Saturday 5th February, 7.00pm LANTERN HOUSE, ULVERSTON Anna Dean, author of the Dido Kent mysteries will be appearing at Ulverston’s Word Market Festival, at the Lantern House, Ulverston, Cumbria, LA12 0AA. She will be talking about how interesting letters and diaries found in local archive collections have influenced her work. For more information call […]
On a rainy lunchtime, while eating one’s BLT (uninspired and in danger of being trampled underfoot in Tescos at lunchtime, I made an autopilot lunch grab) what one needs is a bit of mental stimulation to chase the cobwebs away. And while browsing The Bookseller’s website I found just the thing – Bent’s Invisibooks (second […]
Friday 19th – Sunday 21st August ST HILDA’S COLLEGE, OXFORD Come and mingle with top-notch crime authors at the annual St Hilda’s crime conference whose theme this year in The Anatomy of Justice. Amongst the writers speaking at the event are Martin Edwards, Edward Marston, Penelope Evans and Cath Staincliffe. The conference takes place at […]
These days, with location being everything, space at a premium and ‘reusable’ the buzzword of the noughties, these rather forward-thinking bookshops have made the most of available venues – turning movie theatres, churches, train carriages and even an old funeral parlour into shelf-space. See all the converted bookshops here, but my favourite has to be […]
Resolution the First, MMXI. Friends, blog-readers, gluttons for punishment; I wish to publicly declare my New Year’s resolution, in the hope that fear of the shame of openly admitting to failure will prevent me from ever breaking this resolution, as all my previous ones have been. I do therefore solemnly swear by all that I […]
The Guardian has published Nielsen’s list of 100 top-selling titles of all time – or at least from when Nielsen started compiling data in 1998. See the article here… Glancing down the list I confess to some titles completely taking me by surprise. I knew they’d done well, but did they really beat the sales […]
The Flavour Thesaurus was one of the many books that featured as gifts under our Christmas tree this year (and considering every Waterstone’s I ventured into a few days before Christmas were out of stock – “it’s been very popular” – it probably featured under many others). This isn’t suprising considering it is an ingenious […]
As I try to get my brain into gear that we are now in 2011, I realise that my New Year resolutions are a bit thin on the ground. Perhaps I’m a cynic/realist/have the will power of a new born babe but I don’t think there’s much point to my pronouncing commandments such as ‘thou […]
Come and celebrate the launch of Alanna Knight’s new Inspector Faro novel ‘The Seal King Murders’ at Blackwell’s, South Bridge, Edinburgh on Thursday 20 January, 6.30pm.
Well that’s it for 2010 here in the Allison & Busby office! A big thank you to everyone – to all our blog followers, to our loyal book readers, to the booksellers who continue to support us, the literary agents who help build our list and of course to the Allison & Busby authors who provide us with […]
The fact that we are experiencing a white Christmas does add a little something to the festivities. Ok, the man shouting expletives into his mobile phone (as he explains to whoever is on the receiving end that his train is delayed by an hour due to the weather conditions) does not fall in line with […]
Here’s a novel (!) idea for home décor. Spineless publishing produces full text of your favourite classics with artfully cut out illustrations, all ready for you to hang on your walls. So, this Christmas, when the family becomes too much, you can stare over their shoulders and read away to your heart’s content, remembering to […]
Yesterday evening we enjoyed a very jolly office Christmas party. It involved a luminous tree; adequate amounts tinsel, tea light candles carefully strewn around the office (and not too close to our large archive of books), copious amounts of cava and mulled wine, a ridiculously large spread of food (note-to-self: remember, Chiara, when you next […]
As any self-respecting cover designer will tell you, choosing a font is very important business. Just look at our moody vampiric swirls for the Morganvilles, or the art deco typeface used for the Laurie R. King series. Finding the perfect font is as important as finding or creating the perfect image for a cover. So, […]
Following my battle building bookshelves and search for more inspiring book-storage ideas, today I share with you the most recent discoveries. There is no doubt that some book collections are worth framing, but whether you have signed first editions of classics or just beautifully coloured paperbacks that would make a nice splash on the wall, […]
We should stop thinking of ourselves as book publishers. That was one of the resounding lines echoed unnervingly in my head after an ebook conference last week. Too true, of course, when the rise of ebooks is plain to see and digital opportunities for publishers and authors abound. But this thought also coincided with a […]
In the Metro this morning there was an article on Scandinavian crime writers noting how interest in this particular area of crime is far from losing momentum. But did you know that there is a direct correlation between the increasing popularity of Scandinavian crime and DIY giant IKEA? According to author Matt Benyon Rees (whose […]
This has got to be one of my favourite covers on our list. Simple and to the point. And how lucky we are that the brussel sprout, that un-loved Christmas vegetable, is green and not, for example, orange. The Christmas colouring for the cover just wouldn’t have worked, would it… But on this subject of […]
‘Tis the season of giving… and this week, giving is worth double. The Big Give 2010 Christmas Challenge runs from 6th – 10th December and means that any online donations to partnering charities made through The Big Give will be worth double the amount! One of the charities that is part of the initiative is […]
A bit of ‘science’ to help authors wishing to top the bestseller lists has surfaced over the past week. The people behind Lulu.com, the self-publishing website, have created a gizmo called Titlescorer. After analyzing the titles of the hardback fiction books on the New York Times bestseller list for the past sixty years, they say […]
The list of 25 books has now been chosen for World Book Night – a brand new initiative which will see one million free books given away on 5 March 2011. Now applications are open for book-giver volunteers!