Cover reveal: Of Falls and Angela

Cover artwork is pretty exciting. I’ve always got a buzz out of seeing the announcement then finding that the new designs are in fact completely frickin’ ace. Like when I saw the clothbound edition of I, Robot from Harper Voyager, all those gorgeous original covers for Iain Banks’ books or Ad Astra by Wayne Haag.

Well, I wanted a go.

I have recruited the talents of artist Jordan Grimmer and designer Martin Cox to get me some tasty cover artwork for Of Falls and Angela which is being prepared for publication on 13th Jun (yes, that is a Friday and no, I’m not superstitious).

Jordan has made me a pretty staggeringly good bit of artwork and – aww shucks, I’m gonna say it – was great to work with as well. He’s your man for helping you develop the concept and delivering the goods. Just have a look below.

Martin is similarly talented but I’ve worked with him for years at the day job so I’m taking him for granted now. Seriously though, he’s another guru. For one thing, he’s our designer at Unsung Stories (including the branding).

But that’s enough ado. So, with no more of the aforementioned, here’s the cover for Of Falls and Angela. Let me know what you think in the comments!

 

Reasons to be Peaceful, 1-2-3

It’s time for a short apology regarding why it’s been so quiet here recently. Here it comes: I’ve been really busy, sorry! To give a bit more detail, here’s some news about the exciting things which have been keeping me busy. So in a very particular order:

1) Unsung Stories

What’s been eating my time most voraciously is the new science fiction, fantasy and horror imprint I have been setting up. Yes, you read that right. The day job now involves getting a fiction imprint off the ground. This is tremendously exciting.

We have two books due out soon, Deja Vu by Ian Hocking and The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley. These are both absolute crackers and I’m currently working with illustrators and editors to make sure they are flawless and beautiful to boot.

For those of you so inclined you might like to know that we’re also open for submissions.

2) Of Falls and Angela

The time has come for me to create a money-mouth situation which means that I will be self-publishing Of Falls and Angela in the coming months as well. I’m currently working with talented chap, Jordan Grimmer on some cover artwork which promises to be salivatingly good.

I’ll keep this blog updated as that progresses but expect publication soon

3) Book 2

Yup, I’m starting again. In my head it’s called The Many Little Deaths of Arthur Malory and it’s a near-future melodrama. I’ve drafted 15 out of 32 sections and it’s feeling much tighter structurally than Angela did at this stage. This one will be much closer to home as well as it’s about how we deal with increasingly porous social environments in the modern world, and the roots of anxiety.

Don’t worry, there’s a love story in there too.

How to Make ePubs: A simple guide

So, as promised a long time ago, I’ve put together a guide for making ePubs the easy way. I’ve had a think over how best to handle this and realised that I could agonise for years and still get it wrong. So that means the best thing to do is put it out there and let you lovely lot take a look at it.

This means that a) the idea reaches some kind of milestone, b) you can get your teeth into it and c) any comments received back can be used to update and improve it.

So here is the very first version of How to Make ePubs: A simple guide. This is a guide for people who really don’t have any idea about ePub, html, CSS and the like in that it’s all explained in friendly language. The assumed level of knowledge is rather low. The reason for this is that when I was trying to work it all out myself I found it nigh on impossible to track down explanations written in plain language. There are countless amazing resources by developers and professionals but none of them set things out really simply.

The master plan is that this book helps you with the first step of making your own simple ePub. From there on it’s a brave new world of CSS and html because if you want to do the fancy stuff you have to learn code – but before you can run…

I’d absolutely love to know what you think, positive or negative. This is an idea I’ve had in my head for a while now and my only intention is to help some people. Any feedback would be simply brillig.

You can download the book for free from the following link: How to Make ePubs: A simple guide.

Declaration of intention – ePub for Dummies

Very briefly, apologies for any break from regular posting here in the near future. I’m putting a bit of time and love into a little project which should help writers who are having problems making their own ePub. One free guide for dummies coming as soon as I can manage.

How to Get a Literary Agent – LBF 2013 seminar

I just came across this recording of one of the London Book Fair sessions, entitled How to Get a Literary Agent. It’s really worth a watch if you’re aiming at a career as a writer but you don’t already work in publishing.

A lot of it is familiar to tired old hacks such as myself because it applies to any publishing project. But if you’re not used to thinking about the entire product – for instance considering the life cycle from manuscript to sales/marketing – and have mainly been focused on the writing to date you should watch. Remember, publishing is a business. There’s a point about 17-18mins in where they mention a rejection along the lines of:

Best book I’ve read in 6 months. Loved it. Can’t sell it.