Wednesday 2 June 2021

News 2 June 2021

 

Bookstores

Don’t you just love them?  Yes, this is the woman who has been known to go out clothes shopping and come back with books. Often. In recent months, though, shopping in bookstores has been more difficult.

Of course many of my books will be in the online store we’ve started: http://www.thebridgetowncafebooksshop.co.uk . Here we give you a choice of ways to buy the book. You can search the site or browse it. Choices include buying via us or in some cases getting assigned copy directly from the author.

We offer Amazon – but they’ve been doing some very odd things with books recently. We also offer Barnes and Noble for our US friends and my personal favourite on-line store The Hive to UK shoppers.  They have a lovely clean web site and you can choose which indie bookshop they will support. I’ve found their book recommendations very good as well.

I love book shops that have cafés attached. Or, even cafés that have book shops attached. Shall we soon be able to enjoy those to the full again? I hope so!

And by the way, when we’ve finished putting books into the Bridge Town Café Books Shop, we’ll be adding in a café service.

 

Current writing

My main work at the moment is my fifth Peace Child novel. Former protagonist Kaleem has now become a minor character. A minor character has stepped up. I’m about half way through the first draft and am already sharing it with my SCBWI group.

I’m also continuing to work on my Prompts 2022 book. 365 writing prompts – one for each day of the year. Others are contributing as well.

I was pleased to have Dreyfus’s Bed accepted. This was written in response to a prompt. You can read it here.  Many of the ideas about homelessness that feature in this story only occurred to me as I wrote.

My new creative writing exercise for Talking About My Generation can be found here.

 

The Young Person’s Library

This month I’ve added two more Narnia books:

The Last Battle

A classic suitable for the fluent upper primary reader.

 

The Horse and His Boy

Also a classic suitable for the fluent upper primary reader.

      

 

 

Current reading recommendation

This month I’m recommending Meet Me at the Museum by Ann Youngsen

This is a story of a mature couple finding love through a series of letters on which they get to know each other intimately. It starts off with a simple query addressed to a professor who has died.  A colleague replies on his behalf.  The story of their lives comes to us through the letters. We begin to empathise with the characters. They both have much sadness in their lives and we watch as they sustain each other through the writing of the letters.

Meet Me at the Museum was nominated for the Costa First Novel Award in 2018.

 Grab your copy here.     

 

Giveaway

Note: these are usually mobi-files to be downloaded to a Kindle.  Occasionally there are PDFs.  

This month I’m giving away So Now You're Published. What next? aka Marketing for Indies.

The last thing most writers want to do is spend a lot of time on marketing. Yet books don't sell themselves by magic, no matter how good they are. Publishers do what they can but time and money is limited, and inevitably they have to move on to the next project. If you can adapt a few useful routines, especially ones you find palatable and fun, you'll hardly notice you're doing it. There are heaps of useful suggestions here and handy check lists to keep you on track.

So Now You're Published. What next? is a manual for writers about how to make themselves visible in a crowded market and how to treat themselves as a business.  Grab your copy here.  

 

Note: Normally my books and the books supplied by the imprints I manage sell for anything from £0.99 to £10.99.  Most on Kindle are about £2.99 and the average price for paperback is £7.00. Writers have to make a living. But I’m offering these free samples so that you can try before you buy.

 

The Schellberg Project

The posts may be helpful for teachers who are familiar with the Schellberg stories or who are teaching about the Holocaust and also for other writers and readers of historical fiction.

Sometimes I also write about what might be of interest to other writers.

There was just post in May – about how I’m thinking of more stories and how in fact I’m going to be writing about the German resistance.  You can read that here.

School visits

I’ve suspended these until further notice. I’m now starting work on a series of on-line materials.  

Some notes about my newsletters and blogs

They do overlap a little but here is a summary of what they all do.

 

Bridge House Authors For all those published by Bridge House, CaféLit, Chapeltown or The Red Telephone or interested in being published by us. General news about the imprints. News for writers. Links to book performance. Sign up here.

 

The Bridgetown  Café Bookshop where you can buy my book and books published by Bridge House Publishing, CafeLit, Chapeltown Books and The Red Telephone.  We’re building up our inventory, so please bear with us. Visit us here.     

 

Chapeltown Books News about our books. Sign up here.

 

The Creative Café Project News about the project and CaféLit – for the consumer rather than for the producer.  Sign up here.   

 

Gill’s News: News about my writing, The Schellberg Project, School Visits and Events. Book recommendations and giveaways. Find it here.   

 

Pushing Boundaries, Flying Higher News about conferences and workshops to do with the young adult novel. (infrequent postings) Sign up here.  

 

Red Telephone Books News about our books and our authors. Sign up here.

 

A Publisher’s Perspective Here I blog as a publisher. Access this here.   

 

The Creative Café Project Listings and reviews of creative cafés. See them here.   

 

CaféLit Stories Find these here

 

Gill James Writer All about writing and about my books. View this here.

 

Gill’s Recommended Reads Find information here about books that have taken me out of my editor’s head and a reminder of the ones I’ve highlighted in this newsletter.    

 

Gill’s Sample Fiction Read some of my fiction here.

 

The House on Schellberg Street All about my Schellberg project. Read it here.

 

Writing Teacher All about teaching creative writing.  Some creative writing exercises. Access this here.     

 

Books Books Books Weekly offers on our books and news of new books. Find them here. 

 

The Young Person’s Library The children’s book catalogue. Access it here.

 

Fair Submissions  Find it here.   

Opportunities for writers are added several times a day. Roughly once a month I send it out to a list. If you would like to be on that list, sign up here.  

Happy reading and writing.

 

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