What's In A Name? - Stephanie Zia

Like many writers, I made up a random name for my publishing website when I self-published my first ebook, Done & Dusted. It all started in a slow, meandering way when I discovered that The Guardian were going to make a book out of their Saturday magazine Space Solves advice columns. The copyright to my contributions was mine but they had the right to republish as well. I made enquiries as to whether I'd be getting paid. The answer was vague. I hopped up and down a bit in that old, pre-ebook, smallfry-being-ignored-author way that used to be all too common and got my then-agent onto it and all that. It didn't matter in the end, the book was cancelled. But by then I had thought well, if they're going to, so can I. I learnt, by trial and (much) error how to format and, for less than a tenner, bought a Mr Site easy peasy build your own website kit. This included a built-in shop which linked to PayPal and sent customers their ebook automatically, plus a domain name for a year. All I had to do was choose a design, customise it with pretty colours, write the blurb and upload the PDF (in the olden days here). Brilliant! But what to call it? I looked around the flat. We have a small balcony which overlooks the private gardens below and a sea of trees in the garden square beyond. We get a good selection of London birds - robins, tits, wood pigeons, crows, magpies, woodpeckers, jays, wagtails - and blackbirds.

One particular blackbird was incredibly tame, she'd been visiting the garden below &, soon after I moved in, started appearing on the balcony in the mornings for the porridge flakes I put out. When summer came and the door was left open, she would step nonchalantly into the flat and wander around.

She probably did this in many other homes as well and, much as I love the naming process, we didn't give her a name, she's wild and not 'ours'. But she has ended up becoming the name and symbol of my website - Blackbird Digital Books.

The logo was designed and drawn by artist Jennifer Copley-May whose wonderful prints have recently gone on sale at Armadillo Central.

Over the years, the blackbird has made herself very much at home. This is a blackbird habit known as 'sunning'.

 She'll sprawl out like this for ages, holding her eye into the beam of the sun. Nobody knows why blackbirds do this. Seamus Heaney, I was told recently, is fascinated by blackbirds.

She's still around.

And so is Blackbird Digital.

It's coming up to three years now. I have affiliate editors, cover artists, designers and, not least, some wonderful authors publishing with Blackbird, including the ex-Transworld travel writer Susie Kelly and my old Piatkus stablemate Sarah Ball (who has since had her earlier novels republished by Piatkusentice). Several new books and several new authors are on the way - with more than one animal theme amongst them.    

Mrs Blackbird & baby. A good omen, I hope.