That Was The Week, That Was

Another busy week that started with the very sad news of Iain Banks' death, a lovely and talented man. I first read The Wasp Factory shortly after it came out and was so blown away by it that I travelled 50 miles from where I lived at the time just so that I could get him to sign my copy. He was doing a book signing and short talk in Cambridge. I treasured that book then and even more so now. Another fantastic writer taken from us far too soon.

Most of the rest of the week was spent in a studio recording the audiobook of Constable Colgan's Connectoscope.

 

I was at the House Of Strange studios in the shadow of Canary Wharf in London's docklands. It's a very cool place, owned and run by my good mate Ash Gardner, producer of such bands as Three Trapped Tigers and Emperor Yes.

After three days and 12 hours of reading out loud, I've developed a whole new respect for people like Stephen Fry and Martin Jarvis who make a great many audiobooks. It's surprisingly tiring work. Yes, all right, it's not digging roads or nursing but it is quite wearing, especially as you have to keep up an enthusiastic, evenly-modulated tone throughout.

I've also discovered that the written word and the spoken word are quite different things. When you read out loud, you suddenly have to know how to pronounce people's names correctly and, even more challengingly, foreign names and words. This issue became particularly acute when I got to chapter 11 and suddenly found myself facing words like sippuakivikauppias and kuulilennuteetunneliluuk - two of the world's longest palindromes; one Finnish, one Estonian. Eek.

How did I fare? You'll soon be able to hear.

Aural Sexiness!

So, here's the thing ... with me not being as famous as Terry Jones or as popular as Robert Llewellyn or as fashionable as Hardeep Singh Kohli or as good a dancer as Katy Brand or as downright sexy as Mrs Stephen Fry or Adrian 'Ferocious Duck' Teal, I felt that I needed a way to give supporters of my new book, Constable Colgan's Connectoscope, more bang for your buck.

You see, £10 for an e-book - the lowest level of pledging - is money well-spent when it allows you to chat directly to someone you admire - such as George Chopping or Kate Mosse - in a small, cosy private place like an author's shed. Plus, who wouldn't want their name recorded within the same covers as Jonathan Meades or Jennifer Pickup? However, it seemed to me to be a lot to ask you for when (a) I'm not on the telly, (b) I don't look as good as Mark Curry in a sweater and (c) I don't have the luxuriant locks of Keith Kahn-Harris or even Rupert Isaacson. Plus, in these days of austerity, the very people who can only spare a tenner are probably the same people who can't afford a Kindle, iPad or other e-book reader. However, everyone has a mobile phone and many people have some form of music player.

So here's what I'm going to do ... I'm going to come in your ears.

Yes! At no extra cost to you, I am going to record Constable Colgan's Connectoscope as an audiobook and make it available to everyone who pledges: from the £10 level right up to the dizzy heights of £750. So, even at the lowest level, you'll get an e-book, an audiobook, access to my shed, your name in the book and be in with a chance of winning the original book cover painting. And all for less than the price of a pizza. That's pretty good value isn't it? It's even cheaper if you were lucky enough to get one of Unbound's celebratory 1st birthday £5 tokens today.

The Unbound site doesn't mention the audiobooks yet but will shortly be updated. Today, they're probably all horribly drunk and spewing up birthday cake in an alleyway. Meanwhile, you don't need to do anything. If you've already pledged, you'll get the audiobook automatically, same as all new pledgers. So enjoy the sunshine and bully all of your friends, colleagues and even enemies to support this book.

Now where's that gin and tonic ...