BOOK GIVEAWAY & E-BOOK PROMO

BOOK ONE OF KATHLEEN HERBERT'S NORTHERN KINGDOMS IS ABOUT TO BE REPUBLISHED

From this ....

..... and this

To this:

To be entered into the draw to win one of the first copies of the new edition, leave a comment on this cover below. The photograph, by Ian Carroll, is meant to capture the atmosphere of the following passage:

He looked up and saw a figure in a grey gown, gold hair streaming across its shoulders, watching him with wide grey eyes. It was as if sunlight, clear stream and grey stone had shaped themselves into a girl. He had the wild thought that the Goddess herself, the Lady of the hill circles and the holy springs, had risen from the stream to his aid.

Previous reader comments have already affected the design, but it will not be fixed for another week or two, so you have a chance to make your influence felt. This is of course, just my rough idea- proportions of back, front and spine will be decided by the number of pages, and graphic designer Kate will work on exact positioning, style and colour of text.

TRIFOLIUM BOOKS' EBOOK PRICE REDUCTION
I have decided to reduce the price of the following three e-books too on Amazon for a limited period only: you can now buy them for around a pound, or under two dollars. That's cheaper than a cup of coffee! Hurry before I change my mind!

The Boy with Two Heads                   Paths of Exile                             Moon in Leo 

If you go to our website, and buy your copy from the links on each author page, we get a tiny proportion of your payment! The more we get, the more we can pay our authors!

 

MOON IN LEO ARRIVES!

Just over two years since its publication on the 14th February 2011, we brought home two copies of Moon in Leo, which we are reading at Wigton Library's Book Group this month.

I am really looking forward to hearing what other members of the group think of it- there is always plenty of lively debate and disagreement- and I hope they won't hold back!

PRICING OF E-BOOKS

Now, while I am offering one of my e-books as a free download, seems an appropriate time for me to add my few penn'orths to this contentious debate. This article and its comments in today's Telegraph got me thinking.

Let me start with my experience as a publisher, so that what I say can be put into context. I run a new and very small- OK micro- family publishing business. Trifolium Books UK has been in business now for just over 18 months.


I started the business initially because I was not prepared to spend hours, days and weeks of my life trying to find an agent and/or publisher for my friend Kathleen Herbert who had been a highly successful, mainstream published, author in the 1980s. Some of the story is here, thanks to Deborah Swift, and my full reasons for setting up the company are here.

I use new technology- Print on Demand- for my books, which has many great advantages- no wasted copies, no remaindered books, excellent quality printing, world-wide distribution, just as many copies as anyone wants- but one disadvantage: each individual copy costs more than your average trade paperback, and a lot more than mass market 3 for the price of 2, books. In all other ways, I am exactly the same as a traditional publisher: I offer editing, design and promotional services to my authors and don't expect any money from them!

Pricing of the books on Amazon and the world wide market is related to the cost of production, so longer books cost more- and actually this seems very fair to me. I price the paperbacks so that Amazon and the big distributors get what they need and demand; so that I can pay the authors a fair royalty; and so that I can have a tiny chance of making a small profit in the very long run. At the moment, I am happy not to lose money- but then, I don't count my time, nor does any other member of my family team, so it's a bit of an artificial picture. I have no problems with local bookshops- I can supply them on a sale or return basis so that they can sell them at a slightly lower price than Amazon etc.

Now comes the contentious bit- pricing the Kindle versions. Apart from our time, there are up-front costs of the print version- upload, proof copies, revision fees, ISBNs, physical copies for author, designer, British Library etc and enough copies to cover promotion, reviews and local suppliers. When I've done all that, the digital conversion and upload for Kindle (again, apart from time) is free, so I can sell the e copy cheaper. In the case of Moon in Leo, Kathleen and I feel very strongly that we want the book to be read, as it has such a powerful message for us all today.

This is an opportunity for me to offer these books at a lower price- especially as some of them are rather long. For example Moon in Leo has to retail at £11.99 on Amazon, or I would be paying to publish it, so I can offer the digital version at an affordable price, sell more copies and pay the authors a straight 50% of the takings, which will probably go higher if and when I sell more.

