Link(age) and more!

Hey all,

So, following my Bloody Heel blog and with this current one, I've officially blogged more this month than I did all last year! Hurray!

I'd also like to make everyone aware of a new link in the side bar there =>

You'll be brought to the Literary Den Campaign page at the Battlefront website. Worth a look (and a vote). Cheers!

Battlefront

Battlefront; you've heard it so many times on this blog already. What's it about? I hear you say. Young people making a change to the world, that's what.

In the next line up of potential campaigns, if they ever go that far, there are 58 potential campaigns to choose from, that the public can vote on. In the tv series, there were 20 campaigns. The names of them, the campaigners and a link to each of the Battlefront campaigns is below. In Italics beside each one is a jist of it in very few words.

STOP: Gun and Knife Crime (Peace)
Alexander Rose
Find out more about STOP: Gun and Knife Crime.

Bring Your Own Coffee Cup (Healthy Environment)
Aimee Nathan
Find out more about Bring Your Own Coffee Cup.

Random Acts of Kindness (Happiness)
Tom Robbins
Find out more about Random Acts of Kindness.

Who Wants To Be A Size Zero Anyway (Healthy Body)
Rachel Phipps
Find out more about Who Wants To Be A Size Zero Anyway.

Tune into Traffic (Road Safety)
Manpreet Darroch
Find out more about Tune into Traffic.

You smoke - I choke (Smoking)
Zander Percival
Find out more about You smoke - I choke.

More money for my time please (Raising the minimum wage)
Rachey Betty
Find out more about More money for my time please.

Free Newspapers Cost The Earth (Environment)
James Mummery
Find out more about Free Newspapers Cost The Earth.

Homophobia = Zero Tolerance (Human Rights & Tolerance)
Rachael & David
Find out more about Homophobia = Zero Tolerance.

Make a Big Change - With your Small Change (Relief Aid)
Siobhan and Becky
Find out more about Make a Big Change - With your Small Change.

Teenage Suicide (Young Deaths)
Josh McAuley
Find out more about Teenage Suicide.

Anti-Cyberbullying (Bullying)
Al Henderson
Find out more about Anti-Cyberbullying.

Muslims - Normal Too (Human Rights & Tolerance; Religion)
Zainab Daniju
Find out more about Muslims - Normal Too.

Condoms For Africa (Safe Sex)
Troy Kennedy
Find out more about Condoms For Africa.

Down with Tuition Fees (Education)
James Greenhalgh
Find out more about Down with Tuition Fees.

Anti Binge Drinking (Young Drinking)
India Harvey
Find out more about Anti Binge Drinking.

Stress and Strain of School (Education)
Laura-Liz Partoon
Find out more about Stress and Strain of School.

Music for a change (Music)
Zuhal Sultan
Find out more about Music for a change.

Making space for young people (Young People)
Angelina Munabi
Find out more about Making space for young people .

The Gift of Life (Organ Donation)
Holly Shaw
Find out more

There were a few unique ones, a few generic ones, and a few successful ones from each bracket. Out of the 58, there are several copies of the already-on-air campaigns, especially around Education, Bullying, Peace, Human Rights and Tolerance and Young People.

There are also a number of copies of the winner of the competition, Wrong to be Different. So many people have hopped on the bandwagon and set up individual campaigns rather than trying to support hers. It's a damned shame.

Then there's my campaign, and I'm not just tooting my own trumpet here. It's unique. You can tell just by looking at the list that no one has anything similar to it. In the competition, it came second in both the public and judges' votes; we've got proof that we're good, not just a name that reminds the public of other people's campaigns!

Yes, slightly ranting here. But with so many people copying Wrong to be Different, you'd think they'd get the message - be different! It's ridiculous how many people are submitting campaigns that are already on the show too. Ridiculous and annoying!

Okay, I better go before I get overly angry....

My grand scheming...

Hello world! I've been scheming behind the scenes for the latest development in the Literary Den. I've sent four emails to four seperate parties independant of the Den, and received only one reply so far, which led to a phone call. However, it's the first and most vital step and I'm glad to report that it was a resounding success, even if no one knows about it.

