Proof of life after newspapers – former editor publishes 5 books in just one year

A FORMER weekly newspaper editor has just edited and published his FIFTH paperback book in the past year.

Multi award-winning editor and writer Nic Outterside quit his 28 year career in newspaper and magazine journalism following a nervous breakdown in June 2013.

He began the slow road to recovery under the watchful eyes of his doctor. Part of the suggested therapy was for him to begin writing about the life experiences which had led to his breakdown. He did a lot of this through poetry.

His first paperback book The Hill – Songs and Poems of Darkness and Light, was published in November 2014. It was met with international orders and the first edition has almost sold out.

Nic spent the next three years writing for himself and doing PR and subbing work for online clients.

Then a chance meeting with a young Indian author from the Himalayas set in train an express of book publishing.

“In November 2017 I was approached by a 25-year-old writer from Almora in Northern India, who asked if I could edit her first novel,” he explains.

“I agreed, but the problem was she wanted it ready to publish in just five weeks… and she hadn’t even written the first word!

“It was at times hectic – communicating endlessly through emails and Skype calls – but we managed to publish Gauri – A Sin Between My Legs on time, on 9 January last year.”

The publication set in motion a chain of more contacts and other book projects from Nic’s small office in Wolverhampton.

Over the next 12 months Nic edited and published in paperback and Kindle e-book: Luminance – Words for a World Gone Wrong – an anthology of international poetry by 14 writers from as far afield as Australia, Japan, Palestine and the USA, and Asian Voices – an anthology of essays, letters and poetry by 20 writers from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan – both books have been met with widespread critical acclaim.
Nic also found time to write, edit and publish his second book of songs and poems called Another Hill, plus a homage to his musical hero Bob Dylan entitled Blood in the Cracks.
He is currently working on a seventh book, with a working title of Death in Grimsby – a collection of short stories about following his home town football club Brighton and Hove Albion over 50 years. It is set for publication in May this year.

Further titles are scheduled for later in 2019 and 2020.

“I enjoyed a fabulous career in newspaper and magazine journalism,” says Nic.

“And along the way also edited all kinds of publications, including leaflets, brochures and football programmes.

“But, book publishing was a whole other world and I had to teach myself as I went along; especially with things like pagination and measuring the correct size margins and gutters for large format paperbacks. I am also lucky that my partner is a superb proof reader

“Now I am getting as much fun out of books as I did with newspapers or magazines.”

The books are available from:

Gauri – a Sin Between My Legs

Kindle e-book – £2.21

www.amazon.co.uk/GAURI-SIN-BETWEEN-MY-LEGS-ebook/dp/B078XMK42N/

Blood in the Cracks

43 page slim-line paperback – £3.99

www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Cracks-Nic-Outterside/dp/1794666001/

Luminance – words for a world gone wrong

123 page large format paperback – £7.50

www.amazon.co.uk/LUMINANCE-Words-World-Gone-Wrong/dp/1796270032/

Asian Voices

240 page large format paperback – £6.99

www.amazon.co.uk/Asian-Voices-anthology-Pakistan-Afghanistan/dp/1795571217/

The Hill – Songs and Poems of Darkness and Light

100 page paperback – £1.99

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Hill-Songs-and-Poems-of-Darkness-and-Light-Nic-Outterside-Paperback/223163293082

Another Hill – Songs and Poems of Love and Theft

134 page large format paperback – £6.99

www.amazon.co.uk/Another-Hill-Songs-Poems-Theft/dp/1796807575/

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All My Tomorrows

REGULAR readers of my blog may have noticed that I have been an absentee blogger for the past few weeks.
And more avid readers may realise that exactly one year ago, after a full 28 years, I bowed out of a successful career in newspaper and magazine journalism.
For much of the past 12 months I have been flexing my muscles as a freelance writer, blogger and author. I have found escape, refuge, solace and excitement in my WordPress blog, my poetry and my most recent teen novel: Poison (The Adventures of Nathan Sunnybank and Joe Greenfield). The period has also been therapeutic and cathartic as I recovered from the breakdown of last June and dealt with some crippling life demons. I have been supported by my gorgeous wife Gill, my youngest son Nathan, my mum and some very dear and life-long friends – you know who you are!
So now I have reached the new tomorrow.
Today I am launching my new company writeahead, from its base here in Shropshire. For my US and Australian friends, Shropshire is a long county bordering Wales in what is known as the English West Midlands.
My company writeahead is a completely new way forward in marketing and publishing for small and medium sized businesses and for individual clients. Drawing on my 28 years’ experience in newspaper and magazine journalism, I provide a one-stop tailor-made service to research, write, design, print and publish:
* Business cards
*Flyers
*Leaflets
*Brochures
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*Annual Reports
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*Magazines
*and much more…
I also offer a unique service to interview, research, write and publish memorial and celebratory publications for individual clients. Whether it is a one-off eulogy in the local press for a departed loved one, a fuller memorial for a funeral service, a This is Your Life type magazine for a 40th, 65th or 80th birthday or a full bound biography, I will meet your needs.
If you are a single person enterprise, a busy retail premises, a thriving community business or a large public or private sector organisation, writeahead will exceed your expectations.
Please check out my website now at: http://www.writeahead.co.uk
If I can help you or your business in any way please feel welcome to email me (nicoutterside@writeahead.co.uk) or message through WordPress for a chat.
This is tomorrow!

