Subscribe to RSS 2.0
Last post for today
How do you explain to a town cat that she's going to have her own field?
Permanent link | Comments (4) | Leave a comment
From the french doors
For the record, all Snowbooks authors and friends are most, most welcome to visit and have apple pie cooked for them. We could have a literary commune in the Cotswolds!
Permanent link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
New view from my desk
Permanent link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
The house
Pretty, no?
Permanent link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
Gonna eat me a lot of peaches
Ok, help me out here. This was the view from my desk last week. Now, shall I keep it or shall I.... (click below to read more...)
Continue reading "Gonna eat me a lot of peaches" »
Permanent link | Comments (5) | Leave a comment
Clever Mr Mark
He writes wise things that I should listen to, like the idea that publishers should at least have a decent search engine on their websites. Presto! See the searchy thing to the left, and also on our home and catalogue page. (I know, I know, concept of home page outmoded, but still.)
(Don't you love how google have a product for everything?)
Continue reading "Clever Mr Mark" »
Permanent link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
Like I've got nothing better to do...
...than build a page at Squidoo. Still. Here it is. It's not very good. I'd stay here if I were you.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
So good they posted it twice
Heh, don't know why the post below appears twice but I like it so I'm going to leave it like that!
[bounces off]
Permanent link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
Zombies rule and Snowbooks rules and everything's brilliant
Oh happy day! Hello everyone! Hello!
*Maybe* I've had a little bit too much coffee. *Maybe* I'm just having a good start to the week. *Maybe* I had a nice weekend walk at Rob's in the countryside. *Maybe* I'm slightly overwhelmed by how many good books we suddenly have - Needle, Plunge, City Cycling, Book of Names. *Maybe* the fact that two cheques have cleared this morning at a higher exchange rate than I thought would be applied is like free money, and everyone likes free money. *Maybe* my discovery of 13 reviews that average out at four and a half stars of Monster Island just now has tipped me over the edge!
Let's hope the day carries on like this!
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Zombies rule and Snowbooks rules and everything's brilliant
Oh happy day! Hello everyone! Hello!
*Maybe* I've had a little bit too much coffee. *Maybe* I'm just having a good start to the week. *Maybe* I had a nice weekend walk at Rob's in the countryside. *Maybe* I'm slightly overwhelmed by how many good books we suddenly have - Needle, Plunge, City Cycling, Book of Names. *Maybe* the fact that two cheques have cleared this morning at a higher exchange rate than I thought would be applied is like free money, and everyone likes free money. *Maybe* my discovery of 13 reviews that average out at four and a half stars of Monster Island just now has tipped me over the edge!
Let's hope the day carries on like this!
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
A bucket of economic cold water for America
Just to lay out my prognosticating credentials, if you've really been paying attention, you might remember me saying that after the middle of July, the rain was going to stop. Well, that's not what happened. Instead Britain has had the most rain ever. Ever. That's the approximate calibre of my predictive skills.
Continue reading "A bucket of economic cold water for America" »
Permanent link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
Hoggely lady
What is going on here? The adult harry potter edition that was meant to arrive at our home address on Saturday arrived at work on Wednesday. I opened it today to get the returns note out, and glanced at the back cover.
What?! Who is that horrifically ugly lady? Why, it's JK Rowling, who I've always thought looked quite good, especially after the money came in. What the bloody hell have they done to the poor woman in this photo? She looks like Victoria Wood's mother in Dinner Ladies.
Did she sign this off?
Shocking.
Permanent link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
First review of City Cycling!
Wow, that was fast. Thanks to Cycling Edinburgh for the great review.
"Entertaining, informing, inspiring."
I was particularly pleased to see that whilst "The city is undoubtedly London (it's Richard's adopted home)... most of the truths in the book are universal." Good. I hoped so, but it's nice to read.
Ride on...
