Blog archive (August 2011)

Reading manuscripts today. Sshhh.

There was a great piece in The Guardian yesterday by Jane Rogers. Her latest book, The Testament of Jessie Lamb has been longlisted for The Man Booker. She has written many books for established ‘London’ houses , as they like to call themselves but her recent sales have not been heading in the right direction on the sales graph. So they didn’t offer her a new contract. She went to an independent called Sandstone Press based in Inverness. They loved the story and guess what? So did The Man Booker judges and now her sales are going through the proverbial.

Team Moose off to Leeds Waterstone’s this morning for a book signing by Leonora Rustamova. She will be talking to the book buying public about her book ‘STOP DON’T READ THIS – THE STORY’.

I’m off to Londinium to see the queen this morning. Let us hope she has bathed and scrubbed up in preparation to meet the Moose.

I am speaking at the Society of Young Publishers tonight in Leeds. They have never left London before and they might be a little trepidatious of our northern manners and customs. I’ll be gentle. I will be talking about independent publishing and Bluemoose Books. It may be the first and last time I will be able to give a valedictory address to bright young things who have come to listen to pearls of wisdom. Well, that might be pushing it a bit. I won’t be thanking my mum, or crying.

Heaven forefend! KING CROW did get onto the short list for THE NOT THE BOOKER. The prize, a Guardian mug. Nothing to write home about, but the most important aspect of the whole process is that it gives a national platform to small and independent publishers to promote their books and authors to a group of people who wouldn’t normally view such titles.

Looks like KING CROW made it onto The Guardian’s NOT THE BOOKER LIST. About time those scribes in Londinium realised what talent lay outside the gates of the Metropolis. We’ve got Hollywood excited about KC, and Penguin USA, so, its not before time that they realised we can read and write and publish great stories up here in the wilderness under Ted Hughes’ eyebrows in Hebden Bridge. Having said that, they did give it a marvelous review a couple of weeks ago. Mustn’t let my inverted snobbery get in the way of a good old rant. Well, its taken four years. So why not?

The Guardian’s NOT THE BOOKER LIST is in its final hours of voting. KING CROW by Michael Stewart, which we published in January of this year, is in the running to be one of the 6 titles they choose to review and discuss over the next 6 weeks. As 83% of all books are sold on recommendations, getting a book seen and reviewed by the press is essential to get the book seen by as many people as possible. To get a reviewer to open the first page and jump in is the trick.