Legend Press

Author blog - Andrew Blackman

The Bookshop Game

There’s a game all writers play, although we don’t really like to talk about it. It’s embarrassing, and a bit pathetic, and it doesn’t fit with the urbane image we try to maintain.

It goes like this. You walk into a bookshop. You try to blend in, to look like a normal lunchtime browser, but in fact you are on a mission. You are looking for your own book, because seeing your own book on the shelves validates your existence in some important way.

At first, the game is fun. Your book has just come out. It is often at the front, in full view, sometimes with a shiny sticker on it alerting the crowds of shoppers to the seductive promotion it’s part of. But as the months and years go by, other people spoil it by bringing out books of their own. These newer books take over the display stands and stickers, and your book gets shunted back onto the general alphabetical fiction shelves, with only its spine showing. Sometimes it’s not even there at all. The game starts to take on elements of masochism.

And then sometimes you get a surprise. I walked into Waterstone’s Piccadilly the other day to buy a book, and spotted On the Holloway Road on a table of recommended London novels right at the front, in full view, rubbing shoulders with Patrick Hamilton, J.G. Ballard and Monica Ali. I felt a secret thrill, and tried to act casual while I whipped out my cameraphone to take a furtive shot. I looked at it later, on the Tube, and felt both deeply satisfied and sadly shallow.

So that’s the bookshop game: embarrassing, and pathetic, and true. Ask any writer and see if they deny it.

Andrew

Andrew Blackman is the author of On the Holloway Road, available to order by clicking here

Andrew Blackman on the Luke Bitmead Bursary

Last week submissions opened for the 2011 Luke Bitmead Writer's Bursary. Our first winner Andrew Blackman has kindly written us a blog about his experiences. For information and details of how to apply please click here.

Winning the Luke Bitmead Writer’s Bursary, and what it meant for me

I remember the award ceremony very clearly. It was a hot July night, and I was sweating in the corner of a crowded room. “Go and network,” I said to myself. “That’s the point of coming. You won’t have won, but at least you can meet some publishers and agents.” I didn’t network, of course: I sat in the corner as I always do at these things, nursing a pint of Guinness and talking to my then-girlfriend, now-wife Genie.

Ten of us had been shortlisted, and they handed out the awards in reverse order. When it got to the top three and my name hadn’t been read out, I was excited. Top two, I was thrilled. But when the second place writer had been named and I was the only one left, I started to panic. What if there had been a mistake, and I wasn’t getting any prize at all? My writer’s ego had been so bruised and battered by the rejection slips dropping through our letter-box with the regularity of credit-card statements that I couldn’t grasp the concept of winning. I’d conditioned myself to fail. I’d prepared consoling stories for myself, but not a winner’s speech. When I was called to the front and handed an enormous plastic cheque, I mumbled some confused words of thanks to Luke’s family and Legend Press, smiled automatically for the camera, and spent the rest of the evening shaking people’s hands, accepting the congratulations and the free drinks, and feeling completely disorientated.

The following February, my novel On the Holloway Road was published. I followed it from bookshop to bookshop, never tiring of seeing it on the shelves. Due to an alphabetical coincidence, it was often placed next to Luke Bitmead’s wonderful book White Summer, which I thought was appropriate. Without Luke, after all, my book would not have existed. Everything I’ve enjoyed over the last couple of years – all the sales, all the readings, the signings, the radio interviews, the film rights – all of it has come about because of Luke and the efforts of his family to create something positive out of the tragedy of his death. To change somebody else’s life for the better is, in my opinion, the most worthwhile thing a human being can do. I hope Luke’s mother Elaine and his sister Tiffany know how much they changed mine. I’m also eternally grateful to Tom at Legend Press for taking a chance on me and my book and for pushing it, with the help of Lucy and Lauren, for all it was worth.

