Keith's August Newsletter

GLUNDA THE VEG WITCH COVER REVEAL

Author

Keith W. Dickinson
August 29, 2023

Hello One and All!

Welcome to a very exciting newsletter (for me at least). Today I get to finally reveal the cover for Glunda the Veg Witch, which makes me very happy indeed. I’ve been sitting on this baby for weeks now, which has been a real struggle let me tell you. Not being able to show anyone except a handful of friends has been excruciating!

Much Of A Muchness

Developments in my personal life continue much as they have. I had the meeting in work about my redundancy. Nothing much to report there. I may be going over to Manchester to shadow someone doing one of the jobs I might apply for, but that’s by-the-by. The most annoying development this month was being told that there’s no work at STV in Glasgow at the moment, and there isn’t going to be in the near future. I had a lot of hope in the STV basket, so having that kind of ruled out has been a bit of a blow.

News From The Steam Factory

And now for the exciting stuff!

Theydies and Gentlethem, allow me to present to you the cover for my forthcoming fantasy novella, GLUNDA THE VEG WITCH.

A dark green cover. The book title in yellow text in the top half of the page. Below it a pair of sturdy black boots with a black witch's hat resting on top of them. Surrounding the two a medley of colourful vegetables intertwined with vines.

How nice is that. So happy with the way it has turned out. Simple, eye-catching, and it offers vibes of what you will find inside, as does the back page blurb.

Back page blurb: “A witch’s boots told the story of her life. They showed you where she’d been, where she was going, and what kind of a witch she would be when she got there. And, most importantly, they were proof that said witch was not someone to be trifled with. She was to be listened to, and obeyed, and yes sometimes even feared, because her wisdom was hard earned and her wrath swift and mighty. They would have to be, for her to have lived in such boots for so many a year. No one trusted a witch in brand new boots, and rightly so as far as Glunda was concerned.”

I decided to go with the boots motif for promoting the book as it’s a snappy bit of writing plus it is indicative of the kind of story you’re going to get. I am also getting some character art done to go with it, which is being worked on at the moment. Boots are fine, but if I can put a face to the name Glunda it will connect with people better, and hence sell more books.

Speaking of which, Glunda is available for pre-order right now, and it has been for a couple of weeks now. That was the secret experiment I alluded to on Twitter the other day. I had to make the pre-order early so that I would have a link to give the bloggers taking part in the cover reveal, but I didn’t tell anyone about it to see if anyone would spot it and order the book. Sadly, but not surprisingly, no one did, so technically Glunda has been on sale for two weeks and no one has bought a copy, lol.

It doesn’t officially go on sale until next Monday, 4th September. That’s when the cover reveal will be, and when I’ll be telling the world that it is available for purchase. Until then, if you click the link you’ll only see the redacted cover. It’s just you guys who get to see the real thing for now.

The pre-order phase will last until Halloween, Tuesday 31st October, when Glunda will finally be released. Until then expect a bunch of stuff from me on social media including more book quotes, a character image reveal, and probably a couple of readings on instagram to whet people’s appetites. I’m trying to do this release “properly” this time instead of just hitting publish and hoping for the best. I want to see if I can squeeze out that elusive Amazon No.1 orange banner.

Aside from all this I’m also sending THE JOURNEYMAN out to another seventeen agents today, to see if any of them would be interested in representing it (and making me rich along the way)? I tried just approaching a select few and that didn’t work. It’s time for me to go wide!

When I’m Not Writing

I’ve been reading a bunch of stuff this month, including Adrian Tchaikovsky’s DOGS OF WAR, but the book I want to flag up on your radar today is 42: THE WILDLY IMPROBABLE IDEAS OF DOUGLAS ADAMS, edited by Kevin Jon Davies.

Mostly blue with the title top, it has a black and white image of Douglas Adams smiling on the front, a galaxy gleaming in his eye.

A collection of notes, letters, and memorabilia from Adams’s personal archive, including comedy sketches from his students days and early drafts of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, it’s a treasure trove of information for any Douglas Adams fan, like me, looking for an insight into how the man thought.

Published through Unbound (which is like Kickstarter but it’s just books) 42 is a chonky boy and not cheap, but if you’re into that kind of thing it’s well worth a go.

And that’s about it for me for this month except to tell you that, as it didn’t get shortlisted for the Lindisfarne Prize, I’ve published a new Hammersmyth Tales short on my blog for you to enjoy - Inspector Lassiter in A Brush With Fete. The second outing for Inspector Lassiter, it sees the titular detective take on a most gruelling task; being a judge at her local church fete. Not the sort of place you’d normally expect to be a hotbed of criminal activity, you’d be surprised what folks will get up to when rosettes are on the line! I hope you like it.

Toodle-pip for now, and don’t forget, buy my book! Not only is it a little cracker, but it’s got a recipe for vegetable soup in the back as well, so you can have something tasty to eat as you give it a read, lol.

Keith