The emails all concern the Den and it's members, although I won't specify which ones. That would be giving away the secret, and I'd prefer to torture the various members that keep an eye on me so that when the news gets out they'll be happy I didn't spoil the surprise. If the three remaining recipients of my emails all reply positively, then I'm one more phone call away from getting another thing organised. I won't say who I have to call until it all begins. It's big though, trust me on that one.

In the time I've been gone from this blog, I've been overly active on Twitter. Follow me, you know you want to.

I've also stumbled across a number of very interesting details, all of which affect the Den's campaign. Now, forgive the copy and paste job here, but this is what I've said on the forum:

The Espresso Book Machine

Hey Gang!

There's been a revolution in book printing I wanted to share with you. Thanks to a certain Mr Niall Kelly at work, I found out about a machine that can print and bind books in five minutes. It's amazing!

Now, I don't know what titles are available, as I've been too busy to check... but the Guardian and a blog (I think it is) each had something to report on this fabulous creation. I suggest reading them!

Loyalty Schemes

Hi!

Hughes & Hughes, my humble place of work have launched two loyalty schemes since around April 24th. One is a Kids' Club. Every five euro spent on kids books gets one sticker. Six stickers gets five euro off the next transaction of kids books. Easy as pie.

The adult one is very similar. Launched last weekend, either the 9th or the 10th. Every ten euro, you get a stamp. A card of eight stamps gets the purchaser ten euro off anything, including book tokens. Easy peezy, lemon squeezy!

Both of these loyalty schemes (although I just mean systems, not implying there's anything sinister about them) give readers more incentive to buy more. They encourage book sales to go up, and, as such, encourage more people to read. This is good news for us! It basically gives us one place to send people who think books are too expensive, although it's unfortunately limited to Ireland at the moment.

Classic Reprints and the associated offer

Right, so Oxford have taken advantage of the fact that booksellers are looking to sell lots of books, and they've only gone and reprinted everything! All the world classics are now in new bound forms, some with the old text (James Joyce's Ulysses in the 1922 text!) but most with the new.

It's a great refreshment on the old books, and they're cheaper than before too. Then there's an added bonus. For a limited time, Hughes & Hughes (sorry, I can't report for other shops, as I don't work in them and therefore don't see them every week) are offering a 3 for 2 deal on the Classics, with mix and match on everything else too to make sure it's not just the Classics. Great stuff for us if we decide to suggest a load of Classic titles. The reprint and sales offers are also more encouraging to readers.

Irish Book Awards and Others

Every year, the Irish Book Awards are held to celebrate bookselling and other such things. The short listed titles were put on the 3 for 2 offer in (yes, you guessed it, if you've been following my other threads) Hughes and Hughes. They're still there, although the awards have been announced.

The Irish Book Awards are really prestigious. Win one and your set for sales. The winning titles are favourites, and even though it's a public vote, the winning books always sell more after they've won!

Back when Sebastian Barry won the Costa Book Award for The Secret Scripture, everyone was buying it! It's a surprise we still had copies left for the customers we'd never seen before! It was the same when Anne Enright won the Irish Book Award for The Gathering. Her sales went mad!

As a group promoting reading, we need to focus in on these awards, and the others like them. I'll see if I can get more info on the really big ones, and I suggest you do the same in the UK. Pinpointing the titles and encouraging people to take advantage of the offers on them is a great way to get more people actually reading them.

(the winners of the Irish Book Awards can be found here)

"Important News From The Bookseller @ April 17th 2009

Okay, I've had this info for too long without sharing. Some headlines I thought were interesting to us:

Sainsbury's steps up space for books.

Big changes here! I'll bullet-point them for convenience.

• A top 15 chart in children's books in 214 branches.
• 2 books for £5 in 183 stores (paperback books)
• Books sold in 408 of their stores, with an increase of staff on the book team from 2 to 8I was impressed!

Sales of hardbacks down 14.3% in the first quarter of 2009

Printers considering more Print on Demand to remove the Warehouse costs

Anderson Press releasing e-books

The publisher are introducing 23 young adult titles in e-book format. 8 books are already on the list of e-books as of this month.The article also mentions how the main publishers all have around 100 e-books available, with Puffin leading with 150 titles. In 2009, Puffin will release 10-20 e-books a month.

