Interviews
Just Follow the Floodlights, Brian Kennedy
A writers life can be a lonely one, but worst still – frustrating. Trying to keep sane when the words won’t come, taking a break with your cousins Jim Beam & Jack Daniels in-between and wondering whether it is your best work before you rip it up and start again.
But as writers, we love it. Our work is the means of expression we want to show the world, but there are easier job choices! The journey you are brought on whilst writing a book, for me anyway, is this bi-polar existence where you’re delighted with the first three chapters yet tearing your hair out trying to finish it. You feel the elation of getting a solid start only to find out you’re about as good at spelling as Attila the Hun would be holding peace talks with the Roman Empire.
I’ve always had an interest in writing. I’m pretty sure I was born with a pen in hand, looked up at my mum and jotted down “Out of warmth. Met with screaming woman. Please put me back in.”
When I started writing, I didn’t want to write about the struggle for independence in El Salvador or cosy up to the critics with a 900 page book on an 17th century blacksmith that would put them in a coma by the turn of the third page. I just wanted to make people laugh.
I needed to have a smile on my face (and my wife needed to be an extremely good humour) when I told her “Hey honey, let’s remortgage the house so I can get the money to write a book about Exeter City!” At the time Exeter weren’t even a Football League side, and struggling in non-league obscurity, but I knew the story of an Irishman travelling to Devon, England regularly to watch them when people won’t even cross the road in Exeter “The sheep won’t even watch us here” – and that’s the manager speaking! – would strike a chord.
It did.
‘Confessions of an Exeter City Nut’ got national tabloid headlines and the book was turned into a radio documentary which won a PPI Radio Award for Best Sports Documentary in 2006.
It taught me a lot about marketing a book – the little tricks I needed to get headlines – and I quickly became my own PR man, looking for every opportunity to give myself the edge that would result in a national headline.
For my second book, Poor ‘Ol Harry Sack, I told the story of the most unluckiest gambler in Ireland (actually make that the entire Western hemisphere) and got a local lap-dancing club to pay for the entire publication…
Seedy? Maybe. But at least I know I’m the only author in the history of the written word who owes his book to half-naked women in G-strings.
Now that can’t be a bad thing!
Football has played a big part in my eight publications with two on my local club Waterford United, Singing The Blues and Blue White & Dynamite, whilst another Exeter City book, One Flew Over The Crossbar, was published. Not wanting to be labelled a one-trick pony I penned 50/50 - a story of fifty Waterford musicians (Gilbert O’ Sullivan, Val Doonican etc) in the last fifty years.
I have loved self-publishing. Some people sneer at it, get self righteous and proclaim that you’re not a “proper” writer. That it is somehow cheating. But if that’s the case, I guess D.H. Lawrence, Mark Twain, Beatrix Potter and James Joyce all cheated as all of them self-published during their careers. William Blake did nothing else – getting his wife to sew the covers of his books whilst Blake even made his own ink. Suffering for your art can be hard enough without listening to people who haven’t the bravery to pick up a pen and see the project through in the first place.
To me, the sense of satisfaction I get from self publishing, I think easily equals that of being with a conventional publisher. It’s this ‘me against the world’ train of thought combined with a self-belief in myself and what I’m doing has brought me sales of over 10,000 books since 2004. And self publishing has brought me a traditional publishing deal when Liffey Press decided to publish my latest book.
Just Follow The Floodlights – The Complete History of the League Of Ireland had started out as a self published effort in March 2011 however given the subject was a nationwide one, I decided to send off some chapters to a publisher.
The chapters were sent March 29.
Liffey Press wanted me to travel to Dublin the next day.
On March 31th I travelled and on April Fool’s Day I was given a publishing contract.
Seven years of writing and finally a publishing contract in a matter of 3 days. Having enjoyed my self-publishing locally I was delighted to get this deal as the audience was so much bigger, with Liffey Press distributing the book nationally.
In keeping with my sense of publicity I arranged six book launches at six different League of Ireland grounds and even got the league’s sponsor Airtricity to undertake the cost of the book tour. I was even granted my own publicist. The book went to No.1 in Amazon.co.uk’s English Football League Book section in January.
I’ve allowed myself a couple of months rest before starting it all again. I love what I do and have self-thought myself these last eight years. It’s not only about being a good writing, you’ve got to be your own publicist, PA and sometimes financer along the long road from first word to first signed book, and at times it drives you mad.
But then you are only given a little spark of madness in this life – you must never lose it.
(c) Brian Kennedy March 2012
Just Follow The Floodlights by Brian Kennedy, is a comprehensive guide to all 47 clubs who played or are still playing in the league which continues to succeed both nationally and on the European stage, as Shamrock Rovers have demonstrated so spectacularly this year.
From the managers to the mascots, trophy successes to match day snacks, everything about the teams is included in this extensive and highly illustrated book.
Just Follow the Floodlights is essential reading for anyone with an interest in our domestic game and its current and former teams.
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