Tag: Amazon

Turkey, Surviving the Expats – Out Now!

Turkey, Surviving the Expats – Out Now!

PtP Episode 2

After a few weeks of tweaking, fixing and buffing, Turkey, Surviving the Expats is off the blocks. Episode Two of the best of the blog contains all the juicy bits from the Turkey years. Here’s the blurb:

In 2009, Jack Scott and his civil partner, Liam, sold off the family silver and jumped the good ship Blighty for Muslim Turkey. They parachuted into paradise with eyes firmly shut and hoped for the best. When the blindfolds were removed, what they saw wasn’t pretty. They found themselves peering over the rim of a Byzantine bear pit. Bitching and pretension ruled the emigrey roost. The white-washed ghettoes were populated by neo-colonial bar-room bores who hated the country they’d come from, hated the country they’d come to and were obsessed with property prices, pork products and street dogs. Expat life was village life where your business was everyone’s business. For Liam, it was the barren badlands of the lost and lonely. For Jack it was the last stand of the charmless Raj – ‘Tenko’ without the guards, the guns and the barbed wire. It took them a while to find their feet and separate the wheat from the chavs but, determined to stay the course, eventually they found diamonds in the rough and roses among the weeds.

Welcome to Part Two of the mini-series which includes previously unpublished material together with Jack’s personal recommendations of the must-sees that Turkey has to offer visitors and residents alike.

Buy a Kindle edition from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and from all other Amazon stores worldwide. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Download the Kindle app from Amazon and read the book on your PC, smartphone or tablet. Alternatively, buy an e-Pub version from me directly and I get to keep all the dosh. The e-Pub format can be read on most non-Kindle readers (Nook, Kobo, Sony, Apple). The e-books are priced at just £2.99, $3.99 and €3.50 – cheaper than a frozen pizza from Iceland (the shop, not the country).

PtP Episode 1 (313 x 500)Don’t forget to pick up Episode One – Turkey, the Raw Guide. Like Jack and Liam, they come as a pair.

Turkey, the Raw Guide – Out Now!

Turkey, the Raw Guide – Out Now!

After months of blood, sweat and tears, a lot of ripe Old English and a few hard boiled debates, the first episode of the Best of Perking the Pansies, the Turkey Years is finally off the blocks. So here comes the hard sell:

PtP Episode 1 (1000 x 1600)aHave you ever wondered what it’s really like to pitch your tent in a foreign field, particularly a Muslim one? Guidebooks and travelogues only go so far. To get a real feel, you need to ask someone who’s been there, done that and bought all the fake t-shirts. When Jack Scott and his Civil Partner, Liam, moved to Turkey nothing could prepare them for what was to come – heatstroke, frostbite, biblical floods, Byzantine red tape, lazy censorship, blackouts, bugs from Hell, rancid drains, lunatic drivers, dirty politics, spring-loaded waiters, jaw-dropping sunsets, kindness, generosity and acceptance. They stumbled upon what Jack infamously described as the mad, the bad, the sad and the glad. Jack decided to write it all down in a blog for all the world to ignore. He called it Perking the Pansies. Against the odds and quite by surprise, Perking the Pansies grew into the most successful blog of its kind in Turkey, attracting a loyal following, the attention of the Turkish national press and hatched an award-winning Amazon number one best-selling book.

Now that Jack and Liam’s sweeping Anatolian adventures are behind them, Jack is publishing the best of the blog as a two volume e-book. The uncensored director’s cut includes previously unpublished material and some solid home-spun practical advice about living the dream. Visas, tax, banking, working, customs, healthcare, schools for the ankle biters – all the boring stuff is in there. Jack likes to be functional as well as decorative.

Buy a Kindle edition from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and from all other Amazon stores worldwide. Alternatively, buy an e-Pub version from me directly and I get to keep all the dosh. The e-Pub  format can be read on most non-Kindle readers (Nook, Kobo, Sony, Apple). The e-books are priced at just £2.99 and $3.99 – cheaper than a pint of cooking lager in Soho (or about 0.00005 pence per word). A bargain.

I’m still working on the second episode – Turkey, Surviving the Expats. Watch this space. For more information and to read a short extract, please check my author website: jackscott.info

Forced to Fly

Many years ago, I had a family of blue tits nesting in a bird box nailed to the back wall of my inner city garden. It was a one egg family. For weeks, I watched chick tit spend its formative days with its tiny beak permanently poking out of the little round hole as Mummy tit and Daddy tit embarked on a never-ending feeding frenzy of tit bits. Eventually, chick tit grew into a fattened teenage tit. I was lucky enough to be working at home on the day it got its wings and I watched the launch from the window of my back bedroom. The doting parents took up position on opposite fences, tweeting melodiously to lure their offspring from the warm comfort of the nest. Now and again, they would show off with a cocky cabaret of aerial acrobatics. Teenage tit tentatively balanced its body on the ledge of the box to watch the flypast, nervously flapping its wings and preening its new-season plumage. After an agonising wait – which had me with my nose pressed hard up against the pane – teenage tit took the plunge, firing itself into the air like a rogue missile. I swear that its eyes must have been firmly shut; it shot straight towards me and slammed into the window like a bullet, just inches from my face. I got quite a start. Unfazed by its unguided maiden flight, teenage tit flew off into sky, never to be seen again.

