Stadium Lit

Leonora Rustamova, of Stop Don't Read This fame, will be signing copies of her book at Waterstone's at Kingsgate, Huddersfield on Saturday 23rd July between 1-3pm. Alistair Sutcliffe, the maruading GP and author of THE HARDEST CLIMB gave a presentation and talk at The Ripon Yarns Festival on Sunday 17th July. It was exceedingly successful. The point is, that for small publishers getting your authors out onto the road to greet and meet the public is essential. We don't have the spending power of the more traditional houses. So we have to be smarter to get the story to the reader. It's like when you start a band and you have to play all the pubs and clubs before you get to the stadiums. You have to do many, many library events and become a rash on the social networks. It does pay dividends as we have seen at Bluemoose, with more and more readers coming to the site and to events.

Mooseleaks

Just as Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and other such worthy freedom of speechers failed to turn up to Julian Assange's party last week, they also failed to turn up to the launch of STOP DON'T READ THIS- The Story, by Leonora Rustamova at The Hebden Bridge Bookshop yesterday. Rather amiss methinks but they were probably rescuing a waif from some Australasian shore. However, many people did turn up and bought bucket loads of the book. It was a great success. SDRT has become,overnight,the bestselling book the bookshop has had in over a year, so gold stars all round and now the story must travel and the truth will finally be heard.

Hebden Bridge Launch

Today we are launching STOP DON'T READ THIS - The Story by Leonora Rustamova at The Hebden Bridge Bookshop between 12 -2pm. As we have witnessed of late, some of the press always sink to the lowest common denominator and go for the salacious aspects of any story. We appear, as a nation, to decry acts of goodwill that are done purely to help an idividual or a group to get along. In our cynical world there must always be a personal motive for doogoodery, and doogooders are 'interfering ne'er do wells,' who practice the dark arts. Leonora wrote a book for 5 pupils who had been marginalised and were on the edge of being excluded. Her book was heralded as a great success and she was promoted but then arrived the serial careerists, small people with small minds and blinkered vivions, the type who like uniforms and always point to rule books and harrumph a lot. We won't be letting these people into the bookshop to celebrate what is a brilliant piece of writing. They will be banned and banished for their lack of humanity. We will kill them with our smiles. Oh ,and they wear brown. A lot.

London Calling

After four years of publishing in the northern outposts of Hebden Bridge, the carrier pigeon of news has just reached Londinium. I received an email from the books editor of THE GUARDIAN asking me to send two copies of KING CROW by Michael Stewart. They wanted to read it as part of The Guardian's First Novel award. They'd asked for titles they might have missed. A lot of people commented on the web blog malarkey thing and left great messages about KING CROW. So the pigeon was sent Dar Sarf with a couple of books. It is a stunning read. KES meets FIGHT CLUB as one reviewer said. There is a conversation to be had about access to the lit ed pages but one for another time methinks suffice to say that when there was a two line review of GABRIEL'S ANGEL in The Gaurdian on the 1st January 2011, it was a readers GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR, we sold over 300 copies in ten days. The social network wallers and the twiterati may bleep you into submission but a decent review in the hot metal press still works wonders. I've lit two candles in the publisher's chapel of rest for the safe passage of the pigeon.

Rusty on the airwaves

Leonora Rustamova, author of Stop Don't Read This, was on TV and Radio yesterday and the sales of the book on AMAZON went through the roof. It is now in the top 800 bestselling books in the UK. The old adage about , Product, price , placement and promotion, is true but I'm not about to go all Marketeery on you. Great stories have a way of getting to their readers. It does help of course that newspapers and the media are alerted and you don't publish stories in a vaccuum. At a time of great austerity, economically, it is to such stories the public go for reassurance that there is more to life than paying back debts to usurers and their ilk.
Off to Whitby tonight to present a talk by Alistair Sutcliffe, author of The Hardest Climb. Alistair is the first man to summit the highest mountain on each of the seven continents at the first attempt but last Feb 1st 2010, he suffered a massive sub arachnoid haemorrhage. The doctors told his wife to say her last goodbyes as he would be dead in the morning. He survived. This is the stuff of legend and he'll be at Whitby library tonight from 6.30pm to talk us through those desperate times. The credit cards can wait.

