Thursday 27 August 2009

News Scraps – A Chain of Linkage


Stuart Neville is officially a Rising Star. If you’ve read The Twelve, please stop off at Amazon UK and leave a review for him. More reviews he gets, the more chance he has of becoming THE Amazon Rising Star. A kingpin of debut novelists, so to speak.

Tony Bailie has a story up on the Verbal Magazine website. That’s a prestigious spot to occupy, especially now that the magazine is bi-monthly and they only run one piece of fiction per issue.

And Sam Millar is making waves on the blogosphere ahead of the release of The Dark Place. See what they have to say about him on Liffeyside and Sons of Spade. I’ll have to crack the spine of my copy soon.

I doubt anybody will forget that James Ellroy is coming to Belfast in November. (I’ve a suspicion that Stuart Neville has some impressive news to reveal on that score, but I’ll not speculate on what it might be. Wouldn’t want to steal his thunder, you know?) Tickets will be on sale soon, according to the Waterfront website.

Here’s another big event that slipped under my radar -- Ian Rankin at the Belfast Waterfront as part of the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen's.

So there you have it, plenty going on in and around these parts crime fiction-wise.

6 comments:

seana graham said...

Belfast is so obviously the place to be this fall. Too bad I'm not going to be there.

As to Stuart's book, I had to be quite forceful about grabbing the only galley that came our way today. I'm not usually so aggressive about that stuff, but I've wanted to read this ever since you posted your review in June. Sure, others have caught on now, but I'm the only one who knows the advance praise, and I'll take my perks where I can get them. Frankly, Soho seems to be being a bit stingy with the galleys on this one. Don't know why--it could only help to get booksellers on board, no matter how well Amazon does.

It's "Ghosts of Belfast" for any American readers, by the way. I know you know that, gb, but not everyone will.

Gerard Brennan said...

Scarcity also seemed to be the case with the Harvil Secker edition ARCs. Could it be a new marketing ploy? Seems a little counter-productive if it is, but then, what do I know?

And thanks for pointing out the title change. I should have mentioned that, especially since its release date is almost upon us. As penance, I've broke out my mad html skilss to bring you this link: Stuart Neville's new Ghosts of Belfast website.

Gerard Brennan said...

Teh typos were ironical, BTW.

Um... LOL?

gb

(Wish we could edit these damn comments.)

gb

Stuart Neville said...

I haven't received any ARCs for Ghosts of Belfast either, so Seana, you're one up on me. I've heard US publishers are cutting back on ARCs in general, and Gerard's right, the UK ARCs were also in very short supply.

But I can't fault Soho's marketing thus far, as evidenced by the Publishers Weekly ad.

Tony Bailie said...

Thanks for mention Gerard as always.

Gerard Brennan said...

Stuart - Yeah, I read about that publishers weekly ad somewhere... A quick google turned this up.

Also heard from David Thompson of Busted Flush Press a little while ago. He works in a very popular bookshop in Texas and said, "And four of us at the store loved that one!" So they're going to the right places too, I guess.

Tony - No problem, sir. Read the story on my coffee break today. Really enjoyed it. Thought the illustration was very good too.

gb