A New Year Progress Update

I'm so excited about recent progress in marching smartly down the road to publication, that I just had to write this update. Excuse the gush that follows (or stop here, if you prefer).

Just before Christmas I created a Facebook page for The Day Parliament Burned Down.  Do please 'like' if you're on FB!  I admit I've become a pretty shameless social media tart - apologies if I've also become a bore in the process.  

I've been in discussion with my commissioning editor, Matthew, at OUP about an image for the endpapers of the hardback.  We've decided on one of the unburnt old Palace of Westminster, which will contrast with the vibrant cover showing the fire in progress from the Lambeth bank of the Thames.  The Production Editor, Emma, has been in touch to say that production has now started and with details of the schedule for producing the book.  It will go to press in early July, and be published late August or early September.  My agent Bill is now asking for ideas for the next book too, and we are going to be talking over nine possibilities I have come up with later in the month.

I've now received a number of bookings for talks this year, and shortly I hope to be discussing the publicity programme OUP has lined up, with their marketing and PR folk.  The need to create a talk/events page for this blog has highlighted the limitations of the software Blogger uses (there are also bugs preventing followers from posting and being visible as members).  I'm therefore planning to move the Dustshoveller's Gazette to WordPress in the next couple of months, but don't worry - I'll redirect from here to there, when it happens.  Quite how many bells and whistles I'll need, and whether I'll be getting some professional help with the design, is still being pondered.  If you belong to a society, group, library or bookclub who would like a talk on the 1834 fire in the autumn, please get in touch with me at cshenton *at* hotmail.co.uk.  Sorry for that clunky email rendering which is designed to stop junk email: yet another reason to move to WordPress - with a spam-foiling form.

Then, finally, all of sudden on 3 January, I found that my book had been listed on OUP's online site, ready for pre-order, and with lots more about its content.  And now it's been given an ISBN by OUP, it's also available on Amazon for pre-order, and has already attracted several 'likes'.  The official marketing has begun.  2012 has got off to a really great start...and no blisters so far.