Shameless meets The Famous Five

Today we publish STOP DON'T READ THIS - The Story by Leonora Rustamova 9780956687630.
Leonora was a teacher who wrote a book for and about 5 pupils. She did so to get them back into class and start reading again. They were all in danger of being excluded. It was a success. The head called it a triumph but there was a few swear words and it appeared on the internet. People panicked. The walls were closing in and the careerists needed a fall person. Leonora was sacked. It became a Kafkaesque nightmare but like Terence Blacker said in The Independent. 'WE SHOULD BE HIRING MORE PEOPLE LIKE MISS RUSTY, NOT FIRING THEM.'
Every parent and teacher should read this book, as well as young adults. It gives great insight into disaffected teenage minds and reveals how the education system in this country is failing so many pupils because they don't fall easily into the education box. Carnegie medal and multi-award winning novelist MELVIN BURGESS has heralded it as ' a model of its kind for working with disaffected male teenagers.' And more importantly all the lads stayed on at school, and have progressed either to college or gained apprenticeships. Inspirational teachers do matter.

Gabriel's Angel Launch

Gabriel's Angel by Mark Radcliffe is published tomorrow, July the 24th and the Family Moose will be going on a road trip to Brighton where the launch will be held. Those lovely people at Amazon have already been selling it and there are two great reviews. It is also going onto Waterstone's core stock, which means every Wats in the country will have at least a couple of copies, a first for a Bluemoose title. We have been led to believe that there will be a review in The Sunday Times but I'll believe that once I see it in print. Then it's on the road. 6 Wats in Leeds, Bradford, Nottingham, Chichester, Brighton and Portsmouth. See local stores fpr press , as they say. Mark will be appearing on BBC Radio Leeds on Saturday 31st July at 9.45 talking about his book and on Monday 2nd August on BBC Radio Manchester in the afternoon at 4.15. He's doing readings at Hove Library, his hometown on Tuesday 27th July at 6pm , Hebden Bridge Library on Monday 2nd August at 8pm and Rochdale Library on Wednesday 4th August at 2pm. If you are anywhere near these venues, please do pop in and have a chat.
We are all very excited and proud to be publishing Gabriel's Angel. It's a great book. You must by a copy.

Moose on Radio 2

Last night was a first for Bluemoose Books and author Mark Radcliffe as his new book, GABRIEL'S ANGEL got a two minute slot on the Maconie and Radcliffe Show on BBC Radio 2, Monday 14th June 2010. For an indie publisher and first time author to get any coverage on a radio is great, but to break through onto the national radio airwaves means we're getting the message that we're publishing great books that engage and inspire the reader to a bigger audience. Stuff like this happens all the time for the supposed big metropolitan publishing houses, but for indies like Bluemoose its a brilliant platform. And we thank those who had enough vision to see what a great book it is.
Mark will be appearing on more radio after the publication of GABRIEL'S ANGEL on July 24th 2010. Will update you as and when.

MOOSE WAVES

Mark Radcliffe, author of GABRIEL'S ANGEL will be live on air this afternoon on the Sarah Gorell show, at 2.10pm BBC Radio Sussex. Mark will be talking about his new novel which is published on 24th July 2010. Mark lives in Hove and will be doing a National book tour when the book is published. He will be signing and reading from GABRIEL'S ANGEL at the following Waterstones.
Saturday 31st July LEEDS
Tuesday 3rd August BRADFORD
Thursday 5th August NOTTINGHAM
Saturday 14th August CHICHESTER
Saturday 21st August BRIGHTON
Saturday 28th August PORTSMOUTH

The award winning author Christopher Brookmyre has said some wonderful things about Mark's book.

'I thoroughly enjoyed reading Gabriel's Angel. I thought it was seductively melancholy without being miserable, its philosophical deceit leavened with a delicately measured humour and its characters - both in this world and the next - as engagingly flawed as they were tenderly wrought.'

Here's the quote for the jacket.

' You might think you'd rather die than go through therapy, but what if death was no escape? Gabriel's Angel is the perfect antidote to the glib platitudes of emotional quick-fix culture: tender, astute and very funny.' Christopher Brookmyre


Enough said. Until tomorrow.

The Moose is back

The Moose is back. Will report later on what has been happening at Moose Towers. Very exciting times at Bluemoose Books.