About BILLY MAKIN

Best Selling Author

My Story

From a mischievous baby boomer child growing up in a poor working class Northern mining village, through reluctant academia at Manchester university, and a succession of jobs in accountancy and engineering, I suppose that in many ways it was inevitable that I would eventually make my living from my one true passion in life – fishing.

I was not only obsessed with the sport, particularly the competitive stimulus provided by the active match fishing circuit that was around at the time, but I was also quite good at it, and by my early teens became an active participant on the adult circuit.

Dad was a keen competition angler, and as I grew up, I was able to avoid the near obligatory bamboo cane, cotton, and bent pin apprenticeship of my peers, and enter the sport with what at the time was serviceable fishing tackle, albeit dad’s cast offs.

My first business venture was a partnership in a fishing float manufacturing company, which led to me eventually going it alone at my Midlands factory and manufacturing over a million floats a year for sale all over Europe.

For many years I dreamed of owning my own fishing lakes, and slowly, over a period of around 6 years, Makin Fisheries was born, an inward, self-image of my idea of fishing heaven, consisting of 18 lakes and over 500 swims.

Perhaps I sold too soon, and still had something to offer to the world, as for the next ten years I wandered aimlessly through life, doing little of consequence and achieving even less.

A shock divorce provided a reality check, and on moving to Thailand, the juices again began to flow.

I was now the owner of two bars in the Thai city of Pattaya, and one evening, a chance meeting with an ex-SAS soldier kick started my writing career and my first novel, “O’Malley – The Wrong Package” was born.

I enjoy writing.

I close my eyes and daydream.

Situations, escapades, and stories come easily as I enter a surreal fantasy world, the only limitation being my poor typing skills.

My second novel, Jihad 1 – The Lost Scriptures, came to me in a dream, and was the precursor to the four book Jihad series.

Occasionally, I take a break from the more serious stuff, my earlier mischievous nature rising to the fore, and books like Tits and Teeth in Thailand and Fishing and Testicles appear, seemingly out of thin air.

I currently have two partially completed novels on ice.

I like to take long breaks.

Sometime in the near future I will re-read what I have already written, and like a man possessed, complete them in a matter of days.

That is the way I prefer to work.

Inspiration and perspiration but in my own time.

Highlights

Not just a highly respected fisherman and an author, Billy has appeared in TV commercials and completed two successful pro-celebrity series to go with a lifetime of writing for numerous newspapers and periodicals.