Cakes & Tales
It was good old Harrogate’s Theakstons Old Peculier Crimewriting Festival this weekend, and the event played an absolute blinder as per usual.
It was great fun to meet friends old and new, both writers and readers alike (someone told me they were ‘just a reader’. Pah! Without readers, writers would be well snookered!)
Even the sun came out to play
The panels were all ace, the best one (for me) was “Wanted For Murder: The e-book”, featuring the notorious self published writer Stephen Leather who managed to insult readers, writers, agent, publishers…if you were there, have I missed anyone out?
Hilarious and horrifying in equal measures, read more here
Still, onto more pressing matters.
The Swan Hotel, where the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival takes place, serves an excellent lunch – with a fortifying pudding to follow.
Thursday – chocolate tart
Friday – lemon tart
Saturday – poached pear
Well in, chefs and catering staff at the Swan Hotel!
Am beyond impressed.
Broken, my collection of short stories is available to download on Amazon for Kindle here
Sounds like Stephen Leather is getting some great publicity from the event (and free at that!). Perhaps that was the idea …
I think you’re probably right! It was the talking point of the festival, when he revealed one of his books titles was ‘Bangkok Bob and the Missing Mormon’, the whole room rippled with laughter; then when a certain Mr X whose name shall remain confidential bellowed ‘tosser’ at him, I nearly wet myself. I doubt many sales will have been generated there at Harrogate, but outside the Festival, who knows? I bear him no ill will, but it was as I said in the post hilarious and horrifying at the same time!
All publicity is good publicity! I don’t remember insulting readers but I do think that agents need to justify what they do for 15 per cent and publishers need to justify charging £6.99 for an eBook. And it’s all very well laughing at Bangkok Bob and the Missing Moron but it does sell well as both an eBook and a paperback. A lot of self-published writers wish they could sell half as many! Funny that people shouting ‘tosser’ amuses you. It seemed to amuse a lot of people which I actually found quite sad. I seem to remember being quite polite when expressing my opinions and was quite surprised at the display of bad manners. I tend to listen to the views of others and respond to them politely. When that silly lady thought that I wrote a short story for 5p a day, I didn’t insult her or even correct her by pointing out that the 25p a I receive is per copy and that if I sell 100,000 copies then I get £25,000. I doubt that anyone on that panel earns anywhere near £5,000 a day! Still, as I said, all publicity is good publicity. Oh, and my main reason for being there was to write my short story Inspector Zhang Goes To Harrogate. It’ll be out in a few weeks.
Thanks for your reply. Lend us a tenner?
It was a great weekend and a pleasure to finally meet you Cath.
It was grand to meet you at last, Rebecca x