Mill Road fair | An Author's View

One of the big houses in my home village has its own library. Oh, I’m so envious! Sometimes the owners forget to close the curtains in the evenings, and I have to resist the temptation to press my nose against the window like a hungry pauper outside a bakery in a Victorian novel (or a window licker in these less romantic times) and drool over the books. I love my trusty Kindle, so small yet so full of fabulous reading material, but nothing can beat the look, feel and smell of a real book. The scent of fresh print – mmmmm.

Moving swiftly on…

Books, Beautiful Books is the name of one of the Donkey Green marquee stalls coming to Mill Road Winter Fair on 6 December. The fair is a fabulous annual event in Cambridge, featuring an array of food, entertainment and stalls, and is well worth attending if you happen to be in the area (or fancy visiting our lovely city) on the first Saturday in December. And if you are coming to the fair, please do stop and say ‘Hello’ to six – yes, six – local authors running Books, Beautiful Books. We’ll be chatting about the writing life, selling and signing our books and generally having a wonderful time, and we’d love to see you there. (Donkey Green is next to Parkside swimming pool, a fact I didn’t know until last year’s fair.)

The Donkey Green marquee, Mill Road Fair 2013

Mill Road Fair 2013 in full swing

Books make lovely gifts (hint, hint) being easy-to-wrap, beautiful keepsakes. Books, Beautiful Books will be offering a variety of reading material: fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children’s books, and I’ll be introducing the authors and their work one by one on my blog over the next couple of weeks. I think you already know me (if you don’t, may I invite you to click on the ‘About Me’ and ‘Books’ tabs above). Briefly, I will be joined by Shahida Rahman (I met Shahida last year at Cambridge Central Library and can’t wait to catch up with her again), Susan Grossey, Michael Brown, Saffra Monteiro and Georgia Rose. We very much hope you’ll be able to come along to Mill Road, Cambridge between 10.30am and 4.30pm on Saturday 6 December and be a part of what’s shaping up to be a fabulous day.

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Unusually for me I have nothing to say today. Nothing whatsoever. This is due in no small part to the fact that I’m terrified! Tomorrow I’m going to be taking Dory’s Avengers to Mill Road Winter Fair in Cambridge, which is probably my best opportunity to date to market the hard copies of my book, and I’ve managed to sink into a rather negative mind-set. I now have nightmare images of lugging 100 hardbacks to the fair, only to endure the shame of not selling a single copy and having to lug them all home again. This mind-set is as unusual for me as having nothing to say; I’d certainly class myself as a ‘glass is half full’ sort of person generally, but not at the moment. I know I’ll be back to my usual optimistic self as soon as my first customer of the day arrives tomorrow – if they arrive. Then I’ll be okay. Then I’ll know I only have to lug 99 copies home…

I think I’ll shut up and stop moaning!

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