Silver Linings

‘Do you want the bad news or the good news?’
I remember my old man used to spring this question on me sometimes, usually in a context where I knew that both pieces of news would pertain to football.
Usually I’d go for the bad news first: so I’d hear, say, that Blackburn had only managed a draw at home to the side bottom of the table, but then the disappointment would be tempered by the news, for example, that Manchester United had lost 3-0.

Silver linings.

My writerly bad news a couple of months ago was hearing that the publisher of my debut and so-far only novel, The Hotel Hokusai, was going out of business. This was bad not just for me, but for lots of people. Ringwood has been going since 1997 and given dozens of writers with Scottish connections their debuts. It’s also helped launch numerous careers in publishing for talented young editors, designers and marketers. In my case I was particularly lucky to enjoy the talents of Megan Gibson as my main editor, and Skye Galloway as the designer of a tremendous cover.
I’ll always be grateful to Sandy Jamieson, Ringwood’s founder and managing editor, for believing in Hotel Hokusai, and all of the team who helped bring it into the world.

The good news is that the end of Ringwood wasn’t really the end. Some of the authors have decided to form a collective to continue selling their books under the Ringwood name. I wish them all the very best with this, but for various reasons decided it wasn’t for me. Instead I went for the second option of the two suggested by Sandy – I bought the remaining stock of my novel to sell independently.

Thus, there is a glorious pile of around 70 copies of The Hotel Hokusai sitting in a corner of my bedroom, waiting to be dispatched into the world. This good news does have a slight additional piece of bad news trailing along behind it: I had to set up an Amazon seller account (apparently it helps, for reasons too boring to go into, to keep the book defined as ‘in print’).
However, anyone who buys a book from ‘Deanston Honya’ on Amazon is basically buying from me.
So, if you are reading this and thinking that you want a copy or know someone who does, please, rather than go through Amazon just drop me an email (see foot of ‘about’ page) with your address. I’m happy to look into postage costs outside UK if you don’t mind that being passed on.

Actually, I have one more piece of good news before signing off.
I’ve got a piece in a fine looking print anthology from new Glasgow-based indie publisher Tantallon Tir. The anthology is called 274 miles (the length of the Scottish mainland) and features 40 short pieces of 274 words (give or take a few) by 40 different writers with a Scottish connection.

It’s out on Sept 30th and you can pre-order copies here. Thankfully for me, I will have no involvement whatsoever in dispatching them…