Reprint time again.....

Reprint time again -- this time for "On Angel Mountain."  Having done the sums, I reckon that this title has now sold 30,000 copies in all editions, excluding Kindle downloads and audiobook sales.  I suddenly realized that I was out of stock, and having reclaimed some stock from the Welsh Books Council warehouse in Aberystwyth, I have now sold out of that as well.  So the old favourite keeps on selling.  This will be the 7th printing.......

This is my first venture into short-run digital printing, and I'm using Cambrian Printers in Aberystwyth, who did an excellent job for me with "Ghostly Tales from Pembrokeshire."  Conventional offset printing is not really worthwhile unless you want 1,000 or 2,000 copies at least -- and in these straightend times, who can afford to hold stock at very high levels?  So with the short-run digital process I can go for smaller quantities of a few hundred, and still have a reasonable mark-up on copies sold to the trade.  Naturally enough, I do not want to increase the cover price.

Interesting experiment.  Watch this space.

Martha's Bluebell Wood

We have been here for 37 years now, and until a few weeks ago I thought I had got to know the area pretty well.  But then I discovered a new footpath, just a few hundred metres from the house.  It's an established public path, shown on the 1:25,000 map -- but because the upper part of it is boggy and overgrown, and was blocked by a very large fallen tree near Gelli-deg, I had not penetrated very far along it.  But now the National Park rangers have cleared the obstruction -- and the path is opened up for all to enjoy.  It runs from near Yet-y-Rhos and then follows the valley side more or less southwards for about a kilometre, emerging out onto the Gwaun Valley road near Blaencwm.  It passes through a mixed woodland at first, opening up gradually into a gorgeous woodland of tall beech trees and with (at this time of year) a carpet of bluebells.  In places the path is defined by stone banks -- so at one time it may well have been usable by carts and other wheeled vehicles.  So it must have been a key part of the local footpath network in the days of Mistress Martha and her family.

I have missed a trick there.  It should have featured in at least one of the stories of the saga, given that it is only about a kilometre away from the site of Plas Ingli...........

Spring on the mountain

Up on the slopes of the mountain spring has sprung.  The cuckoo has been at it for almost a month now; the skylarks and swallows are back in residence; and the bracken is beginning to push up those strange curled stalks.........  And that wonderful fresh yellow-green colour is beginning to appear on the bilberry patches on the highest slopes, amongst the rocky outcrops.

I took this photo the other day -- Earth Goddess snoozing quietly on the far horizon.

Strange omen on Carningli

 

The "effusion" of ice (the milk of the Earth Mother?) near the summit of Carningli at the end of March 2013.  The adjacent crag is the tip of the "breast" on the female profile of the mountain when seen from a distance.

Now here's a very funny thing for you....... when I was climbing up the mountain the other day, in very cold bright weather, my eye was attracted by a shining white patch high up, close to the summit. When I got there, it turned out to be an effusion from the highest spring on the mountain, frozen solid. And where was it located? 

Well, you know that the mountain has the profile of or silhouette of a woman lying on her back? To the left the head, then the breast, and then the rib cage, and finally the raised knees to the right. Some people think that this profile caused the mountain to be revered in pre-Christian times as the Earth Mother or Earth Goddess. And where, I hear you ask, was this unique effusion of shining whiteness located? Well, very close to the tip of the breast. How weird is that?

It is after all April 1st, so one can be more than a little eccentric just now.......  but if Carningli was indeed revered as a sacred mountain, associated with some female deity, the "female profile" of the mountain summit might have had something to do with it.  But how much more impressive might it have been for the primitive mind if, every now and then (during a continuous spell of very cold weather without snow),  a white liquid was seen coming from the breast high up on the mountain summit.  The milk of human kindness? The original sustenance for human life?  A sign from the gods?   Well, why not?

Welsh publishing spat gets dirty

Last August I gave a bit of space to the spat between one Julian Ruck and the Welsh publishing industry:

http://brian-angelmountain.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/gravy-train-or-cultural-necessity.html

It has been apparent for quite a time that the publishing establishment is not best pleased with him, but things have now turned rather nasty, and he has complained to the police about harrassment and threats to his safety:

http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Police-probe-threats-author/story-18067910-detail/story.html#axzz2NysHZmEo

Here is an intriguing account of a talk given by our eccentric friend and effectively disrupted and destroyed by a contingent of Welsh literary people -- in a manner that would not have been out of place in an eighteenth-century alehouse:

http://johnabell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/julian-ruck-comic-creation-par.html

I'm not into aportioning blame here!  As in most wars, it probably needs to be apportioned between the angry parties.

