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Book reviews
I've been following the advice in 'What do I have to do to sell a book?' and have sent off review copies of my book, 'Hitler and Mars Bars' to regional and daily newspapers around Ireland and Northern Ireland. I've also sent a couple review copies to influential people, hoping they will offer positive comments that I can quote. I was pleased over the past few weeks that a couple regional newspapers have done reviews (and some others wrote articles about its release). Then I was even more excited when a province wide daily, the News Letter (Belfast), printed a review last weekend. But I was over the moon when I got an email reply on Monday from Brian D'Arcy, BBC broadcaster and Sunday World (Ireland) columnist. He wrote a lovely (and long!) review and was very encouraging. I couldn't post excerpts from it fast enough onto my website, www.geocities.com/dianne_ascroft, (as well as send it the publisher for my webpage on their system). As soon as I figure out a couple technical difficulties I will add a Reviews page to my website and post the whole review there. I've been over the moon all week!
Comments
Neil - 'bold' is an Irish expression for 'naughty' or 'bad'. It's still used quite often today. I'm originally from Canada so I had to work hard at getting characters' speech correct and believable. It is an expression I've always liked - guess it shows the old Irish mentality when 'bold' is an equivalent to 'bad' - not an assertive approach to life....things are changing today though.
Re Bold, I remember 'wilfull' being used to mean naughty and only realised as an adult that it actually means wanting your own way!
I sorted out the technical glitches (my lack of knowledge!) and managed to add a Reviews page to my website - you just click on the heading 'Reviews' on the Homepage. I originally built the website using a Geocities tool so the format of most of the pages is set. I can just change content within them - so, josiehenley, I didn't even set up where I'd put the reviews - that was the only space for them. Now that I have the Reviews page I put Brian D'Arcy's full review on it. I want to add a couple more but will have to see what space I have available on the page.
I got one other piece of good news last night in the reviews department. I had a postcard from a well known Irish author (who will be nameless until I hear back from her) saying that she intends to read my book as soon as she can and will then send me comments (I sent the book to her). I was delighted as I didn't know if she'd have time to even reply to my request. Can't wait to read her comments now!