Great news - Madeleine Goes to the Moon is now available to preorder directly from English Rose Books. I will be eternally grateful to anyone who preorders, plus you get the added bonus of being one of the first people to receive a copy. Please please please if you can buy direct from English Rose Books as it means I make more than if you buy through a 3rd party bookstore (and by more I mean more than about 50p). If you are kind enough or supportive enough to preorder then please just follow the link below to do so.

http://www.englishrosebooks.co.uk/madeleine-goes-to-the-moon

Also, although the book is not being officially released until 26th September (with announcement over book launch event for the 27th September pending), myself and Charlie will both be attending the 'The Word' literary festival in Preston on Saturday 20th September. You'll need tickets to get in unfortunately, but if everything goes according to plan, we will have copies of our book for sale there. In fact, that will be the first place where anyone will be able to purchase a copy and take it home. If you do so, I'm sure we'll both be more than happy to sign it for you (and thank you personally too). There will also be plenty of other books for sale there and some interesting guest speakers.

http://the-word.org.uk/

A reporter from the Warrington Guardian newspaper called me yesterday to discuss my story (somewhat briefly). So there should be an article in the next edition covering my background and link to other authors in advance of the launch of my first book. I don't think it will be on the front page, but it's welcome all the same and my first bit of publicity.

Well I don't really want to use this blog to moan because that's not very positive, but here goes anyway and hopefully this will be my first and last time. Arranging a successful book launch is really important to me so I was a little disappointed when one high profile store informed me that they don't host launch events for new authors. That's frustrating, but kind of fine, at least they let me know in good time. I'm not sure that they would take the same stance if I was a celebrity but maybe one day I'll have the chance to turn them down in return.....

What really annoyed me is that one store (from the same chain) took 3 weeks to tell me that they don't host book launch events for new authors, nor do they host events without having seen the book first. 

3 weeks!! They could have told me that after 30 seconds!! That was after me visiting the store and explaining to them that I am a new author and that the book is not ready yet (it is a launch event after all, so why would the book be ready), and 3 weeks of myself and my publisher emailing and calling them almost daily. 

Now I don't mind that they won't hold a launch event for my book, that's their decision after all. But that's 3 weeks that I didn't have to waste and I think it's pretty rude that they couldn't give what turned out to be a standard response much sooner. So now we start again, but I'm hoping that we should be able to get something sorted out pretty quickly.

I'm currently spending my spare time trying to sort out a book launch, book signings, school visits etc. with excellent help from my publisher (they're not all bad!) while finalising the book layout and contacting local press. And I thought all I would have to do is write!

One store was kind enough to inform my publisher that they no longer hold local author events, which is a shame. When I'm famous and no longer 'local' I will be more than happy to turn them down in return.....

We now have a launch date for Madeleine Goes to the Moon of 27th September 2014. There's lots of hard work to do between now and then completing the illustrations, sorting the text layout, arranging book signings, promoting the book etc. so the time will probably fly by. I've updated the home page with the final cover including text, please let us know if you have any comments or questions.