Signed copies of The Road to Hell by Sheila Quigley are available through the Tonto website NOW!

Just CLICK HERE and ‘add to cart’.

The book is being released and launched on Thursday 5 November and then Sheila will be off on signing sessions around the north east.

Another hectic week in Tontoland.

First up, if you are a publisher and looking for a sales company to represent you – DO NOT use VINE HOUSE DISTRIBUTION. Please.

Also – Charlie Walduck will be on Loose Women on Monday 26 October talking about his book, Slimmer Charlie.

And – I have 30 tickets to give away for Sheila Quigley’s launch for The Road To Hell on 5 November in Newcastle. Places are limited, so please only request if you can make it on the night! Kickoff is 7pm. Please email me to reserve a place.

No, not just my mental age – Tonto Books is officially four years old!

In the words of Fatboy Slim himself: We’ve come a long way, baby.

There’s now 24 Tonto books on Amazon – two due out next year and still a few more to be confirmed and publicised including ’Unzipped: Life on the inside’ by Rainbow puppeteer, Ronnie Le Drew (Zippy).

The earlier part of the year was spent signing books up for this year and next, then pushing ahead with production and PR. Slimmer Charlie and Dirty Leeds have had some fantastic publicity, both are doing signings and festival appearances (Charlie is at Waterstone’s in Huddersfield tomorrow, then both writers are at Morley Literature Festival on Sunday), Charlie is on TV again soon and both have some brilliant reviews on Amazon (no, it wasn’t me. Honest).

Thanks for all your support – it is appreciated!

As I’ve been busy with the production of The Road to Hell, my email replies haven’t been that great – all those writers emailing about the new short stories collection, I’ll be back on the ball next week.

All being well, 2010 will be an exciting time for Tonto Books – you never know, I may even start publishing poetry and children’s books.

As a birthday celebration I’ll be giving away some free books next week. Stay tuned…

Finally got The Road to Hell done and dusted today, going to print in the morning.

It’s been a mad one working with Sheila on this – there’s been tears, tantrums, shouting, swearing… and that was just me! Seriously though, the buildup to sending to print is always the worst part for me. The time from going to print and then holding the book in my hand is the most nervous for me. It’s always a brilliant feeling to hold one of Tonto’s new books for the first time and, with this being my first hardcover, makes it that bit more exciting. It’s been a joy to work with Sheila and something I look forward to in the future

Since signing Sheila up, there has been some huge developments here at Tonto Towers… working with a huge PR company, agents phoning up with manuscript offers, loads more submissions, a sales team and distributor in place and some rather splendid titles lined up for the next few years.

Here’s a sneak preview of the brand spanking new cover, designed by Elliot Tomson at Preamptive:

(Don’t forget to ask your local friendly WHSmith if they will be stocking it)

How boring. I always title every Christmas themed post as ‘Mistletoe and Wine’. I’ll do some more in the next few weeks and they’ll still be the same.

Anywho, the reason behind it that all the Christmas books are out now, and if Waterstone’s hub ever sorts itself out this year, we’ve got plenty of celeb biogs by the same celebs who had biogs out last year, or similar celebs with other biogs. Or whatever. They’ll be the ones that you see piled up in every bookstore you go in over the next few weeks.

I haven’t got enough money to bribe bookstores, so you’ll not see Being Normal front of store alongside the JLC biography this year. Shucks. Hopefully my mates in Leeds and Yorkshire stores will be piling Dirty Leeds high this year. It went straight to reprint after only five days on sale, you know! That’s a Tonto Books world record.

We’ve got some events left in the run up to Christmas:

Charlie Walduck was signing at the Trafford Centre in Manchester today, Nik Jones is on the road this week at places I can’t remember (http://sites.google.com/site/nikjoneswriter/events), Charlie Walduck will be at Huddersfield Waterstone’s on 17 October, then Charlie and Robert Endeacott will be at the Morley Literature Festival on 18 October. After that, Robert will be off to Borders Birstall on 20 October (with BBC Leeds presenter Adam Pope) at 7pm,
and an in-store signing on 6 December. There’s still a good chance that Charlie will be on ‘Loose Women’ on ITV1 in the next week or so. I’m sure I’ll bombard everyone on here and Facebook with the news when it comes in.

There will be more events to come and loads for Sheila Quigley nearer Christmas too.

I noticed through my amazon account t’other day that someone purchased an out of print copy of The Burglar’s Dog for £39.99. As you can see, it is priced at £30.32 at the moment, but if you live anywhere near Borders Team Valley – they still have a batch of around 30 of them on a ‘buy one get one half price’ offer. Still makes a brill Christmas present and it’s probably the only shop on the planet that still has some stock. I nearly bought some myself the other day.

While I’m moaning on – if you happen to run a bookstore and want some Tonto authors in, give me a shout. I’ve got next summer’s holiday to pay for.

Caroline wanted to be Simon Cowell… making me Sinitta. What can you do, eh? I’d have preferred to be Cheryl, but we’ll not go in to that now.