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Christmas offers
In a shameless, direct steal from Scott at TFP, I've put together a lovely offer for any bookshop who wants to get all festive, Snowbooks-stylee. Go to a Special Page for details. In brief: long payment terms, massive discounts and - well, that's about it, really. Good, though.
There's an offer for readers as well. Buy any three Snowbooks for £16. That, scientifically speaking, is a Good Deal since our cheapest books are £7.99.
Remember, it's never too early to jingle your bells.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
This is not for readers of this blog
It is for people who do a search for 'outlook business contact manager greyed out'.
Continue reading "This is not for readers of this blog" »
Permanent link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
Booze
[Not sure if this counts as politics]
Lately I've spent a lot more time than usual in the car. Which means I've heard more Radio 4 than usual. The other day I got bored listening to a segment about politicians who had smoked a joint twenty or more years ago, so I turned on some music. When I came back twenty minutes later they were still talking about MPs who had 'taken drugs' in their youth.
Permanent link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
My day in numbers
2637 - is the number of junk emails I've had since this time yesterday
28 - is the number of real emails I have to answer today
416 - is the number of images I had to manually place in InDesign yesterday
1 - is the number of Christmas books I have sent to the printer
1 - is also the number of teeth that I currently have a slight toothache in
1 - is also the number of boats that have just been towed past my window. Odd.
6 - is the number of Christmas books I have to send to the printer by tomorrow
85% - or thereabouts is the likelihood of that happening.
15 - is the number of requests I've had for a review copy of City Cycling and I haven't even written a press release yet
25 - is the total number of books ordered from our website so far since I put the google checkout buttons on. A modest start, but a start nonetheless
8,4,7,8,2,2,7,4,10,5,1 is the number of tasks I have in the categories of Book production, Editorial, Finance, IT, PR, Print, Sales, Design services, Strategy/process, Suppliers, UK Reviewers.
8 is the number of manuscripts I have to read (because lovely Anna reads most of them)
3 is the number of cheques that should clear today
5 is the number of days until month end = money in from LBS (the following week)!
2 is the number of coffees I've had so far.
1 is the number of coffees I'm going to go and get now.
10, on a scale of 1-10, is how excited I am about the upcoming day. Nothing particularly special happening but, I tell you, it's *bloody lovely* to have your own company.
Permanent link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
An interview with Leila Johnston, author
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Seth Godin
I read Seth Godin's blog, and I have to say it puts the fear of god in me. He always recommends the exact opposite of what I'm doing. Today's advice, regarding blogs:
"Strangers want to read about their lives, not yours."
Oops. Minus one point, again.
Permanent link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
Huffington Post, man!
Huffington Post interview with Noah Cicero. Damn!
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Stupid floods part ii.
We were going to go to see Rob today, but *someone* was worried that the floodwaters would magically rise again and so we decided not to chance it. Bah. No sense of adventure, have *some people*. Anyway, I got an extra special lunch out of it, and we'll go to see Rob next weekend instead - even if the countryside is on fire or part of the ocean by then.
So today has been spent, well, working. Nothing like a lovely bit of work. Anyway, miracles have been achieved and a book I started at 8am yesterday is now completely and utterly finished. Booyah. Admittedly, a previous me shopped all the images about 6 months ago, so it just needed gluing together, but still. Big tick.
Ooh, West Wing in ten minutes. Just time for a nice cup of tea and a sit down. See you next week. Oh. Tomorrow.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Postdiluvian update
Well, anyone who's been fretting for my safety and wellbeing will be glad to know that life in The Countryside isn't going too badly, all things considered. It's true I had standing water in two of my bedrooms (they're on the ground floor) and my hallway, but somehow it doesn't seem to have been the foul sewer water that the poor unfortunates on the TV news have to contend with. No, Cotswold Spring Water invaded my new home and seems to have done very little damage at all. Granted the smell of damp is getting stronger, but if the insurance people happen to send someone with bunged-up sinuses, I'm going to struggle to prove that there ever was flooding here.