I know that I am lucky enough to have a pension that means I don't have to earn money from the business I am passionate about- at least in the short term. So- I am a traditional publisher in some ways- though not a mainstream one, and like the big publishers, I act as a gatekeeper.

The price of this very short ebook is related to its length

Is that the main difference between traditional publishers and self-publishers? Is it this gatekeeping (or lack of it) that worries everyone about self publishing? Well let me tell you- I have read some truly awful books- badly written, badly edited, or seemingly not edited at all, full of plot holes, cliches, dull and unbelievable characters, too many trite adjectives and inappropriate similes- and many were self published; but a shocking number were main stream published. I would buy the argument that we need these big publishing companies if they didn't publish vapid and trivial rubbish like books about non existent meerkats and ghost written biographies of teenage nonentities who are the darlings of readers of Hello Magazine. Most TV, many many films, and much recorded music is utter rubbish- but we are grown ups aren't we? Can't we be our own gatekeepers? We can switch off the telly or the radio, and walk out of the cinema. Why, in the case of books, do we need Nanny Publisher to tell us what we can and can't read? OK so we will have to kiss a lot of frogs before we find our book princes without her to guide us, but with books, I think most of us experienced readers need do no more than peck it on the cheek before we commit. There's no need to go for an all out snog with a bad book!

I think though, that the main point is  that the self publishers who sell cheap are damaging sales of mainstream ebooks. I have a feeling that the big publishers are over pricing their ebooks in an ostrich like move to try and make us buy only paper books. It's often possible on Amazon, to buy the real book cheaper. Whatever the true explanation for this it is counter-intuitive  to buy a virtual book which is dearer than a real one.

I buy ebooks for lots of reasons- one is that I don't risk much money to try a new author, and like many of the commentators in the Telegraph I have read authors I might not have come across because of this. Another reason is that, for good reads that I enjoy at the time, but probably won't read again, I am not cluttering up already bulging bookshelves. However, if I read a Kindle book I think is A Keeper- I go straight out and buy a real version- preferably from my local indie bookshop! I did this for Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance and happily payed full price for both versions- but this is a five star  + + + book!

So- how do we small indie publishers know how to price our ebooks? We neither want to under-value the work of our authors, nor put off potential readers. When Julia and I discussed the digital price of The Boy with Two Heads we decided to price it at less than the price of the adult historical fiction so that young people could afford to buy it with their pocket money. In this discussion between author and publisher, who was being favoured? Author, publisher or reader? Or are we all part of the same community? Take a look at my books on Amazon, and tell me what you think.

NOTHING MUCH CHANGES; A NEW REVIEW OF MOON IN LEO

"... the intrigue within today's politics, the suspicion and distrust between indigenous and immigrant communities ..."
 
Recently I have been thinking more about sending out review copies of The Boy with Two Heads, and wrestling with the Kindle edition to think about the other books. However, I occasionally check them out on Amazon, and was delighted to find a new review of Moon in Leo. I print it here in its entirety as it's the first to highlight the book's relevance to today's audience, and it uncannily echoes some of Kathleen's thoughts in her letters to me.

I don't really read historical novels, but "Moon in Leo" came to my attention for two reasons. First, my wife was reading it and I was attracted by the cover and secondly it is set, albeit three hundred and fifty years ago, in the county where I live. Aldingham shown on the cover map is somewhere I used regularly to visit.
Right! So what did I make of the book? Well, it is well researched redolent of the period. One word "guffawing" (page243) jarred a little, I thought it a more modern word, but discovered it had been around for about hundred years at the time this book is set, so one-nil to Kathleen Herbert!
Here, I have no intention of providing a précis of the plot, but make a suggestion! Forget, as you read, when it is set, instead reflect on the intrigue within today's politics, the suspicion and distrust between indigenous and immigrant communities and as you read, you will come to the conclusion that not much changes – we just call things by different names.
This book had a number of problems with me; I've put it that way around deliberately. First, for my taste it is too long at 400 pages, and the font is quite small, I'm getting old and my attention span is not what it once was. Secondly, there are (again for me) too many characters. However, the publisher provides a handy list of characters at the front, to which I repeatedly had to refer. It would though, have been better if this list had been alphabetical.
The holidays are coming up, so go off to Spain, but take with you a small slice of Cumberland in the shape of this novel. It is excellent value, beautifully written and will provide you with an entertaining and educational insight of times gone by. Click on the "Buy" button and be hugely entertained.

