HowardWright.com

"The Great Wheathampstead Elephant Dung Disaster' Update

Had a great meeting with Waterstones in St Albans this morning who have agreed to promote and host the book launch which will probably be on the 12th of November. This is going to be a book signing as well as a number of related activities for children in the store.

We spoke to them about having some Elephant Dung products on sale in the store at the same time which seemed to get them excited. I found a great website that sells Elephant Dung paper, stationary, cards etc. and am going to get in touch to see if we can get a good deal on some stuff to have at the event.

Just need to get the illustrations sorted and I can get the book off to the printers next week ..... and then just wait........

Long time no post

I was just looking back at my blog and realised that it is nearly a year since I last posted anything. Its not that I haven't been doing stuff - just I got a bit sidetracked!

The last year has been mainly taken up with writing and publishing. The year started withe publication of a couple of books I had been working on for a while:

BookScape - a book about how to write books. This is a very practical guide to writing non-fiction books and has received pretty good reviews and comments from those trying the techniques in the book.

CareerScape - this second book puts forward a new way of documenting your career to supplement the traditional CV and Resume. This book again is a very practical, easy to read book which leads you through to the production of a CareerScape chart.

I self published both these books as the more traditional publishers were not interested in this short (90 page) practical approach so I though what the hell I will do it myself!

The last business book this year was written for Marshall Cavendish and is titles 100 Great Innovation Ideas and is due for publication on the 15th of December 2011.

The last book I have been working on is a Children's book titles "the Great Wheathampstead Elephant Dung Disaster and Other Stories" which is due for publication at the end of October 2011. This has been a fascinating 'journey' as it is completely different way of writing - although much of the 'process' is the same its the dialogue and descriptions that catch you out.

To get feedback I took the book into Beech Hyde School and let Year 5 loose on it to tell me what I was doing wrong. the feedback was in fact very positive and they provided me with some great pictures which I am just trying to permission to use in the book

My current headache is sorting out the illustrations as I am having problems with getting the right images produced. As I am working to a deadline of the 20th to get this to the printers I am having a few sleepless nights!

The trials and tribulations of an author and publisher..........