Sunday, 6 October 2013

*NEW BOOK ALERT* - and a snazzy book launch to go with it!

It's taken me a little time to write this one up as I've been snowed under with other work and Frankfurt preparations. I always seem to forget (or mentally block out) how hectic this time of year is.

I've been doing a selection of work for some fantastic fiction titles recently. It makes a great change to what I usually do in the children's publishing world. It's allowing me to broaden my portfolio and I'm loving it.

Introducing *drum roll*  - Weirdos vs. Quimboids by Natasha Desborough, published by Catnip Publishing!


"Cursed by the initials BUM, saddled with woolly liberal-minded hippies for parents and an UNDYING love for the Proper Real-Time HOT Felix Winters, BLOSSOM UXLEY-MICHAELS is a seething mass of sexual frustration and political confusion. But when she's invited to work on the school radio, Blossom's convinced her status is about to rocket from Weirdo to Winner . . ."


Reading the unfinished manuscript last December made me laugh out loud and cringe so bad and I knew straight away that I had to be on board. Written in a diary format by the leading character, Blossom, we follow her  and her best friend and trusty sidekick Petrina - Ola Olsen (POO) on their quest to be cool. Working for the school radio station with the hot guys and promoting their band - Camel Toe - how can they fail! Throw in some quimboids, slightly insane parents and all the other troubles of being a teenager and away we go!

So with all that to bear in mind, we set off to try and deliver a cover that would do the book justice and aim it at the right target market. It wasn't all plain sailing getting this design right. After many changes and suggestions from big book sellers, this book went through not only a name change, but also a fair few complete different looks and approaches. While at the time there were a number of heads banging heavily on desks, I'm am pleased with how this one turned out. Who wouldn't enjoy being given the option to use NEON PINK on a cover??


On Sept 24th, I was invited along to the Wvs.Q book launch. It was great to meet a lot of the lovely people at Catnip and Bounce - and of course Natasha herself! After many quite frankly hilarious Twitter messages and emails back and fourth, it was great to finally meet her in person. The night was filled with food, drink and mingling with fantastic publishing and book people. Tash did a reading from the book and signed copies left, right and centre (including mine!). Lovely night with some lovely people to celebrate a flippin' brilliant book. Looking forward to the next one...


Tash teaching us the 'Scale of shame'. Levels go from 1. The burden of the embarrassing name, to 10. Watching a sex scene on TV with your parents or actually catching them at it. *proper real-time cringe*

Awesome Non with her Weirdos T-shirt and Camel Toe pin badges, myself and Tash.
(Picture pinched in a friendly way from Non's blog... )

(Thank you Matt the Librarian for this picture...)

Weirdos Vs. Quimboids is available to -----> buy <----- now! It comes with a cool option to download one of Camel Toes' songs - Poncerama via a QR code on the back of the book, too. Pretty cool and that is a scientific fact! 

For more info and extra goodies check out Tash's website www.natashadesborough.co.uk where she is groping Dave Grohl's bum. Jealous.