This is what Kathleen wrote to me:

I have looked over my novel about Furness during the Popish Plot- which is firmly based on truth… during these last weeks, the story has suddenly become incredibly topical- … for the background  we have:

• a King called Charles, with a complicated marital and family life
• a society of the rich and famous who produce a new scandal with every edition of the newspapers
•   a government that is not only stale but starting to smell     
• an established religion that has run out of steam, and numbers of cults that are boiling with enthusiasm- some for good, some for evil, both inside and outside Christianity     
• and a large number of “alternative” Englands that are barely suspected to exist by “official” England     
• It’s 1678, but change the clothes and it could be today.

And later:

I wrote a novel about the different folk who have come to our islands (for good, bad, fear, food, etc) and how they are still coming. I put the story into the past, so no folk could be insulted or unhappy or frightened.

HEADS AND TALES: JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS COVER

We are so near publication that I wanted to share my excitement about the new book and its very striking cover. When I put our three covers together, I am very pleased that they all look so different- reflecting the very different nature of their stories and writers- but am struck by the similarities too. Each cover has a tale to tell, and every element on each of them has resonances above and beyond its visual impact. More of this later.

HEADS AND TALES - AN UPDATE

Kathleen enjoying a cuddle with my daughter's little dog

Themis with his ipad!

A small portion of Kathleen's MSs

Whilst as far as this blog is concerned, I may have seemed to do nothing for the last few weeks, I have been beavering away, and had no time to spare to write posts.

VISITING KATHLEEN, FINDING TREASURE

Kathleen is now living in sheltered accommodation and her house- (which she once called "Hell Hall", so no regrets there) - is sold, and I have come into a wonderful collection of manuscripts, books, lecture notes, photos, and notebooks.

Kathleen herself doesn't want any of these possessions any more, but I was interested to see that her own copy of Moon in Leo was in her room, sitting by her bed, and very well thumbed. Kathleen and her cousin, who manages her affairs, are very happy for me to take charge of these papers and become, in effect, Kathleen's literary executor.

The estate agent who sold the house very kindly kept the stuff- a full carload- in his office until my daughter was able to pick them up. it took twelve trips to her flat from her car to get them home, where they filled her spare room. They then filled our car, and are now filling my office! And it will take us many months to sort and catalogue the thousands of pages we have got.

Partially sorted papers and books in my office

It is very exciting though: I have already found a beautifully written story about Guinevere called The Once and Future Queen, which I will probably publish as an eBook. It has an unusual feminist angle, and is not at all the normal romantic stuff. Look out  for it! There may also be a fifth novel- we have found several chapters and copious notes, maps and even photos of the settings- all Cumbrian. Meanwhile, work continues on Bride of the Spear and the other books in the Kingdoms of the North Trilogy.

ROYALTY FREE FICTION

I love Deborah Swift's blog- Royalty Free Fiction, with its many posts by different writers. Deborah says, 'History is full of ordinary people with extraordinary stories', and she invites authors to tell the story behind the story. She asked me to tell the story of Moon in Leo, and I was delighted, but found it very difficult to write, as I had to tell Kathleen's own harrowing story. It was painfully difficult to distance myself enough to do it! I will post a notice here when the Moon in Leo story is published, but meanwhile please visit this intriguing blog. You will not be disappointed, but you may be a little poorer, as you will want to read all the books featured! I did.

TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE

The main activity that has dominated my life recently however, has been all-consuming. I have been working closely with author Julia Newsome to bring out her novel The Boy with Two Heads- her first full length novel for young adults. We had originally hoped to get it onto bookshelves before Christmas, but as Julia and I are obsessive perfectionists, it has taken longer than expected. You will soon be able to pre-order it on Amazon however, in plenty of time for the Olympics. More on this soon...

And this blog is due an overhaul too! I will fit it all in somehow, but the Christmas cards might be a bit late!

Moon in Leo giveaway- a second chance!