Continue reading "Postdiluvian update" »
Permanent link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
Son of Admin Week
So I half-succeeded with Admin Week. I have finished one book, done a first draft of two, got the lovely printers to scan the US edition of another, sent two to the authors (hello!) for proofing, and put aside time in August for the last. Combined with the fact that Anna is a force of nature and has practically finished all her Christmas books (except one biggie) we are storming!
Admin week was, therefore, a good idea. However, I found that I *Just Can't Leave* my intray alone. By Tuesday I was totally panicked about the things piling up - and with bills to pay, stock to manage, retailers to talk to and cover designs to do for other publishers whose turnaround is always tight, I couldn't just sit on things for a week. So because it wasn't properly admin-free, I am going to roll the whole exercise over to next week and try to keep the admin to a minimum for another few days.
Makes you wonder what would happen if I just went on holiday and didn't do a single thing, though. I bet no major problems would arise. It's all in my head.
Also - the appearance of little icons on my previous blog posts suggests that Rob has gone round to the neighbours and borrowed a cup of internet. Hooray!
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Stupid floods.
Day three into his new home, ten foot shy of the highest point in the Cotswolds, and what happens? Rob's new house got flooded. Absolutely not fair. And he doesn't even have the internet to find out local phone numbers. He is quite chipper, considering, but I feel utterly rotten for him.
His garden slopes slightly downwards to the house, and is contained on three sides by sturdy brick walls. When all the rains fell, the water didn't have a chance to drain, so whooshed down the hill and overpowered the doorstep (which is more like a door-recess).
Andy and I are going to visit him tomorrow with emergency provisions and mops. I may get him to hand-write a blog post that I can then retype, like they used to do in the olden days. You know, when men would give dictation to their secretaries who would then type up their, er, blog posts. I'm sure it was something along those lines.
Kind and supportive words would be appreciated so I can pass them on to Rob tomorrow, like a sort of word-based Red Cross parcel.
Permanent link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
I suppose I should say something...
...about Harry Potter. But it will be brief. I don't really feel any differently towards HP than I do towards the dozens of other books which sell more than 100,000 copies a year. They are all in the same group in my mind: big, obvious, mass market books. They neither affect us positively nor negatively: they are Other, a different business model, a different experience, a different scale of publishing. Sure, we get hits from time to time, but a hit for us is 50,000 copies. And they are children's books, and we don't publish children's. (Yes, I know they're crossover, but editorially they're a genre we don't publish within.) So I don't really have any feelings, as an indie publisher - like whether it's good for business, bad for business, good for audience - about the books whatsoever.
Continue reading "I suppose I should say something..." »
Permanent link | Comments (4) | Leave a comment
Suspicious
Some things are suspicious. Some things are OK. Leila Johnston, author of our forthcoming (in October) sure fire bestselling hit million copy supernova gift book How To Worry Friends and Inconvenience People, clears up the situation in this short film.
This is the first of a collection of videos which we'll be hosting here and elsewhere to showcase the excellent advice and tips to be found in the book. For instance, Leila suggests saying your mobile phone number when you answer it. Or measuring the difficulty of games and puzzles in units of the cubic rube. She wonders whether you could address a letter to a pillarbox, or whether you could try looking through a different person's window each day of advent. Maybe using the comments section of someone else's blog to start your own hypotaxical micro-blog? And so on.
High, high quality. Enjoy.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Police / weather connection
It is dark as night here and is tipping it down. Is the fact that there seem to be five times as many police out with their sirens on somehow related? Are the sirens pressure-sensitive, like car alarms, and go off if they're pelted with heavy rain? Or do the police have to respond to call-outs about torrential downpours?
Also, how the hell am I going to get any lunch?
