Paperback writer

This is Donald Greig’s new blog. It coincides with the release of my first novel, Time Will Tell, in paperback. You may have been redirected here from a Facebook page(http://www.facebook.com/timewilltellnovel), which I set up six months ago to promote my novel. Feel free to have a look.

I’ve created the site partially to provide a forum for interested readers and partially to discuss things that interest me – writing, cinema, music, politics and the like. Oh, and beer. Maybe.

So why a paperback? It’s a good question in this day of digital downloads. The simple answer is that the plan was always to do it this way, which may be old-fashioned but still serves a purpose. A hardback used to be the first iteration of a novel, but that’s by no means guaranteed for authors today, particularly first-time authors. The new process sees books released immediately as a paperback and concurrently as an ebook.

I have to say that I’m grateful to Thames River Press for taking this bold move and I hope that sales of the hardback have justified their faith. The feeling was that the book, because of its serious subject (deliberately contrasted by a lighter mode of writing) warranted the glossier presentation. And perhaps the publisher, knowing that the classical-music listener tends to be a tad older and have a little more cash in their pockets, might be more inclined to splash out on a hardback.

So in some ways the test comes now, with the paperback. Finally the book stands or falls on its literary merit, rather than on any personal connection to me or potential push it might have received from its connection with the niche field of early music. And I have to say that I’m pleased. They say that you should write about what you know, but my main reason for creating the novel was that of most authors of fiction: to tell a story by creating convincing characters who inhabit a credible fictional world. In that I hope I’ve been successful, but only you can tell me. So do feel free to drop a note in the comments section below.