There is also a spoof blog site, here:

http://jewelsfromjulian.wordpress.com/tag/julian-ruck/

Apparently Julian is not best pleased about this site -- which is a bit rich, since he himself runs a spoof website designed to cause confusion amongst people looking for Literature Wales on the web.... (Well, I think it's him that runs the site, but nobody owns up to being in change of it.... perhaps he will tell us if it isn't him.)

http://literaturewales.wordpress.com/

Here is another write-up in the press, which appeared in January:

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Taxpayers fund millions of pounds in grants to keep Welsh authors writing books no-one reads
=====================

Taxpayers in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland are helping fund millions of pounds worth of grants to Welsh authors whose books often sell only a handful of copies, it has emerged.

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

10:00PM GMT 01 Jan 2013
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/wales/9774410/Taxpayers-fund-millions-of-pounds-in-grants-to-keep-Welsh-authors-writing-books-no-one-reads.html

In the past five years the Welsh Books Council and Literature Wales have received more than £42m from the Welsh Assembly and Arts Council Wales, which in turn receive their funding from Westminster.

Welsh authors can apply for grants of up to £10,000 to work on any kind of book, and they keep the money even if their work is never published.

Some of the money is used to fund advances for Welsh “celebrities” to write their memoirs, even though there is virtually no public appetite for many of the books.

Last year alone the Welsh Books Council received £7.6m of taxpayers’ money. It distributed £1,853,500 towards the publishing of Welsh language books, including £365,272 which went directly to authors. Another £751,465 was spent on English language books by authors living in Wales.

Meanwhile Literature Wales spent £703,000 promoting Welsh literature through festivals, roadshows, grants and “services to writers”.

Over the past five years the WBC has received £39m of taxpayers’ money, with another £3.85m going to Literature Wales.

Among the Welsh celebrities whose books were subsidised by taxpayers’ money were the comedian Owen Money, who reportedly received £6,000 from the WBC to write his autobiography, Money Talks, and the musician Mal Pope, who was given £4,000 by the WBC to write his memoirs, Old Enough To Know Better.

Other books which have benefited from the scheme include At Arms Length, the autobiography of the former BBC Wales controller Geraint Talfan Davies, which sold just 176 copies in four years. Although Mr Davies did not receive a direct grant, his publisher received money from the WBC.

Julian Ruck, an author and freedom of information campaigner who obtained figures on how some of the money has been spent, said: “This is nothing less than gold-plated dough for people who do not even have to produce a book to get a grant, they only have to show that they intend to write one.

“In England, people who are given arts grants have to give up their time to teach two days a week so that they are not getting money for nothing, but in Wales people are being paid to stay at home and write.

“In the era of e-books, why is it necessary for the taxpayer to subsidise traditional books for such a tiny readership?”

A spokesman for the Welsh Government said funding for the WBC had been cut to £4.1m for the 2012-13 financial year and added: "This funding is channelled towards supporting the publishing industry in both Welsh and English languages.

"Detailed monitoring arrangements are in place to ensure that this funding is spent appropriately. Book sales through the Welsh Books Council distribution centre saw an increase in the last financial year which is very encouraging given the current financial climate."

Yesterday The Telegraph reported that BBC Radio Cymru, which receives £13.5m of licence fee money, is having to play English language music to fill airtime after it failed to reach an agreement with Welsh musicians over royalty payments.

The Welsh artists want to be paid around ten times the current rate every time one of their songs is aired. 

Old map of the territory

I love this map of Carningli, Newport and the surrounding terrain!  It looks ancient, but it was drawn by Neil Gower for the Corgi editions of my books.  It looks old and battered, as if it has been folded and unfolded, and used many times over, and passed down from generation to generation......

Click to enlarge.  Enjoy!!

House of Angels is now free for Kindle

I have just launched a new freebie promotion  for HOUSE OF ANGELS, volume 2 of the Angel Mountain Saga.  It will go on for 5 days -- starting February 14th and ending February 18th.  So if you have a Kindle reader, and would like a copy, it can be obtained here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007VOW7LS

Part adventure, part romance, part tragedy, this has been described by reviewers as a splendidly imagined tale and a compulsive read.

Martha Morgan, the beautiful young mistress of the Plas Ingli estate, is warned that trouble is brewing for her family. She tries to carry on with her life - but then she receives the most terrible news that any young wife can imagine. David, her husband, is dead.  Despair threatens to overwhelm Martha, but she has many responsibilities and must live up to expectations.

Little by little, with help from her family and from some of the more colourful local characters, she sets out to prove that she is more than a match for the scoundrels who have committed an appalling crime. The villains seek the gold hidden somewhere on the estate, and they have plans for Martha too. But she has a mind of her own, and she is very angry......

From a technical point of view, this is the novel that gives me the greatest satisfaction, since there are five different storylines woven tightly together.  During the writing, great concentration was needed to make sure that there were no loose ends at the end......  and just enough openings for character and story development in later novels.

Find out more on the new web site:

http://www.brianjohn.co.uk