Rob Gregson's Blog

November, National Novel-Writing Month

On November 13th 2019, two Lancashire libraries will help to celebrate National Novel-Writing Month by playing host to a couple of short talks for local reading groups, aspiring writers and anyone else with an appreciation for the written word.
I mention this mainly because I'll be one of the speakers.
The first will take place at 1pm at HeyshamLibrary. The second will be held at the Harris Museum, Art Gallery & Libraryin Preston, starting at approximately 5:15pm. The presentations will last about an hour, with time afterwards for a Q&A.
The other speakers will be Robert Wingfield, founder of the INCA Project, and AndyChapman, author of a number of comedy novels and, most recently, a horror entitled Shelley Town RPG.



In my case, I'll be reviewing the research, connections, coincidences and pitches that let me to find  a publisher in the shape of Mirror World. I'll also be talking about the value of peer-feedback, and why my latest novel, Shelf Life, would have been a very different beast without the benefit of constructive criticism from an online group of fellow writers.
Robert Wingfield has years of experience of self-publishing and, through the Incas, of helping other authors to turn their manuscripts into highly polished books in both printed and electronic forms. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of online platforms such as Kindle Direct Publishing, of print-on-demand services and which manuscript templates work best for the self-published author. He'll be bringing examples to show the results one can expect.
Andy Chapman has published several comedies including the highly rated The Accidental Scoundrel. He'll be sharing his thoughts on the creative writing process and his latest self-imposed challenge to write a novel within some ludicrously short timescale. (I think he mentioned 90 days? Mad, I tell you...) A couple of years ago, Andy explored the audio-book route to publication and developed an approach that proved both successful and rewarding. So he'll also be talking about all the challenges involved in that, from working with voice-over artists to the business of production, marketing and sales.
If you're in the neighbourhood, please feel free to call in.

Shelf Life Now Available

The title says it all, really, doesn't it?

What else to add? Um... well, I'm very pleased, obviously.

Oh, and here's where it can be ordered.

Mirror World PublishingWaterstonesAmazon UKAmazon USAmazon CABarnes and NobleKobo
I also have a small stash of paperbacks at home, so if any of my local friends want a copy, please let me know. (I can even sign it, or add an amusing quip, or draw something rude in the margins if you like.)

Revelations - The Book

The new cover of my latest novel, Shelf Life, was revealed this morning on the Mirror World blog site. Here's a link to the article.

Accompanying some excessively kind words is the cover itself. Here's a sneak preview:


Pre-Order Links:Mirror World PublishingAmazon USAmazon CABarnes and NobleKobo
A link to the Amazon UK site will be available shortly.

Cover Reveal: 17th July

In a recent post, I said that 17th July would see the launch of my latest novel, Shelf Life. Since then, the final stages of preparation have gone very smoothly, thanks in no small part to the tireless efforts of Justine Dowsett at Mirror World. Accordingly, it looks like we'll be launching on time.

There's also a new cover to be revealed, but you'll have to wait until the 17th for that. In the meantime, all I can give you is a quick 'teaser.'


The full blurb is as follows:

Young bookseller Cathy Finn is having a bad day. First, there's the assassin's bullet. Then comes the realisation that she's been living in a work of fiction. Worse, she wasn't even the main character.


Cathy's quiet, bit-part life may be over, but her troubles are only beginning. Her last day on Earth is also her first as a citizen of New Tybet. For over four hundred years, its people have been rescuing those destined to die  in other narratives, but now the system is faltering.  A saboteur is at work and Cathy will have to stop him if she’s ever going to find a way home. Failure could maroon her forever and spark a revolution that sets all the worlds of literature ablaze.


This next statement might only really apply to my mum, but if you're absolutely desperate to pre-order a copy, you can do so via the Mirror World website. (Here's a link to the 'new releases' page. The pre-order facility will go live shortly.)

Shelf Life - Publication Date

Back in 2017, I finished work on my latest novel, Shelf Life, whose cover design I featured in my previous post. Since then, I have said no more on the subject because the book was picked up by Mirror World Publishing and I agreed to wait for the company's formal announcement before going public myself.

Happily, I can now confirm that Shelf Life has a scheduled launch date of 17th July 2019.

I will post news of anything important that occurs between now and then. In the meantime, I'd like to pass on a great many thanks to Justine and all at Mirror World for their faith in the story. Likewise, to all those kind indie writer friends who provided invaluable feedback, suggestions and counselling.

Cover Story

Okay, so it's been a while. Sorry.
However... I have an excuse for my long absence. Amongst other things, I've been writing a new book. In its way, it's a sequel to 'The Written World' (i.e. 'Unreliable Histories' and 'The Endless Land'), except that it involves none of the original characters. Oh, and the world they inhabited has changed beyond all recognition. I don't know if that meets any of the formal criteria for a sequel - possibly not - but I don't suppose it really matters.
Anyway, I've just sorted out the new cover. And here it is.


And yes, people here are consciously talking about 'original narratives'. They've recognised that all worlds are fictions, and they've made it their job to 'extract' innocent victims at the moment of their deaths.They can hop between literary worlds, sneaking around everything from crappy romantic novels to the finest works of Shakespeare, but they must always operate in secret. After all, for those still inhabiting the original tales, death is supposed to be pretty final.
A whole nation has built up around the industry of extraction and it's into this cultural melting pot that Cathy is unexpectedly cast. But with a killer at large in her own world, she's keen to make her way back home, even if that means keeping some very strange company on the way.
Oh, and there's a deranged killer making life a bit difficult, too.
So it's basically a tale about tales; a book about books. An adventure in which our young protagonist gets to run about in different genres, poking fun at the clichés and generally peering behind metaphorical curtains. It's been fun to write.
Originally, given the fact that everyone in this world was meant to have died in some other story, I intended to call it "The Other Book of the Dead". Countless emails have sped between me and my many indie writer friends, all with the subject heading "TOBOTD". I quite liked the comic undertones of that, but one or two commentators, including the ever-helpful Corben Duke, made the point that a title like that might easily suggest a horror / straight fantasy. My original cover design did little to dispel such misapprehensions.