My Back Pages

I AM about to close the pages on a 28 year career in magazine and newspaper journalism with more than just a tinge of sadness and nostalgia.

During those years I have worked on weekly and daily newspapers, glossy magazines, sports publications, county council journals, in-house buzz feeds and too many supplements to list.

But now it is all change and I view the future with an excitement I have not felt since I was 12 years old.

I am writing a more considered piece on my time in journalism for later publication, but turn my head now to headlines and howlers that accompanied me along the way.

I am proud of creating a few great headlines – along with far too many crap ones – over those years and remember five of them with particular fondness.

The first was during my tenure as editor of the Argyllshire Advertiser way back in 1991. We landed a genuine exclusive that Strathclyde Police detectives were investigating allegations of potential property development fraud within the local council.

The story was massive and it called out for a full page headline FRAUD SQUAD MOVE IN ON COUNCIL.

Two memorable headlines were gifts while I edited the Galloway Gazette in 1998.

The first of these involved some brilliant investigative and painstaking journalism by one of my reporters to identify that seven county councillors were claiming expenses and allowances which would have puts the MPs’ expenses scandal to shame. None of them could properly justify why they had claimed so much from the public purse.

My answer was simple… to line up seven pictures of these councillors across the top of our broadsheet front pages under a banner headline: THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.

The second of the Gazette pair was a simple piece of amusement. It involved the world famous artist and sculptor Hideo Furuta working with local school children to create circular murals for the town’s church clock – which was away being repaired.

So it had to be: HIDEO THRILLED THE RADIAL STARS.

The final two headline memories are more recent and come from my tenure as editor of The Denbighshire Free Press (2006-2013).

For the first I have to thank my former chief reporter Adele Forrest for her help. In early 2009 she investigated and wrote a truly gobsmacking front page exposing the county council as it struggled to turn round a failing education department. Adele discovered that in their battle to improve matters the council had employed a new education director who lived in Lanzarote and commuted weekly by plane to her job in Ruthin in North Wales, while being put up at tax payers’ expense in a local hotel.

The headline took some work, but we never regretted: PLANE POTTY TO COMMUTE FROM LANZAROTE.

And I close this section with a headline from just a few months ago.

In the wake of the recent horsemeat scandal, my reporter Kirstie Dolphin undertook a blind steak tasting test comparing horse, beef, zebra, and others meats. She voted horse as the tastiest of all the steaks tested, but that didn’t matter because we had a readymade headline: DOLPHIN EATS HORSE SHOCK.

But my headlines were amateurish compared with the real pros.

I worked for a short time in the early 1990s with former national tabloid sub the late Ged Phelan. His penchant for witty and eye-catching headlines was unsurpassed. For one story regarding Sotheby’s valuation of an old Stradivarius violin discovered in the cupboard of a local church vestry, his wording was timeless: MILLION POUND FIDDLE AND NO STRINGS ATTACHED.

Another great colleague and headline writer was The Scotsman’s former deputy features editor Clare Flowers. She excelled in simplicity. On a feature about the release of long lost out-takes by The Beatles, she titled it THE QUALITY OF MERSEY.

And for one of my own pieces about pesticide poisoning of a large area of Kent countryside she scribed the brilliant:  GREEN UNPLEASANT LAND.

But my favourite headline of all time was written by a sports sub at the same paper and related to former Middlesbrough football star Emerson arriving back late from South America. At the time he was linked in transfer talks with Italian club Parma. So the headline had to be: EMERSON LATE AND LINKED WITH PARMA.

Headlines and stories are the bread and butter of newspapers. But real unexpected howlers keep us going.

The most famous I can recall was from a High Court divorce hearing in the mid 1980s, when a wife cited that her husband was often away seeing Bruce Springsteen. In innocent pomposity the judge asked: “And this Mr Springsteen, is he a friend of the family?”

But one howler cost a colleague his job in 1992. At the time I was Editor of the Argyllshire Advertiser and Campbeltown Courier in which this public notice advertisement appeared: “Southend Church, Campbeltown, service times for Sunday: 8.30am Early morning service, 11am Family Service, 2pm Sunday School, 6.30pm Evensong followed by anti-christ barbeque on the beach.”

The final line should have read: “followed by readings in the ante-room”. Unfortunately for the ad man responsible, not only was his error deliberate, but the church in question was regularly attended by the commercial director’s mother.”

My own worst nightmare was reporting from Colwyn Bay magistrates court 24 years ago, when the 19-year-old son of the Chief Constable was up for motoring offences. Throughout my entire court copy for the next day’s paper I put the father’s Christian name instead of the son’s. To make matters worse the son still lived at home with his parents, so the two shared the same address. The copy passed through news desk, subs and editor unnoticed.

Thankfully my career was saved by a sharp-eyed stone sub, just as the plate was being winged away to the press.

And that, as they say, is the news.