Steve Chilton's Blog: Goodreads Author's Blog, page 4

Pre-orders and book launch

With just two weeks to the launch of my new book (on Thu 20 Apr), ‘Voices from the hills: pioneering women fell and mountain runners’, it seems a good time to highlight the details for pre-ordering a copy, and also of the book’s launch event.

Firstly, though here is a reminder of what some kind folks said who read a preview copy of the book, which are shown on the rear of the dust jacket:

‘A joyous and inspirational read’ : Madeleine Watson – first female chair of the Fell Runners Asso...

‘An important work of history’

Prompted by seeing a copy of a review of ‘Voices from the hills’ (from the mighty Keswick Reminder link to review) Graham Breeze had this to say about my book on pioneer women fell and mountain runners:
[Disclosure: Graham Breeze was my critical friend as part of the process of getting the book ready for publication]

It can take many years from conceiving the idea of a book to seeing it published but Steve Chilton’s history of the pioneering fell and mountain runners will shortly be on sale, w...

Thanks to this book those trailblazing women will be recognised

FOREWORD TO ‘VOICES FROM THE HILLS’

I started fell running as an adult in 2008 and was struck immediately by the warmth and inclusivity of the fell running community. In a midsummer evening race close to home in the Peak District, I experienced for the first time the camaraderie of that shared effort as I followed the line of runners to the summit trig, and then the adrenaline rush of the fast, scarcely controlled descent across heather and mud, to cake and tea at the finish.

That day was ...

The joy of research interviews

I am deep into the research for my sixth book, and as I have said on many an occasion – the research phase is such a pleasure. At the moment I am doing a good number of interviews, which rather nicely include some of the greats of fell running that I have never chatted with before. One weekend recently I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing five fabulous folk that span several generations (literally for three of them).

A trip to Trawden gave me the chance to speak to three generation...

Blog 2022: most visited pages and most downloaded content

It is time to review the blog after another year. I did far fewer blog posts over the year, less than one per month. Two other stats: referals came from Facebook at a 7:1 ratio over Twitter (the same ratio as last year). Twitter is one account, whereas I can post notifications in a number of FB Groups. Visitors came from 75 different countries, with USA and Germany being distant second and third places behind the UK.

MOST VISITED PAGES

The third most visited page on the blog was one from 3...

Bob Graham Round data for 2022

The figures for Bob Graham Round (BGR) registrations, completions, male/female split, direction of travel, etc. for 2022, have been released on the BGR website. It always make interesting reading, and I have commented on it previously. [eg https://itsahill.wordpress.com/2020/01/08/bgr-completions-2019-update/]

I have updated my spreadsheet, and the graphs of several aspects of the data, which are illustrated below with a couple of comments on each.

This first graph shows the data j...

Publication hitch for next book

Publishing has had a number of economic pressures in the last year; some merely inconvenient, others serious.

This is a quote from the blog of a publisher that I follow. The blog carries on:

The serious issues have centred around the cost-of-living crisis and a doubling in printing costs. In an industry with very small margins, this alone will force all publishers to make changes, and some publishers simply won’t survive. Other issues include the fallout from Covid as publishers need...

Voices from the hills

‘Voices from the hills: pioneering women fell and mountain runners’ – my fifth book – is set to be published on 23 February 2023, by Sandstone Press.

You can pre-order it from Sam Read Booksellers at this link.

Praise from pre-press review copies:

‘A must read for anyone with a passion for women’s equality and sport.’ Sue Anstiss, Game On: The Unstoppable Rise of Women’s Sport  

Voices from the Hills is the story of the barriers and struggles encountered and th...

Thinking about the BGR record

There has been some interesting stuff around Jack Kuenzle’s recent Bob Graham Round record, including a report/write-up by the pacers, and a podcast in the Singletrack series. The following are a few thoughts from me on it and a couple of quotes from Kuenzle (but if you are really interested it is worth listening to the podcast, which is linked below, as is the report).

It was quite a shock when Kilian Jornet rocked-up in 2018 and took an hour off Billy Bland’s record, which had stood for 36 ...

Next book coming soon

Info coming very soon on ‘Next Book”. Meanwhile a reminder: Copies of all of my books are available from good book shops. Use this link to purchase from @SReadBooks in Grasmere, who have an excellent online service.

https://www.samreadbooks.co.uk/s/search?q=Steve%20Chilton