Writing can still be a struggle, of course. The money from winning the Bursary disappeared a long time ago, and although my novel has done well, I still have to do other work to make ends meet. I still doubt myself every morning when I sit down to write, and I still have to deal with rejections and disappointments. But that sweaty July night in 2008 changed something for me. No matter what else happens now, I have written a novel, won an award and had it published. It was my dream, and I accomplished it. It’s a wonderful feeling.

I can’t recommend the Luke Bitmead Writer’s Bursary highly enough. If you want to be a writer, stop making excuses and devote all your spare time from now until 31st August to hammering your manuscript into shape. Getting published is notoriously difficult, and I know very well how badly the process can wear you down. This contest, however, is like somebody throwing you a rope. I’d really suggest reaching out and grabbing it.

Andrew

Andrew's novel On the Holloway Road is available to order by clicking here

Author Blog - Andrew Blackman

Moving from journalism into fiction writing, it sometimes feels as if I have gone from one dying industry straight to another. All I read about my profession is doom and gloom, and I sometimes wonder whether I’ve chosen a career that will be obsolete by the time I’ve established yourself in it. It’s the internet, or ebooks, or supermarket discounting, or big-chain conglomerates pricing out independents, or something else that will destroy literature as we know it.

So it was nice to read an article in the 8th issue of Five Dials about the French bookselling industry, which seems to be in fairly good health. There are a startling 792 bookshops in Paris, and 3,000 independent bookshops in France employing about 13,000 people. In New York City there are now only 10 independent bookshops.

This is not an accident. The French government (both national and local) has taken the view that books are not a commodity like any other, but are important enough to national culture to be given special status. Bookshops, too, are seen as valuable, desirable things, and 2007′s ‘plan livre’ set out a series of measures to help independent bookshops survive (e.g. tax relief, interest-free loans, etc.). There’s also a law preventing the big chains from indulging in massive discounting (it sounds a lot like the old Net Book Agreement in the UK, which was abolished in 1997). The City of Paris actively intervenes to protect the character of certain neighbourhoods, for example by buying up buildings and renting the retail space to bookshops for minimal rent. The idea is to stop gentrification and rising rents from pricing out the traditional businesses that make the place what it is.

French publishers, of course, are suffering from the economic downturn like anyone else. But they took on less debt than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts, so have taken less of a hit. I’m sure that there are other problems and that the French publishing industry is not a perfect model, but it does seem to be in better shape than ours. Perhaps instead of penning more articles about the dire straits we’re in, we could instead look across the Channel and get a few ideas?

Andrew

This article was from Andrew's blog, which you can visit by clicking here
Andrew is the author of On the Holloway Road, buy the book on Amazon

Mark Piggott and Andrew Blackman event tomorrow

Andrew Blackman and Mark Piggott will be appearing at the Idea Store in Whitechapel tomorrow at 7pm.

Mark and Andrew will be joined by author Alex Wheatle.

For further details of the event please click here

Lucy

Buy Bitmead Books!

With the success of Luke Bitmead's books – WHITE SUMMER and HEADING SOUTH (written jointly with Catherine Richards) – and the Luke Bitmead Bursary, with two fantastic winners in each of the first two years, we are telling everyone to Buy Bitmead Books.

In fact we are offering all four books for a bargain of £25.00!

So go to www.buybitmeadbooks.com and get buying!

Tom

Luke Bitmead Bursary success continues

We are delighted to be honouring the memory of the wonderfully talented Luke Bitmead with the annual Bursary we help run with Luke's family. The award supports struggling unpublished authors and has allowed us to discover some fantastic writing talent so far. The bursary is open for enteries until the end of this month, so to find out details click here.

Previous winners of the bursary are Andrew Blackman for his novel On the Holloway Road (published February 2009) and Ruth Dugdall for The Woman Before Me (published on 28th August 2010). We are excited to be launching the book in London on Thursday 26th August, in what should be a fantastic evening.

Lucy

Andrew Blackman at Blackwell's Holloway Road tomorrow!

Andrew Blackman, author of the brilliant On the Holloway Road will be returning to Blackwell's Holloway Road tomorrow night for a reading and Q&A.

