We’re currently putting the finishing touches to Stephen Miller’s autobiography Paralympian, and very good it is looking, too. The final cover is shown below, as you’ll see now featuring the words ‘Foreword by Kevin Keegan’.

King Kev (at the time of writing still Newcastle United manager, despite naughty national press speculation) is understandably rather popular in these parts, having now saved the Magpies from certain disaster on three separate occasions, once as a player and twice as a manager. Kevin and Stephen have been friends since Stephen was a nipper, as proven by this great photo.

Kevin also provides a quote for the back cover: ‘I know how hard it is to compete at the highest level. It takes dedication, courage and self-belief, and Stephen has those in abundance. His story is truly unique and inspiring.’ The book is released on 28 July, but you can preorder a copy now from our website or from Amazon.

Paul

It’s a fairly crucial question for the publishing industry: why do people buy books? New research commissioned by The Bookseller shows that the most important factor in driving UK shoppers to buy books is an instore display. That’s a little bit disappointing for independent publishers who can’t afford to pay for prominent instore placement and have to rely more on word of mouth or internet marketing.

The Bookseller research surveyed more than 1,000 people across the UK, and the results are below:

26% instore displays
14% newspaper and magazine reviews
13% mentions on television or radio
12% recommendations from friends and family
9% internet recommendations
2% the advice of shop staff or librarians

For some reason the percentages only seem to add up to 76, so who knows where the other 24% get their book buying habits from. If you’re stumped for a recommendation, why not buy this?

Paul

We get our padded envelopes from Poundland – you can guess how much they cost. So, every couple of weeks, I pop in to buy a basketful. Poundland also sell books – remainders returned to the publisher and sold on for pennies, basically to save the cost of pulping. This week, I noticed a very high profile book – ‘My Defence’ by Ashley Cole (RRP £18.99, now yours for – obviously – a pound).

According to The Guardian, Cole was paid an advance of £250,000 (The Sun says £500,000), yet his book sold just 4,000 copies. So ‘love cheat’ Cole (The Sun again), by my reckoning, must owe his publisher about £245,000. Of course, they won’t ask for it back. That’s the nature of big money celebrity advances, although surely the Ashley Cole ‘affair’ will have caused major publishers to think before splashing the big bucks.

But did I splash a quid and buy a copy? No. To obscurely quote Curb Your Enthusiasm, ‘I’m with Cheryl!’

Paul

I was at the festival on Saturday night for the Stuart Maconie gig (got to talk to him and get a book signed at the end) and had a quick look at our set up to find we’d have a much bigger audience than anticipated. Cue Wheatman panic attack.
Sunday: 12 o’clock came and Anna from New Writing North introduced the event. She talked about mentoring for a bit and asked me a few questions about publishing and opportunities in the region for new writers. Then it was my turn to introduce Pete (pictured), Roz and Stephen, who delivered readings from their work and answered my questions about mentoring, entering competitions and story development. It was a relaxed and informal atmosphere – enjoyable, in fact – and great to see the audience reaction, laughing in all the right places to the chosen stories. I’m sure it will have helped raise our authors’ profiles further in the region and boost any future interest in them.

As all this was going on, Roger Stutter was busy at our book stand in QHA foyer and doing a brilliant job. When he wasn’t talking to everyone who passed by, he even sold a few books too!

In my humble and unbiased opinion, the event went very well indeed. Big thanks to Roger, Pete, Roz, Stephen and Anna.

Photo above: Roger setting up the book stand.

Stu

Stuck for something to do tomorrow? Well, why not pop along to the Queen’s Hall in Hexham for around 12pm. As part of the Hexham Book Festival, three Tonto writers will be showcasing their work in an hour-long event.
Pete Tanton will be reading from Johnny Lonely, Roz Wyllie will be reading from Everything You Ever Wanted and Stephen Shieber will be reading from Being Normal.

As if it couldn’t get much better, I’ll be asking them questions about their work and even answering a few from Anna Disley, Deputy Director at New Writing North. And that’s not even the best part… the event is free. Free, I tells ya!

In QHA foyer, yet another Tonto writer, Roger Stutter, will be playing shopkeeper at our book stand and selling all Tonto books at Hextastic discounts.

Tickets can be booked from QHA directly, or you can turn up on the day. Hope to see you there.

I’m off to see Stuart Maconie there tonight as part of their brilliant line up.

Stu