Wednesday 28 December 2011

Gingerbread House

Just before Christmas my daughter Sarah was desperately searching shops for a gingerbread house. She couldn't find one anywhere and had pretty well given up. I happened to be email-chatting to Marit Meredith, who publishes the PaperseZine (literary and arts on-line review) and mentioned the lack of gingerbread houses and the next norning in the post a parcel arrived containing the most magnificent self-assembly house you could imagine. My daughter was stunned and we're all waiting to New Year when she's going to allow us to very slowly nibble bits.
Thanks to the Santa Lady (Marit actually comes from Norway) I have a very happy Sarah!

Wednesday 30 November 2011

After the Cornerstones competition

Well, the Cornerstones competition to find the best cover and blurb out of a selected 50 books published in 2011 closes today. Thanks to all my Twitter, Linkedin and email friends who voted, as well as everyone who surfed into my site by accident! It happens! Actually the thanks are for voting , whether for me, or for any of the other books, because the competition is about raising awareness, not winning glittering prizes (though they're always nice!).
I'll post the result on this blog as soon as Helen at Cornerstones announces it, as well as tweeting it and posting it on my FaceBook page.
On behalf of everyone at The Temporal Detective Agency.....thanks again.
Now read our adventure battling the Black Knight in A Leap of Faith available from www.46s.biz.
Richard

Sunday 20 November 2011

Cornerstones competition

Cornerstones, one of the leading literary consultancy and editorial companies have announced a competition for those books published in 2011, but not by the big six publishers. They have taken 50 titles and the competition is to decide which one has the cover and blurb most likely to attract a reader.
Amazingly, my book, A Leap of Faith, is one of those selected and if it's to win then all votes count and your email vote to Helen Corner at helen@cornerstones.co.uk could tip the balance. The title with the most public votes will win the glittering prizes!
The cover is on my website as well as my publisher's  and the publisher blurb is as follows:
A Leap of Faith by Richard Hardie, 46S Publishing Ltd. Tertia, Unita and Marlene are looking for more interesting cases and better toilet facilities for the Temporal Detective Agency. Instead, they get stuck with flying statues, missing monuments and stolen diamonds, not to mention some of the most powerful knights from Camelot. The odds are stacked against them; maybe setting up a time-travelling detective agency wasn't such a good idea...
I'll happily forward links and details of the other books and authors to anyone who would like to see them.
Thanks in advance for your vote!!!

Thursday 13 October 2011

Publerati blog

I read today's blog by Caleb Mason on www.publerati.com. Very revealing about the attitude of traditional publishing and especially about bundling (in essence packaging) and pricing. It's well worth going to his site and reading it. As he points out, the publishing industry is no different from any other, going back to the invention of the wheel.
I admit that Caleb is my literary agent in America, however his perceptive reasoning only makes me more glad I chose him and he chose me. I understand Tertia and Unita are pretty chuffed about it too!

Monday 19 September 2011

Leap of Faith preview

From tomorrow (20th Sept) anyone visiting the Leap of Faith page on www.46s.biz will be able to read the first few pages of the book before buying. I'm expecting people to be so thrilled they buy two copies each!

Publisher website hits

Leap of Faith went on sale at www.46s.biz 8 days ago and to date has had more than 2,200 hits on its pages. Thanks to everyone who has visited and I'm sure those of you who didn't buy will return!

Sunday 18 September 2011

Marit Meredith's newsletter

Marit Meredith headlined Leap of Faith in her newsletter today. Fantastic write-up and very complimentary about Tracey Tucker and her artwork. Rightly so!
Many thanks, Marit. More power to your newsletter's elbow. I can tell you that Tertia and Unita were bowled over and have promised to knuckle down and get their own website up and running as soon as possible. Trouble is they're busy trying to solve the mystery of the Trouble With Swords at the moment.
http://wherefactsandfictionfuse.blogspot.com/?spref=tw

Thursday 15 September 2011

David Robinson Newsletter

Fantastic news! The David Robinson Daily Newsletter has headlined A Leap Of Faith twice this week on merit. Many thanks, David!
http://uk.mg41.mail.yahoo.com/dc/launch

Monday 12 September 2011

We go live!

Yesterday Leap of Faith was available for the first time from 46South Publishing Ltd on their website  After nearly 6 years of trying to get published Tertia, Unita, Marlene and the rest of the Temporal Detective Agency have got their wish and they now live in electronic pages, rather than just in my mind.
A great day!

Friday 9 September 2011

A thought for today

Sometimes a day can seem so bad it's imossible to see how it can ever get better. Then the next day things happen that restore your faith in humanity and maybe even (who knows) guardian angels? Yesterday was such a day. I'm not sure about the guardian angels, but it would be nice!

Monday 5 September 2011

How to....

7th September 2011
Okay, so why should socks feature in my first blog? Good question! And the answer is????
Well actually Tracey, my wonderful illustrator misread what I wanted as the sketch for the last chapter of Leap of Faith. The socks confused me for days and I thought she had obviously thought of some amazinglink between my characters and one and a half pairs of foot gear.
Wrong!
I'd asked for a pair of stocks and her mental spell-checker failed on this occasion. Could have been worse. Any suggestions how?