I hope this is okay to post up. Many thanks for the kind words said about The Syndicate Series. If anyone is interested in any of the formats, paperback, ebook or audiobook all the details can be found at LINKY POO™ https://carpbooks.co.uk. If you're after hard copies there are deals available there that are much cheaper than buying off Amazon. Cheers guys and tight lines to you allŸ‘

I've been using Chris's nets and rod rest systems since the 1980s and can only agree with this post and wholly endorse all of his products. Chris is a true gentleman and a very genuine guy who makes all his own stuff right here in the UK to top standards. Rugged and designed to last you won't be disappointed with any item of CB tackle👍

In reply to Post #1
Nearly all carp books fall into the category of being 'coffee table' spec, i.e. big hardbacks, lots of colour plates and an expensive price tag, mainly due to small print runs and because publishers knew anglers would pay it. That market doesn't exist like it did 20 years ago thanks to phones and free video content. Lots of the carp book publishers have gone the same way as the magazines. Even so, £35 quid a pop for a hardback feels better value than the same thing in softback but it does make the book 'precious' and not something you'd want to smear in mud and fish slime. When I first published The Syndicate in 1999 I went the opposite route, paperback, big word count per page to keep the book slim and priced under a tenner (today it'll only cost you £7.95 Inc postage) the intention for it to be read on the bank or in a bivvy by torchlight . It had no colour photos and was all text, allowing it to be printed more cheaply. They're one of only a few similar designed fishing books, though, the money was in hardbacks and limited leather editions, books that were never intended to be read but more kept as an investment

In reply to Post #1060
It's all coincidence... or is it? Like the Good Omens reference 😊

In reply to Post #1059
Won't be for a while tbh. It's a huge commitment writing around 100,000 words and The Italian's Job was published less than a year ago. I keep toying with the notion of an audio book version of The Syndicate Series because my choices have recently been widened thanks to Google Books offering free AI narration. Going to gave a play with it over the winter and see if it's any good

I saw, with great amusement I have to say, that someone mentioned OMC and BMC in this thread and hinted at a prophetic correlation between the two. BMC - Black Mirror Cult - was the opening book in Volume 2 of The Syndicate Series which was published in 2012. In the book the BMC were an ethical carping organisation dead set against the use of any carp caught being used in a commercial manner to help sell or promote any carp orientated merchandise. Of course, being a Syndicate book, not everything was as it appeared...! At the time of writing it in 2011, nearly ten years had passed since The Syndicates Part VII and I felt the most pressing subject I could satirize would be commercialism within the carping world. Now I have to say the 'Magic Twig' row has almost made that book look understated and whatever the opposite of far fetched might be. Personally, I've nothing against Ali, but to me the driving force behind the twig is, sadly, a desperate attempt to give OMC a 'unique' product to single themselves out against all the other identikit end tackle brands. The product is clearly more dangerous to use than other types of rigs and what it actually is supposed to do is also highly dubious. As many others have stated, once the twig is detonated the job has already been done because the force required to do so can only be supplied by an already hooked fish. Add into the equation the need to PVA the thing every time to you cast out in order to stop it prematurely going off , the added cost and the over complication it causes then you really do have a pointless product. The funny thing is, it won't stop you catching and I can see many people falling for the fact that a fired twig has 'done the business' when in reality it hasn't. 'In spite of not because of', as the old expression goes.
All that said, my main beef is that if things carry on like this, I'm going to be well out of business because literally you couldn't make it up .
Just my opinion for what it's worth everybody

In reply to Post #60

Love that. I think all multi-format readers are great lol

In reply to Post #51
That's great to hear. Glad you've enjoyed them so much

In reply to Post #30
January 1995 was the the date of the first installment of The Syndicate in Carpworld. I began writing the sequel, The Syndicate (R.I.P.) Part II, around 1998 with the intention of setting up a website as a platform to sell both books and any future novels I might write. It was a step into the unknown at the time, and a financial risk, to get involved in this, for me, relatively new 'Internet' thing and to become a publisher. Fortunately, it went better than my wildest expectations as the series increased its popularity throughout the 2000s. Eventually, as someone has pointed out, I released the entire set on Kindle around 2014, then Google Play and last year onto Apple Books. For those of you still keen to hold a printed version they can be obtained from www.carpbooks.co.uk.. Nice to hear how some of you couldn't wait to read the next chapter on the original Carpworld serialisation

In reply to Post #1
Hi All, if you're interested I have just put all of The Syndicate Series of books on a postage free deal both on Ebay and from my own website www.carpbooks.co.uk. The other bit of news is that I've made a start on Part I of Volume 2 of The Syndicate Series, which I'll probably release sometime next year. It'll be six years since the last book was published by that time and I'm hoping that some of you will still be interested in reading Matt and Rambo's latest adventure! Cheers.