Good ol' fashioned glow-in-the-dark fun

So, here are the photos of our stand at the book fair taken Monday morning before I managed to generally clutter and mess the space up! The lovely thing about the stand was having a space where anyone and everyone could (and believe me did) roll up. We saw A&B authors past and present (including Christopher West, whose Death of a Blue Lantern is reissued next month, a mystery set in Communist China that with the current headlines is very topical). And, particularly pleasantly, work experience guys and gals past and present. Hello in particular to Sophie, our high-flying friend now over at SPCK, who's a regular visitor to the blog (waves). Apologies to Jas who appeared at our stand looking so professional that it took more than a minute or two to place her. The idea of photographing our work experience people to aid future recollections has been voiced again in the office. Roll up for your mugshots here?

And in reference to the title of my post - earlier this week we got finished copies of Rachel Caine's Glass Houses which prompted the entire office to stash copies in cupboards and under desks and excitedly peek at them. No, we haven't taken complete leave of our senses, we wanted to fully appreciate the very cool glow in the dark finish that we've added to the cover design. Spooky.

Catching up

So, three days out of the office and my inbox nearly exploded with spam - a great thing to welcome you back to your desk eh? Getting back and following up lots of things from meetings and random bumpings-into has stopped us talking about the fair much - but I do have photos of the A&B home from home at Earl's Court, so I do intend to blog about it soon.

In the meantime, an email offer from Borders prompts me to post - save 40% on any full priced book this weekend, not to be sniffed at I reckon. Click here to print off the voucher.

Good weekend to all!

My mates the printers have done me proud

It’s April, the sun is shining as I sit under the skylight at A&B central and various items have poured in from the printers leaving me feeling happy with the world. The latest catalogue covering July – September (as well as a few other titles which crept into our Spring schedule) is in and no glaring omissions have made my blood run cold yet. You can have a virtual flick through by clicking the link on the lefthand side of the A&B homepage. A rather nifty leaflet featuring our summer reading picks has arrived and the pièce de résistance, our glorious A&B bags have made an appearance too, and very handy they’ve already proven themselves to be. Glorious as they are, we had to share some with the world. In steps dovegreyreader who has done a prize-draw giveaway of some to lucky readers of her blog.

Ah, I'm a happy chappie.

And we have a winner!

I'm absolutely delighted to announce that our author Colleen Gleason has won the DA BWAHA Tournament for best book in the romance genre with the first book in her vampire romance series The Rest Falls Away. The tournament (where readers vote for their favourites online) was sponsored by Smart Bitches and Dear Author blogs and saw Gleason up against Nora Roberts and her book High Noon in the final round. But Gleason bagged the trophy, and deservedly so! For all you UK readers who are dying to know what the fuss is about, you won't have to wait long. The Rest Falls Away will be out in the UK at the end of this month!

In fact, it's really all I've been thinking about this week... and I'm not exaggerating. I've been working on the UK cover and I have three words to say on that subject: Purples, Pantones, and Palpitations. Hey, that's actually not a bad title for a "How To" book or humorous memoir - with subtitle: "A Day in the Life of a Graphic Designer" (I might copyright that). But I digress. I have renewed respect for any designer out there who battles with picking the right colour when your computer screen shows you one thing, your printer prints out another, neither matches your colour bridge and you have to trust the CMYK/RGB figures instead of your eyes. I've actually been dreaming in purple pantones (my boyfriend was a nice violet hue, the shopkeeper a sickly off-mauve) but I digress again...

Anyway, all will be revealed tomorrow. Stay tuned.

April Fools Day...

…was yesterday and was it just me or was the world a little more dour than I think it had cause to be? The only ‘joke’ I came across in the media was on the BBC Breakfast show; a segment on penguins that have advanced on the evolutionary scale by learning to fly. No offence Aunty Beeb, it was cute, but surely you can do better? Anyone else have any good'uns?

Speaking of witty, clever and original things (you're probably getting used to the fact that I rarely fail to!), I am waiting with baited breath for the finished copies of the Boomsday paperback that are due in from the printer today…drum roll please.

And here's the penguin segment, if you are interested in some OK-ish CGI!