Author: Simon Bates
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Happy Easter
Easter came early on in our school holidays down here in Devon, with Good Friday the first day off school we were plunged straight into the long weekend. The weather is currently beautiful here, and with every grass verge sprouting bluebells, whitebells and the odd pinkbell, East Devon is full of colour. I am therefore…
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Eden’s Alternative to Appeasement — the latest
We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve settled on a cover design for Eden’s Alternative to Appeasement! As well as our “blurb” text for the back cover: As Foreign Secretary in Neville Chamberlain’s Cabinet in 1937, Eden didn’t believe in appeasing the German and Italian dictatorships or the militaristic Japanese regime. Instead, he wanted to confront…
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Moving things along…
Following on from last week’s update, this week is more of a status report. I decided posting nothing at all might be a slippery slope to abandoning what I find to be a useful discipline, so instead I’m just going to say a little about what I’m up to. Think of it as a kind…
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An update that’s actually an update
This week I’m going to take a break from offering publishing advice and instead give a short update on what is happening here at Tithebarn at the moment. Suffice to say it’s been an exciting first quarter so far. To begin with, I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve signed our first two authors. More on…
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Four Reasons Academic Authors Should Read Fiction
Last Thursday was World Book Day. As a parent I always find it inspiring to see all the children at my sons’ school get excited about their favourite stories and characters. Walking into school we saw scores of exuberant kids dressed as characters that someone somewhere was once just siting in their study — or…
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How should I choose a publisher? Four things to think about.
I have been asked this question quite often, both in my current role at Tithebarn Press, and back when I was a commissioning editor at Routledge. At first glance it might seem like an obvious opening to pitch whomever my current employer happens to be, but I’ve always preferred to take the long view. People…
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A Walkthrough of the Publishing Process: Part Three – Post-publication
Over the past two weeks, we’ve looked at how book projects begin and how manuscripts are transformed into books via the production process. This week we’ll continue by looking at what happens after a book is published. As before we’ll be using our example of Sarah Connor and her potentially world-saving book Resisting the Rise…
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A Walkthrough of the Publishing Process: Part Two – Production
Last week we looked at the publishing process from 10,000 metres, before talking about how we get a project started. Continuing with our example of Sarah Connor and her magnum opus Resisting the Rise of the Machines: Will Skynet “be back”? this week we will be going through the Production process step by step. I…
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A Walkthrough of the Publishing Process: Part One – Beginnings
One of the challenges of having spent nearly twenty years working in publishing, and mostly working with people who tend to have some sense of how it works, is that it can be hard to step outside of your own context to explain it from scratch to somebody who really does not have a frame…
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If a picture paints a thousand words… (part three)
In the last of our three week series, we’re carrying on where we left off last week, continuing to look at the challenges involved in publishing images in your book, and how to manage them. We’re concluding by looking at issues around image quality, and the particular challenges that relate to selecting a cover image.…
