As yet untitled

I think I am confused.
                                                 

Nothing new there.

                                              
I have two books out this month , and another one to deliver  but we shall do our best to ignore that.

                                                           
After the success of The Suffering Of Strangers in being long listed for the McIlvanney Award, it got a new lease of life.
                                          

I think this is what happened but   I am not really sure.
                                               

So I was published by Severn after Michael Joseph merged with Random House to become the Random Penguin and they decided to drop 1/3 of their crime list. ( And they had just signed James Oswald so maybe they can only afford one Scot at a time).
                                           

Severn then merged/ was bought over by/got married to Canongate and they had a lovely wee baby publisher called Black Thorn.   Black Thorn have  taken much of Severn's crime list ( 2 titles a month) plus Canongate's crime list ( 2 titles a month?) and are republishing them with a really - wait for it, I am about to use a phrase not often heard in  publishing - efficient and enthusiastic PR team dedicated to promoting the book!
                                            

They are nice and it has been fun. I'm launching in Dundee tonight for The Suffering Of Strangers, plus blog tours, Reader's days etc.


                                       
The new, new book is out  at the end of the month, a beautiful book, a standalone called Mosaic. So far, it has been incredibly well received. It's the usual, quality Severn hardback at £20.

The new print of The Suffering Of Strangers is £8.99.The Severn paperback is £12.99. The hardback is £20.

The  minute the paperback at £8.99 hit Amazon, the price of the hardback tumbled from £20 to... £4.99.  And rapidly outsold the new paperback as it rocketed up the charts, taking the kindle edition with it.

So the benefit of all the PR paid for by Black Thorn was reaped by Severn in the case of Amazon.

                                      
 I know they all sit in the same office  so they have probably worked all that out for themselves.
                                                     

I think Black Thorn have got other plans  for the rest of the books, which raises the question, with the deadline looming like the Canonball Express, how long I can keep doing the day job.  All the PR takes so much time.... and the editor who is paying me to write the books, is the one that I am putting to the back of the queue of my To Do list. This book is now called As Yet Untitled as every time I call it something,  another book is published with either the exact same title or one word of a difference.  Which not be a bad thing if they are best sellers with a similar cover design!
                                                   

So Dundee tonight.

Tomorrow, it will actually be a relief to get back to the desk, fingers on keyboards and get killing people again...


Caro Ramsay  14 06 2019

So th