Great Aussie Railway Poems

Something new for 2020... and completely unannounced. Great Aussie Railway Poems.

This comes as a complete surprise, even for myself. After posting back in March that I was happy to call it a day with my railway themed books after releasing Favourite Australian Railway Stations, I go and do something out of the blue like release another railway book! A 72 page b&w paperback or eBook, it is packed with 45 great Aussie railway poems, (hence the title) that I have collated from a career that now stretches back to 1987. Inside are all of the poems from my Last Train series of photographic poetry books, along with every railway poem from each of my previous poetry eBooks. At $12.99 plus postage for the paperback, or just $3.99 for the eBook, it is a much more economical alternative for railway buffs and poetry aficianados alike.

So why the change of mind? Well... to be honest it was all a little out of my hand. With my past novels and poetry eBooks parked in retirement with Smashwords.com and doing sweet nothing sales wise, a letter advising that I needed to update my W8-BEN form to satisfy the U.S. Government in order to continue receiving royalties forced a decision. Ordinarily, filling out a W8-BEN form doesn't spell the end of the world. However, if you're a non-resident alien (as the U.S. like to call people from outside of America who earn money from inside of America) it does pose a conundrum if you just so happened to have sold an investment property in the past few years and got off the whole money-churning U.S. Tax merry-go-round. Fill out the W8-BEN form, and I'm suddenly back on it, even if merely to fill in non-lodgement forms stating again and again that we no longer own property within the United States. All for the sake of the few remaining books that weren't selling.

Removing all of my titles from sale was the easy part. What to do with a lot of hard work that had essentially amounted to nothing took a little more thought. Collating all of my railway poems from my previously available eBooks seemed the logical first step. Releasing them locally here in Australia through Blurb was the next one. At least here in Australia I am set up with an ABN to sell and distribute my own books as a sole trader. So one down, and a few different instalments to follow. Great Aussie Bush Poems will come next.

After that I'll be looking at re-releasing my four novels in print form once more. For someone who was happy to sit back and concentrate on my next projects, (namely completing the model railway that you can see in the top photo), I suddenly have a lot of work on my hands. I remember hearing at a writing conference back in the early 2000's, that a book only stops selling when you stop selling it. So I've also taken the time to completely refresh and overhaul this site. You'll notice a lot of changes, and there'll be a lot more to follow, beginning with a new approach to blogging that I'll be commencing in the coming weeks. What will it be? You'll have to follow this blog, or bookmark it and come back to see just what its all about.

Until then, try to stay safe in what is a very trying 2020, and be sure to preview the book over at Blurb.com.