Title 3 - The Two Linties

I am excited and delighted to say that I have been able to locate Clare Mallory's heir and agree terms with them and so my third title will be Clare Mallory's The Two Linties which will be republished for the first time since its original publication in 1950 in May/June 2012. Having republished two London stories, I've moved to New Zealand to tell the story of an ambitious orphan's first steps as a writer while leading a double life.

Unlike Clare Mallory's more well-known school stories, this is a story of budding journalists competing for their place in the local paper.

A pdf file of Chapter One of The Two Linties is available for download from the website.

Developments

Book-buying is an interestingly emotional business relying on attraction, recommendations and emotion just as much as it has to do with interest in finding out what happens next as you turn the page. That’s what’s made publishing so interesting over the last few years bringing back The Whicharts or ‘Ballet Shoes for cynics’ as I’ve heard it summarised and Five Farthings a lovely family story of first love and 1930s London which deserves to be back in print for the first time since the 1930s. I’m pleased that collectors are willing to buy paperbacks over their usual preference of vintage hardbacks, but I know I need to develop an ‘electronic list’. It isn’t, sadly, economically viable to produce hardbacks with a dustwrapper, so I combine the best and most readable vintage fiction with contemporary technology to publish quality paperbacks with a heavier-weight paper and resilient glued-in binding.

I'm still hard at work with the final rights negotiations for Titles 3 and 4. The shortlist for Titles 5 onwards was reduced by quite a considerable number after a Christmas holidays reading vintage fiction and discarding many ideas. I prefer to reprint the rare, but I also want them to be readable by the collector and, ideally, by any keen reader of fiction today. I wondered about Freda C. Bond for a Christmas 2012 release, but found her books to be tissue-thin in terms of plot, though the number of adventures per chapter exceeded all parody of the GO genre. One request has been to investigate bringing Pennington back - I'll report back on that as soon as I can.

More about Five Farthings

Five Farthings: a London story. The title's beautifully clear and you're drawn into a world of City life that's as recognisable to any commuter or City worker today, even if City rents aren't low any more. It works, I think, because it's an enjoyable family story with an uncommon subject at its heart. How many people even today are familiar with the layout of the City - how many just walk past Cannon Street station and don't even look up at the splendour of St Paul's on the daily commute? I try, though the dragons fade into the background after a while, striking as they are. London in your lunch hour probably won't include Wren churches or sandwiches in the parks - most of us manage a quick coffee or a wander around shopping before dashing back to our desks. My office has daft pigeons wandering in circles around the guttering - Redlich has them pottering about around the roof of the cathedral. The only thing I would have liked to do while researching and putting this book together was to visit a Lyons Corner House. I'm told that some could be spectacular and doubt that the interior of a modern coffee house would strike me in quite the same way.

Five Farthings arrived safely

A very welcome set of boxes has arrived and I'm sending out advance orders this weekend. I'm incredibly impressed and grateful for the amazing work of my graphic designer and artist.

Tidying up

Well, most of the Christmas cake has been eaten and the few crumbs remaining are proof of its goodness. I'm trying to ignore the rain lashing against the windows and concentrating on clearing space on the floor and on the shelves, though the two are merging together in a few areas of the house. Five Farthings will arrive from the printer very soon and I need space for the boxes and also a bit of space for the production line of postage and packing.

I'm also sorting out things like library books and trying to remember when they're due back as I'm worriedly aware that it's soon and that fines threaten. This is why one library book has concealed itself in the house and is probably waiting for me to count to one hundred before searching for it. I try and use the library regularly on the way home from work as it keeps me in the habit of reading and browsing, always nice if you need some peace after work. The range of stock is particularly good, from the main publishers to smaller people like Persephone and Fidra Books. That's why I still use libraries - I may want to read a light novel on the train, but I may not want to buy my own copy just yet. I may want to try out a new author - that's Guillaume Musso for the moment - and I can't (sadly) afford to buy every book that looks interesting. Then again, I'm lucky to have a branch library that is open later in the evening and is on the way home. I'm still furious that my local library got rid of so much of its rare stacks and that many of those books never made it into the library booksale. The time has passed since I last took out as many books as my ticket would allow - perhaps I've grown up and balanced by enthusiasm, but there is a limit as to the number of books you can comfortably carry home.

Time and Space

I like this peaceful interlude between Christmas and New Year - the online shop is still open and orders are coming in, but it's more gentle than the pre-festivities frenzy of shopping that characterises December. Now, though, the book-collectors are returning and buying their own books again. Whether they've been given a nice cheque for Christmas or their families ignored their hints and the ever-useful Amazon wishlists, the book-buying habit is very hard to break, no matter how many books you have shelved, on the floor or 'somewhere safe' ready to be read. I've spent the last day or so reviewing books, making notes for future blog posts and just enjoying reading uncritically. It's always useful to have a break from reading for business, just to regain perspective and find out if your first impression was correct or not.

Five Farthings now available for pre-order

Goodness, that's an exciting thing to write and even better to add a link to. I've just finished updating the website and testing all the links and (fingers crossed) everything will keep working. Chapter One of Five Farthings is also there for you to read, if you'd like to.... Buyers are all adored and very welcome.

Now to catch up on some blog reading and admire the craft work as well as people's reading. I'm coveting cardigangirlverity's stocking at the top of her site. It has pockets for books on the outside and (I suspect) plenty of room for small presents like clementines and chocolate coins inside.