Bits and pieces

The Easter holiday has passed now and I’ve got several books ready for review, and having had to relax more than usual because of my recent knee operation I seem to be ploughing through even more.

I’ve nearly finished moving all the book reviews from the previous version of A Common Reader on to this WordPress version.  Its taken me a long time, as I’ve checked each of the 170 or so reviews for style, consistency and typos, and re-tagged and categorised everything, quite apart from building new author and title indexes with the new links (book blogging can get a bit obsessive!).

I’m pleased to say that I’ve more or less managed to retain the same level of hits, largely through redirecting the old address to the new one.  The new Book Depository links seem to work well so should anyone want to buy a book which I’ve reviewed they can click through and get what I’m sure is about the cheapest price on the net with free delivery.

I’ve been very involved over the last few months with helping a friend, Peter Martin self-publish Ghost Music, a book of poems and local history.

I helped him with layout and producing camera-ready copy, and have also done the cover design, and I’ve learned a lot about using Photoshop for the publishing process.  I’m fairly pleased with the end-result, as I know my friend Peter is with his excellent contents.

Peter writes evocative poems which capture the essence of the Downs and the only undeveloped Sussex estuary – where the river Cuckmere joins the sea.  It was a clever idea of his to include drawings from a local 19th century artist and in some ways it surprising how much of the landscape looks the same.

We went to the launch event and Peter’s wife did a great job on publicity.  The local mayor came along and we had reading from BBC Radio 4 news reader Brian Perkins (once voted the most popular voice on BBC radio) and a performance from local musicians Joy Lewis and Derrick Hughes.  Here’s a photo of them all at the launch.

Peter Martin, Derrick Hughes, Joy Lewis, Brian Perkins

Its been a good experience and having learned so much about the process I’m wondering whether to offer my book design services to other self-publishers.   Most authors are naturally concerned most about the text rather than the layout and design and I suspect it would be good to be able to hand all of that over to someone else.