Legend Press

Christmas sale and advent calendar news!!

Bah humbug Tom said... but despite this we are now launching our Christmas sale on the online shop from today!!

Until 24th December for every order you make we are offering a free book of your choosing to be selected next year! Simply order a book using the normal payment link and we will send you a voucher for a new book to be redeemed any time next year. We have a fantastic range of books to suit all ages and interests so we hope there will be something to tempt you!

We will also be doing an advent calendar on the blog from Monday with our best moments of the year and of course a festive picture so keep visiting!!!!!!

Lucy

Jae on LBC today!

Jae Watson, author of the brilliant 'Journey' will be interviewed on LBC this afternoon on the Jeni Bernett show at 3:30pm. Journey has been chosen as the show's book of the month which is really exciting news for this fantastic book! It should also tempt lots of Londoners to go out and buy copies for their Christmas pressies! Below are some fantastic reviews Journey has received:

'Journey was a fascinating read that kept me intrigued to the end. It is a novel that defies expectation and provides no cosy solutions.'
Writewords.co.uk

'This is a wonderful novel which I would highly recommend… [it] is the best of all worlds combining travel, mystery, adventure, self exploration and discovery.
Amazon.co.uk

'Must be a winner. Books, after all, don't just furnish a room. They fit very neatly into backpacks.'
N16 Magazine

'Ambitious and bold...this is a book which ventures off the beaten track in more ways than one; its strength lies in its intoxicating evocation of the traveller’s colourful world.'
Roundtable Review

'You need to buy this book - it's a great novel, vibrant and colourful with a rich vein of insights, wit and wisdom.'
Geoff Mather

Order your copy now - £7.99 

Lucy

The next Legend Press book!

 Here is the cover for our fantastic new novel on the Holloway Road which is out on 28th February 2009.

Chosen from hundreds of enteries Andrew Blackman was the first winner of the Luke Bitmead Writer’s Bursary. Inspired by Jack Kerouac's famous road novel On the Holloway Road follows two young men embarking on a similar search for freedom and meaning in modern-day Britain. Their trip takes them from the pubs of London's Holloway Road to the fringes of the Outer Hebrides, but along the way they discover that the horizons of Britain today are much smaller than those of 1950s America. Despite being dogged by speed cameras, parking regulations, ASBOs and CCTV, their quest continues to its ultimate conclusion on a lonely road in the Western Highlands of Scotland.

The novel is of course available to pre-order on the online shop!

Pre-order your copy now - £7.99 

Lucy

Out and about...

Apologies if we've been hard to get hold of over the last couple of weeks, but it has been a strange old time when at least one or all of us seems to have been out and about at any given moment - on top of the recent office move (now complete with broadband if not heating; widespread office concern for Lauren's health abounds in the slightly below luke-warm temperature).

I enjoyed my first morning today properly in the new place and likewise looking forward to continuing to plough through the huge work build-up pile tomorrow, but, while back, Lauren has been in Leeds all day for another excellent Read Generation event and Lucy is out at an IPG Marketing Event this afternoon (though not sure if there is too much more the great LB can add to her marketing genius - well, maybe a little, such as not to leave her post for me to finish when I've nipped out of the office for a quick meeting).

At least some exciting news, particularly with the Legend Press Annual Christmas Party coming up where she will be sorely missed this year, our great designer (and former neighbour) Gudrun Jobst may be returning from her work in Australia in April. Can't wait and have a backlog of banter to work through with her over some South African cider that she'll make me buy despite protesting and which I'll enjoy (without admitting too loudly that she was right).

So, anyway, onwards, and look forward to a day shortly when we'll all be reunited from the four corners of the globe (and Leeds) to discuss our relative success Legend/Paperbooks-conquering.

Tom

Christmas Fayre tonight!

This afternoon we will be taking part in the Prince's Trust Christmas Fayre in central London selling our fantastic books (which of course are the perfect Christmas pressies!)

The fayre is from 4:30pm at Pewterer's Hall, Oat Lane, London, EC2V 7DE. I hope some of you will be able to pop along!

Lucy

Who Goes There - on the road and the radio!

Nick is busy in the next couple of days promoting his fantastic book 'Who Goes There'. Today he is recording a live interview with BBC Radio Derby and will be speaking at a Dr Who event at Ealing Library on Saturday. The talk is at 2pm and for more details please contact the library on 020 8567 3670. Nick will also be joined by a real life Dalek at the event!

As part of the day Nick will be interviewed by 2 children from local radio station Westside. We hope to see some of you there!

Order your copy now - £7.99 

Lucy

On the move!

Been a very busy couple of weeks and wanted to let you know that we've moved office, albeit only across the road for the timebeing. The company who kindly gave us the space has moved and we've gone with them until the end of the year, after which we'll be moving to new office space.

So, until then please use the following address if you have anything to send (although please note submission is by email only as per guidelines!):

Legend Press/Paperbooks
Basement Office
99 Farringdon Road
London
EC1R 3BN

Lots of good memories from previous office but Legend Press and Paperbooks are definitely on the move!

Tom

Fantastic and fascinating - Who Goes There

On Saturday Nick Griffiths was on Excess Baggage on BBC Radio 4 being interviewed about his new book 'Who Goes There'. Nick was joined by Dr Who expert and comedy writer Nev Fountain to talk about the book, who described 'Who Goes There' as 'fantastic and fascinating'. It is great to see this brilliant book getting lots of exciting publicity.

To listen to the show click here!