On with the results.

We received some amazing entries for this collection. I know how patronising it sounds to say we didn’t know which ones to pick because they were all so good – but that’s just how it was. We knew it was going to be difficult and not everyone can go in. As with all competition-based collections, we cannot go into reasons why you weren’t chosen this time round and hope that if you entered the competition, you are very pleased with the collection regardless. We appreciate your support and big thanks to everyone who took part.

Even More Tonto Short Stories 2009:

A Shrinking, a Holding Back by Fiona Robyn

Appendage by Peter Parrish

Bananaman by Judy Walker

Bees by Kelly Railton

Checkout Monologue by Max Dunbar

Dancing in the Dark by Emma Lannie

Don’t you want me? By Sam Morris

Flight Path by Sally Spedding

French Leave by Helen Lynch

Gale Force Magic by Geoff Lowe

Hoffman is Missing by Jon Wallace

Home-Birds by Marianne Archbold

How to tell if you’re about to burst into Flames by Sue Williams

Images in Formaldehyde by Sarah Evans

Jing Dong by Katherine Spink

Mirror Ball by Justin Ward

Mopping Up by Col Bury

No such thing as a one way ticket by Nik Jones

Providence by Katie McCullough

Rehearsals by Annabel Banks

Short Sharp Shock by Matt Reilly

Sirens by Sarah Bradley

Sleeping on Trains Karl McIntyre

Stumbletime by Robert Endeacott

The Ditch by Alan Beard

The Great Leap Forward by Brigid Coady

The House that Tom Halder Built by David Denton

The Ice Queen by Rachel Bignell

The Life of a Star by Elizabeth Husher

The Ouch and the Ink by Lee Coan

The Skin we’re in by Matt Hilton

The Stairway to Paradise by Michael Noonan

White Chrysanthemums by Glenn Liddle

Yasmina’s Elbow by Shanta Everington

You don’t say by Robin Marsden

You don’t have to say you love me by Catherine Walter

 

Results will soon be up on the website.

I have meetings this afternoon and I’ll miss them all if I start ranting now. I think that maybe the title gives it away.

There are bookstores I deal with all the time and it is a pleasure to work with them. I’m friends with them now.  Then there are the ones who have no initiative, won’t respond to emails and messages left for them, will claim to not have my number even though it’s in my email signature and ruin a promoted event because they don’t have the brains to do the job they are paid for.

I really despair at the state of bookstores. I had the manager of WHSmith – quite local to me – actually phone the other week to tell me he was ‘non-plussed’ that I’d told his regional manager I was supplying Sheila Quigley’s books directly to them! Imagine my surprise – I hadn’t realised I’d been running Arrow rather than Tonto. Talk about surreal. I’m fairly certain I’ve never published Sheila’s books in the past. If I had, he’d be talking to my secretary and I’d be off playing golf with Ant and Dec. It was one of the maddest conversations I’ve ever had – needless to say, I don’t think I’ll be supplying any further Sheila Quigley titles to them. But – if you fancy winding them up, espesh in the north east and in a big shopping centre in Gateshead – please feel free to ask if they are going to be stocking the new Sheila Quigley novel.

Charlie was a guest on ITV1′s This Morning show today to publicise his book. It was a surreal moment seeing it on the table in long shot while the conversation was going on and even better when it got a mention. As you’ll see from the film inserts on the show, Charlie’s story is truly inspirational and he deserves tremendous success from this book. I know I’m slightly biased, but it’s been a pleasure working with someone like Charlie – he’s driven, focused and motivated in life now. What a top bloke!

Click here to watch him on the show with Dr Chris Steele.

Click here to buy the book on Amazon.

You can also buy direct from the Tonto site, but we’re trying to get best seller status on Amazon.

The Tonto PR machine is working overtime at the moment. Not that there is a Tonto PR machine, we just know a great PR company so it saves on machine costs.

Charlie Walduck will be on This Morning show tomorrow – Tuesday 6 October – to promote his brand new book, Slimmer Charlie.

After enjoying a brilliant launch at Gala Bingo in Belle Vue, Manchester, last week, Charlie has been enjoying a fair bit of media attention including loads of radio, a Channel M Television feature, a webchat on ivillage.co.uk and is looking forward to the first of his book signings:

9 October, Waterstone’s in Bury with Dr Chris Steele, 10 October, Borders Team Valley, Gateshead, 11 October – Waterstone’s in the Trafford Centre, Manchester with Dr Chris Steele, 17 October, Huddersfield Waterstone’s (Kingsgate), 18 October, author event at Morley Literature Festival

We’re waiting on a date to be confirmed for Loose Women on ITV1 and many more features to come. Don’t forget, you can order the book from the Tonto site to get a free signed poster.

Any other bookstores out there who haven’t responded to me hounding you for a signing event – now is the time!

… for the Even More Tonto Short Stories anthology will be announced this week. Thanks for your replies on my last post about this. All is well, all will be revealed. Stay tuned.