You may wonder why I mention this tit chick flick, tender and delightful though it is. Well, we’re all forced to fly at some time in our lives, none more so than the courageous souls who migrate to greener pastures. Some stay the course and some don’t, but all have a tale to tell. Those who have tried know that it’s not all wine and song. The best of us brave the blunders with humour and insight. Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Forced to Fly, a delicious compilation of wit and wisdom from those in the know. And, I’m not just saying that because I’m in it. As writer and editor-in-chief, Jo Parfitt, says:

 “Everyone knows that laughter is the best medicine, but Forced to Fly is more than a collection of funny stories about seeing the funny side of the day-to-day blunders we all make. It is packed with stories that resonate with anyone who has lived abroad. Its opening chapters, written by experts, counsellors and real-life expats who have struggled with culture shock, will provide support and advice to guide you through any dark patches.”

You can pick up your copy at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com. While you’re thinking about it, why not take a look at the book trailer?

The Birds

The Birds

Our little quarter of old Norwich is like a retirement village, jam-packed with sheltered housing schemes – from modern red brick to post-industrial grand. We’re surrounded by the old folk of Norfolk, placing us in pole position for the next vacancy. It reminds me of our fright nights in off-season Yalıkavak when we first dipped our toes in Turkish waters. The difference is that round here there are no randy cats or baying dogs to keep us from our slumber.

Our silent nights are a world away from the Saturday night fever that unfolds just a few streets along. Lazy days are regularly disturbed by the street-wise pigeons who coo, poo and screw on the narrow ledges of the buildings around us. The bonking birds cleverly confound the spikes and nets intended to keep them from their lofty urban roosts and happily bestow their blessings on the passers-by below. There’s good luck splattered everywhere. It’s a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds.

We only have one immediate neighbour. We’ve nodded hello in typically British reticent style. She must be very learned and well-read judging by the constant stream of Amazon deliveries. I must butter her up and generate more commission through my website, it could be a nice little earner. As a fellow blogger and author once remarked “Jack, you’re such a tart, on so many levels.” If the cap fits.

You might also like:

Clever Bitch

The Night of the Living Dead

Retail Therapy

I’ve started a little shop to add a few coppers to our coffers. It takes me back to the distant days of my misspent youth when I was a store boy on Chelsea’s trendy King’s Road. Days on the tills and nights on the tiles were the best probation for a young gay boy about town. My shop is stocked with a few hand-picked items that you never knew you couldn’t do without. Naturally, my book takes centre stage in the window display. So, if you’re looking for great deals on hotels, flights, books or anything on Amazon then visit Jack’s shop. It costs you nothing and I need the money. No pressure.

Perking the Pansies eBook

You don’t need a Kindle to download the Perking the Pansies ebook. All you need is a Kindle Reading App for your iPhone, PC, iPad or Android device. Download the app for free from Amazon.

Break a Leg

I’ll be banging on about my book ad nauseum at the Polari Literary Salon at London’s Royal Festival Hall on the 6th February 2012. All my profit and more has gone on paying for the bloody airfare. I suppose you have speculate to accumulate. Anyone who has read the book and likes it, please add a review to Amazon (if you haven’t already). Every little helps, as they say in the Tesco’s advert.

For details about the event check Time Out online. To buy tickets check out the Southbank Website.

Have it Your Way

Are you a thoroughly modern Millie and would like to download Perking the Pansies to your fancy Kindle thingy bobby? Perhaps you’re opposed to Amazon taking over the world? (Of course, I couldn’t possibly comment). Or maybe you’re a bit of a traditionalist that likes to browse the shelves and thumb through the latest releases? Well, you can do all these things. Perking the Pansies is now available to download to Kindle, to purchase online at WH Smiths and Waterstones (and many other online stores) and to order at any good bookshop near you. Go on, you know you want to.

Alternatively, you could buy the paperback or Kindle edition through my website and I’ll earn an extra few pence. No pressure.

A Kindle for Christmas

Apparently, Kindle is de rigeur these days, the latest must have. I’m getting one for Christmas. I didn’t want it but Liam insisted. I won’t be using it lounging round a cool pool. I’d be terrified of splashing it with water, smearing it with sun tan lotion or spilling my G&T over it. I know I said I wasn’t going to mention the book again until 2012. I lied. So shoot me. Perking the Pansies is now available on Kindle. A bargain at £5.13.

Check out the book

I Heard it on the Grapevine

I’ve heard on the grapevine that some people who’ve pre-ordered my book from Amazon.co.uk have received an email informing them that delivery has been delayed. My publisher assures me that there’s no problem at the printing end of the process. Demand is such that Amazon are temporarily out of stock. Who’d have thought?

The book