The event starts at 6pm and there will be free mince pies and wine for all attendees!

Thank you to Blackwell's Holloway Road for getting behind the book so well and making the book such a success.

Lucy

4th December - Advent book of the day!

Each day of advent we are going to profile a different Legend Press book for sale! We want everyone to have a Legendary book in their stocking, so if you see something you like please order. The best selling book will be at the top of our Christmas tree on the blog on 25th December.

Everyone who orders a book from our site in December is automatically entered into a prize draw to win a hoard of Legend Press books!

Today's book is On the Holloway Road by Andrew Blackman. We were delighted to announce Andrew as the first winner of the Luke Bitmead Bursary back last June and have loved working with Andrew on the book this year. Andrew has been doing a host of events across the UK, and has been a great ambassador of his book!

‘A beautifully written story about friendship and the longing for adventure in an increasingly demystified world, and the eternal question of what life is all about.’ Zoe Jenny, best-selling Swiss author of The Pollen Room.

‘Blackman's wonderful book is a modern-day road trip filled with quirky characters and locations. He writes beautifully, making the mundane extraordinary and the everyday fascinating.’ Deborah Wright, best-selling author. 

Order your copy of On the Holloway Road now - £7.99 

Lucy

On the Holloway Road spotted out and about in Venice!

Josie Henley-Einion author of the brilliant Silence has been spotted in Venice reading On the Holloway Road by Andrew Blackman. It is great to see Legend Press authors reading other Legend Press books and spreading the world both nationally and globally!!

Andrew Blackman interview

A great interview with Andrew Blackman has just been posted up on Helen J Beal's blog, following her review of On the Holloway Road last week. Andrew was speaking about winning the 2008 Luke Bitmead Bursary, so we thought this was particularly relevant as we are currently deciding on the 2009 shortlist.

Below is a taster of the interview:

Q: Hello Andrew. You and I ‘met’ fairly recently when you discovered a Book Review on my website of Luke Bitmead’s novel ‘White Summer’. Your novel, ‘On the Holloway Road’ won the Luke Bitmead Writer’s bursary and this is how you became a published author via Legend Press. How have you found this experience and what other strategies did you deploy or plan to before being published? Also, how do you think t’interweb can help or hinder aspiring writers?

A: I deployed the usual strategies for several years with a previous novel – sending out the covering letter and synopsis to agents, publishers and anyone else who would accept them, waiting six weeks, getting a rejection slip and sending them out again. It was demoralising, because I had given up quite a lot to follow my dream of being a writer, and for a while it seemed that I had given it up for nothing. I was feeling very low, and to get myself going again I wrote a new novel, setting myself the goal of writing the first draft in a month. I enjoyed it immensely, and was surprised to find that the first draft was much better than the previous novel that I’d spent years working on. I submitted it for the Luke Bitmead Writers’ Bursary, and went back to hacking away at the first novel.

Then in July last year, everything changed. I went to an award ceremony in London, knowing that I’d been shortlisted for the Luke Bitmead prize but not really believing I would win it. An hour later, I was a published author, holding an oversized cheque and making a garbled speech. Seven months later ‘On the Holloway Road’ came out, and seeing it on the shelves in Borders and Waterstones next to the ‘real’ authors has been quite literally a dream come true.

To answer your other question, the web can definitely help and hinder aspiring writers! The positive side of it is that the writer’s life is no longer solitary – you can find thousands of other writers and talk through your problems, have your work critiqued, etc. Plus, when you have been published, you can meet readers much more easily than before. And of course the main benefit is that it makes self-publishing so much more viable.

The downside of the web is that the writer’s life is no longer solitary. Rather than getting up in the morning, putting a blank sheet of paper in the typewriter and staring at it until something comes out, a writer today powers up his laptop, finds that his antivirus software needs updating, sees that he has 15 new emails and cannot concentrate until he’s opened them, finds himself answering them, clicking on links, laughing at Youtube videos, checking the football scores, reading blogs, rebooting to allow the antivirus software updates to take effect, and finally opening up Microsoft Word with an hour gone and a head full of distractions.