Waterstones offers 10,000 e-books through it's website. It's also helpful to note, though The Bookseller doesn't say this, that Hughes & Hughes are now attempting to match this with the introduction of the Sony Reader to stores, offering 100 free classic titles to begin with, and when the website is done, a free e-book from the wide selection they hope to offer. From my knowledge of the situation, Eason are the only ones not doing this now... (correct me if I'm wrong, but remember that I can't get out much due to exams)

Amnesty Anthology released

The Amnesty Anthology has been released. It focuses on stories of freedom from well known authors. Likely to cause a stir if it's promoted properly. This could mean more people will be reading, specifically if the money goes to charity.

JK Rowling Book Day Books released again

In July, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Wear to Find Them are being released for £5 each, a mark up of 100% on their initial releases for Comic Relief. Not sure where the money goes this time."

With all that to digest, I bid you farewell, until next time! Thanks for reading

Just some ideas...

So here we are, blog time!

It's the Easter break from school, a painful time when parents force their sons and daughters to study, just as the Irish weather decides to stop crying. Naturally, I'm going to beat the study blues with some good old fashioned, Literary Den!!

Elizabeth Dyer, AKA Ellie, came up with some rather smashing ideas that I wanted to put past the general readership of this blog... many of you who look at this won't even realise what I'm talking about until it's seven months later and something has happened in the world to give you a reason to look me up.

So here we go! Firstly, there's a "Read Me, Keep Me" day! Now, this all sounds very vague, so here's the details: second hand books with a postet stuck on them (with the aforementioned title) are left all around the city (it will be in Dublin and various other places in the UK and Ireland). People find the books, as you might guess if they're left in public, and they get to keep them, and read them. That way, more people are reading. We're still discussing the details, but it looks to be quite fun. Some artists did this in Dublin City a while back, much to the delight of the people who found the paintings! We'll need second hand books to do this with, so you may end up getting a knock on the door by a member of the "Read Me, Keep Me" team, asking for donations (if you're willing to part with them!!)

Secondly, our mentor programme. Now, I intend on annoying my friend Sam with this as much as humanly possible, but the rest of the public knows nothing about it yet. So, we're going to make a snazzy, and dare I say, sexy website to attract young writers into the group. This will be part of the Den, but an exclusive forum and independant website for the mentor programme. It's bloody excellent!

The group are now also getting ready for The Literary Den Book of New Fiction 2009, which will see the arrival of a large number of Irish writers! Myself and Anthea West were the only Irish writers last year; this time, we're going to have Brendan McLoughlin and Lisa Sills alongside us, and hopefully young Senan Warnock if he can throw something together. We also have a resident of Dublin and native to Bermuda, Jonathon Bell. Woo! In true Irish fashion, we're infesting the book, rather than invading. It's great craic!

So, that's about it for now. I'm still being too lazy to work on the new Campaign document. There's less pressure now, though. Battlefront opted to go for Wrong to Be Different? over our campaign, so we won't be on television. *sigh*

Anyway, if you want to "follow me" on Twitter, you can find me here!

Battlefront is a no go... for now

Well, the Literary Den did not make it onto the Channel 4 TV show, Battlefront. We came second in the public vote and in the judges' room, which I suppose is pretty damn good! The Campaign will continue as before, just without the handy Flip Camera and the associated videos (unless someone wants to make a donation....)

I've not got much else to say... I opted to enjoy my first Monday off since... well the last bank holiday, so I don't have that new file done yet. Maybe tomorrow. Definetely by the weekend.

So, until something new and exciting happens, I'll be off.

But feel free to follow me on Twitter!

I use it for my own life as well as the Den. People need to know the man behind the mask.... in this case, the author behind the Campaign!!

20 million people in the UK don't read!

So, it's official - there are 20 million people in the UK who just don't read. They can afford to, they just have no interest to. An article by The Bookseller reveals all.

As a way to combat this, the Literary Den Campaign will take a number of actions. The first will be to create a Guide to Bookshops. Now, this isn't meant as an insult to anyone, merely as a response to the article. Apparently, the codes and references in bookshops are putting people off. So, the Guide will explain special offers, ISBN and genres to help customers find their way.When it's done, I ask that people spread it far and wide - the more people that know their way through a bookshop, the better.

