Friday 22 February 2019

Time

There isn't really enough of it. 

I have been going through my notebooks of research and have found more than enough to do "More Women of the Civil War."

I am also writing a 17th C recipe book.

Then I have got The Kings Men in development. Telling the legend of the Rollright stones.

Oh yes, I have bookshops to visit, money to chase.

As for the Hilary Long mysteries, Hilary can't lie low for a moment - so there are two notebooks for "Hilary Long and the Straw men" - as a working title.

The only thing I don't have is time.

I have been told there is a possibility of my having ME (used to be called the Yuppie disease).  No-one knows what Yuppie means any more do they?
Young Up and Coming Professional Entrepreneurs, basically a fashionable young middle-class person with a well-paid job.

I suppose I should be flattered, if I wasn't so exhausted, I would be.




 

Monday 18 February 2019

Good News!

There will be a reprint of "The Women of the Civil War" with colour portraits, updated and refreshed.

These musket ball holes at head height are more impressive in colour. This was the "reward" for Lady Jane Ingilby holding Cromwell hostage over night. As soon as he was freed he took the Cavalier prisoners and shot them against the Ripley church wall. 


 Queen Henrietta Maria as a young woman.

When the photos are properly cropped and colour corrected, you will really start to see the woman behind the story.

Exciting times for our little publishing house:

We have sold out of all our stock of books, we will be having some new stock printed soon, but they are still available from Amazon and in the following bookshops:
The Commandery, Worcester
The Nantwich Bookshop
Blackwells Oxford
Gardiners Wholesalers
Waterstones
The Mad Hatter Bookshop, Burford
The Woodstock Bookshop


All photos on this blog are copyright of Margaret Cooper Evans and cannot be reproduced, re-sold, or used without the copyright owners permission,

Money Money Money!

Well, I have finally been paid by one of the bookshops (thank you) for the books sold over the Christmas period!  

The yacht and the Lamborgini have been put on hold, and I won't be buying my Castle just yet.

£56.00 

Some stock has been lost and some stolen. Some had been taken down so that Celebrity Autobiographies could be sold over Christmas.

I have had trouble with my eyes brought on by a stress migraine - hence the huge letters!   I'm also fighting with exhaustion.


Maggie O'Farrell a famous author said recently that working without an Agent, Established Publisher, Publicity Manager,
PA, or an accountant - was like shouting in the dark.

I know what she means, you know you're there, but who else does?  We (hubby and I) worked ourselves into the ground to get Nuova Stella working, and we still are.

But the eye thing means a short hiatus is in order for me at the moment.  

Perhaps there's a vacancy in the Pirate Community - I have 
the outfit - all I need is an eye patch. 
 Ooops not a parrot! Perhaps I need two eye patches!
 

Friday 1 February 2019

OKAYYY

So here I am again typing away but trying not to look at the screen. This time last week I was scarily blind in my left eye after a stress optical migraine. So please excuse my typing it many not be that brilliant today as my sight is still damaged.

As I had time to think/worry/fret I mahde a list of all my writing achievements/courses to boost my ego I suppose - to help me lead back to some form of normally.

At the age of 15 I used my Saturday Girl wages from Woolworths to pay £200 for a correspondence course called "Writing for Pleasure and Profit."
I was insulted when Mirror Columnist Marjorie Proops told me to work for the Hackney Gazette as a trainee.
Around this time I wrote a spoof spy novel that I sent to Penguin, and I'm sure when they had finished laughing their socks off and wetting their collective pants, they said it wasn't for them, but don't stop writing.
I had short stories published in Bunty and Jackie Magazines, and in my 20s wrote short stories and poems for Woman and Women's Own
When working for the BBC I had articles and cartoons published in the staff magazine Ariel and the BECTU (union) magazine.
I attended the BBC Creative writing course and the BBC from Script to Screen writing course.
I had articles published on the BBC website under "A sense of place." about living in Cornwall.  I also wrote lifestyle articles for the Guardian at this time.
Then I was put on the BBC "Breaking Barriers in Creative writing" course.
After this followed another Guardian article on how I got my son away from his drug problem. Also published in "Parenting" magazine.
It was through the Chiplit Festival writing course that I met the Ampersand Agency, there followed 9 Hilary Long Cosy mysteries, one book called 1955 requested by the Agency
then followed The Women of the Civil War, one of my best sellers, along with "A Farthing for Oxforde" my first historical fiction. Now in the Amazon 100 best sellers list.
We started Nuova Stella Publishing last year as our own platform for book sales, and have two books currently on the go, The Kings Men, a Legend of the Rollright stones and The Clothing of the National Trust.
Recently I completed another on-line BBC Creative Writing course - boy how things have changed since the first one.
Yes it was Stress that made me lose some sight. So I must stop now.