Wow, it’s still so unreal to find I’ve been reviewed by people I hold in such esteem! Berryl Eichenberger’s review of Corporation Games appeared in The Weekend Argus, Sunday Tribune, and the Sunday Independent this last weekend (2 February 2020). To ready the review simply click on the picture above.
“Our Sandton, Cape Town, Durban and Stellenbosch executives are rated as world leaders in money laundering, bribery and corruption, procurement fraud, asset misappropriation and cybercrime.” – Professor Patrick Bond (quoted in The Citizen)
Izak De Vries of Lapa Publishers recently interviewed me about the book. If you’d like to know more about how the book came to be and why I wanted to publish a story about South African corporate corruption read Izak’s article here on LITNET
My friend, Vanessa Clark (@vanclark), a freelance journo found my book at Book Lounge and shared it on Instagram. Thank you Vanessa! After she read it she commented: “Great job! You especially nailed the pacing – beautifully crafted. I was gripped and had to make myself slow down to savour it. ☆☆☆☆☆”
Step 1: Change everything in your life within a year, leave no stone un-turned.
Step 2: Make new friends in the publishing industry who say crazy things like “You know, I’ve read a lot of books about ad agencies, but none about the other side of the table….” (ahem, Izak).
Step 3: Decide that instead of getting a Masters you will write the book. This also applies to a blog – as in, this is my excuse for the sudden, unexplained disappearance of these blogs a few years back!
Step 4: Join the most amazing writing group in the world started by the same friend who then hand-picks the best group of wordy geniuses you could ever hope to meet and share an evening a month with them for much feedback, wine and raucous laughter (which also results in said group being dubbed “Die Laggende Vroue” by the ever-patient partner of said friend). Die Laggended Vroue did have some very special male members too, they embraced their feminine admirably. [Die Laggende Vroue: The Laughing Ladies // Alternately: The very loud ladies in the lounge!]
Step 4: Spend six years (or so) writing the book (while also starting your own consultancy because who doesn’t like a challenge?).
Step 5: Let a select few (two) special souls know when you finish and then ignore the manuscript for at least a year.
Step 6: Rely on said friend to extract the manuscript from your petrified fingers, have it vetted, get the most brilliant editor/poet/writer/amazing person to edit it, re-jig the entire thing in a few weeks, have it proof-read and checked and dressed and voila! A book has appeared as if by magic!
Step 7: Use decades of marketing experience to create fun PR kits which are approved of by Jerry the Cat, send out and pour a glass or two of wine. It’s a wild ride this book thing!
In SA you can buy it online here or most book shops:
And internationally it’s on Amazon in Kindle version!
Cartoon by the inimitable Leunig, as found here.
It’s riotous, really, that I have no words for things “riotous” right now as the season of merriment approaches. Sitting here at end of November in 2016 they seem too exuberant, too active and energetic, too damn happy. Right now needs dark, dense, stolid words. Words that sit on dank rocks in dark pools and brood. Words that refuse to leap or even twitch. Words that are hunkering down and waiting. Words that are grumpy and garrumphing. Words that wait for flies to come to them to be grudgingly licked up and swallowed without joy. Fat, sludgy words that blink slowly and watch you slink by, trying to avoid disturbing them as you search for better days.