When the famous Andrew Cusack was last in Edinburgh, he was all but frog-marched to Blackwell's to buy a copy. He had made the mistake of saying he had not yet had a chance to get my book. This is the sort of thing never to say to a writer in a hipster café half a block from the one bookstore in the entire country that she knows carries her book if you do not wish to be parted from your money.
My feelings of guilt are assuaged by the thought that Cusack may actually be deriving great enjoyment from the book.
My copy is set to arrive Wednesday. I'm looking forward to reading it.
ReplyDeleteYay! Yay! I do hope you like it.
DeleteYay! Yay! I do hope you like it.
DeleteI'm sure I will. I enjoy your voice as a writer.
DeleteI thought you had a religious publishing house, and you asked people to buy from them, as more of the royalty went to their mission work than if we buy off secular sources like Amazon? (I may have this completely back to front - sorry for any confusion if I have!)
ReplyDeleteOh, and can both your books be bought from the one source?
Perhaps you should have suggested Valentines Day gifts of books, so even if no romance ensued, at least starving authors would be supported ;)
SB.
Oh, so much fodder for reply! Well, if you can find Ceremony of Innocence (and The Closet's All Mine) in a Catholic bookshop, by all means buy it there. However, outside of the USA, it can be hard to find the Ignatius Press contemporary fiction titles. It can be hard to get even the UK supplier to order any in; it was a happy shock to see that Blackwell's in Edinburgh managed to order a whole pile last summer.
DeleteFrom my point of view, the most important thing (after reader enjoyment) is sales, and the industry that gets the lion's share of the profit is either the bookseller or the transportation company. The poor author gets only a fraction, but a fraction is better than a kick in the teeth.
(The Canadian original of TCAM/Anielskie Single, Seraphic Singles,which came out in 2009, is out of print, so only TCAM and AS are available.)
Consider me Royal Supplier of Fodder (hopefully not cannon fodder!).
ReplyDeleteFound CoI from Ignatius shipping directly (and your friend Fiorella's doctor novel), and TCAM at local bookseller shipping it from your US supplier. Sigh - consider it a Valentines Day gift that a *Catholic* bloke would buy a book with a pink cover and a title of 'The Closets All Mine'...
I shall lend it to Pole Dancing Girl #2 to read - at the pub tonight she told me she has (chastely - she's Christian) started seeing guys off Tinder!@#! I mean, I'm glad she's moved on from focusing on me (cos there was no romantic spark for her from my end, only friendship), and I get her point that you can find good people even on Tinder by sifting carefully enough, but still...
Oh well. Your books, when they arrive, will be a nice break from studying consolidated accounts ;)
SB.
Thank you very much! One thing I think three publishers have learned is that extra care must be used in designing and marketing books about Single Life.
DeleteBut as for C of I, it's blue and puce, not pink, so you're okay. Stuff blows up, so it was marketed to men.
Oh, if I sound sensitive about the TCAM title and cover; well, when I bought Boleslaw Prus' novel Lalka, it came with a purple & pink book cover and of course the English translation of Lalka = 'The Doll' boldly printed on the front.
ReplyDeleteEven my Mum made comments about me not being seen in public with it lest people draw inferences about my sexuality! The things we go through for Polish literature eh? Or perhaps it says more about NZ's masculine insecurities...? haha.
SB.
Ok, so I've read your Ceremony of Innocence book, and Fiorella de Maria's Do No Harm. Still pondering what I think.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, I can see why yr NCG readers may have been a bit blown away by yr book, as Fiorella's is a very genteel read for catholics - the heroes all remain very orthodox, and it has a happy ever after end for them.
By contrast, yr CoI has 3 very flawed anti-hero 'catholic' protaganists, and while 2 of them have a happy ending, that doesn't wipe the nagging doubts over their past actions (especially the actions so Cat bringing about the death of Suzy). So definitely a more challenging read, as Greene's QA is.
It was weird for me, having read your thoughts prior to the book, to seeing similar thoughts pop out of the characters! Kinda like you personally were popping into the story as a character... :)
Plenty of action for the lads tho, and it did keep shifting to wasn't predictable, tho throughout I did have to stop myself from comparing with QA and thinking ahead how yr plot would head...
Oh, and well written. Flowed, and the German text inserts were light relief rather than a disruption (tho you may want footnotes for all such, as some of us speak no German at all!). You may want to change Cat & Suzy's Audi knocking fan belt to a rumbling alternator belt tho, as otherwise the comment about lasting to next town on battery makes no sense (you wouldn't drive if cambelt was about to break, as if it does break the engine is wrecked), and belts rumble and squeal rather than knock. Pretty small beans out of an entire book tho.
Well done :) :) :)
A sequel on the migration crisis would be interesting, tho hard to keep it topical as that situation is changing so rapidly.
SB.
Glad you enjoyed it! Interesting point about the car; in future, I will have to check car stuff more carefully.
ReplyDelete