In the spirit of openness, I should relate to you one of my (many) lessons from writing, and a bitter pill to swallow, that, shoch horror, some of what I write simply isn’t good enough. It was looking for places to submit short stories that …
Read MoreNotes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
One of the advantages of working in a bookshop is that you’re exposed to all sorts of publications, and soon get to know which are popular. Way back in the mists of time I started with Bill Bryson, and was delighted by what I found. …
Read MoreAbsence
Sorry I’ve been away for a few days. Did you miss me? I heard that muttered ‘No’ at the back. See me after School. Just a few things that needed doing elsewhere but I’m back now. Posts to follow soon. Stay safe Kit
Read MoreBook Cover -alternative version
In my earlier attempts at books, I tried to create covers myself. Now this may come as a shock to you, but I’m not a graphic designer, typesetter, photographer or artist. I know, it surprised me too, but the process of learning book cover composition, …
Read MorePaddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha – Roddy Doyle
I struggled a bit with which of Roddy Doyle’s books to include here, as technically I could just have easily chosen one of the Barrytown Trilogy. A word on those first perhaps. A lot of people first read them because of the film of The …
Read MoreFantastic Beta Readers and Where to Find Them
So this is a part of my series about the process of writing and publishing. For those who aren’t aware, Beta Readers come from a community of readers and writers, and give feedback on pre-publication versions of novels, varying from grammar and spell checks to …
Read MoreOne River – Wade Davis
Not his best known book but this is an addictive mixture of biography, sociological study and adventure story, flipping from the experiences of biologist Richard Schultz in the 1940s to those of his student Wade Davis, 30 years later, exploring the Amazon basin. It explores …
Read MoreCockups in my proof
So, rookie mistake one, I’d left the guidelines on the cover template resulting in a dotted line around the different sections. Doofus. Easily fixed, though nothing is ever straightforward. To match the colours on the image I’d needed to flood fill with the colour code …
Read MoreHow Much Proof is Enough?
Well, it’s an exciting day for me. My first paperback proofs arrived just after I’d finished my scrambled eggs on toast (I wasn’t constantly checking the tracking information all morning, honestly). It’s always scary to reach the next new stage of the publication journey, and …
Read MoreThe Once and Future King – T.H. White
You may know this title best from Disney’s ‘Sword in the Stone’, or the classic musical ‘Camelot’, both of which are based on these books, but this five (four originally) part novel was a huge leap forward in retelling the King Arthur story in the …
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