Why Blog?

A Blog is a Vital Extension to your Business Card

This weekend the Leicester Writes - Festival of New Writing is taking place. Most of the talks are at the Phoenix Arts Centre with some at the LCB Depot. I will be on a panel tomorrow afternoon talking about the use of social media. It is at the LCB Depot if you're thinking of coming along. In case you can't get there, the following is some of what I will be talking about:

I first began blogging in November 2009. I had attended a session at the Leicester Adult Education College and the advice was that every new writer should start a blog and get a Twitter account. The blog must be kept up to date with regular posts that are lively and interesting and you should tweet with other like-minded people promoting your blog posts as you go. So that is what I did.

When you first start blogging it's hard to know what to write and what style to adopt. (These days I never have to think. I just write!) The month after I set up my blog I saw an online challenge. It offered to advertise my site in return for me blogging about a local independent bookshop. I took up the challenge. I blogged about The Reading Shop, our very own independent children's bookshop in Oadby, and that's how I first got talking with the owner and now also my publisher, Lynn Moore. You can read that blog post here.

Not long after this, Lynn was approached by a publisher asking if she knew any local writers who could write history for children. Thanks to the blog post that I'd written and the discussion that we had, she knew that this was the job for me and put my name forward. I received the commission to write The Children's History of Leicester.

By this time I had built up a group of online friends who visit my blog regularly and I also had quite a following on Twitter. I blogged about the book. I tweeted about the book and they retweeted.

My friendship with Lynn developed and when Richard III's body was discovered under the car park in Leicester she asked me if I would be writing about it. I said I would but when my publisher said they couldn't commit to such a book Lynn stepped in with the awesome line, "If they won't pay to get it published, then I will!" And she did.

Part of Alice Povey's illustration of the Battle of Bosworth

This was new territory for both of us but I didn't have to worry because there's every kind of advice any writer can ever ask for in the blogging world. Bloggers are amazingly generous, supportive and knowledgeable.

We needed an illustrator and, if it had not been for Twitter, I would never have heard about Alice Povey. Alice's mother tweets under the name @Richard1483. She is even more obsessed with Richard III than I am and that was how we got to follow each other on Twitter. I admired the art work on her blog and she told me about her daughter, Alice, who went on to illustrate my Children's Book of Richard III.

None of this would have happened without my blog and Twitter. I am now researching for my Children's Book of the Crystal Palace and, although the contact was made when I was doing a book signing and wasn't directly due to my Internet presence, people from the Friends of the Crystal Palace were able to check me out and look at my work by visiting my blog. This is why my blog has become a vital extension to my business card.

Do share your story in the comments below if your blog or Twitter account has directly created a publishing opportunity for you.

*New Release* The Children's Book of Richard III

I'm proud to announce that

The Children's Book of Richard III 

is now published and available for you to buy. 

Here's my copy...

When I started writing this book the plan was to explain the last years of the Wars of the Roses in easy terms. As I progressed through the story of his life I became more involved with Richard, his life, the way that his name was treated after his death and the excitement of the archaeological dig.  Consequently this book has become much more than my original plans for it. To give you a taster of what's in the book here is a photo of the Contents Page and aren't Alice Povey's illustrations amazing!

The most exciting bits to write were... well, all of it really, but I did enjoy writing the interview with the Witch of Daneshill. She was said to see Richard riding out to the Battle of Bosworth. His foot hit the side of Bow Bridge and she predicted that the next time he crossed that bridge it would be his head that knocked against the side... and she was right! I also loved writing about the science and archaeology aspects of the search for his body.

(Update posted on Friday 4th July: Apologies if PayPal tried to add £10 shipping on top of the p&p. This has now been resolved. We will be including payment by credit and debit card very soon. )

If you'd like to buy a copy, you can get one at The Reading Shop either online or phone through your order on 0116 2717077 and it will be posted to you. Alternatively you can pop into the shop on The Parade, Oadby, Leicester.

Note for teachers:

 I will be visiting schools next term to talk about Richard III and the book, which covers a range of Key Stage 2 areas in addition to history. If you are interested in booking a school visit then please email me on rosalind.kathryn@gmail.com

Daughter update: Thanks to all those of you who have sent your kind messages to my Daughter. She is starting the slow post-op recovery and, yes, I'll still be Nurse Mum for at least another week.

