Bits and Pieces

Interview - Wayhay: following the announcement that Dell were shedding 1,900 jobs locally, I was contacted by a journalist who was doing an article on ex-Dell employees who had made a career change or done something with themselves after leaving. Having a book published this year clearly qualified so we had an interesting chat and I had the opportunity to talk about The Third Pig Detective Agency. Hopefully I'll be included in the finished article. Does this qualify as my first official interview. Probably!

Book Update: Final proofs were signed off earlier this week. Apart from gasoline being misspelt, I didn't see anything else odd so anything wrong that appears in the published book is now my fault. Oh the pressure.
The cover will be signed off tomorrow so I'll hopefully be able to reveal all (ooh er missus etc) here in the next few days.
The Friday Project have come up with some interesting ideas for marketing the book (which also ties in to their recent announcement). More to follow but a consequence is that publication has been put back to August - which is a bit disappointing.
Still looking for an agent!

Another Success: Justine Windsor (who was the winner of the 2007 YouWriteOn Children's Book of the Year) has been shortlisted for the Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition. You go Justine, we're rooting for you!

Me and My Sony: I like reading and I read a lot so I was delighted to get a Sony e-book reader from Santa (very nice of him when you consider what I'm doing to him in the latest Harry Pigg book, The Ho-Ho-Ho Mystery). Despite all the brouhaha about readers and the death of physical books, I don't see them as the enemy of books but as a complement to them. I'm using it a lot (40 books downloaded) but I'm still reading as many physical books. For someone who reads as much as I do, the reader is an absolute godsend. I'll give a full review in the next week. or so.

Watchmen Widget

Books, Books, Glorious Books

I've been on a bit of a book binge over the Christmas. Current reading list includes:

Ritual by Mo Hayder (always worth a read)
Just After Sunset by Stephen King (short stories)
Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson (one of a very few decent fantasy writers)
The Bloomsday Dead by Adrain McKinty (comes highly recommended, we'll see how it goes)
Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler (the master at work)
Stories Volume 1 by Ray Bradbury (most of his classic stories are there)
Flesh House by Stuart MacBride (third of the way in, good thriller)
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (e-book - sounds good)
Armageddon's Children by Terry Brooks (e-book - I like the concept)
The Shattered Teacup by George Mann (free e-book from Snowbooks, I like steampunk!)

The two ebooks are ones I've looked at in bookshops over the years but never felt tempted enough to shell out for. WHSmith were having a boffo ebook sale recently so I got 'em both for less than £4 each. Considering the scandalous and unjustifiably high cost of current e-books this was a bargain indeed.
Lots of goodies there to dip into.