Lucy

Excellent review of On the Holloway Road

On the Holloway Road by Andrew Blackman has received an excellent review on writer Helen Beal's website.

Read a taster below:

At its core I would describe ‘On the Holloway Road’ as a Bromance. And surely there’s room in the market for more of these. In a chance encounter in a kebab shop late one night Jack meets nutty Neil. Deprived background, very clever, mouthy, lairy, hard as nails, spontaneous, opinionated – Neil is everything that Jack is not. I kept thinking that, romantically, the very things that attract you to a person in the first place, their identifying characteristics, often turn out to be the things that send you to distraction, in a not very good way, in the end.

And off they go on a journey, Jack trying to escape the trap he is in in London. Neil living out his endless, rambling philosophies and inventing more along the way. When the core plot is a journey, the reader I think can be forgiven for imagining that there are metaphors at play. The character is on a spiritual journey for self discovery, personal development, redemption perhaps. Maybe I have never fully recovered from The Book I Have Hated Above All Others, John Bunyan’s allegorical ‘The Pilgrim’s Progess’. I don’t feel too bad saying that as Bunyan’s been dead for over three-hundred years. But we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. Strike me down. Or don’t, since it’s the book I have issue with and not the man himself (although, where is the division?).

Anyway, as I do, I have digressed. This is a story of people, their faith, love and attraction to each other where betrayals, decisions and a need for more meaning twist the tale over and over. I am very careful in my reviews not to give too much away, you shouldn’t find any spoilers here, but I will say that I found Andrew’s unpredictable ending satisfying beyond compare.

To read the review in full click here!

Lucy

Exciting new author Alex Burger!

Andrew Blackman, author of the fantastic On The Holloway Road recently judged a Short Fiction contest as part of the London Fringe Festival.

The prize was sponsored by the Times Literary Supplement and drew entries from across the UK based on the theme “Glamour and Grime.” The winner of the prize was Alex Burger for his piece entitled “Through a Glass Darkly”.

Alex’s story is a haunting tale, told in the voice of a man from the early 19th century, who appears to be still lingering on the edges of modern society. The story calls into the question fixed notions of filth and cleanliness, decay and progress, and even past and present. Below is an excerpt from the piece.

“Our vices and trials must now seem so crude — painted over rotten meat, sewers in the street, death lurking like rowdy school children ready to pounce. Your vices are quiet: viruses that travel softly in the air, the spills washed quickly down drainpipes to lakes unseen, the silences of each person locked in his or her house, guarded tight against the rain or sun or cold or warmth or feeling too much. You die alone, at least we died in each others arms.”

Alex Burger is a writer, playwright, and advocate who recently moved to London from South Africa. He is currently finishing a play about the US civil rights movement, and now working on a play to be performed in the London Old Operating Theatre Museum, the oldest operating theatre in Europe.

We are proud to be affiliated with the London Fringe Festival and the support the voice of emerging writers like Alex Burger. We look forward to hopefully reading more of Alex's work in the future.

Lucy

Andrew Blackman judges Short story competition!

Last week Andrew Blackman announced the winner of the London Fringe Short Fiction Award at the Old Operating Theatre near London Bridge.

Below is an extract from Andrew's blog www.andrewblackman.net talking about the event:

After much reading and re-reading and writing of lists, I awarded the London Fringe Short Fiction Award to Alex Burger for his story London: Through a Glass Darkly. The theme of the contest was ‘London: Glamour and Grime’, and I thought Alex’s story explored the theme in a very innovative way. The story is narrated by a self-proclaimed “remnant” of an earlier London, a London of brown water, dead rats and cats rotting in the street, a London of rotten meat painted with blood to make it look fresh. The story really brings out the connection between the superficially ‘glamorous’ modern London and our grimy, diseased past.