Sarah Johnson is offering two free downloads with her review on Reading the Past. If you missed the 48 hour free download, you have another chance! And you don't have to own a Kindle- you can download it in several different formats, and even download a free Kindle app for your computer, phone or tablet.

From bags to bookshelves in six months: from paper to e-book in twelve

My first memory of Kathleen was when a dog got into the playground and we chased it around as kids do. This young and exotic teacher emerged, scolded us and picked up the puppy. For all I know she adopted it: I seem to remember that she had a dog. Once.

Exotic- well now what is exotic in a teacher? Nowadays they look, act and dress like executives. In my school days, all teachers were ladies and pretty ancient ones at that: they had grey, slightly crinkly hair in a bun, usually worn low on the neck. They wore decorous but dull frocks in summer, and tweed skirts in winter. Stockings were lisle, shoes were sensible. Grey, grey, beige and grey. (Not that their characters were grey- but that's another story)

So a woman who sported green stockings, a blue skirt and delicate glass jewellery in all the colours of the rainbow, burst into our world as a multicoloured oddity. She had beautiful red gold hair in an immaculate bob and as I got to know her, I found her mind matched and overtook the wonderful eccentricity of her person.

Kathleen has always been eccentric, as truly gifted people are eccentric. Eccentric in the best ways.

She taught me Scholarship Level Latin at school when I was in sixth form, she learnt Welsh and Hungarian, she became a writer… and she shared my love of The Beano and The Dandy!

I went back to the school to teach. Kathleen was my head of department, and she became my friend. 

That friendship has lasted, and changed- as friendship does, for over forty years, with gaps, high points and low points.

During the last few years there have been low points indeed, as the stroke that Kathleen had in 1994 started to take its toll, and she became prey to depression and delusion. During those dark years, she frequently referred to her "Furness novel" and asked me if I could help her "sort it out".

Finally, gathering all her strength and all her pages, she managed to bundle the manuscript into two large carrier bags- "bags for life" - a lovely irony. And she gathered enough courage and energy to meet me outside Burnt Oak station with the bags. I hadn't seen her for several years, and she didn't want me to see her: "I want you all to remember me as I was", she said.

She had a week or two of great energy and optimism, when she rode on the wave that had buoyed her up to gather her book together but it was a very brief upturn in what proved to be a rapid decline in her health and spirits. She had been neglecting the physical world of eating, drinking and sleeping until she was found wandering, far from home with a dislocated shoulder, and taken to the nearest hospital. Now, with proper food and warmth and care in sheltered accommodation she is regaining strength and clarity day by day and delighted that people are enjoying Moon in Leo.

The 29th of June this year is the anniversary of the day Kathleen handed me those two carrier bags. I want to celebrate by giving away the e-version of Moon in Leo. Keep checking the blog for the code. When I post it, you will have 24 hours to download Moon in Leo for nothing!

First Public Readings from Moon in Leo

Many people are curious about writers and their stories. Kathleen Herbert is an extraordinary person, whose intellect and imagination has taken her on many a fascinating and perilous journey.

Probably her last, and in many ways her most perilous journey, is the one that started when she had a massive stroke shortly after finishing Moon in Leo. From losing a week of her life, through teaching herself to read and write again, through consequent years of struggle and depression, to the final effort of gathering together over a thousand pages of typescript into two "bags for life", she kept alive the wish to communicate with her readers. Above all, she wanted folks in Cumbria to have this book.

Mike and I feel very privileged to have helped her fulfill her wish. We are going to be telling her story publicly for the first time this Friday, at Wheyrigg Hall Hotel near Wigton. if you live in North Cumbria, please come! If you would like to book a talk, get in touch with us.

Genre- does it matter?

Until I published Moon in Leo, I scarcely noticed the genre of any book I was reading. I certainly didn't notice whether it was set in the past or the present. I did notice how well it was written, and if it had something to say. (I hate getting to the end of a book and saying "So what?" to myself.)

I still think this: after a century or two, does anyone notice that A Tale of Two Cities is a "Historical Novel", but Our Mutual Friend is contemporary? Looking back, I realise that many of my favourite books have been historical novels- Mary Renault- The King Must Die, Rosemary Sutcliff- The Rider of the White Horse, Philippa Gregory- Virgin Earth and Earthly Joys, Kathleen's earlier book- Queen of the Lightning to name a few.

