With less than a week until
Urban Worrier goes on sale, I noticiced this morning that Amazon is doing a big opening offer for those who pre-order the book: reduced from £13.99 to £7.75 – so you’re almost getting two for the cover price of one.
With my business hat on, I should probably avoid flagging up this kind of mass-discounting, but I’m also a realist – and a good pre-order would do wonders for my Amazon ranking on day one, which in turn helps to publicise the book in a difficult economic climate.
So if you’re an Amazon user, please go ahead and
pre-order here
– I’m not sure how long this reduction will last. You can even sample excerpts from the book before buying, using their “Look Inside” function. And don’t worry, they won’t debit your card till they mail the books out on June 2nd.
Foolproof, really.
09 May 2011, Posted by Nick in Books,Journalism, .
I’ve just finished reading
The Imperfectionists
, by Tom Rachman, a tragicomic novel about eleven lives connected to one newspaper as print journalism enters its death-throes. Rachman, a former journalist himself, deservedly won rave reviews for this first work of fiction, which stirred in me emotions not commonly associated with the media: compassion, affection, gentle humour.
It also made me quite nostalgic for my years on the staff of the Scotsman, which is suffering plungeing circulation figures like (almost) all the others. It’s good to be reminded that behind every headline, good, bad or plain ridiculous, is a fallible human being whose life is every bit as complex and threaded with private hopes and griefs as those laid out in print.
Rachman conjures up brilliantly the real-life angst and soul-searching as advertising migrates online, on-the-ground reporting disappears, and users expecting cost-free news are rewarded with the recycled press releases they deserve. But he also makes it a powerful metaphor for that instinctive human fear we all share: of letting go of what we know and striking out into an unknown future.
I really have no idea what the role of a journalist will look like in ten years’ time (though Nick Davies’
Flat Earth News
provides some horribly believable pointers) or whether freelancing will even still be financially viable. But the warmth and humanity of this novel reminds me that whatever happens, we’re in it together.
04 May 2011, Posted by Nick in General, .
Less than a month to the publication of Urban Worrier: Adventures in the Lost Art of Letting Go, my most honest book to date. I’ve been wavering between excitement and trepidation for weeks as June 2nd approaches, wondering if I should have been a bit more circumspect and less confessional – but that all paled into insignificance yesterday when a man emailed me to ask if I’d consider giving a book reading stark naked.
Nudefest, I should hastily explain, is British Naturism’s annual jamboree on a campsite in Cornwall, which I visited a few years back as one of the chapters in my quest to loosen up a little. After the terrifying moment of taking the plunge, I was surprised to find the whole experience liberating, sociable and deeply relaxing. Hundreds of us took an al fresco evening tour of the Eden Project, and none of us looked remotely like the airbrushed models you see in Sunday magazines – which was the whole point, of course. It was a kind of joyous mutiny against all the fashionistas selling us insecurity and shame. Everyone there simply accepted themselves as they were, with no disguises left to shed.
Mingling with naked crowds is one thing, however; standing spotlit in front of them reading from a book is quite another. I tried not to rule it out immediately, but the logistics alone seem mind-boggling (How tall would the lectern be? Where would I clip my radio mic? etc) In the end, much as I’d love to be brave and self-accepting enough to take up the invitation, I just can’t imagine that much letting go.
But give me another decade or so…
Until recently I believed, in my nuanced, non-judgemental way, that every minute spent playing video games was another minute tragically leeched from more important things.
