Hola Fahrenhistas,
So as some of you might know, in a fit of collective corporate insanity yesterday the UK publishing industry released over 600 new titles in one day.
You can read about it here.
Behind each one of those books was an author who had possibly waited for that moment their whole lives, all their sweat & blood & tears poured between the covers of this creative endeavour.
Behind every one of those authors there were editors, designers, marketeers, production managers, publicity wizards - all of them working their socks off (for precious little pay) to try and bring the best book they can to market.
And then there’s you. The readers - the people who love books, who buy the books, the people who’ve built communities around them, communities where you nurture each other as much as the authors who write the books that mean so much to you.
And what did the corporate publishing industry do?
We’ll tell you what they did - they lined up 600 books, and threw them all off a cliff in one single day to clear their (covid delayed) schedules and get as many of them out into the market as they could before Christmas.
No plan, no strategy - just get them out there and see what sticks.
They did this in the full knowledge that the market couldn’t sustain so many new books all in one hit, they did it knowing that 99% of those books would sink without a trace.
It was an act of supreme crassness that let down authors, publishing staff and crucially you the readers who will never know if your next favourite book was in the middle of the literary skip they just filled up and dumped into the landfill of obscuriy.
Shame on them.
So, you know what, we don’t have the heart this week to add to the noise and to try and convince you to spend your hard-earned on our books instead of someone else’s.
Instead this week we’re gonna pause for a moment and say thank-you to all of you who have ever supported us in any way. This weekend instead of trying to sell you stuff we’re going to give you a book from our list for FREE.
This weekend every one of you can download an eBook from our list for FREE - just use the promo-code “THANKYOU” at the checkout.
We’re proud of every single book on our list and although we’re not the biggest and we can’t throw endless six-figure promotions at our titles we believe in EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM and we would never disrespect them or you by taking part in the shameful mass-hysteria that’s taken hold of publishing this last week.
We hope you enjoy your free book, there are some real beauties there.
Okay, that’s it from us this week, stay safe & wear a mask.
We kiss you,
xx
P.S. - with our trademark (but charming) line in contradiction we’re gonna interrupt no-hard-sell-friday with ONE little bit of hard-sell - but that’s only because there’s a time limit on this one - always a race against time between these selling out or being banned… This year’s BLOODY SCOTLAND t-shirt is now available in our store and it’s a belter combining the two things we Scots are best at, DEFIANCE & SWEARING.
Hmmm… Too bad I could see no link to get to the free book downloads—is it my age, or what…?