Patrick Syms, author of 'Am I The Asshole?' - Debut author discusses self-promotion, white label releases, and making a point with your prose
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 14 November 2025
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Patrick Syms started work trying to be a screenwriter, and he got ever so close, before life got in the way. He took a job in advertising, which became a 25 year long career in communications. In 2020, he gave it up to write again. This time, he took it seriously. Being accepted in to the Curtis Brown 'Writing Your Novel' course, he's just finished 'Am I The Asshole?', which is out to query as I type.
It's all about entrepreneur Richard Whitecross, who invents what he thinks is a piece of world-changing technology. But when it malfunctions and he becomes the target of a social media pile-on, he must learn to face all the facts of his situation, not just the convenient ones, before he loses his family, his livelihood and his sanity. It was inspired by an interview Patrick saw with a celebrity on TV, and being dumbfounded by the terrible way they were presenting themselves.
As the manuscript goes out to agents, Patrick has taken some unique steps of his own... and is releasing a limited batch of books, in order to spread the word and make some noise. He's printed a select set of white label books, inspired by independent record companies. He runs through the process of making that work - what's gone well and what's been trickier than imagined.
You can hear what he felt when he was trying too hard to make a point with his prose, also why he's always playing catch up, and the 5 questions that he asks in every scene.
You can find out more at patricksyms.com, and find his instagram in the show notes.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome along to a brand new episode of writer's routine. This week, we're chatting to Patrick Sims, who has a new book out. It's called Am I the Asshole? |
| 0:19.6 | Patrick is doing something really interesting with |
| 0:22.0 | how he's getting his book out there as well. You can hear why he's been inspired by music releases. |
| 0:27.2 | So I've basically lifted a concept from the music business and specifically the world of records. |
| 0:34.1 | It's very normal for a long time and still is to create a small batch of promotional records called a white label. |
| 0:43.3 | And as the name suggests, there's minimal package in just a plain sleeve and a white label on the record on which the barest of information is conveyed either handwritten often. Sometimes it's |
| 0:56.0 | a sticker that's printed in your printer or often hand stamps. So I thought, that's what I'm |
| 1:03.4 | going to do. I'm going to create a white label promo of my novel at the same time that I send out my query letters. |
| 1:12.4 | And what he did when he felt like he was trying too hard to make a point with his prose? |
| 1:18.1 | I think the conclusion I came to was, I've got to stop trying to say something. |
| 1:22.2 | Because if you try to say something, it would be too obvious and it'll be preachy and it'll |
| 1:27.0 | be didactic, and that's the last thing I wanted. |
| 1:29.0 | So part of the rewrite process was just the idea that I had to let go of a desire to make a point |
| 1:37.3 | and be more subtle about it. |
| 1:40.8 | You know, I guess that's the one thing that I'm slight, my one slight fear is |
| 1:47.5 | that what I think I've done, I've been so sort of hands off and I've taken such a step back |
| 1:53.4 | because I don't want to be didactic, I don't want to be preachy, that I've actually ended up writing |
| 1:58.1 | something completely different, but people interpret in a completely different way. But I guess that's the kind of the age old conundrum, isn't it? |
| 2:04.7 | It's all on the way with Patrick Sims in a brand new episode of Writers' Routine. |
| 2:14.9 | Yes, welcome along to the show. My name's Dan Simpson. This is writer's routine. It's the podcast |
| 2:20.1 | where we take a look inside an author's working day. We figure out how they do it, where and when |
| 2:25.7 | they do it, what else do they do that gives themselves the best chance of getting words down on |
... |
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