Stock photo surprise: also, hand-axes.

I just found one of the pieces of stock art I was seriously considering using for the cover of The Maker’s Mask on a commercially published book, which was surprising. Also, today I went to the British Museum and got to hold a Neanderthal flint hand-axe – they must have a ton of the things […]

The Distant Hours

I posted a while back about how much I was looking forward to reading Kate Morton’s The Distant Hours, so I thought that now I’d acquired a copy and read it I should probably review it. 🙂 Short version: this book is beautifully constructed and well written, with a central mystery that keeps its grip […]

Britain After Rome

I am reading Robin Fleming’s Britain after Rome: The Fall and Rise, 400 – 1070 and really enjoying it. Part of this is because it’s full of descriptions of clothing. But most of it is that I am hugely attracted to reading about cobbled-together, makeshift societies, and to the details of trade webs and burial […]

A review and a recommendation

New today: a lovely review (you may need to scroll down) from Lesley Hall on her site. In other news, I am reading Wendy Moore’s Wedlock: How Georgian Britain’s Worst Husband Met His Match, and am gripped.

Update

Today brought cheering and unexpected news: I’ve sold more books than I thought I had, because apparently the Amazon and Book Depository orders all come through in one lump at the beginning of the month. Who knew? Not me, because self-publishing is a continuing voyage of discovery. 🙂 The beginning of the week brought a […]

Legal deposit

I’ve found Tony Loton’s Book Publishing DIY very helpful in getting my books into print. Since it was published in 2008, there are parts that are out of date (in particular, it recommends Lulu’s Published By You package, which they don’t do any more, and also a lot of the links to Lulu’s help pages […]

Book rec, and longer sample of The Maker’s Mask

I recently bought N.K Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms because I’d read the first three chapters on the webpage and got hooked. (I would link to N.K Jemisin’s webpage, but it seems to have been hacked – it’s nkjemisin.com, anyway, and hopefully it’ll be back soon) I recommend The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms highly. N.K Jemisin […]

Madame Guillotine talks about why she’s publishing with Lulu

Madame Guillotine has a really interesting post up On Self Publishing With Lulu. (Also, you can see me failing at threaded comments. Oh, WordPress, I am still a bumbling newbie where you are concerned).