Excitement, trepidation, anticipation, joy, even exhaustion – I am feeling all of these and more since the advance copies of Not In Our Hands arrived in time for Christmas. I’ve been planning the launches, distribution and marketing for months.
Writing – and even editing – the book was easy, compared to the pressure exerted by this phase in the book’s life and mine. There have been three previews of publication in print so far and I have a radio interview booked for Monday. I’ve been so lucky in having offers of launches in four shops and counting, all spread so far from each other around Manchester that they won’t be competing directly.
But soon, there’s the bit I really enjoy – as well as the launches themselves – speaking to groups, here and there. So many people belong to groups which invite speakers, some every week, which takes effort on their part but very little on mine. So I’m keeping my head down till next week is over and the next journey begins. With an unconfirmed invitation to a Lit Fest, thing are looking good.
The publicity merry-go-round begins! This is the first published interview (in my local newspaper) with more lined up and a radio date in the new year. I take receipt of the books from the printers next week and there are already several bookshops, festival programmers and reviewers waiting for them prior to official publication in January! Have you placed your order yet?
Not In Our Hands : Pre Orders (for Delivery mid Jan. 2015)
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If you prefer NOT to use Online Payment, I accept Cheque :
I should like one copy of Not In Our Hands @ £10 including postage and enclose a cheque
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Two copies, OR one copy of each book, will cost £18.20 (Incl. Postage)
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Please send a cheque made out to Charlotte Gringras for the appropriate amount Enclosing your name and address.
Please send the order to : 1, Groby Place, Altrincham, Cheshire WA 14 4AL
I used to think that having the idea, structuring the plot, developing characters and writing 100,000 words was the hard part of writing a novel but how wrong I was!
Editing, redrafting, cover design, working with a publisher, working with a publicist … and then there’s the marketing! Never underestimate how much time it will take to sell your book.
Between coordinating and attending a long list of media interviews, readings and launch events I don’t know if I am coming or going! It’s a strange experience thinking of yourself as a brand and your book as a product but it’s absolutely essential if you are to define your market and target them effectively.
So this week I have mostly…been confirming launch events in and around my home city Manchester and providing copy for a city-wide Jewish magazine and giving an interview and attending a photoshoot for my local newspaper.
If you are reading this in the north west of England it would be lovely to meet you at Inmans in Didsbury on 23 January, or Waterstones Grand Cafe on Deansgate, Manchester on 29 January or in my local branch of Waterstones in Altrincham on 8 February.
Publication 14 January – 43 days and counting! Orders now being taken at notinourhands@gmail.com
A feast of Italian food, forbidden fruit & hidden history. In her second novel, Charlotte Gringras re-introduces you to Jake and his fellow students who discover love, prejudice and friendship in an idyllic hill town
Not In Our Hands : Pre Orders (for Delivery mid Jan. 2015)
Published by
|
|
|
|
|
——————————————————————————————————————-
If you prefer NOT to use Online Payment, I accept Cheque :
I should like one copy of Not In Our Hands @ £10 including postage and enclose a cheque
——————————————————————————————————————-
Two copies, OR one copy of each book, will cost £18.20 (Incl. Postage)
—————————————————————————————————————–
Please send a cheque made out to Charlotte Gringras for the appropriate amount Enclosing your name and address.
Please send the order to : 1, Groby Place, Altrincham, Cheshire WA 14 4AL
Things are hotting up for the publication of my second novel, ‘Not in our Hands.’ The thing is, it is no longer in my hands – because I have today sent the final chapter off into the careful and caring hands of Helen, my editor and publisher. She has done two edits, as have I and the next thing to arrive will be the online proofs. Wow! Can’t believe it. It seems on track for publication on Jan 14th 2015 and I already have some event bookings.
The first is on Jan 29th , 2015 from 5pm till 7pm at Waterstone’s Grand Café, Deansgate, Manchester. Maybe this will be the first thing in your 2015 diary!
There is also one at Inman’s in Didsbury on Lapwing Lane, on Jan 23rd from 2-4
and I’ll tell you what you are.” – so said a Frenchman! Food is part of our culture that defines us all and it’s interesting to me how food features in my poetry and prose, it is obviously very important to me and how I define myself and my characters. So I thought I’d share a couple of my poems that feature food. Let me know what you think!
MANCHESTER CAVIAR
Since when did mushy peas go down as caviar ?
They put it on a menu in a posh foodie bar;
we wondered what comprised this local delicacy
but there it was, beside my chips, dolled up prettily.
Why not say it like it is, be proud of our cuisine,
squishy, mashed and mushy, like out of a canteen?
Smeared on’t fish ‘n’ chips like a kind of mortar
you swallow it if possible, helped by a swig of water.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t look at all like
sturgeons’ eggs which always seem to strike
me as resembling a pile of mouse droppings;
so these uber-eateries should consider stopping
their pseudo labelling and falsified descriptions
where plates are paintings with inedible additions.
Let’s call a pea a pea and so, too, mushy ones
leave real caviar to snooty southern brethren.
Charlotte Gringras
Published in ‘Write North West’2013 by Erbacce press with Salford University
BLENDING IN
Friends went home to hot cross buns
when I went back to kichels; I longed
to share those buns’ religious connotations –
forbidden to, I’d make tasty imitations.
I couldn’t bake a gooey Christmas cake
lest mimicry of Christian friends would make
me less Jewish. Yet more like them I yearned
to be – then they’d like me. Maybe they’d spurn
the New Year honey cake I brought, trying
to win them over, constantly vying
with them to reach their uniformity
of food to share, aspiring to conformity.
My Pesach cookies went down a treat
serving only to set me apart, to separate;
to join the fold it took pancakes on a plate
sugar-sprinkled, shared for Shrove Tuesday.
Provided that we called it Pancake Day
I could belong; join the gang, play the game
feel like everyone and almost be the same.
Charlotte Gringras
Published in Commonword’s Anthology, ‘Sweet Tongues’, 2013
