A writer's life is sometimes strange

Very strange indeed.  At the same moment that I was deliberating over printer's quotes for a small Independent edition of The Story-teller, and had just put my self-publishing quandary up on the blog, I was approached by one of the British university presses about a publishing deal.   Not only did they want to publish the book, but they wanted to bring it out quickly, before Christmas, to take advantage of all the Penguin publicity.  They were also keen to use Neil's cover design.   The only drawback was that they couldn't offer much money, but from my point of view the fact that I'm not going to be paying the printer's bill is  a big bonus.  All I have to do is to convince my agent that a) a very enthusiastic, well-regarded university publisher is better than no publisher at all, and b) that a good hardback edition and some good reviews might just lead to a mainstream publisher offering for the paperback rights.    Wish me luck on that one! 

Meanwhile, we're going ahead with the re-issue of A Passionate Sisterhood.  The cover proofs arrived today and Alas!!! instead of a lovely, rich blue, they are a deep and depressing shade of purple attractive only to mourning Victorians.    We are beginning to realise the problems of transmitting colour files - it is apparently very difficult to get the same colour calibrated into a printer.  A lot of tweaking is going to be necessary.