So many questions.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Bat droppings
Rob has just phoned to ask whether I know what bat droppings look like. Fortunately I keep on hand at all times a copy of Animal Tracks and Signs, vended to me by the lovely Bookseller Crow on the Hill, so I was able to tell him that "they somewhat resemble mouse droppings, but can be distinguished by the fact... that they consist exclusively of finely divided insect remains". He asked because this is Day Two in his new countryside home, where there is no internets, a bad phone reception and bats who come in through his top window and poo on the floor. Although that sounds less than ideal, he appears to be happier than I've heard him for a long time, and the country air - and friendly, non-scummy neighbours - appear to be suiting him down to the ground. He has the most wonderful views around his new barn, which he'll no doubt post as soon as he gets BT to lay four miles of cable (no joke).
I imagine not having access to the web is like having an eye poked out. Brave, brave Rob. And who will upload the cute little pictures on my blog posts?
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
We interrupt this Admin Week to bring you a newsflash
Look! Look at City Cycling that's just come back from this printer. THIS ONE. This is the one that will make us rich! Hooray!
Permanent link | Comments (7) | Leave a comment
Mad old world
These fine fellows, 7 Inch Stitch, are a band who have named their first two releases after Jeff Lint books - 'I Blame Ferns' and 'I Eat Fog'. Jeff Lint, you'll recall, is the subject of 'Lint', Steve Aylett's latest book. Well, er, his latest novel. Yes, Jeff Lint is a ficticious character, whose books were therefore also fictitious, and now a real band has named their songs after them. And from their myspace page, it appears that Jeff Lint is also a member of the band.
He must be very chuffed at how this is all working out...
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
SnowTimes
Snowbooks in the Times on Friday:
"Snowbooks has signed up a real book in the virtual world of Second Life. Its Emma Barnes and Will Francis, of the agents Greene & Heaton, - or rather their avatars - struck a deal there for Sarah Stovell's Mothernight. "It was much more informal and creative than doing it by e-mail or letter," Barnes says."
I also said it was a complete gimmick so it's very sweet of Nic not to have quoted me on that!
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Things I wish I'd known four years ago
For InDesign geeks: When you select Edit Original and your .jpgs open in a viewer, rather than Photoshop, do this. Go to windows explorer and select Open With from the contextual menu, and select Choose program from list. Click on photoshop, and select 'Always use this program' at the bottom of the dialogue box.
Then it works. The hours I've spent, the hours...
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Special Offer
So this is my week of no admin. Hah. I really don't think it's going to be possible. Already I have 50 unanswered emails, 3 major things to do for retailers, PAYE to pay, queries to answer, customers to chase, tax forms to complete, bills to pay, and it's 8.59 on Monday morning. Well, we'll see.
Before I 'go dark', as the Seawolf class submarine did on The West Wing rerun last night, here is a lovely going on holiday present for you. Buy a copy of Virginia Woolf's The London Scene for £2 (£4 overseas) or five copies for £7.50 anywhere in the world! Yes, it's a real bargain. So bargainy, it barely covers the postage, but I have lots of stock so need to get it moving. Roll up, roll up.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Encircled - U.S. politics
Continue reading "Encircled - U.S. politics" »
Permanent link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
Ahhh, finally
I've never been married and from time to time drunk friends have cornered me and explained 'what my problem is'. Personally, I've always suspected - as with so much in life - it's simply a matter of proper motivation. Which is why the possible Tory initiative offering a £20 per week tax incentive to encourage the institution of marriage has intrigued me. Now I'm sure if you're in a relationship with someone you're not sure you love, £20 per week will be just what you need to nudge you towards matrimony, but in my case I'd have to do a lot more than just set a date; I'd have to select someone to marry, probably get to know them first, perhaps overcome the opposition of her friends and family, and then persuade her it was a good idea. In other words, it's likely to be a lot of effort and frankly I don't think £20 per week is going to cover it.
Continue reading "Ahhh, finally" »
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Some observations
So Saturday so far has been spent proofreading. Question: how the hell do proofreaders earn a living? It takes hours and hours and hours. Maybe they just do it badly.
