done by email anyway, whether I was dealing with someone in the US or Australia or Manchester. As long as I had a good internet connection, I could work from home. On an island, so that when I was finished at my desk, I could get outside and in ten minutes be walking up a hill, or down to the sea.

I work with people for whom 'normal' is to do something like rowing across the Indian Ocean, or skiing to the South Pole, or paragliding across the Himalayas. They weren't bothered that I was going to live on a Greek island. And in fact, a lot of people in the publishing business shrugged and said, 'Oh yes, I know someone else who did something like that.'

It's important to see people face to face a couple of times a year, and I love my trips back to the UK. But being far away from the UK has also forced me to get more connected with people online and to use social media resources more (which is, I suppose, why I'm writing this).

Last summer, a few months after making the move, I acquired a book called COMMANDO DAD for Summersdale after a series of Skype discussions with the authors; it got lots of attention, to be featured on ITV and in the Guardian and Telegraph: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Commando-Dad-Elite-Carer-Birth/dp/1849532613/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348515415&sr=8-1. I also acquired UK rights to Torre DeRoche's LOVE WITH A CHANCE OF DROWNING, which would never have happened if I hadn't been spending more time on Facebook: http://www.fearfuladventurer.com/archives/5940.

And two weeks ago, in a cafe in Rhodes, I acquired a wonderful new travel book about Sri Lanka by a British author who was at that point in the Andes. She was very relieved to find out that her not being in the UK wouldn't be a problem.

Travel Writing Workshop

I'm a travel writer and editor, and I live on an idyllic Greek island. I'm thinking of running a travel writing workshop in 2013, if there is interest.

This would involve coaching new authors on developing your travel notes or manuscript into a narrative travel book or travel memoir (not articles for newspapers or magazines).

I've been publishing this kind of book for more than seven years at Summersdale, and have recently started working for Bradt also on their travel literature list.

I also work directly with authors - feel free to contact me for details.

If we succeed in setting up a workshop on Tilos, participants would need to make their way to Rhodes, and we'd organise transfers, accommodation and meals for the duration.