Books and backs of envelopes

This week I gave my Kindle a rest because while on a family history mission to the local library, I had spotted Marika Cobbold’s Drowning Rose, a book I had seen lauded on Twitter and which I could somehow tell I would like just from reading the first page. I was most certainly not disappointed and found myself sneaking back to read it at every opportunity until it was done.

In short, I loved it and have posted my review on Amazon.

Meanwhile, another Tweet alerted me to the visit of Alison Baverstock, author of The Naked Author : a guide to self-publishing, to Toppings bookshop in Bath.  Now despite living only 12 miles from Bath and visiting on a semi-regular basis, I admit I had never actually been to Toppings. And since the guest author and myself  had recently become acquainted over the crucial matter of ball gowns, it looked like time for a trip, which despite the torrential rain (no change there then) proved an excellent idea.

For anyone who doesn’t already know Toppings, it is the mosy gorgeously bookish bookshop you could possibly hope to experience and I wished I had gone a bit earlier to soak up the atmosphere ( although probably better for my bank balance that I didn’t).  Alison’s talk was also thought-provoking, taking as it did a rather more ‘dignified’ (as she put it) approach to self-publishing than the subject usually engenders, and reminding us that people have (and have had) all kinds of reasons for publishing their work, not all of them requiring profitability or critical acclaim as justification.  She was also emphatic that self-publishing really has lost its stigma , something I have sensed for a while, but it’s good to have it confirmed by someone on the inside.

Of course there is an art to note-taking and the audience, (students of publishing and illustration, as well as would-be and already-am authors)  were all equiped with notebooks, netbooks and interesting questions, whereas  I came away with my impressions scrawled on the back of a scruffy envelope.Why did I take this picture? Artistic it is not, but I have to say I got the main points down. And as any good Tweeter will know, lack of space can concentrate the mind!
Since then I have no more than glanced at the book itself, but it looks to have the same measured approach as Alison’s talk and with I’m looking forward to diving in soon. If I take notes I’ll be sure to share them.