Stephen Miller Paralympian book launch TODAY

Stephen Miller will be launching his autobiography Paralympian today, Thursday 24 July, 7.30pm at the Club 206 Suite, Level 3, St James' Park, Newcastle upon Tyne. There will be a talk-in, a quiz, a book signing, and several of Stephen's sporting celebrity guests. Entry is free.


In other news, you can hear Sin Cities author Ashley Hames live on the radio tonight - on TalkSport with Ian Collins from 10pm, and, if you're an ex-pat in Spain, on REM.fm with Maurice Boland at 7.40pm UK time.

Paul

Ashleigh's First Tonto Blog!

Hi my name's Ashleigh, no not Ashley Hames, for a start I'm a girl. Paul and Stu have kindly let me come into the world of Tonto Books for two weeks to get a taste of what it's like working in publishing. And what a packed couple of days it has been so far! It was a good week to join the team as we are launching Stephen Miller's Autobiography on Thursday, hope you can all make it! With that in mind I have been writing the press release for it, and inviting all the North East's premier journalists along, as well as meeting Stephen himself, which was a pleasure.


Today has also been productive, as I work on the PR for Rosalind Wyllie's Everything You Ever Wanted,this has seen me delving into the world of Women's magazines, as if I needed any persuasion, in order to find out which type Rosalind's book would appeal to more. I personally think it's a great book and a perfect summer read. However, as a good few magazines now adorn my temporary desk, maybe it wasn't a good idea to let me loose with the glossies!

Well it's time to get back to work, I'm sure I'll be back to let you all know how I'm getting on!

Ashleigh

Free books from BookRabbit

BookRabbit is a new website that is part social networking site, part bookshop. You upload photos of your bookshelves, 'tag' your books, and you're then matched with other readers, meaning you get personalised recommendations, reviews and whatnot. And if you upload a pic of your bookshelf right away they'll send you a handpicked book free! (I've done it - my bookshelf is here). Sign up and get details at www.bookrabbit.com.


Paul

Ashley Hames Newcastle event photos

Wednesday evening saw the start of Ashley Hames' Sin Cities book tour in Newcastle upon Tyne. Ashley's shameless attempt to curry favour with the good people of Newcastle by wearing a Newcastle United shirt with 'Sin Cities' emblazoned on the back worked a treat, and the fantastic event at Waterstone's was followed by a trawl through the city's watering holes until the early hours.

Ashley in Stu in matching jackets related tomfoolery

Ashley enjoys Stephen Miller's Paralympian

Ashley regales the crowd in Waterstone's

Ashley gets wrist ache

Stephen, Paul and Ashley move on to a local watering hole

Stephen and Ashley with Jonny Kennedy author Roger Stutter

If you missed out, Waterstone's have some extra signed copies of the book, while stocks last. Photos from York and Leeds will follow in the next couple of days. Further events and signings are planned across the country - watch this space. Next up will be Stephen Miller's Paralympian launch on Thursday.

Paul

Ashley Hames York & Leeds book events TODAY

Ashley Hames' Sin Cities book tour continues today (Thursday 17 July) as he appears at Waterstone's in York for a book signing at 2pm, and then in Leeds for a talk and signing at 7pm. Click here to view Waterstone's Ashley Hames events page.


The mini tour kicked off in fine style last night in Newcastle - thanks to everyone who came along, especially the bloke who curiously thought he was coming to see "Adam, as in Adam and Eve". By all accounts it was one of the best events the store has ever had. Photos will hopefully appear here later today.

Paul

Ashley Hames Newcastle book signing TODAY

Sin Cities author and TV presenter Ashley Hames will be in Newcastle upon Tyne today (Wednesday 16 July) to kick off his book signing tour. Ashley will be appearing at the Waterstone's Emerson Chambers store at Grey's Monument from 6.30pm to talk about his adventures around the world and to sign copies of the book.


'One of the few concrete truths of modern life is that Newcastle is the UK's number one Sin City,' says Ashley. 'It's ace. With that in mind, I guess it's the perfect place to start our book signing tour...'

You can hear Ashley on Radio Newcastle today at 1.30pm.

