Ten years ago yesterday I stood at the summit of Africa’s highest mountain, and one of the world’s seven summits, Kilimanjaro. The experience changed my life forever. I’ll never forget the smirks and laughter when, at the age of eighteen, I announced I intended to do the challenge to my friends and family. Very few people really believed I would do it. (To all of … Continue reading How Kilimanjaro changed me…
As most of you know, I’m currently studying for an MA in Professional Writing at Falmouth University. I’m in my last year and am preparing for my final project. Our last module before we are set free for six months to write our final project has been a Research and Development module. The module is to prepare proposals for our books and to conduct an … Continue reading What are literary agents looking for in a non-fiction submission?
I think the most important thing I’ve learned throughout the whole Blog to Book process is to write what you love and love what your write. If you’d have said to me six months before I started the Bailey Boat Cat blog, that in a year’s time I would have a book deal with a huge publishing house, writing from the perspective of my cat … Continue reading Blog to Book (Part 10) – Lessons Learned
The book promotion got so much more exciting the closer we got to the book launch. I was very aware that I couldn’t solely promote the book on Bailey’s blog, or people would lose interest. I continued to blog about our life and other things of interest with sailing and pets as the subject matter. In the week running up to the book launch however, … Continue reading Blog to Book (Part 9) – The Book Launch
I’m amazed at how quickly the last six months have flown by! On the 1st of April our muddy litter monster was born and we moved off our sailboat in Rome into a house by Lago Maggiore near Milan. Today marks six months since then. It’s been a very busy six months and so much has changed, but it’s been a great adventure. We were … Continue reading Six months have flown by!
Even though I’d seen the BLAD and of course the final proofs in a PDF format, the book still didn’t feel 100% real until I received the advance copies through the post. I knew what size the book would be, the number of pages and what the cover would look like, but I still really struggled to imagine it as a REAL book! When the … Continue reading Blog to Book (Part 8) – Advance Copies
The marketing and publicity for Bailey Boat Cat – Adventures of a Feline Afloat was one of the most fun aspects of the whole Blog to Book process. Bloomsbury have offices in London, Sydney and New York and each team had people dedicated to marketing and publicising the book in their area. Bailey Boat Cat – Adventures of a Feline Afloat was the first Adlard … Continue reading Blog to Book (Part 7) – Marketing and Publicity
I have a whole shelf on my bookshelves dedicated to writing books and my favourite by far, in terms of beauty, is Wonderbook – The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer. It’s a fantastic book to pick up and flick through to get the creative juices flowing. The book can really turn your ideas upside down and inside out leaving you with … Continue reading Bookshelf Beauty – Wonderbook
One of the most exciting moments in the whole of the Blog to Book journey was when I first saw the cover. I’d been asked to provide a choice of full body shots of Bailey. The designer could then choose an image to use for the cover. I was told that the designer would likely cut out Bailey and position the various photos of him … Continue reading Blog to Book Series (Part 5) – The Book Cover
Once the contract for Bailey Boat Cat had been approved by all parties and signed, I got to work on the actual manuscript. During the contract stages we’d discussed deadlines, and initially I was quite surprised by how quickly Bloomsbury wanted the manuscript written. In total, I had about two months to get the manuscript of around 10,000 words written. I also had to do … Continue reading Blog to Book Series (Part 4) – The manuscript
Sailing Titanium 