Blogs

Lots of folk ask me how Unbound Works. (Well, one person, thanks for that Eddie.) The answer is quite simple. I've no idea But then I thought back to my gilded youth when everything was quite simply complicated so that even a kid could understand it. Unbound is like Blue Peter without -down Shep! In those days John, Peter and Val stood in front of a big hollow tower, made out of polystyrene, with banded numbers on it. They'd look quite glum...

Lily Poole by Jack O'Donnell (better known on here as Celticman) is now available for support on Unbound Books. Pledge away to get it properly published. This is the first of three books by ABCtales authors to go for publication in this manner. Crowd funding is the 'new way' and Unbound are at the forefront of the revolution. ABCtales has been chosen as their way of finding great new authors and Jack is the first of those to go 'live. Support...

The Men Who Made Us Spend . BBC 2, 9.10pm. This is a three-part series directed, written and presented by investigative journalist Jacques Peretti. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01zxmrv/the-men-who-made-us-spend-episode-1 In the first episode he looked at how monopoly capital makes it’s own rules. He gave the example of electric bulb makers in pre-Hitler Germany which sounded like an elder of Zion conspiracy theory only for the paperwork...

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights was published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell in 1847 because women don’t write books, only they do. Heathcliffe is the hero, or should I say anti-hero. He’s got a hint of gypsy in him, a man’s man that marries Isabella Linton to spite his childhood sweetheart Catherine Earnshaw (hints of incest here) hangs Isabella’s dog from a gatepost to show what kind of man she’s marrying and beats his head against the branch...

It’s a catchy title that titillates. You know when you open the pages it won’t be like wading through text book squiggles of grey snails lining up to teach you something meaningful about the author’s life that you don’t want to know. It won’t try and regress you or teach you that God is on your side if you can just [well, fill in your own bit here]. To begin with Hudson’s book disappointed me. It has been described as autobiographical. Here, the...

I was born in 1956; Elizabeth's gently comic tale of a village mainly populated by ladylike but hard-up widows and spinsters is not historically remote. Miss Matty, Miss Pole and the rest practise 'genteel economy' employing 'one little charity school maid' and serving bread and butter thinly cut at their card-playing socials because they can't afford to bake loads of cake. When exciting events arrive, like the magician's performance at the...

A day early I'm afraid as I'm off to WOMAD but two absolute crackers from two of our stalwarts. The story is quirky and funny whilst the poem is heart breaking. Enjoy! http://www.abctales.com/story/terrence-oblong/mattie-johnson http://www.abctales.com/story/veraclark/24th-july It's Tony Cook here - back for six weeks whilst Luke and Anna enjoy their honeymoon. Their wedding was a wonderful affair on the banks of the River Dart and I'm sure you...

It’s not everyday one gets a publicist. It’s a bit like a bald man going to the barbers. People just snigger behind your back (not that I’m bald, I just lack hair on selected parts of my head). I’d a meeting scheduled for 2 p.m. I’m notorious for forgetting people’s names. Last night, for example, I was talking for a couple of minutes with a guy at the bar. Usual sort of football chatter. Then he came out with it. ‘You don’t know who I am? Do...

When i published my book last year i was in such a rush that i didn 't edit it properly Now I have and added another 3000 words. If you bought the original let me know and I'll send you a copy of the latest edition. I'm not trying to push the book just trying to be fair to all who supported me here on Abc....

Visibility is a trick of the light. Invisibility is a lack of publicity. As the economist John Kenneth Galbraith suggested in the Preface to The Great Crash 1929 : ‘No author can be fully trusted when describing the quality of his own work’. I am not allowed to say buy Lily Poole because it is a really good book, or a really bad book - negative reviews also increase sales - but no reviews means stasis. It means invisibility and equilibrium...