The book tour continues tomorrow (Thursday 17 July) at Waterstones in York (2pm) and Leeds (7pm). Click here to view Waterstone's Ashley Hames events page.

Paul

Amazon price match deal

Faceless behemoth it might be, but I really like Amazon. As a reader, you can get any book in print, and some that aren't, at pretty good prices. As a publisher, your books are made easily available and get a fair crack of the whip. Amazon's huge buying power means that they can heavily discount books that they know will sell in reasonable quantities.

From today we're going to try to match Amazon.co.uk's prices in our own online store. So you can get Ashley Hames' Sin Cities for just £5.99, Stephen Miller's Paralympian for £6.99, Rosalind Wyllie's Everything You Ever Wanted for £5.99, and Stephen Miller's Being Normal for £6.39. That's up to 35% off the cover prices. (For a limited time you can also buy Everything You Ever Wanted and Being Normal together for just £10.)

You can visit our online store here.

If, however, you prefer to shop with Amazon, you can view our catalogue of books in the UK, US, Canada, Germany, France or Japan.

Paul

Sin Cities London Launch

Friday 11 July was the launch party for Sin Cities: Adventures of a Sex Reporter at The Westbridge pub, Battersea. Judging by the photographs, bar staff are still tidying up ahead of opening up this morning.


I assume this photo was taken quite a way into the party.

I spoke to Ashley the following day and he told me waht a brilliant time he'd had. Big thanks to everyone who turned up - all the photos can be viewed as people post them here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18563684013
The publicity for the book is growing all the time. Ashley went for an interview at Loaded magazine on Thursday and ended up taking part in a bizarre bacon sarnie eating competition - no idea why, but we'll post up details of the magazine feature in September.



Ashley rolls in to Newcastle tomorrow, so in case we're offline for a bit, here's the publicity for this week:
Tuesday 15: Smooth Radio: Ashley picks his '6 at 6' and talks to Paul Wappat.
Wednesday 16: Ashley and Stu on BBC Radio Newcastle.
Wednesday 16: Ashley's author event at Waterstone's Newcastle, 6.30pm.
Thursday 17: Ashley's signing session at Waterstone's York
Thursday 18: Ashley's author event at Waterstone's Leeds, 7pm.

We'll post details of any updates.

Catch up with all the events and goings on at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12931077445

Stu

Sin Cities is London Lite Big Read

Ashley Hames' Sin Cities was the Big Read in yesterday's London Lite (readership: just the 824,000, apparently), receiving a very nice almost-full-page review. Orders are flooding in, and Amazon is currently showing the book as #2 in its TV Tie-in Humour chart, outselling the massive QI, and only pipped by the not-really-very humorous Life On Mars. [UPDATE: Now it's #1. Take that, Gene Hunt!] There's loads more great publicity coming up, so watch this space. As a reminder, Ashley's book launch is this Friday 11 July. It's at the Westbridge Pub in Battersea, London from 8pm, so, if you're in the area, why not pop along?

Paul

Sin Cities Release Date

Today is the official launch date of Sin Cities: Adventures of a Sex Reporter by Ashley Hames. And as luck would have it, today we were sent an advert for the book that some unknown cyber geek has edited and put a brilliant 'carpet salesman' voiceover to. A big thank you to that anonymous technical wizard!

Anyone in the London area, watch out for a review feature of the book in tomorrow's London Lite paper. As publicity continues for this title, we'll keep posting updates.

You can also join the Facebook group here



Unrelated news: We took delivery of Everything You Ever Wanted and Being Normal on Friday. All those placing orders via our website will receive their copies long before amazon or other stores have theirs.

Stu

Stephen Miller Paralympian book launch

The launch event for Stephen Miller's Paralympian, My Autobiography will take place in the Club 206 suite at Newcastle United's St James' Park on Thursday 24 July at 7.30pm. There will be a 'talk-in', with Stephen answering questions about his career and the forthcoming Beijing games, a chance to get a signed copy of the book, plus other fun and games and special guests. The new Club 206 suite is named after Alan Shearer's goalscoring record, and can be found on the third level of SJP.


Paralympian launch event, Club 206, Level 3, St James' Park, Newcastle, Thursday 24 July, 7.30pm, free.

