Tom Lloyd

The closer I get to 30, the faster the weeks seem to slip by, which is depressing when thinking about all the things I have to get done during them! Anyway, a bit of a catch-up perhaps.

First of all, I’ve got a date and venue for my wedding so everyone has to pray for sun in Dundee next July!

Secondly, Stormcaller has just been published in the USA which is great news, hopefully a few people will buy the damn thing! ;0) It’s had a good review from PN and Harriet Klausner also gave it 4 out of 5, but having seen some of the books she gives 5 stars to I’m wondering if I should take that as an insult?

Thirdly, yes, there is a thirdly! In case you’ve not heard, Aravind Adiga won the Booker Prize on Tuesday and has been no 1 on the Amazon bestsellers since Weds mid-morning as a result. Why is this good news you might cry? Is he a close personal friend? No. Has he done a review for Stormcaller? No. Have I even met him? No. However, as I’ve mentioned before, I now work for Atlantic Books, Adiga’s publisher so I’m delighted to see the reasonable chance of great commercial success for the boy, being that I’m the most recent member of staff at a small company during a massive economic downturn…

Fourthly, oh yes, I’m that good to you, I believe I’m allowed to show you the brilliant cover for Twiglet in the US!

Fifthly, I’ve just remembered, BCA who do all the UK bookclubs pretty much, have just ordered copies of Grave Thief. They did pretty well for Stormcaller on their Cosmic 5 promotion for debuts – it was no 1 on their list ahead of Stephen King for a while – but they didn’t take all that many copies in total, just enough for their promotion. For Twiglet they took significantly fewer, just 800 I believe but at least they decided to take some right? So, for Grave Thief I’d been expecting a similar amount. However, either the book is so fantastic they couldn’t resist, of my editor is a hard woman to refuse, but they ended up taking 6 times the number they had for Twiglet and officially rock in my book!

Sixthly, There’s apparently a new award named after David Gemmell that I have the privilege of being long-listed for. Considering others on the list are the excessively successful Joe Applecrumble and David’s semi-protege, James Barclay, and also Grave Thief is published about the last day of the qualifying time so barely anyone will have had a chance to read it by then, I’m not convinced I’ve got the best chances, but it’s a delight to be nominated for an award I actually give a crap about! Also, the prize is an axe which is about the coolest thing anyone would ever give me (wedding ring from the beloved aside, and even then she’d not be confident about it!). Website is here