When, a few years back,  I discovered two American novels- Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier and The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, I didn't think of them as fundamentally different: they each gave me a window onto a different world, moved me to tears and laughter, and as all good books, changed my view of the world. All the above have a permanent place on my shelves, to be read again and again.

What I didn't realise was that there are many people who choose historical novels over contemporary ones. It came as a bit of a shock therefore to find out that Moon in Leo cannot be marketed simply as a literary novel. In my naivety I thought it would be sufficient to post some good reviews and lots of people would like it. Now, Moon in Leo has received some excellent reviews, but it's no use my targeting lovers of Sci Fi Fantasy, or gritty Detective Fiction: it wouldn't hit their buttons.

This, and reading some comments suggesting that Moon in Leo is a Romance (for details, see my last post) led me to revisit an earlier post. Just as I was about to revise and re-post it, I came across this article by Emma Darwin (A Secret Alchemy, The Mathematics of Love) on the Romantic Novelists Association Blog: The Perils and. Pleasures of Crossing Genres

Some while ago, I found an indignant review of Kathleen's first book, Bride of the Spear. The writer berates the book for being too explicit for teenagers! I want to put the record straight with regard to Moon in Leo, so be warned:
It is not a book for teenagers. It is not a bodice ripper. It is not chick-lit. It is not escapist historical froth. It is not crammed with sensational violence or titillating sex. It is not an academic study of the socio-political and religious background to the Restoration of Charles II. If you read historical fiction to escape from what you see is a nasty modern world, you will be disappointed. Kathleen's past is not soft focus and rosy.

It's a book for grown up, intelligent people. You will understand the political, social and religious issues of the time better, when you have read it. You may even return to your history books- it is a fascinating period! You will have a good mental picture of that area of England's North-West. You may even plan a visit, if you are not lucky enough to live there: it is a place of great beauty. Above all, you will have read a cracking good story, with suspense, romance, tragedy, laughter, horror, beauty, violence, tenderness, loss, compassion, hatred, a heroine and hero who will stay with you long after you put down the book, and a sense of having shared a richness and maturity of vision with Kathleen.

Now that Moon in Leo is available on Smashwords, at less than half the price of the print version, and will be available soon for a limited period free- download it and let us know by a comment what genre you think it is!

Heart of the Story

“My heart is in Cumbria,” said Kathleen sadly, knowing she would never be there again.

“It got me here,” said Gail the hairdresser, putting her hand on her heart. 

Gail is a lovely young woman, a Cumbrian through and through, who loves reading. As I struggled to lift the heavy box left by the desk while I got my hair cut, her curiosity got the better of her, and my pride in my first batch of real books resulted in me digging into the box and showing a sample of what I was about to deliver to the bookshop in Carlisle. The result was that she bought the first copy sold of Moon in Leo.

I was back at the hairdresser’s yesterday, and she told me how much she loved the book: “as a Cumbrian myself, it made me feel like I was part of the land and history the writer is talking about”

We have had some great feedback from a variety of readers, but Gail touched my heart, just as Kathleen touched hers. I expected older, scholarly readers to enjoy it, but this response from a young, fashionable, working girl shows that a really special writer has universal appeal.

"...with a little help from the Trifolium Blog"

I have to come clean here- I am posting this review from a friend who didn't manage to post it on Amazon. While we are at it, I have noticed discussions on various blogs and lists about how useless Amazon reviews can be. Apparently, no-one believes them if they are all 5 star, and the first few are in any case almost all from people who know the writer. Well- yes, I managed to figure out who most- but not all- the reviewers of Moon in Leo are, but I didn't ask them to give it five stars! And, refreshingly, Nan Hawthorne's review, quoted elsewhere on this blog, is posted with only four stars on Good Reads. Does this mean we've arrived at last?

Anyway, this is what my friend, Mrs B S, a voracious reader, thinks:

I had expected to find Moon in Leo a difficult read as I am not very good around history in the 16/1700s and also have no understanding of the occult etc. However, to my surprise, with a little help from the Trifolium Blog and the good old dictionary I slowly read my way through the start of the book and was soon enjoying the characters and the gripping story. I loved and lost myself in the descriptions of the surrounding countryside. The ending was lovely and the sort I always opt for! All in all I would thoroughly recommend this book. Congratulations to the Author and the Publishers.