'We’re not so different really. Hell, I watch you come in the mornings, streaming to work. Then I see you in pubs after work, falling drunk and high in the street. You die in your houses, have your own plagues, but it’s the same death, just hidden away. At least we faced ours straight on.'

I gave Alex his prize today at the Old Operating Theatre, a fantastic venue, the oldest operating theatre in Europe, with a scratched old wooden operating table in the middle and steep banks of seating all around. The runners-up and commended writers also read their work, and there were some stories I really liked. “Perspective” by Annabel Banks, a story about how city people come together briefly in a moment of tragedy, won 2nd prize, and “The Grand Union”, a dark story about resisting the urge to push someone in a canal, came 3rd.

To read the blog in full click here!

Lucy

Andrew Blackman to judge London Short Story Competition

Andrew Blackman, author of the brilliant On the Holloway Road will be judging the London Short Story Award: London Glamour and Grime as part of the London Bridge festival. The award is supported by the Times Literary Supplement.

There will be Reading Performance of the shortlisted entries at the Old Operating Theatre. All shortlisted writers will be invited to read their stories at the Old Operating Theatre, and to the Festival Wrap Party on July 25 at the Roxy Bar and Screen.

For full details of the award click here!

Lucy

Andrew Blackman Blog

A little blog stolen from Andrew Blackman's site http://andrewblackman.net/ this morning:

"I had a wonderful trip to New York. The book-related reasons to go were to sign copies at the Columbia Alumni Book Fair and to give a speech at the Jack Kerouac Literary Group, both of which went very well.

Outside of the scheduled events, it was great to spend some time in New York City, where I lived for six years before moving back to the UK in 2006. I managed to catch up with friends from my various incarnations: a corporate banker at Citigroup, a student at Columbia and then a journalist at the Wall Street Journal. And then I spent time just wandering down memory lane. Of course things have changed, but most of the old favourites are still there. As I list them, it’s interesting how many of them are food-related! Anyway, in my old neighbourhood on the Upper East Side: hot pastrami on a poppyseed bagel from Tal Bagel (I used to live in a little apartment upstairs), breakfast at the old-fashioned Mansion Diner, and little choux pastries filled with custard from the Choux Factory. Further downtown, brunch at Danal’s was a must. Then there was Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, Brooklyn Heights Promenade, the various riverside walks in Manhattan, and of course a lazy, sunny afternoon lying on the Great Lawn in Central Park reading a book and trying not to get hit by frisbees. And visiting friends in New Jersey gave me an excuse to rent a Corvette for a day and hit the gargantuan American highways."

Order your of On the Holloway Road copy now - £7.99 

Lucy

On the Holloway Road reviewed in the Daily Mail

On the Holloway Road by Andrew Blackman was reviewed in the Daily Mail on Friday. Below is the review:

"Neil is an over-bearing, dangerously fearless man-mountain of bright-eyed energy whom our young anti-hero Jack encounters one night in a kebab shop on the Holloway Road.

Jack is only too happy to be pulled into his orbit and before long the two are off, piling their stuff into the back of Jack's bluegreen Figaro and heading north up the A1 as they embark on a road trip of modern Britain.

There are echoes of Jack Kerouac in this freewheeling adventure down the CCTV-ed, drizzly corridors of modern Britain.

But really this, too, is a novel about emptiness and failure, and an inability to engage. It's not the most cheery read, but it does have some glorious sprees."

To see the article in full click here

Order your copy now - £7.99 

Lucy

On the Holloway Road in the charts!

 

On the Holloway Road by Andrew Blackman has been featured in Time Out in a battle of the bookshops. The article compares the top 5 best-sellers of Prospero's Books in Crouch End to Daunt Books in Chelsea. Andrew is joined in Prospero's top 5 by Sebastian Barry, Aravind Adiga, Barack Obama and Doris Lessing.

It is great to see the book is selling so well in Andrew's local area and brilliant to see a local independent book shop supporting local talent so well.

