FORMER Colchester Daily Gazette journalist Nick Rennie has taken advantage of the boom in digital book sales to publish his first novel.

Nick drew on his experiences of working in local and regional newspapers to write Death Knocks and Deadlines, a humorous tale about life as a cub reporter.

Characters in the book were loosely based on people he encountered during his 20-year career in journalism and many of the incidents he writes about actually happened, although some are fictional.

Nick, who now lives in Lincolnshire, was a sports writer at the Gazette between 1995 and 1996.

He proof-read the manuscript himself, designed a front cover and then uploaded it all to the Amazon website, where it is available to download on eReader devices, such as Kindle and iPad.

He says: “The book took me three years to write and it is exciting to finally see it published. “I would urge anyone who is thinking of writing a novel to go ahead and do it because it is so easy now to get it out there as an eBook. “If you can drum up enough sales there is a good chance that a publisher might then be interested in offering you a print deal.”

For more information, check out the book on Amazon at www. amazon.co.uk/Death-Knocks-and-Deadlines-ebook/dp/B0098 QWSWU