Order your copy now - £7.99 

Lucy

Nick on Radio 4

 Nick Griffiths, author of the Doctor inspired travel book Who Goes There will be appearing on Radio 4's Excess Baggage tomorrow at 10am. It will also be available on iplayer after the show for a week. It is really exciting to get on one of Radio 4's most listened to shows and should get the book some great publicity in the coming weeks!

Lucy

Northampton

  Yesterday Tom and I were at Northampton University for our second University event. The Careers Fair was really well publicised which meant the event was packed with people from different areas and almost all subjects.

Quite a few people were interested in Publishing, so we gave lots of advice - hopefully some that was worthwhile - and managed to sell quite a few books too!

Next week is Reading University for a stall and presentation, and then back to Hertfordshire, this time for a presentation.

So have a look next week and find out how the next steps of our ReadGeneration University tour are going.

For more information, have a look at the ReadGeneration page.

Lauren

No flicking - Mark Liam Piggott

Mark Piggott author of the fantastic Fire Horses has written a humorous blog on satirical website Home Defence UK, here is a taster!

The thing I resented most about working for a living was missing all that lovely TV. Getting sacked gave me control over my own remote. Immediately I invested in cable, my window on the galaxy. Having spent years on the dole, it didn’t take long for me to get back into a familiar routine: Wake up, bedroom telly on, quick Tommy Tank over Lorraine Kelly, mop up just in time for breakfast with Matthew Wright.

Back in the Eighties we only had the test card for company, or, if that wasn’t available, Sons & Daughters. Cable TV has changed all that. Now you don’t have just three channels of cack at your fingertips, you have three hundred - all at some point showing David Dickinson.

Take Kilroy (pur-lease!) The only way I can spend thirty seconds in his company is by imagining his entire audience are auditioning for a role in some bizarre orgy. I thought he’d been permanently removed to the Hezbollah Channel yet here he is on Boondocks TV, still giving the camera that weird intro at the start:

“You drink turps - and you’re a pilot?" ...

Lucy

Small Press BOOKFAIR tomorrow!

The Small Press Bookfair is tomorrow!

We will be at Stoke Newington Library Gallery from 11-4pm tomorrow selling our wares as part of Hackney Write to Ignite festival. It will be a fantastic chance to meet up with other independent publishers and exhibit the books of all our talented authors!

The address of the venue is: Stoke Newington Library Gallery, Church Street, N16 0JS, ENTRY IS FREE!

We look forward to seeing some of you there!

Lucy and Tom

Sarah on the BBC

An interview with Sarah Ladipo Manyika author of In Dependence will be broadcast on the BBC this Sunday on Weekend network Africa. The interview will also be available by following this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/

It is fantastic to see the book getting lots of attention from the BBC, where Sarah will also be interviewed by BBC Radio Nottingham on Sunday.

Sarah commented: “This is the only love story that I know of which is set in the immediate post-independence world of Africans studying abroad and then returning to Africa. All one has to do to understand the significance of this era today is look at the Obama phenomenon.”  Obama is a product of this generation as his father Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. from Kenya met his mother whilst studying as a foreign student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in the 1960s.

Order your copy now - £7.99 

Lucy

Interview with Nick Griffiths

An interview from Nick has just been posted on The Doctor Who Review, below is a taster!

Of all the locations you visited, which was your favourite?

There were very few disappointments, which, considering the relative mundanity of some, and the years that have passed since Doctor Who visited many of the locations, was a pleasant surprise. The English villages – East Hagbourne and Aldbourne – were both perfect, and I adored the ancient history of Four Barrows. Bulls Bridge railway bridge and Stargroves both proved deeply exciting, for different, strange reasons. But the one that really took my breath away was Binnegar Quarry. It was late, we were tired and hungry, we couldn’t find the sodding thing – a half-mile long sandpit, gone missing! – until we came upon those signs: ‘Danger Deep Excavation’, ‘Danger Deep Excavation’... And when I climbed that bank and saw that sheer, crazy, beautiful expanse of sand... Skaro! I was so elated – at finding a sandpit.

Read the full interview by clicking here!

Order your copy now - £7.99 

Lucy

Josie on S4C TONIGHT!

Josie Henley-Einion, author of the fantastic Silence will be appearing on S4C (Welsh Channel 4) tonight at 11:55pm. It will be available after screening by following this link.

The programme is called Hacio and it is the only Welsh language current affairs show for younger people. Tonight the show focuses on homonphobic bullying, a theme central to the plot of Silence.

If you haven't read this powerful novel yet why not order it now...

Order your copy now - £7.99 

Lucy

Your votes are needed!

Silence was chosen as Book cover of the week on a popular blog site at the start of last month and it is now time to vote for the cover to win Book Cover of the Month! The unique and bloody cover by our designer Gudrun Jobst is praised on the website:

"The second you look at this, the creepy feeling is upon you, and if you're a lover of murder mysteries, the creepier the cover, the greater your desire to read the book."

Voting only takes a second so it would be great if you can get as many people to vote as possible!

Vote for Silence by clicking here! 

Thanks

Lucy

The RG University tour begins!...

Tomorrow, Wednesday 5 November, our ReadGeneration tour begins with Hertfordshire University. We will be setting our stall up at the Careers Fair -the picture is to give you an idea of what Tom will look like.

From 12pm-4pm, we will be discussing the Publishing Industry, career advice for students, helpful hints for graduates, talking about ReadGeneration, encourage reading and hopefully sell some books!

The tour is set to include numerous Universities across the country such as Leicester, Leeds, Bournemouth and Wolverhampton to name a few, all to progress throughout the following months up until April.

Hopefully the Hertfordshire Uni event will go smoothly, and set a good example for what is to follow.

For more information click on ReadGeneration 

Lauren