8 March 2011

The Hot Hive is an independent book publisher based in Worcestershire. I first heard of the company last autumn, via a couple of authors who’d secured a deal through it. Given what I was then learning about the book-publishing world, said deal sounded very good, but at the time it was one more lead I didn’t have time to follow up. Crucially, I got my hands on one of the Hot Hive’s books. It was a thing of beauty. Read more »

26 February 2011

‘I’m not sure The Jolly Pilgrim should go to market via a traditional route – it’s a dusty industry caught between austerity, stumbling into the next Harry Potter and pants-down terror of the internet. In this epoch, quality can find its way to the surface under its own merits. Read more »

19 February 2011

My stage-one approach to the publishing industry (more of an all-guns-blazing charge, really) didn’t produce a hit. So I spent a weekend pulling together my communication tools, bought, assembled and fired-up a laser printer, then drew a deep breath and started to network.

The most useful part of networking turned out to be sitting down with published writers and interrogating them about their experiences. Read more »

31 January 2011

The end of 2010 brought a period of calm. Everything was coming together: I’d recovered from surgery; the manuscript was pristine; I’d had a holiday; family problems were beginning to fall away; work was under control; and Dad was bedded down in his new bungalow – healthy, happy and overcome with Mozart. Read more »

11 December 2010

Mauritius is a product of volcanism. From 13 million years ago, the Earth’s core punched a hole through one of its tectonic plates and began to spew lava onto the floor of the Indian Ocean. By seven million years ago, an island had broken the surface, 855 kilometres east of what is now Madagascar. By 200,000 years ago, the volcanoes were spent and the colonisation by life in full swing. Read more »