Authors Electric

Some stories are so good they just rise to the surface like cream. It all started with a lunchtime conversation with a client from Rio . “I have a friend who has been trying to write his autobiography for years,” My client said, “can I put him in touch with you?” Gordon Lewis was an “unfortunate”, born in a home for unmarried mothers in 1950s Dublin . His mother was determined not to go into the Magdalene Laundries and risk losing her child, so she found a home run by Catholic nuns which would let him stay with her and kept him a secret from everyone, including her family. It wasn’t until he was eight years old that Gordon even realised he had any family apart from the other women and children in the home. Seeing that her spirited son was in danger of getting into serious trouble, running wild on the city streets, his mother took the decision of contacting Bill, the man who had been the love of her life before she fell pregnant by another man, in the hope that he wo...

Fifteen years ago I was ghostwriting books for the most disenfranchised members of the global community; victims of enforced marriages, sex workers, orphans, victims of crimes, bonded labourers and abused children. Out of those experiences I wrote a novel, initially entitled “Maisie’s Amazing Maids”.  The book did okay but then slipped onto the back shelves and from there into the obscurity that envelops all but the lucky few in the book world. In the past that would have been the end of the story, but now, of course, there are a number of options for breathing life back into books that are no longer in the first flush of publication. The book has now been re-launched by Thistle Publishing as a sumptuous paperback and e-book entitled “Pretty Little Packages”. Thistle is an enormously successful imprint set up by London agents Andrew Lownie and David Haviland to keep books alive and available when the more traditional publishing organisations are no long...

Preparations for The London Book Fair  (April 15 - 17) are in full swing with news of seminars and events gradually going up online. The London Book Fair, Earl's Court I was planning on giving the Author Lounge a wide birth this year. This tiny space furnished with toadstool-like perches and featuring hard-sell salesmen seemed to embody all that was wrong with the author/publishing industry relationship. It looks like it's all change this year. The Author Lounge has its own Seminar Room   with a schedule of talks, discussions and events and authors are even being pitched to on the front page of the Fair website. Alongside digital - another backwater a couple of years ago. Times they have changed. Full details are still coming through but already announced are: E to Eternity  The future of digital  hosted by Kindle Direct Publishing Are bookstores here to stay?  Sam Husein, Chief Executive, Foyles. The challenges facing di...