I am an old new writer. By that I mean I have been writing books only since I retired in 1998. Most of the books I have produced I have co-authored. So, where I say I have produced or written a book don’t take it too literally.
Writing keeps me busy and like all writers I want to sell my books but I find all the technicalities associated with tweeting, blogging face booking and so on a complete chore. As I get older, I understand it less and less!
At first, I only wrote books for schools in the South Pacific for the publisher Pearson Australia, then in 2012, David Barrett and I published Digger’s Story, his biography. More recently Ron Smallwood and I wrote Riotous Retirement, about life in a retirement village. A couple of years ago Ron and I also wrote the content for a children’s book My Australia. I also had a year off with the dreaded big C but I recovered thanks to modern medicine. Now I have written a new book A Gordon For Me, about my time in the Scottish regiment the Gordon Highlanders. There is a song of the same name which I like, so I called the book after it. Listen to the song here.
I did have several sites originally under booksbybrian.com.au including A Gordon for Me. This is because I felt I could not have a site dedicated to one writing genre. In the past I have written in the genres Military, Humour, Children’s books and Science. However, I now sell only my three, more recent military books. They are, Voices of Australian Veterans, A Gordon For Me and Digger's Story.
I have the same problems as all writers who are not in the famous top 0.5% of the industry. I find it really hard to get published. However, I have been lucky and had some success in that area with Digger’s Story. I also recruited a friend of mine (Agneau Press) to publish Riotous Retirement, so I have been down the self-publishing route also.
The only three books I now have for sale were all published or republished this year 2024, as follows:
Voices of Australian Veterans, first edition, published by Sid Harta Books, cost $30.00 plus postage.
Diggers Story—surviving the Japanese POW camps was just the beginning, second edition, published by Ocean Reeve Publishing, cost $32.00 plus postage.
A Gordon For Me, second edition, published by Ocean Reeve Publishing, cost $25.00 plus postage.
Postage for any one book to anywhere in Australia is $12.00
I am always available through good old-fashioned email at
Anyhow I will keep at it on this new combined site where all my book information has been put together by the experts at Webilicious.