Paul

One-two, one-two, this is just a test

'How smart are you?' asks the BBC website. 'Hardly a week passes without headlines about academic standards. Are exams getting easier? Are people getting smarter?' Find out with this quick English test. There's a maths test next week, but I'll be skiving off that one.

Paul

Places mentioned in this book...

Google's ongoing efforts to digitise every piece of information ever imagined continue apace. I've noticed an interesting feature on Google Book Search that displays on a Google Map "places mentioned in this book". So far, the only Tonto book that seems to have been mapped out in this way is The Rocketbelt Caper. Hopefully our other titles will follow soon - it would be nice to see Johnny Lonely's road trip mapped out. For now, if you want to see where the Rocketbelt 2000 was flown, or hidden, or where all the other shenanigans happened, click here. Who knows, if you zoom in really, really close you might spot the rocketbelt itself...

Paul

New Novelists News

Both Nik Jones and Sarah Shaw are now into the mentoring process for their new novels. Updates from Caroline Smailes and Wendy Robertson tell us that both novels are coming along nicely, and they are enjoying working with our new writers.

Caroline and Wendy are not just mentoring them as writers, but also helping out with tips on the promotional side of being a writer. I'm a believer in self-promotion and I think with t'internet bringing us such things as blogging, Myspace and Facebook (even I'm on them!), it also brought us innovative and cost-effective ways of flogging our wares. Social networking is a great way of reaching people and both of our other mentored writers are at it too! Roz and Stephen are building up a good fan base with their respective online presence, and now so is Nik Jones.

You can keep up with the progress of 9987 by watching here.

Stu

State of independents

There's an interesting post on the Guardian's blog, Why writers can't go it alone by David Barnett, which sums up some of the gripes we have regarding the book industry.

'Flying the flag of independence is a mark of respect in most areas of popular culture ... apart, it seems, from literature,' Barnett writes. Why are independent cinema and independent record labels celebrated, while independent book publishers are shunned? As Barnett says, 'Can you imagine any serious film reviewer refusing to watch anything other than the major Hollywood blockbusters?'

The fact is that book reviewers at national newspapers and book buyers at national book chains tend to equate 'independent' with 'crap'. At least one major UK bookseller is in the process of severing ties with independent publishers. That's a kick in the nuts for the publishers, their authors, and - ultimately - readers, who are seeing bookshops turn into literary versions of multiplex cinemas, with a small range of lowest common denominator-pleasing tosh piled high and wide.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - let's board this whole industry up like an old abandoned mine and start a-bloody-gain.

Paul

Irresistible new fiction offer

Here's an offer that should be difficult to resist: pre-order both Being Normal by Stephen Shieber and Everything You Ever Wanted by Rosalind Wyllie for just £10 with free UK p&p. Both books are published on 11 August, but we'll deliver the pair of them to your door as soon as we receive them from the printer, usually several weeks in advance of the release date. You'll save £5.98 on the cover prices, plus about £3.50 in postage. It's a limited offer, so act quickly before stocks disappear like some kind of rare gas. Place your order here.


Paul

Paralympian in stock

Paralympian, My Autobiography by Stephen Miller is now in stock and available to purchase from www.tontobooks.com with free UK p&p. The book is not officially released until 28 July. It features a foreword by Stephen's friend Kevin Keegan.



Stephen Miller is one of Britain's most successful athletes. Record-breaking Stephen, who has Cerebral Palsy, has won three Paralympic gold medals, plus dozens of other international accolades in the club and discus events. Still only 28 years old, he will endeavour to win more honours at Beijing 2008 and London 2012. A writer and poet, Stephen's inspirational autobiography tells of his struggles and triumphs, and is told with refreshing honesty and infectious humour.

'I know how hard it is to compete at the highest level. It takes dedication, courage and self-belief, and Stephen has those qualities in abundance. His story is truly unique and inspiring.' - Kevin Keegan.

New Novelists Results

Way back in January, we launched Tonto Books' North East New Novelists 2008 contest. There were 121 eligible entries, which is remarkable considering entry was restricted to writers in the North East of England with completed manuscripts. We knew there were lots of writers out there with ideas for books, first chapters and unfinished drafts stuffed away in drawers... but we were amazed by the number of entries as well as the high standard. The task of selecting the winners was performed by judges Wendy Robertson and Caroline Smailes.

