Like every journalist I know (and a lot of others besides) my real ambition was to write books.

So now I’ve been there, done that, and have a rather random collection of titles by me on the bookshelf. And I mean random: my well-researched history of the Dreadnought Seamen’s Hospital in Greenwich, Welcome Aboard,  is about as far removed from book beside it, Lose that Loser, as Pot Noodles are from Sunday roast.

Still, it was what I thought I wanted: a line of books (four to be precise, or five if you count second editions) with my name on the spine.

I don’t know at what precise point that ambition to write books expanded into a dream of publishing them too. Could have been the royalty cheque for The Carer’s Handbook, which represents around three month’s solid work (and before that the five years I spent as a carer which was where the idea came from). All those 50pences I get for every book sold added up to around £1,000, which is a long way short of being enough to give up the day job (my long-term ambition!) We’re not talking J.K.Rowling here!

So…small books. Which sort of evolved from a small book I’d written, as I realised I could publish it myself and cut out the middle folk, since publishers want you to do most of the promotion yourself anyway.

As for this blog, here’s my chance to record how it’s done (or not done). Watch this space!