Order On the Holloway Road now - £7.99 

Lucy

Andrew Blackman in the Kentish Times

   

Andrew Blackman, author of the fantastic On the Holloway Road was featured in the Kentish Times last week. Andrew grew up in Beckenham but now lives in London.

"The book is about people trying to find something meaningful in life but not knowing how to go about that. It's a feeling I've always had."

Order your copy now - £7.99 

Lucy

Andrew Blackman Blog

 

Hey, it may not be the New York Times bestseller list, but it made me proud when I walked past my local bookshop, Prospero’s Books, and saw my book at #4 on the Bestsellers Chart.

I even asked someone to take a photo. Come on, it’s probably the last time in my life that I will see my name next to Barack Obama’s

Andrew

Order your copy of On the Holloway Road now - £7.99 

Visit Andrew's blog http://andrewblackman.net/

Andrew featured in the Islington Gazette

Andrew was featured in the Islington Gazette last week. To read the feature click here!

Andrew commented "I have wanted to write this book for a long time but couldn't actually get round to it. I know the only way I would actually do it was to quit my job and concentrate on my writing... The first few chapters are set in Islington. They start their journey on the Holloway Road and just start heading north towards Scotland with no real plan."

"They are trying to escape the city and having lived between London and New York for years, I suppose I sometimes dream about getting out of the claustrophobic city into the countryside. It's the same thing for the characters."

Order your copy now - £7.99 

Lucy

Author interview with Andrew Blackman

 An interview with Andrew Blackman, author of the brilliant 'On the Holloway Road' has been posted up on the WriteWords website today. Below is a taster:

Tell us something about your background.

My first novel, On the Holloway Road, is being published by Legend Press in February 2009. I have had one short story published by Leaf Books and have several more forthcoming in literary magazines. Before that I was a journalist and have had several hundred articles published in The Wall Street Journal and other newspapers and magazines across America. Right now I’m working on a new novel about identity in the age of social networking.

Other work besides writing; ie. Editing, dramaturgy, tutoring, and how it works for/against your own writing

I am currently a temp on the night shift. Previously I have been a journalist, and before that a corporate banker, so temping for the last couple of years has been a big drop in pay and prestige. But it works perfectly for my writing. I have time to write during the day, without any distractions or stress or thinking about work. For the first time I have had the courage to put my writing first, to arrange my life around it. It’s paid off: while temping I have had short stories published, have won competitions, and now am about to have my first novel published by Legend Press.

How did you start writing?

I always liked to write as a child, but was raised to be ‘practical’ and so took a practical, well-paid City job. The job took me to New York, where I stood under the World Trade Center one bright Tuesday morning and watched the towers burn. As I trudged home, my clothes caked in the dust of other people’s bodies, I vowed that I would not die doing something I hated: I would at least try to do what I wanted. So I began to write, sporadically. I quit banking and became a journalist, all the while working on my fiction in the mornings before work. Then a couple of years ago I quit journalism and became a temp so that I could devote all my energy to doing what I want to do: writing literary fiction.

To read the interview in full click here.

Order your copy of 'On the Holloway Road' now - £7.99 

 

Lucy

Oxford love for Andrew Blackman

Earlier this week Andrew Blackman, author of the fantastic 'On the Holloway Road' was interviewed on BBC Radio Oxford by Jo Thoenes. To listen to the interview follow this link, Andrew is about 20 minutes into the show.

The book was also featured in the Oxford Times, to view the clip click here to download.

It is great to see the book getting lots of coverage in Oxford as Andrew was a graduate from the University.

If you haven't bought it already, the book is available on our online shop!

Order your copy now - £7.99 

Lucy

On the Holloway Road in the Bookseller

The release of 'On the Holloway Road' by Andrew Blackman has been featured in the Bookseller this week. This fantastic book has been getting lots of media attention and will be promoted 3 for 2s in Borders when it is realeased on 28th February.

The book can be pre-ordered on our online shop.

Pre-order your copy now - £7.99 

Lucy