Choose our Golden Ticket.

OK, it's time for you to help us out again.
You've helped us choose the title, you helped us decide that having a cover competition was fraught with trouble. And now, with a bit of luck, you'll help us to decide which of these 2 designs should go on to become our 'Golden Ticket'.
A quick reminder;
 Every copy of Splinters that's ordered before publication date will be sealed. In one of those sealed copies will be a 'Golden Ticket'. In this case the golden ticket will be a Tarot Death Card. The person who finds this card inside their book win loads of amazing things, including signed copies of Joseph's books & £50 to spend on any books you like.  Read more here.

 Local artist Robin Stevenson (@Raliel) is designing our tarot card and has forwarded me two design options. Obviously, these are just sketches. The finished article will be even more spectacular. However, we'd like you to help us decide which of the designs you like best.

 

HERE THEY ARE.

 

Now then, which do you prefer?

 

You can vote for 1 or 2 at the top right hand corner of this website.

Voting will finish at midnight on Wednesday 10th October.

 

Thank you for helping out.

 

ORDER YOUR COPY OF SPLINTERS HERE  

 



Golden Ticket update

We've had a fantastic response to our Golden Ticket competition since it was announced on Wednesday. A quick reminder of how it works.

 Every copy of Splinters that's ordered before publication date will be sealed. In one of those sealed copies will be a 'Golden Ticket'. In this case the golden ticket will be a Tarot Death Card. The person who finds this card inside their book win loads of amazing things. Read more here.

Now things have got even more exciting. Because we've found an amazing artist to design the Tarot Death Card for us.

Robin Stevenson (aka @Raliel on Twitter) is a wonderful, extraordinary individual whose artwork has been chosen by Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer to sell at their celebrity auctions. I've known Robin for some time and his energy and passion is hugely infectious.

This is Robin.

 

And here are a couple of his previous pieces.

I cannot wait to see what Robin's interpretation of a Tarot Death card will be, but it's sure to be memorable. It will be a unique and collectible piece which makes this Golden Ticket Competition even more special.

 

So now, not only can you win loads of books, but you will also get a totally unique piece of art, signed by Robin.

 

This just gets better and better.

 

BUY YOUR COPY HERE.

So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it.

 

I never thought my life could be
Anything but catastrophe
But suddenly I begin to see
A bit of good luck for me
'Cause I've got a golden ticket
I've got a golden twinkle in my eye.

 

Ah, remember that classic moment when young Charlie Bucket finds a Golden Ticket and wins a trip to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory? Roald Dahl, you wonderful clever man.

 

Well, Timeline Books is offering an amazing prize for the lucky person who finds a 'Golden Ticket' inside their copy of Splinters.

 

However, this is the golden ticket that you're looking for.

 

Every copy of Splinters that is pre-ordered will be sealed. Inside one of the copies will be this card. It will be signed by Joseph. 

 

The lucky recipient of this card will win the following amazing prize.

• A signed copy of Meat  
• A signed copy of Garbage Man
• A signed copy of Kill Crew
• A signed copy of Joseph's new novel, Blood Fugue, courtesy of the lovely people at Salt Publishing (published at the end of November).
• A signed copy of Black Feathers, Joseph's new two part novel published next year, courtesy of a gorgeous publishers Angry Robot.
• £50 to spend on any books you like, courtesy of the UK's finest bookshop 
• My own personal copy of Roald Dahl's Collected Short Stories, in recognition of what a great storyteller he was.

Instructions on how to claim the prize will also be inside the winner's book.

 

We think this is a pretty special prize. And even if you don't win, you'll have got yourself a brilliant collection of short stories. YOU CAN'T LOSE!
 



BUY YOUR COPY HERE

 



9780957440500

This is the ISBN for Splinters.
Cost me £120.

I reckon it'll look good on the back of this.



 



One Month to Go

There is one month to go before Splinters is officially published.

QUICK, BUY IT HERE

Here is the situation.
 I've ordered the ISBN's (international standard book number) from the ISBN agency. There was an exciting moment when I got a phone call from them to tell me that there was another publishing company in the UK called Timeline Books. Apparently they'd registered in June 2012. I knew I should have done this earlier.
They've published a book called 'Rediscovering the Orpington Car'. It is a book about the Orpington Car. Thankfully it is not an awesome collection of dark fiction by an award winning author. Otherwise there might have been some confusion. The nice people at the agency told me that, as the subjucts of our books were so wildly different it wasn't a problem having the same name. It does however mean that the series of books i'd planned to publish on vintage cars may have to be put on hold.

I've been posting out uncorrected proof copies of the book to people who we hope will read, enjoy and review the book. Two dozen have been posted out and we have another 12 to send. The national newspapers do not give very much review space at all to short stories and even less to horror. It's been a real task to find the right people to send copies of the book to.
It's frustrating for me, and no doubt to other publishers and authors of short stories, that this format isn't given more exposure. Good short story writing is a joy to read. It takes incredible skill for an author to get across their message in this limited style. What the reeader is getting in a short story collection is actually 10-12 wonderful mini novels. That's value right there. In fact I might even put the price of the book up, it's that good.

I won't put the price of the book up. It is that good though.

If you know any friendly reviewers who appreciate the fine art of story writing, please point them in my direction.