Why would a writer set their story in the past?

Kathleen shows her quality as a writer even in her letters to a teenage girl. The following is an extract from a letter to my daughter in which she discusses Miller's reasons for setting his play about the McCarthy Witch Hunts in the past.  (Click on images below for larger versions).

In a much more recent letter to me she says much the same thing about the relevance of the political and religious turmoil of the closing years of Charles II's reign to today. As she saw more parallels between then and now, so she became more anxious that Moon in Leo should be published....

....during these last weeks, the story has suddenly become incredibly topical- …for the background  we have:

• a King called Charles, with a complicated marital and family life

• a society of the rich and famous who produce a new scandal with every edition of the newspapers

• a government that has been in office for 18 years and is not only stale but starting to smell

• an opposition that is playing the cards of integrity, decency and social conscience but has some background material that would make the usual whoring and grafting sound like the biography of Florence Nightingale

• an established religion that for the time has run out of steam, and numbers of cults that are boiling with enthusiasm- some for good, some for evil, both inside and outside Christianity

• and a large number of “alternative” Englands that are barely suspected to exist by “official” England- some just want to be allowed to live, some would like to smash everything in their way-

It’s 1678, but change the clothes and it could be today. So, now- if ever- it might find a reckless publisher. 

More extracts from Kathleen's letters to come!

Come Live with me and BE my love: Ed's humiliation

OK - so I can blame last minute decisions and adjustments for the missing speech marks and faulty italicizing. But I have no excuse for missing the errors introduced by the OCR process into a crucial scene in Chapter 8 (pp.94-5).

It's the first "official" meeting between Rosamund and Henry Ravensworth: a scene that reminds me of Elizabeth Bennet's first impressions of Mr D'Arcy. They have been tasked by Lady Kesteven with providing some after-dinner music.

Henry sings Christopher Marlowe's lyric The Passionate Shepherd To His Love, sometimes referred to by its first line: "Come live with me and be my love". He hams up his performance with exaggerated gestures and grimaces; Rosamund suspects him of trying to make her giggle or lose her place in the lute accompaniment.

Rosamund is furious with Henry and answers him by singing the lyric rebuttal written by Sir Walter Raleigh, The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd, which has as its last line: "To live with thee and be thy love".

The OCR program misinterpreted this line, and in two different ways, and I didn’t spot either of them until too late. Plenty of consolation, though, in these two performances of Marlowe's lyric online on youtube.

The first is a "trad" version by the opera/broadside trio Pantagruel, probably using the tune Kathleen Herbert had in mind for Henry, and showing its susceptibility to parody.

Then a driving, yearning delivery from Annie Lennox (from a compilation CD "When Love Speaks" -mostly spoken pieces of  Shakespeare).

In a much darker scene, Rosamund hears Henry singing the same tune to very different words: "Come live with me and be my Whore".

This is a bawdy version of the song, then called The Wooing Rogue, and published in Westminster Drollery, in 1671, which also suggested that "The Tune is, My Freedom is all my Joy."

Rosamund's fear and disgust at this performance drive her to flee in panic into the back-streets of Lancaster, and into a situation which has irreversible consequences.

Men or Women?

Are readers of historical fiction predominately male or female? Answers please on this blog! The wittiest /most interesting wins a free copy of Moon in Leo. Editors' decision is final, and no, that isn't a punctuation error- two editors will decide- the book editor and the blog editor!

Of Stones and Roses

Whilst it is entirely possible to read Moon in Leo as a cracking good adventure story, and a satisfying love story, it is also teases us with big questions about its deeper significance. Why does Kathleen's heroine have such strange beliefs, and what is the significance of the unusual names?

Editor Mike Jensen answers these and other questions in new articles: Border Lands in Time and Space and The Philosopher's Stone

These articles, and the notes in Comments Notes and FAQs arose from readers' queries. Please keep your comments and questions coming in! Moon in Leo is a complex, multilayered book, and we see something new each time we read it.