Paperbooks

June release by Mark Hayhurst

We are very excited about the release of Psychotic Escaping Justice by Mark Hayhurst on 27th June 2009. Here exclusively is the cover for this brilliant book.

Blurb:

There is a serial killer on the loose in a tiny Yorkshire village. As the community is gripped by a string of violent and brutal murders, suspicion is flooding Holme Bridge and the police are baffled.

As Scott Dempsey attempts to link and solve the horrific crimes, an amnesiac somewhere across town struggles to get to grips with who he is – but does he hold the secret to the killer’s identity?

Justifying the murders in his brilliantly creative but cruelly warped mind, the killer knows he must bring his rampage to an end in one ultimate climax. As time runs out, can Dempsey solve the case before the serial killer wreaks his final carnage?

The book is now available to pre-order

Pre-order your copy of Psychotic Escaping Justice now - £7.99 

Lucy

Gary and Jon launch short short story comp!

Gary Davison has launched a short story competition on his website www.gary-davison.com with Jon Haylett. Gary asked Jon to look at 4 pictures and make up a story title and first line for each one. The titles are:

Flight of the Wombat

The Doctor

Love is Blind

The Dancer

To view the photos and find out how to enter click here!

Lucy

Author feature - Jon Haylett

 Jon Haylett author of the brilliant Black Mongoose has been featured on fellow Paperbooks author Gary Davison's website www.gary-davison.com

As well as writing two brilliant novels, Jon Haylett is an award-winning short story writer, winning the Bridport International short story prize and the 2004 Royal Society of Literature vs. Pritchett Memorial Prize.

Gary asks : How do you approach writing a short story?

Jon  -  "Setting about writing a short story is very like setting out to have a baby. Obviously you’re not going to get anywhere without having all the necessary plumbing, like a basic command of the English language, imagination, a pen and paper or a computer you can work. After that, things become much more complicated. Everyone knows that a woman responds to the right atmosphere – candle-light, a decent wine, a few well-chosen sweet nothings and a look of lap-dog fascination with every word she utters. Similarly, the creative brain needs…. pampering. Frustratingly, you can then bang away for hours trying to think of something but produce nothing of any great consequence. As a lubricant, I strongly recommend a good bottle of St Emilion, and something special in the way of malt whisky.

I never know when I’m absorbed in the creative process whether what I’m doing is going to result in anything. Conception, when it finally happens, can be anywhere – out in the fresh air, in bed, on the patio, or on a pebble beach – but you don’t know that it’s viable: it’s a little, pink, wriggling thing. I have heaps of embryonic stories kicking around in my mind, and a load more gathering electronic dust in a folder called ‘Short Stories – Pending’, most of which are never going to develop into anything.

People who set out to have a baby don’t realise how hard they have to work. So it is with a story. Each word, each phrase, every punctuation mark has to be scrutinised, tweaked, considered and reconsidered. Once the story is ‘finished’, I go over it, and over it, until I’m sick of it. Then I get other people to read it – mostly my poor family – and then I edit it again; and again."

To read the interview in full click here!

Lucy

Author blog: Jon Haylett

I thoroughly enjoyed writing Black Mongoose, not least because the fictional country of USuzwe was reputed to have the most beautiful women in Africa. I had much more of a struggle with the website. I had never built one before so I had to start from scratch, which included buying the program – RapidWeaver – learning how to use it and, as the site began to come together, finding and sorting out the bugs.

The website was designed – if I can use so strong a word - to help those of my readers who know little of Africa see some of the wonders that I was struggling to describe, and of course one of them was Africa’s women. The book boasts some truly beautiful women, the lovely Lindiwe and the diminutive Zanela to name but two. And they dominate my stalwart English hero, they wrap the poor boy round their little fingers, they manipulate him, point him in the right direction, and give him a gentle push.

So, in the website, I gave a page to photographs of African women. All came from that wonderful source of photos, Flickr. had been warned by a friend of my daughter’s who is a lawyer that I must obtain permission to use the photos, which I did. I was deeply moved by the generosity of the people I approached. Some turned out to be professional photographers, yet they still allowed me to use their stunning shots.

This photo of a Masai mother, courtesy of Flickr member ‘Arriving at the Horizon’, me too late for the first upload of the site so I used it in a blog. To me, this girl is the Mona Lisa of Africa except, instead of a smile, she has a tear.

Jon

Order your copy of Black Mongoose now - £7.99 

Publishing Laid Bare conference

  

The Legend Press and Paperbooks conference 'Publishing Laid Bare' on 25th June was featured on the Bookseller website today:

"Waterstone’s Greg Eden, Play.com’s Caroline Mileham and the Book Depository’s Mark Thwaite and Steve Potter have signed up to appear as panelists at the first-ever Publishing Laid Bare conference.

The one-day conference, which is being organised by independent publisher Legend Press, will take place at the Imperial Hotel in Russell Square, London on 25th June. The event is aimed at independent publishers and speakers will consider various topics, such as whether newspaper reviews still have influence, whether getting books into the high street is a "waste of time or still valued ground" and the future of publishing."

The conference, which is sponsored by Gardners Books and Lightning Source will include a large number of industry experts including Nicholas Clee, Amber Pearson (Daily Mail) and Charlie Redmayne, Head of Harper Collins digital.

