Something of a pot-pourri today. Good news continues to roll in about the book. We are now hearing about media coverage in newspapers and magazines, and it is all very exciting. I will post nearer the time when and where things will be appearing. In the meantime, I have to share this wonderful review of A GOOD AMERICAN by Michael Magras. …
Words of Wisdom from Ann Patchett
Last week a bought a Kindle. I know, I know. Now, I’ve been down this path before. I wrote here about my brief and unfulfilling flirtation with a Nook, and this post shows another problem with e-readers generally. I will never, ever stop buying books… but, well, let’s be honest – there’s a certain inevitability about it all, isn’t there? …
News
Lots going on at the moment, so I thought I would give you all a very brief overview of recent developments. It’s hard to believe that it’s now less than two months until A GOOD AMERICAN is published. And there was me thinking this time would drag. It has rushed by. The goodreads galley giveaway that I talked about a …
To Read, or Not To Read?
In my earlier post about my trip to the Midwest Booksellers’ Association in Minneapolis, I mentioned that at the dinner hosted by Penguin on the Thursday night, there had been some spirited discussion between booksellers about what made for the best author events. Certain booksellers felt that, as a general rule, authors should never read from their books at book …
Unplugging
I’ve just come back from a few days away from Missouri. The children were not with me over Thanksgiving this year, and of course my family all live thousands of miles away, so there didn’t seem to be much point hanging around. Turkey for one, sir? So I took off, for a quick visit to Philadelphia – somewhere I’d never …
Goodreads Giveaway!
If you read this blog, the chances are you’re interested in books. And if that’s the case, may I humbly suggest that you join Goodreads, if you haven’t already? Goodreads is a great online community of readers. It’s like a book-centric facebook, but without all the annoying games, aggravating political inanities, and pictures of other people’s puppies. It’s the largest …
Where Are All the Boys?
Recently the site Reading Group Guides very kindly did a giveaway of 100 copies of the galley of A GOOD AMERICAN. They published the list of winners, and this list gave me real pause for thought. Of the 100 winners, two were men. Put another way (showing off my maths skillz here), 98% of the winners were women (unless there …
Only Connect
Very early one morning a few weeks ago, as I was sitting down for my daily writing session, I saw a tweet from one of my closest friends, with a link to a YouTube video. Now, this friend and I, we go back a long way. And because I love this friend, and because he has probably the most refined …
DIY Book Trailer
Last weekend the kids and I discovered a new website, xtranormal, which is a brilliant place where anyone can make movies simply by typing in dialogue and having characters speak it. I have seen several extremely funny videos made this way, including this one about writing a novel which I posted a while ago. Author Laura Zigman has made a whole …
English Accents
One of the reasons why I never contemplated a career as a litigator when I re-qualified as a lawyer in the United States was that I had visions of my delivering elegantly-crafted closing arguments only to have the jury look at each other and ask each other quietly what the guy with the funny accent had been talking about. And …