Exclusive Front Cover Reveal

These last few weeks have been a frenetic time of checking and rechecking final proofs for my Children’s Book of Richard III. I am relieved to say that, at just gone midnight last night the book finally went off to our local printing firm, Soar Valley Press. I’ve used them before and so I know that they are four friendly, accommodating, award-winning printers. They hope to get the books to us in three weeks’ time.

Here is an exclusive peep at the front cover:

I'm so pleased with Alice's illustrations and design work. She has turned my book into something very special. You can see more of her work on her website, Alice Povey Illustrations.

So far, Independent Publishing has not been as scary as I had expected. I mentioned in an earlier post about the disparity of heading styles. I've certainly learnt a lesson from that, but this last week has been full of insecurities over spellings, word usages, spacing on the pages; all those small things that can make such a big difference. For example, on one page I’d put battle field as two words even though I know that it’s one word. On another page I’d repeated a word three times in one sentence. It was easily corrected but what amazes me is that five people have proof read this and I’ve proof read it many, many times. I suppose there will still be the odd mistake hiding amongst all those words but if you buy a copy and find one of them, I don’t think I want to know about it… ok, ok, you can tell me but please be gentle!

If you want to order an advanced copy please contact Lynn Moore at The Reading Shop. Lynn Moore is not only my publisher; she is also the owner of one of the few Independent Children’s Bookshops left in the UK. 

Quite soon there will be launch parties to arrange and school visits to plan but before all that happens I have to get back to working on my Cemetery Research Project. I’ve fallen seriously behind schedule… but it’s been worth it.

For those who didn't catch the announcement, the High Court Judges have ruled that Richard III will be reinterred in Leicester Cathedral in Spring 2015.

Independent Publishing and a Preview of Richard III

They say it keeps you young to learn new things but I think it batters your brain! Producing the text for The Children's Story of Richard III ready for publishing has been packed with new experiences and I now realise how daunting Independent Publishing can be.

It's not always the big things that catch you out. For me it's the little things like creating the Title Page.  I'd never thought about the Title Page inside the cover of a book. It's something that is just there. Fortunately Alice Povey is doing the Book Design as well as the illustrations and she came to my rescue. I'd never thought about the wording on the spine of the book either but again, Alice has got it sorted. As for the Acknowledgments Page, there is quite a lot of legal speak that we've had to include to cover copyright permissions from other people for images used and copyright claims on behalf of ourselves, not to mention acknowledging support and advice.

A preview of Richard III

One of the scariest 'almost mistakes' that I made was to not be consistent with my side heading styles.  I am eternally grateful to my publisher, Lynn Moore from The Reading Shop, for spotting this. Some of the side headings had initial capitals. Some just had a capital for the first word of the heading. Of course, I know how important it is to be consistent but I hadn't noticed the inconsistencies. So, how many more mistakes will I find before the book is out?

The illustrations have almost been completed by the amazing Alice Povey. I then get a penultimate opportunity to proof read. I'm feeling slightly sick at the thought of reading those words again but it has to be done! The final chance will be when the Printers, Soar Valley Press, produce their draft book. Once we say 'Yes' to that, there'll be no turning back. People keep reassuring me that even the most prestigious of publications have little errors but I so don't want that to happen to my book.

If that were all I was doing right now, then I wouldn't be feeling so brain battered but there's the small matter of continuing to catalogue the local cemetery and create a Website for Ancestry Research. Thankfully I have an expert in database building working with me but it's down to me to write the content of the Website text pages. This has meant a crash course in HTML coding and website design. Enough said!

So excuse me while I pop off and work out which letter to put in-between < and > to make things happen in HTML. It's all good stuff... I think!

“Please can you sign my book?”

I'm having a book launch at

The Reading Shop, The Parade, Oadby, Leicester 

at 11 am on 16^th April.

The books are in

 A Children’s History of Leicester  ISBN: 978-1849931496

And they've put some of my Bathtime Rap books in the window display too

All we need now are some visitors to make my book launch a really fun morning... or is it? My pen is feeling nervous. It’s watched other authors signing books, their pens moving with a flash and a flourish and the signing is done. So why can’t my pen do the same? It seems to get tongue-tied (nib-tied?). It has no trouble when I write a manuscript. It works perfectly well when producing a covering letter. It even enjoys signing the contract but it has never managed to grasp the art of book signing.

So if you come along to the book launch (and I do hope you will) don’t forget, when you’re ready to have your book signed, to please go easy on my pen. It may be feeling just a little nervous.