Snipped Tales: book cover and blurb reveal.

Hello hello. 

You know that time, a few weeks back, when I asked you to just give me a vague, non-committal, mumble if you thought that maybe, perhaps, there was a chance that you might, possibly, at some point, consider buying my book of Snipped Tales? Well, thank you, so very much to all who responded; it really helped me decide how many copies to print. 

Not that I ordered the exact number of copies I knew I could sell. No. I ordered far more than that! 

There were several reasons for that, one may well be that I'm a dreamer, but another was definitely more down to earth: the financial logistics of it. I won't go into details - unless I ever create a workshop for self-publishing-virgins someday - but there were a lot of calculations happening behind the scenes regarding costs, print prices that scaled, and profit margins. And, of course, all those calculations depend upon selling all the copies .... and yet ...

I decided to invest heavily in the project for one simple reason, a simple reason I'd very nearly lost sight of until James stopped me mid-meltdown and asked: 

"What do you want out of it all? Why are you doing it?" And it was like a break in the clouds, and I remembered:

I just want people to find the book. I want it to find the right people. I just want other people to have it their hands. 

(BTW: I can barely talk about the book without making a gesture like I'm holding an invisible book in my hands and am about to hand it over to someone else. Here, take this.)

And that was that, the minutiae of profit percentages and commission rates etc were pushed aside; and the decision to just go for it was made. And there's no turning back now, it's been sent off to the printer's, it's very much out of my hands. Then when it's finally in someone else's hands, yours perhaps, this is what it will look like: 

A papery bundle tied up with string, ready to be handed over to you to open up for yourself.  And if you flip it over you'll find this description:

The human experience and countless old book pages find themselves dissected and reshaped in this patchwork anthology of collaged fiction. 

Though short these tales make room for the awkward to feel understood, the quiet to speak out, the frustrated to vent, the weary to rest and the romantic to woo. Not to mention finding space to pitch battles against conformity, dangerous urges … and dragons.

Take a journey in small steps to discover what gets left behind at the Lost Property Office, where Sally hides her biscuits, why Fred and Joan weren’t a suitable love match, and how Casanova fills out his online dating profile.

Moving from reflective and poignant to mischievous, seductive, and surreal, this is storytelling to delight, console, and remind us that there’s never only one way to tell a story; you can always slice up the old one and start again.

Maybe that helps give you a clearer idea of what you can expect to find inside? I hope so. And actually the cover itself actually holds clues to the topics that appear in the tales; everything from thinking a lot, to eating, reading, loving, and breaking things. Quite literally the story of my life, probably yours too.

In the next book-themed post I'll reveal all the chapter titles and a little more about the structure of the book (if you follow my Facebook page you'll have seen one of the chapter titles already, last week.) and it should all help build up a clearer picture of what's on its way just as soon as it arrives back from being printed!

So, now you've seen it, what have you got for me?

• Reactions? (Are you swooning over Kirsty's lovely illustrations too?) 
• Excited squeals, jigs, waving jazz hands? (Just me?)
• Questions? (Anything you want to know about the book? Anything at all?  Anything about the cover, the contents, the process, ... I'll do my best to answer.)

Leave a comment here, shout, pass me a note, tug my sleeve as I pass by, email me at withjuliekirk (@) gmail.com (remove the brackets!) or get in touch via Instagram, my Facebook page or on Twitter. 

Do whatever;'s easiest, but do speak booky to me! 

Julie x