Tickets for the event, which runs from 10am-5pm, are £100+VAT, including lunch and refreshments. Please contact conference@legend-paperbooks.co.uk for more information or to book your place

Lucy

Jon Haylett and Gary Davison

Gary Davison, author of the brilliant Fat Tuesday is doing a four part feature on fellow Paperbooks author Jon Haylett on his website http://www.gary-davison.com/.

Below is a taster, Jon's answers are in green:

'What would you say to ………… if you could have a face to face with them for thirty seconds. Here are his answers:

Simon Cowell

Hi, Simon - I know you must be someone excruciatingly famous because that’ll be why Gary’s introduced us but… I’m sorry…., I’ve never heard of you. Could you give me a potted life history in 30 seconds… or, even better, less?

Katie Price (AKA Jordan, the glamour model)

[I've heard of her]

Hi Katie - in these deflationary times it must be wonderful to have such substantial, portable assets. Heard you wrote a novel and sold 300,000 copies in the first 6 weeks. I’m badly in need of your advice. Are you free for a couple of hours one-to-one? Or is it two-to-one?

Zimbabwe Head of State, Robert Mugabe

So the white man gave lithe and beautiful Zimbabwe back to you, young, fresh and so, so full of promise - and you promptly raped her. Now you ask us for £11 billion in aid, no strings attached, as a minimum amount to repair the damage while, at the same time, squabbling over who gets the latest consignment of brand new Mercedes Benzes - E280s at $50,000 a throw. Take a hike.'

To read the blog in full click here!

Jon Haylett Blog - Strangers

Two of my favourite films involve people suddenly finding themselves operating in unaccustomed milieus: Harrison Ford in ‘Witness’ as the city detective sent to an Amish community to investigate a murder, and Peter Riegert in ‘Local Hero’ as a Texas oil man despatched on a secret mission to a remote Scottish crofting community. One of the joys of both lies in watching the incomer flounder in a foreign environment and then, slowly, begin to function and to appreciate what he has found – if not enough to stay there.

I loved writing ‘Black Mongoose’ primarily because it’s a fast-moving adventure story, and because, as in the two films, its hero, having set out to enjoy a tourist holiday, sees everything fall apart, spectacularly, in an unfamiliar place and amongst strangers. Johnny Strowger associates with people he would otherwise never have met, he experiences the grim realities of their day-to-day existence, he even does a little to help improve their circumstances.

If there’s a huge contrast between, say, Harrison Ford’s city life and the rural existence of the Amish, there’s a gulf between the England that Johnny comes from and a failing, third-world state like USuzwe. And that’s why I had so much fun writing ‘Black Mongoose’, because I was able, in a James Bond way, to drag in all sorts of truly African horrors to throw at my poor hero.

I say ‘fun’, but there were moments when I found myself shocked. In writing the novel and developing the accompanying website, I did more research than I have for any other book I’ve written. I already appreciated that, for many citizens in countries like Kenya and Zimbabwe, life is dreadfully hard, but what I found unacceptable is that so many brutalities continue to be perpetrated on women, children and defenceless minority groups. The photograph, courtesy of Sandra Crouse Quinn, University of Pittsburgh, of a billboard in Zambia showing a young, abused girl, not only illustrates the point but suggests how widespread this particular wicked misconception must be.

Jon

Order your copy of Black Mongoose now - £7.99 

Black Mongoose - Kenyan Music

Above is a little bit of Kenyan music to enjoy. This clip is taken from the companion website for Jon Haylett's second novel Black Mongoose that was published last week. The website www.black-mongoose.co.uk gives detailed information about the book, presented chapter by chapter and blogs by Jon about the themes and topics the book covers.

Order your copy of Black Mongoose now - £7.99 

Lucy

Call for Exclusively Independent Submissions now open!

We are now entering the fourth cycle of Exclusively Independent!

Submissions are welcome from publishers across all genres, and can be new or backlist titles.

We try to incorporate the books that whole heartedly stand for independent talent. They showcase what it is to be independent, and demonstrate creative talent at it's finest.

As I've mentioned before, over the last few cycles we have had submissions covering every corner of the publishing industry. It is this variety that is attracting readers and defines Exclusively Independent.

Distributed nationwide by Gardners, the project has no limits; reaching readers no matter what their tastes and interests.

The scheme aims to give all submissions a level playing ground, therefore the final ten titles chosen by the industry panel, will try to incorporate fine examples of the diverse work submitted.

The call for submissions closes on May 10th. For more information on how to submit, contact Lauren on laurenparsons@legend-paperbooks.co.uk or call 0207 426 0340.

Tom judges short story competition

This month Tom has been helping judge an international short story competition organised by Chapter One Promotions.

Tom comments: I was delighted to judge the short story competition this year. I was unsure and interested in what we would receive - I thought there would be a great response though you can never be certain on the direction guidelined submissions will take.

What we received was excellent - a fantastic range of stories covering a multitude of styles, angles and themes. The average quality of writing was very high with very few dipping below a highly competent mark. There were some which were enjoyable to read and others that clearly stood out as having that little bit of extra edge.

Particularly covering such a range, it was difficult to choose winners and on a different day I could have swayed differently. But we really liked the ones we chose for winning places and are confident they each offer something very special."

The winners of the competition were:

First Place: The Shed by Robert Grossmith
Second Place: Witness by Mary Colvin
Third Place: After the Storm by Catriona Graham

To read the full list of winners click here

Lucy