And the winning manuscripts and authors are (drumroll please)...

'Make It Back' by Sarah Shaw.
In Make It Back, Muriel leaves her family to nurse sick and injured children in the Spanish Civil War. Forty years later, Muriel's decision leads her granddaughter, Dee,
into love, into danger and, finally, into the passion and dust of south-eastern Spain.
Sarah is from Blackhall Mill and is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Newcastle University. She will be mentored by Wendy Robertson over the next couple of months as she puts the finishing touches to her novel, which will be published by Tonto in January 2009.

'9987' by Nik Jones.
Tragic and dark, 9987 is a story about a jagged and at times disturbing world where only three things are constant: fantasy, loneliness and love. It's a tale about a crime that only one person seems to care about.
Nik is a teacher and 'occasional barman' from Consett. He will be mentored by Caroline Smailes, and 9987 will also be published by Tonto in January.

Congratulations to Sarah and Nik, and thanks to the judges Wendy and Caroline, and everyone who took the time to enter the contest. The high quality and variety of submissions showed that the North East really is a hotbed of writing talent and thoroughly justified our desire to run this project.

Keep checking future blogs for updates on progress.

Stu

... and on a positive note

It's no secret that I'm a bit of a Jam/Weller fan. A lot of my time this week has been taken up, as mentioned earlier, chasing orders, promises, features, reviews and sales, etc. Oh, the cruel irony as 'Running on the Spot' by The Jam started up on my Media Player after another frustrating phone call.

I was hoping we'd make real progress
But it seems we have lost the power
Any tiny step of advancement
Is like a raindrop falling into the ocean

... well said, Mr Weller.

I'm thick skinned now, I can take the knocks.
And it made me realise that even as a publisher, you still go through the same emotions as writers. So there is no difference in the great publisher vs writer hierarchy, really. We all get knock backs and face a constant battle - it really is how this industry works. You HAVE to stay positive.

Even John Blake has had his problems. I admire John for the impact he's had on the publishing world and this is a very interesting feature on him.

Competition rejections only mean that someone didn't get your work. If you believe in yourself and the work, it'll find a home.
Publisher/agent rejections? Same thing.
Keep passing it round, get feedback - there are loads of websites now where you can get feedback from other writers. Develop, improve, don't give up.

We'll be announcing the winners of our New Novelists 2008 competition very soon, and I dare say there will be a lot of disappointed writers in the region. Judgements are made on so much criteria... is it marketable? Will the story communicate to a large audience? Does it require too much work?
These are elements to bear in mind wherever you submit. But just because you don't get through, doesn't mean all is lost. Some may even make suggestions and ask you to resubmit, some may send you a more personal rejection (which means they did read it).

Unfortunately, we can't comment on any submission that didn't get through. This is because we didn't judge, but also because it isn't part of the project to offer that. And without touting for business, our editor runs a manuscript critique service at competitive rates, for those interested in feedback.

Keep the faith!

Stu

Going Solo

Well, with Marianne gone and Paul already on his hols, I'm on my Jack Jones at Tonto Towers. There's loads to keep me busy though: Sin Cities is doing well and it is only now that the hard work starts. Just like being in The Apprentice, this is where sales matter, and this is where you have to become a salesperson. But when its your own company, you can't just run around aimlessly shouting 'That's what I'm talking about!' and 'I'm one hundred per cent passionate about sales.'... none of that counts. Pre-orders and orders, following up leads, calling/charming buyers, bookstores, making sure orders go ahead - those are the most difficult and crucial calls. Then there's all the publicity to go with it, and in turn, they generate more sales. So it's all the PR elements, arranging signings, booking travel etc, contacting press, arranging interviews, following up all those initial calls, hassling, chasing up reviews and features.

We've got a few signing sessions arranged for Ashley to attend so far. I'll post them up nearer the time, as well as the other publicity we've secured. In the meantime, if you are a FaceBooker, why not join the Sin Cities Book Group where there are regular updates.

I fell a book submissions rant coming on... I'll hold back for a bit though.

Stu