Posts filed under 'Publishing News'
A bookseller from the south coast of England has added his voice to the many spreading the gospel of MEAT.
James Pearson, a graphic artist and employee of Methvens Bookshop in Worthing, called the novel ‘a feast of unusual, high-concept horror’ and recommended it on a FANGORIA forum.
Meanwhile, in Burnley, Gary Kingdon, the owner of Badger Books wrote to The Bookseller magazine to say he loved it – this from a man who spent 17 years working in a meat factory!
The aroma of MEAT continues to spread…
January 26th, 2009
US horror author David Niall Wilson has posted an incredibly positive review of MEAT on his blog.
I hope this kind of coverage – if there’s enough of – will encourage an American publisher to make Bloody Books an offer. That way, readers across the pond can buy the novel off the shelf of a bookstore instead of paying for amazon to ship it. I can dream.
But meanwhile, damn! What a review!
January 20th, 2009
MEAT has been chosen for the International Novel section of HORRORSCOPE’S 2008 DARK FICTION RECOMMENDED READING LIST!
Horrorscope is the official news source for the Australian Horror Writers Association. I’m chuffed to bits to discover the book has been so well received in Australia!
January 3rd, 2009
A review of Garbage Man has appeared online, courtesy of Andy Remic.
December 26th, 2008
By now, you might have glimpsed the blank-jacketed, unedited proof of The Garbage Man. It was directly onto the pages of that version that I made my corrections for Bloody Books – using white-out tape and a fine roller-ball pen.
It’s astonishing how many mistakes there were. Misspellings, sentences that made no sense, repetitions and punctuation errors among them. Here’s a good one: I wrote ‘asses’ instead of ‘assess’!
Andy Remic, author of Spiral, Quake, Warhead, War Machine and Biohell, cast an eye over the proof and kindly pointed out I don’t know the rules for using ‘said’ when I close quotation marks – for which I’m very grateful. There’s still so much to learn.
The awful thing is, this is the condition in which the novel went out to reviewers and critics! So, for those people who have a copy and plan to make their reactions public: This is not the final version!!!
(By the way, Bill’s editing his proof of The Absence at the moment and his message is the same.)
Of the novels I’ve written – eight thus far – The Garbage Man is the one which has been reworked the most. You may remember me moaning about it earlier this year when changes were still in progress. So it’s particularly galling to find so many glaring howlers in the proof. And yet, I have a sneaking suspicion this is the reality for most authors.
Here’s a quick rundown of what happened from idea to novel.
As is often the way with me, The Garbage Man started life as a short story. Then it got a little out of hand. It was something I worked on between MEAT and a later novel. I came and went with the tale over about 18 months and with many interruptions. When I finally found the time to complete it, I sent it to Bloody Books. It was a short novel of only 55K words – similar in length, for example, to James Herbert’s The Rats.
Comments came back mixed. Bloody Books loved the idea, hated most of the characters, thought certain parts were unnecessary and wanted an extra 40K words!
‘Think of it as a rough first draft,’ said Simon Petherick.
First draft? I’d already reworked it more times than I could count. Simon then sent it to the most important man in my life: Jonathan Wooding, my editor. Jonathan came up with a detailed plan of what needed adjustment.
Bloody Books must have liked the novel because they offered me double what they paid for MEAT. Predictably, I said ‘yes’ without hesitating. That was the easy bit. I’d just said ‘yes’ to a lot of work. I then procrastinated. Again predictably, and to my embarrassment, I was late with the rewrite.
The story of The Garbage Man has been discarded and reclaimed so many times since I first had the idea that it is now made entirely of recycled material. Having read the proof and made my corrections, though, I’m far happier now with the story than ever I was before.
Moral of all this? Editing is always a pain in the as (…woops, I mean ass) but it can be an incredibly valuable part of the process.
Bill and I will be dealing with the subject of editing in depth towards the end of our series of discussions on novel writing.
December 4th, 2008
I’m finally able to reveal the cover you’ll see on the shelves when The Garbage Man is released in May ‘09!
Once again, like Bill, I’d like to talk about ‘mood’ and ‘subtlety’ as key aspects of my latest cover.
I’d like to but I can’t.
Here’s why:
I’d much rather talk about how plain ol’ scary it is!
November 18th, 2008
This is a very swift entry about the realities of working part time, writing the other part of the time and being a parent…
Today I’m at home with mini me while her mum is out at work. Tomorrow, the role-reversal reverses and I’m out at work.Every time I sit down to make corrections into my proof copy of The Garbage Man a household management task springs into focus – wash the clothes, change a nappy, put clothes in the dryer, clean the house, iron the shirts, wash up, sterilise the feeding bottles, put baby down for nap, pick baby up, put baby down, pick baby up, put baby down, pick baby up, weep (me, not the baby), change nappy, feed baby, put baby down, worry about the dusting…
Bill and I have set a loose deadline of 27th November to complete the corrections by. We’ll be in London that day meeting the Bloody Books team to discuss our Spring ’09 launch strategies.
If I do manage this editing feat – and it seems unlikely because the proof is full of my own stupid errors – I’m sure the copy I hand in will be stained with baby puke, fabric softener and tears of frustration. I only hope they’ll still be able to read it.
Most of the time being a writer really isn’t very exciting.
November 17th, 2008
I’d like to echo Bill’s sentiments on cover art.
I’d like to do that because today I received the proof copies of The Garbage Man. I’d like to talk about ‘mood’, ‘subtlety’ and ‘menace’ as key aspects of my latest cover.
I’d like to but I can’t.
Here’s why:
Unedited proof copy cover
The blasted cover art’s not ready! (In fact, The Absence could so easily be the title of my book too, Bill…)
Here’s the interesting thing for me now – advance copies of The Garbage Man will arrive with reviewers and critics in this condition. Will the book be judged by its cover, I wonder?
November 9th, 2008
Well, after blogging about the importance of the cover, I’m happy to give HR a first proper glimpse at the cover design for my second horror novel, ‘The Absence’. I’m absolutely thrilled with the artwork, which conveys just the mood I have tried to capture in the book. As with the subtle design of ‘Through A Glass, Darkly’, I hope you will agree that the artwork is sombre and menacing without being a traditional in-your-face horror cover. Anyway, over to you – what do you think?
November 6th, 2008
Hi All
Just popping by to say I’ll be appearing at the Whitby Goth Weekend this Friday (31st Oct – Halloween in Dracula country!). I’ve been invited to come along and talk about Through A Glass, Darkly and horror writing in general by the good people at The Whitby Bookshop (88 Church Street, Whitby, North Yorkshire YO22 4BH tel. 01947 606202). I’ll be there from 7pm, chatting, signing books and doing a reading. Be there or be pumpkin-shaped!
October 29th, 2008
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