Now, obviously every bookshop is laid out differently. But that doesn't mean that they use different terms. Everyone in the book world uses the acronym ISBN; everyone has "3 for 2" offers, and "25% off" and other such things. Pretty much all the High Street bookshops have the same genre sections. Any differences are easy enough that customers can find their way - we have to remember that everyone has a bit of common sense, and if they still get lost, there are always staff there to point them in right direction.

I see this every week. It's the advantage of being a writer and book campaigner who works in a bookshop! I'm there on every side of the transaction at some stage and therefore I know what I'm talking about. This document will help!

Thanks for tuning in..... well, no one really does as far as I know. But if you're that one person who does, thank you!

Campaign Update

Well, voting has stopped on the Campaign! In fact, we've even gone one step further to getting the Campaign into the show - I got a call from London on Wednesday. I liked that I got to confuse people with that piece of info for a little bit!


The call was terrifying to say the least. I was so afraid I'd mess it up there and then. Ultimately though, I may not get through. It could potentially cost too much to send a camera crew over to Dublin, when the other campaigns are all in the UK. Bummer....


Still, fingers crossed!


In other news, the How to Write Document has been updated. Basically, the date was in the wrong format, there was a typo in one of the questions (so it came up several times!) and one of the author's names wasn't underlined or centred. You can download the updated file here.


I'll find out on Monday if I've been accepted by Battlefront. Wish me luck!


I finished typing my story for The Literary Den Book of New Fiction 2009. Yay! And I have the same editor as last year - Claire Hack. So, we have ten submissions so far, and we're still waiting on a few. I'm so excited about this one. I think the book will be better, and there are already more writers from Ireland in it than last year! Yahoo! That'll make promoting it so much more fun too!! When it's released, I demand that you buy it. Afterall, the money goes to charity!

How to Write, Document 1

Well, the first of the How to Write Documents is finished and available for free! If you click the title of this post, you'll be brought to the download page. I love it already!

The second set of interviews will go out in the near future. I must also remember to begin interviewing again, to ensure the continued survival of the project. Free information for writers! Woo!!

Wish me luck! The Campaign may suddenly get more interesting based on Channel 4's decision!! I'll keep you updated.

Campaigning...

Well, I've finally found what I can blog about! Campaigning!! The Literary Den is at last becoming a place to support writing fully. I started off the Campaign by announcing our goals in a nice little .pdf file! To access this file, click here!

I had written up those goals a couple of weeks ago, just as our Battlefront page appeared. Today, I typed them up on a jazzy template, and added them to my new 4shared.com page for the purpose of sharing them with everyone. It's a pretty easy way of doing things!

Now I'm getting ready to go hunting for the advice several writers gave me a few months ago!! Wish me luck, ficticious reader!

New Website, New Campaign, New Future

The Literary Den website looks brilliant now! It no longer freezes up, it has a new template, new info - it's just amazing! A big well done to Christopher for his hard work (and a thanks to his web designer who made the template for him!!) If you click on the heading of his post you'll be brought to our homepage. You'll see what I mean when you do. And while you're there, check out the forum and all the other stuff we have up there!

Now, onto that New Campaign jazz. We have new goals (Our basic concept is to Education, Encourage and Enjoy) and we're hoping to reach out to schools across the UK and Ireland (myself and Christopher are hoping to get in touch with the individual Ministers for Education - him the UK one, me the Irish... obviously.) With that, we hope to get more members, and help more people. Also, with the Anthology out, it'd be nice for the extra press coverage.

I've not got too much else to say on that. Although the magazine is expanding nicely. Five people interested in working on it so far - Christopher, Rachel, Andrew (AKA Eggy), Claire and I. Together we should be able to do a lot. Rachel has experience with an online magazine, I'm editor of my school's magazine, Christopher is the tech genius (and needs to update the website with new issues anyway), Eggy is predominantly an essay writer anyway, and Claire is starting Journalism. So we should be able to do a good bit of work.

We want to interview authors (published ones, sorry) to help get more attention and bring the group into the limelight (and the authors won't mind the publicity!!) We're also going to have a poetry column, articles on current affairs in the literary world, news, reviews, On the Bedside Table, Short Stories and Letters! Lots of stuff we hope to keep people entertained with while we churn out more and continue to live our own lives!!

With that, I close. Thanks for reading! (tell your friends)