Oh yes, and also with one month to go before publication, I have a proff  proof reader. A proper one. I have asked her to do this daunting task in about 10 days. This will give us enough time to do the changes and get it off to the printers for them to print copies of the book in time for publication. It's all very exciting.

The cover design has to be finished too.

Oh, and we need to get some posters together advertising the book launch to send to our friends at Horror in the East.

And we have another exciting announcement soon as well.

ps. Thanks to Ramsey Campbell for the very kind email he sent, wishing the book the very best of luck.

Time for a Catch Up

Trying to publish a book, when you own a bookshop and have two children under 5 is a piece of cake. What makes it even easier is that there are 48 hours in a day and 24 days in the week. I don't need sleep, the Internet provider that I use is excellent and never 'outs', I remember to reply to every email I'm sent and everyone always replies to my emails immediately too.

Yesterday the proof copies of 'Splinters' arrived.

 I hope you like the cover. We're really pleased with the way it turned out.

 

When I spoke to the printers a few weeks ago to get the pricing for the review copies, not having anything printed on the cover saved about £50. I thought that, as our budget is about a grand, saving £50 would be wise.

Putting together the PDF to send to the printers proved pretty tricky in the end too. My computer at home has a pathetic connection and so trying to do any editing work took about 5 times longer than it should as the screen kept freezing because the document was so big.

In the end I sent it to the bookshop and spent a day there polishing it off.

 

The proofs look OK. here's a sneaky peek inside...

There are a few glaring font related mistakes which need correcting and other bits and bobs which hopefully will be spotted by our crack team of proof readers, but the stories themselves are pretty much perfect.

 

The original price we were quoted to have the 500 copies printed also increased by about 10%. That's because I stupidly didn't take into consideration that, in order for the book to be paginated correctly, I might have to add a few more pages to the size of the book. It's still a very good price for what we're getting, but it means that I'll have to buy 10 less bottles of Champagne for the book launch (I'd budgeted to buy 10 bottles).

 

I still haven't ordered ISBNs. 

ISBNs are International Standard Book Numbers, and if you want to sell a book through more than your own house/website, then it makes sense to get one. Each number is unique and makes cataloguing a lot easier. You can read more about the exciting world of ISBNs here.

They cost about £120 for 10. You can't buy individual ISBNs, so it looks like I'm going to have to publish 9 more books.

 

The bookshop I co-own with Tim is called The Big Green Bookshop. We open 7 days a week and both of us have to work most of those days in order to keep up with all the stuff we do there. When there isn't anything happening in the bookshop of an evening (which is rare), there's all the marketing, website updating, reading (a necessary perk of the job) etc to be done. My kids like to help me with this.

Squeezing in the time I need to publish Splinters has proved somewhat of a challenge. So much so that I've just reached an agreement with Tim that allows me to dedicate one whole day each week for the next 7 weeks to Timeline Books. This is the first one of those dedicated days.

 

.....sorry, please excuse me, my daughter wants to play snakes and ladders. Oh and she wants a jammy sandwich. And a Fab. And she wants cuddles.... 

 

I've managed to do more Splinters related stuff in this one day, than I have in the last 2 months and it feels great.

 

We have now set a date and a place for the glorious launch of Splinters. There will be a London launch the week after, but on Saturday November 3rd, Joseph and I will be jumping around and exploding with book launch joy in Lowestoft, where we will be taking part in Horror in the East.

 

I spoke to Emma, the organiser, earlier today and it looks like it's going to be an amazing convention.

I hope she doesn't mind me not bringing any Champagne.

 

So, we now have a product (almost finished) and a launch venue. Right, we need some pre-orders now. So for the next 6 weeks I am going to shamelessly (but in a rather lovely way)  plug, push, market and encourage people to get behind this utterly brilliant collection of stories.

 

So go on. Buy one. It'll make me very happy. x

 

 

  





What on Earth are we going to put in this book, anyway?

From Joseph D'Lacey

Without revealing the table of contents, I did want to say little about the anatomy of Splinters.

            Ever since Cadenza Magazine accepted the first story I wrote in 2001, I’ve been dying to put together a collection. Without self-publishing, however, it became obvious as time went by that such a project was a big ask.

I’ve tested the water with two or three publishers over the years but they didn’t dig my work. Additionally, the short story ‘market’ is a tough one. People don’t buy anthologies the way they did when I was a young, voracious reader and you rarely see them prominently displayed in bookshops.

            Because it seemed an unrealistic expectation, I stopped giving the idea of a collection any real energy a long time ago. Isn’t it funny how sometimes, when you stop pushing, things just fall into your lap? Unbeknownst to me, Simon Key created Timeline Books and had me on his hit list. A few months ago, he got in touch with a proposition. The rest is interactive publishing history.

Or, at least, it will be after we release the book…

            I was concerned about the selection process, I have to say. If we didn’t see eye to eye on what we liked and what worked best, where would it leave us?

I sent Simon about forty tales in batches of three or more and when he’d read them all we met and discussed his responses. Of the ones he chose, some are previously published, others have never been seen. Some are satirical. Some are bleak. Some are funny. Some are gruesome. All of them are tales I’m proud to have written and I’m relieved to say that Simon has chosen the best of my short fiction from the last eleven years.

            For the moment, that’s all I can tell you but I sincerely hope you love them. Every single one.

Splinters is available to pre-order here