The biscuit in the bottom corner is a sort of comic motif associated with one of the main characters but does the cover as a whole cover scream 'comedy'? Probably not.
So, for a fresh perspective, I turned to a long-standing friend ('long-standing' here being used as a more acceptable alternative to 'old'). Her name is Kath Walker, and Kath draws people. All kinds of people. Beautiful, interesting, famous, and notorious. There's often a whimsical feel  to her drawings and she has a cartoony style that I thought would be far better suited to conveying the book's comic tendencies.
Kath knows her stuff. She trained in Fine Art at Oxford University and, after a time spent as a graphic designer, decided to become an illustrator. She's worked for numerous publishers, as well as clients such as Google, Sainsbury’s, The Sunday Times and the Scottish Government. Here's her website: http://www.kathwalker-illustration.co.uk.
We decided that we could hint at the interconnected worlds with an Escher-style maze of staircases and floating doorways, and reflect the literary allusions within the story by substituting hardback books for landings. The result is better, I'm sure you'll agree, than a skull, and old book and a Jammie Dodger.
So here we are, with the cover finished and the manuscript going through its final proof reading stages. All I have to do now is name the chapters and come up with some witty and engaging blurb. That's going to be the hard bit, I think. One problem with these daft 'high concept' stories is that they're a bugger to distil down. That's the next task on my list, so I'll leave you now while I work on it.
I may be some time...

Speaking Out for Indie Writers

I'm indebted to Richard Vobes of Book-Snippets.com for producing a 5-minute audio extract from my novel, Unreliable Histories. His reading can be found here: Unreliable Histories on YouTube.
Richard's Book-Snippets is a new site dedicated to helping readers to find stories by unsung writers and giving those same writers a new and innovative platform for promoting their works. Though still young, the site already features a host of excerpts from talented writers such as Jemahl Evans, Jeanette Taylor Ford, Lucinda Elliot, Phillip D Curwood and Sue Harris. Comedy writer Robert Wingfield also has an excerpt there, and we can expect more comedies to come soon.
(Apologies to all those I haven't mentioned but it's perhaps testament to the site's success that, already, the list is getting pretty long.)
It's an interesting way of encouraging readers to engage with new works and I really hope it takes off. It's certainly a fascinating experience to hear one's own words spoken by someone else. In my case, I chose an obscure chapter featuring one of the book's lesser characters - a young apprentice named Tymacht Jul. He recurs fleetingly throughout the first book and since most of the comments I receive typically refer to only four or five key characters, I thought it might be nice to give him an outing. His chapters are short asides from the main action and I thought one of them might work well as a short, self-contained extract.
Richard has clearly invested a huge amount of time and effort into this new venture so please do show your support by visiting the site and having a poke around. There's some good stuff there, I promise.

Rising up the Slush Pile

November got off to a good start. I heard that Unreliable Histories had made the list of top 5 novels  in 'The Slush Pile' - a new, online competition that aims to put writers in touch with literary agents across the world.
It's an interesting concept - essentially a vetting process that seeks to present beleaguered agents with a selection of writings that the Slush Pile's editorial team consider to be the best of the bunch for any given week. In theory, agents can use it to devote their time more usefully to books that experienced writers have already judged and deemed worthy of further examination. It's a no-promises sort of deal but agents are undoubtedly very busy people, so there's a certain logic underpinning the whole idea.
To any of my indie author friends out there, might I suggest you give this one a look? See: http://www.theslush.com. A basic competition entry costs nothing and the top five novels are promoted to a list of participating agents in the UK / US. There are also paid options that promise useful feedback from the team.
It will be interesting to see what sort of following the site develops and whether it provokes any response with respect to Unreliable Histories.  It's early days - the site only launched today (3rd November) - but it's an idea that I hope finds traction.

Due Thanks

I think it's important to say 'thank you.' It's probably an 'upbringing' thing and hearty congratulations are no doubt due to my parents but however that feeling came about, now it's sort of ingrained.

For example, if I'm poised by a pedestrian crossing and a driver slows to let me across, I don't think I'd be physically capable of moving my legs without first having offered a grateful wave and a clearly mouthed 'thanks.' Conversely, if I'm the driver and a pedestrian crosses without displaying the same simple courtesy, I get cross. I mean, I know they're within their rights and everything, that the Highway Code is on their side and that crushing them beneath my wheels would be something of an overreaction but nevertheless... I think the world needs a few more expressions of gratitude.

With that in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Amazon reviewer Mary Jane for a very detailed and considered review of The Endless Land. (The sequel to Unreliable Histories.) It contains some lovely comments, many of which I will certainly be repeating to my friends until such time as they ask me to stop.



Likewise: "a very cleverly crafted story, with a conception quite breathtakingly original, and written with a wit and verve that truly astonish." That's very kind, isn't it? I couldn't let something like that pass without saying something.

It really is a very thoughtfully worded review and will rank amongst my favourites. If you fancy a read of it, here's a link. Review: The Endless Land.

The Wild Places

I'm currently reading The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane and, goodness me, that man can write. The book just filled with the most beautiful descriptions of Britain's dwindling wildernesses. Part celebration, part exhortation and part elegy, it's a bittersweet joy to read. This is what the English language sounds like when an author has mastered prose.