words and macchiato

We’re starting 2015 on a bit of a roll. 
A few weeks ago we were able to tell you about the US deal for our publication City Baby (scroll down to the blog american baby to read about that). That was our first piece of good news for the year. But we haven’t stopped there. Oh no. We’ve been busy. We’re working on putting together proposals for a couple of very interesting projects which we can’t possibly tell you about just yet – yes, you’re right dear reader, we are a tease – but if there’s one thing we’ve learned it’s never to count our chickens before the eggs have hatched. That, and the art of being a tease, clearly. 
There is one piece of good news which we’ve been sitting on for months, though, and which we’re now ready to share. Are you sitting comfortably? Good.
Here – with a fanfare of trumpets, some blazing fireworks, and a smidgeon of pumping dance music – it comes. 
We’ve a new author joining the Ignite roster. 
Please give a big warm welcome to Carl Stanley.  
We get sent a lot of manuscripts. As a small publishing house, it’s not always easy to read them all, but we do our best to find time to do that, and to write back to the prospective authors. After all, when someone’s put their heart and soul in to a piece of writing and then sought us out and sent it to us, the least they deserve is some kind of response. Some of the manuscripts are way too rough, and some are not quite ready, and – just once in a while – we get one which grabs our attention, which shines out like a diamond. Carl’s manuscript was one. It made us laugh, it made us cringe, it took us on a misty-eyed trip down memory lane, and it moved us to tears. Quite an achievement, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Months have slipped by since then. As always, the process of bouncing the manuscript back and forward between Carl and ourselves – for editing and tweaking and adding some paragraphs while ruthlessly chopping others – has taken way longer than you might think. But now, finally, we’ve got there. All that’s left is one final read-through to check spelling and sense and punctuation (a slow, painstakingly forensic process requiring industrial quantities of strong coffee) and we’ll be ready to start typesetting the book ready to send it to the printers.
As soon as we have a publication date for Kiss & Make Up, we’ll let you know. In the meantime, you’ll find information about Carl in our authors list.
He’s an outstanding addition to our posse of new writers, and we know you’ll enjoy his book. 
And now it’s time for coffee. Words and macchiato, it’s how we roll.