Semantics

Some sweetly literal soul queried the use of the term 'bookmaker' at the head of this blog.
I was being a bit of a punster there, dear heart. I don't stand by the rails hoping the favourite in the 3.30 at Haydock falls at the last. What I do, what we do as a team, is create, produce, generate, manufacture books. Bits of paper with ink on, cut, sewn together and glued between bits of cardboard and wrapped in shiny jackets to educate, inform and entertain the great reading masses.
Well, a modest segment of the reading masses. We're still waiting for the million-seller, I freely confess. Never believe a publisher who mutters about quality rather than quantity. We might like waving a posh book at booksellers, but we still want them to sell in truck loads.
The best seller is just round the corner. I can feel it in my lovely bones.

MERSEY MINIS ARE COMING

The first volume of Mersey Minis – our five-volume series of delicious little books – will be launched on 27 April; it is on press at the printers in Verona, as I write.
Volumes 2-5 will be published every two months after that - in June, August, October and December – and Vol.3 will be a wildly special little number, all new writing, with 20,000 copies given away (ie free) in Liverpool and Merseyside on the 800th anniversary of King John's charter: 28 August.
For lots of news and a guide to the competition (and how you can enter), hit the Mersey Minis link opposite.

WOW! What a bargain!!!!

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Is someone at Amazon having a larf? Have they just had their payrise requested turned down flat?

hoho.

Real costs of writing books

Everybody knows the price of a book, but how many know the cost? For the first time ever the human costs of writing have been measured in dollars and cents. Here is the emotional cost to the auteur of a literary non-fiction tome:
- The agony of creation, the anguish of being a sensitive artist in a harsh and cruel world $4,415.99
- The sting of anonymity, the pain of not being lionized by total strangers $1,831.35
- The aching injustice of not receiving a large advance from greedy, money mad publishers $3,965.08
- The annoyance of having people insist that the book be published before they pay for it $2,942.74
- The hurt and humiliation of not making even one pre publication best seller list $2,627.50
- The shock of being snubbed by the Pulitzer Prize Committee $3,500.00
- The misery of receiving reviews by reviewers who have no soul $4,726.13
- Fresh, creative, original ideas $1.41
Total $24,010.20

There you have it. Figures don't lie. The poor darlings. One wonders why they insist on doing it. No, really.

Ornery writers

Are writers a particularly mulish bunch? Having worked carefully and with much debate on a set of rules and guidelines for our writing competition, we thought they were clear. And we thought, naively, that people would follow said R&Gs. But no. We've had our first "Why not poetry" query, complete with poem, sent without entry form, entirely ignoring all R&Gs. It profiteth him not, of course, as we don't want poetry. And we do want entry forms. There are good reasons for this. We are not form-filling box-tickers by nature, so if we say 'send forms' we mean 'send forms'.
pant, pant, soaring blood pressure, steam building behind ears. Well, not really. But if you are planning to enter the competition, fab, groovy, marvellous, huzzah, but please accept the R&Gs. They aren't demanding, difficult or degrading.
We'd be so grateful.

Huzzah!

Another one off to the printers, after a 3am finish.
The last stages of production took longer than expected – as always – but it's worth it. These are going to be gorgeous little books, the Mersey Mini series, and a wonderful gift (although I say it myself) for Liverpool's 800th birthday this year.
Deb, the editor, has done a fantastic job of researching and tracking down an astonishing list of names who have written about Liverpool and the Mersey – it's a glorious collection of people, stories, styles and viewpoints.
Even the first volume spans the full eight centuries, former slaves, princes, servants, royalty, celebs, and more famous literary names than you could shake a stick at.
And Clare's illustrations are just scrumptious.
All three of us – series editor, publisher and production bod – woke up (separately) this morning with a start, thinking of something we should have done and didn't. But nothing drastic. Ah well - there are four more volumes to come, so perfection can wait till Vol.2....

Odd but wildly inspirational

After the excitement over wild book titles the other morning, Today got Alexander McCall Smith to judge entries for their first few paras of these titles.

A couple of tantalising first few words from Martin Johns, for 'The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification':
Tricia stopped, holding me back by my jacket. Turning, her gaze fixed me. Her eyes were the azure of mountain lakes. Overhead the rain started to pour again.
'It's a Walmart 379 Z, with Mk 1 wheels', she said coldly....

Peter Kay saw 'Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence' as a recently-discovered fragment of 16th century manuscript, unambiguously signed in biro "William Shakespeare"
ACT 1, SCENE 1
The streets of London (© McTell, all rights reserved). Night, rain (© Lennon/McCartney... no, that's enough of those. Get on with it). Enter an environmentalist, weeping......

Pamela Morley was runner up, but the winner was Tim Sanders, whose entry begins thus:
How Green Were The Nazis?
The sound of creaking leather from their collective greatcoats broke the silence as the assembled Wehrmacht officers leaned forward to examine the huge table map of the Spreewald, the vast forest area standing between the XI SS Panzer Corps and the Red Army. The problem was clear - vast stretches of gorse in the forest (ulex europeus) were in flower and it was the nesting season of the rare inversely-spotted bark-spitter.....

For the rest of these luscious entries, go to the Today website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/ and click on the odd book titles. Bliss.