Compass Points 8

Compass Points 8

Your weekly round up of publishing news, publicity information and trivia!

Ah the power of publicity…You may recall we mentioned Elkie Brooks’ new autobiography Finding My Voice in last week’s Compass Points. Well following her appearance on BBC Breakfast this morning show, the title rose from number 59,761 to 46 in the Amazon bestseller charts! Don’t let Amazon get all the sales – display this book and it will sell – she has plenty of fans out there!

Here she is on BBC Breakfast

And here's the information on the book

And talking of titles that are selling fast – over 20,000 copies  of The Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared have now been released into the UK book trade. And it is Waterstone’s strongest performer in their current Book Club promotion.  This  “imaginative, laugh out loud bestseller” (The Daily Telegraph)  is published by Hesperus Press – and if you’d like a copy of the Hesperus catalogue so that you can see what other gems of translated world fiction are coming up this autumn, then please email Pat@compass-dsa.co.uk with Hesperus Catalogue in the subject box and your name and address.

Order Hundred Year Old Man here and have a look at the Hesperus Press website here.

Do you tweet? Or do you just look at other people’s tweets? Or do you want to follow other people’s tweets – but don’t know how to sort the tweets from the chaff as it were? The Sunday Times has just listed The Twitter 100: Who to Follow and Why. One of those deeply cool individuals was @sixthformpoet – and what luck, there’s a book coming from him from Summersdale this autumn!  Since his first tweets at the start of 2011, this mysterious figure known has attracted over 30,000 followers on Twitter  (although following The Sunday Times article this is sure to rise) with his offbeat, witty and pun-laden observations on modern life. This collection brings together the best of The Sixth Form Poet’s pithy one-liners and whimsical poems, brought to life with Tom McLaughlin’s quirky illustrations. The book is published on 7th November 2012, ISBN 978 1 84953 319 5. Why not start following him now to see what the fuss is about?

Hurrah! I think the weather is finally about to improve! Just in time for the school holidays too! Make sure you’ve got plenty of copies of Cool Camping Kids for all of those families looking for some wholesome outdoor activities to fill the six week break with! You can see cool camper 7yr old Kira reviewing the book here on YouTube and you can order the book here!

Who feels like they’re going mad? Right now? All the time? Or just sometimes? Fear not – you are not alone. A provocative new book Back to Sanity by Steve Taylor is a fascinating look at the all too often downright crazy behaviour of human beings, allowing us to understand and recognize our “madness” better so that we can improve our lives. There was a huge piece in The Daily Mail (which has over two million readers) last week on this title – and the issue of mental health is never far away from media attention – so order this book now.

Well, the Olympics are nearly upon us. Excited or couldn’t give a monkey’s? Either way, make sure that you have copies of London’s Olympic Follies: The Madness and the Mayhem of the 1908 London Games by Graeme Kent in your Olympic books display. The London Olympics of 1908 was intended to reveal Britain and its empire at its zenith. The games opened in the pouring rain, which was to continue for the whole two weeks. Before the games had ended, almost everything that could go wrong had gone wrong, the organisers were universally condemned and it had caused a number of international incidents. Hmm…remind you of anything? The author is going to be interviewed on the BBC news on 24 July – all great publicity for this brilliant book! Find out more about the book here.

I’m afraid I have no pithy comments to add this week to the ongoing eBooks versus real books debate. However, on the subject of new technology (as we fogies still call it) in general; this still makes me laugh every time I watch it.

This newsletter is sent weekly to over 400 booksellers. If you would like to order any of the titles mentioned, then please click here to go to the Compass New Titles Website.

That’s all for now folks, more next week!