Withiell's Waffle

Nick Withiell, a voice from rural Derbyshire.

Nick Withiell is a pensioner living in Derbyshire. He has written based on his memories of the late 1950’s and of the life-style we had in those days. So he hopes to provoke some happy memories here. He lives quietly with with his partner, and while she does not share his enthusiasm for writing, she has been very tolerant throughout the whole process. He began my writing later in life, transforming a new author competition entry into a mesmerizing series. The stories are steeped in the nostalgia of his youth during the gentle-paced 1950s, bring to life a time of kindness and co-operation that existed then.

In his own words:

My name is Barry Nicholson, and I write under the name of Nick Withiell. I am pensioner living in Stoney Middleton, Derbyshire. I began to write as an entry in a competition by a national newspaper (The Daily Mail) for first time writers who had never had anything published, to write a story…So, with time on my hands and so I thought, “I can do that.” and did. By now I had caught the writing bug, and at the conclusion of the second book I still had not found a way to finish it properly – so I wrote a third book. This has now expanded into a series of five books, all published on Amazon Kindle.

The first book ran to just over 300 pages, and I sent off the manuscript.I never heard anything more. Then it occured to me that this story was not quite finished, so I wrote a second book to follow. After submitting the first book to various publishing houses I eventually received some very favourable reviews, but they would only offer a composite deal, which involved my putting up one third of the costs up front.

There were also no guarantees despite the high praise they poured on to my efforts. So I looked for alternatives. On the advice of a friend, I had to self-publish (With Kindle Direct Publishing) and now have a series of five books selling on Amazon. I have had some really wonderful comments from people who have read the first book, and are looking forward to the next in the series. The bottom line to this is:

You just never know what you might acheive until you try.