Next observation: Dr Who. I don't miss it. When Buffy finished I was quite despondent for a week; when The West Wing finished I think I cried. Admittedly those shows were never coming back, and Dr Who will return in a matter of months. But I had got to the point where I approached each Saturday night's episode with dread, wondering what Russell T Davies had done this week to turn anticipation into disappointment.
I know, I know. It's only TV. But good TV, like writing, matters. A bit, at least.
Back to my manuscript.
Permanent link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
Well, of course you're going to get a six if you hold the bat like that
I've said it before: Snowbooks isn't a 'scalable' business. If you haven't sat in as many corporate 'stradegy' meetings as I have*, you may not think much about scalability. But it's a big deal to a lot of investors and business planners. To my mind, retail chains are the ultimate in scalability, because if you can clone a particular shop a thousand times then you make a thousand times as much in sales, with a lot less than a thousand times the costs. I'm not saying it's commendable, just that the economics stack up nicely.
Continue reading "Well, of course you're going to get a six if you hold the bat like that" »
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Richard Gwyn interview
Ooh, it's announcement central here today.
Read a new interview with Deep Hanging Out author Richard Gywn on Abe Books. We are launching the mass market paperback edition in September with a lovely new cover - more as it comes.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Linty goodness
Steve Aylett, the esteemed and brilliant author of LINT, is doing a reading/performance on July 22 at stand-up venue the Troy Club, CROBAR, 17 Manette Street, London W1D 4AS (just next to Foyles). It starts around 7.30pm. Other performers are Toby Hadoke, Liam Mullone, Eric's Tales Of The Sea and the MC is Andrew O'Neill. And you should go.
If you buy a copy now, by the time the reading comes around you might have learned enough off by heart to read along with Steve. Who knows. I'm sure he'd love that.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Blogs shouldn't just be about grumbling
I hate people who use their blogs just to grumble. At the very least they should either be funny about it or have a good point to make. But because all I'm doing at the moment is organising my house move I'm experiencing a lot more frustration than I know what to do with. It's either share it via the SnowBlog or leave it in my brain to rankle. So, here's the impossible problem I was grappling with this morning:
Continue reading "Blogs shouldn't just be about grumbling" »
Permanent link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
OK! magazine! here! we! come!
Clever old Stacie Lewis has got her book Taking the Plunge reviewed in the August 7th edition of OK! magazine. Now if that don't shift some copies I know not what will.
Be ahead of the pack! Buy it first!
Permanent link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
Ingrate
I don't mean to be ungrateful to the person who makes me my packed lunch in the morning, but you *can* have too much of a good thing, even if that thing is cottage cheese. That is all.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Believe
Actual nearby mini-ponies
Phew. Moving house is hard work. And I haven't even done the lifting and loading and packing/unpacking yet. I'm still just phoning around talking to people who tell me impossible things, which I then have to talk them out of before I can get my move sorted. For instance, my removal people say it will take five hours for four people to load my stuff into a van... even though I did it in about that time without help before. And believe me, I'm not fast at carrying both ends of a mattress all by myself. But the disparity, I'm told, comes from the fact that they pack the van so much more carefully than I would have done. Riiigghhht.
Permanent link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
The quest for moral leadership
Continue reading "The quest for moral leadership" »
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
E.L.Wisty's World Domination League's Demands
I'm not really sure why these are posted in the Snowbooks' office, but I wander in to our HQ just infrequently enough to find them freshly amusing whenever I catch sight of them. (And because lately I am much in favour of demand no. 8.)
Continue reading "E.L.Wisty's World Domination League's Demands" »
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Human War
There's a great review of The Human War here which compares and contrasts it to Saturday. Do read it, it's fascinating.
"A satirical anti-war masterpiece. A study of the condition of a contemporary underclass. A working class classic. A hugely engaging read. A novel that will be read in one hundred years time, long after all that corporate liberal stuff has long since been forgotten."
And then - you know the drill - buy a copy.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Next Week I'm On (Admin) Holiday!
OK folks, this is your seven-day warning. Next week I am on Admin Holiday! It's a new, *exciting* sort of a holiday whereby I will still be in the office, but I won't be doing anything other than typesetting and cover design. I need to get a whole bunch of books off to the printer in time for Christmas and at this rate it's just not going to happen. Hence my brilliant new Admin Holiday invention.
So if you email, or phone, I probably won't reply to you until Monday 23rd. If it's really, really urgent please mark the email 'Really Really Urgent'.
Or, alternatively, bombard me this week with your queries.
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
This is what people do in the countryside
They sit around the whole time, drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows in, toasting their feet on a home-made fire. The whole time.
Continue reading "This is what people do in the countryside" »
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Oh yes!
The latest prints of Monster Island and the new Monster Nation have arrived! Blood- (well, foil-) splattered wonders!
Permanent link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
Friday brought to you in pictures
Snowbooks makes history! First book deal done in Second Life. We are delighted to welcome Sarah Stovell to the Snowbooks clan whose first novel Mothernight we'll publish in March 2008. It's a corker.
Continue reading "Friday brought to you in pictures" »
Permanent link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
Bailing out
Click to enlarge
I just bought the thing in the picture. Well, the third that's nearest the camera, at any rate.
My old flat was made of chipboard and plasterboard and fiberboard and glue, and five years ago it was a bit of derelict ground. My new house has stone walls that are two feet thick and was built a couple of hundred years ago. Something about spending several hundred thousand pounds seems to require a bit of permanence, at least to my way of thinking.
Permanent link | Comments (4) | Leave a comment
E4Books presentation
So I have just done a turn at the London E4Books seminar doodad and have told everyone there to look at this blog for extras, goodies and whatnot. Read on for lots of links!
//update// you might have to download the latest Adobe reader to read the pdf linked to in this post. It's worth it!//
Continue reading "E4Books presentation" »
Permanent link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
Words cannot convey...
...the horror, shock, sadness and derision I feel upon hearing that Catherine Tate is going to be the new Companion. I utterly give up. Russell T Davies, you are *ruining* Doctor Who and it's not yours to ruin. It's going to be dire. I am so mad.
Mind you, Alan Johnston was released. What a wonderful piece of news.
Permanent link | Comments (11) | Leave a comment
Silver service
Hey hey, we got a medal! Sort of. It means that we are Really Quite Good at getting our bibliographic data to the right people on time. We are not Ever So Good Indeed (a Gold) because I can't help changing things from time to time as the market requires - things like the occasional publication date and so forth. Still, pretty good going.
I like prizes.
Permanent link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
Tiny morsels of news
Some bits and pieces:
- I just helped put my old sofa into a van. It's on its way to the Snowbooks office. For Em to sit on while she reads. For guests to relax on. For Em's cats to snooze upon if she ever brings them into work
Continue reading "Tiny morsels of news" »
Permanent link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
Not so much politics as just a rant: the Libby pardon: updated
Continue reading "Not so much politics as just a rant: the Libby pardon: updated" »
Permanent link | Comments (4) | Leave a comment
Where it all began...
I'm trying to remember back to my very first school history lessons, when I was eleven. I'm trying to recall the first event in history as far as my profoundly-English teachers were concerned. I'm pretty sure it was 1066, The Norman Conquest. Once we'd covered that, I vaguely remember trying to memorise a few features of the feudal system and being confused as to why the serfs agreed to it. Then there was something called the Corn Laws, which were later repealed. I also remember how important it was to choose the right form of crop rotation, but had no idea what end products such crops might produce. Was flax anything to do with ajax or weetabix? Was barley used for something other than the making of barley sugars?
Continue reading "Where it all began..." »
Permanent link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
If you were me
I've been wondering something. If you were me, with this lovely little publisher all set up and able to do whatever the hell we like, what would you do?