All my books

All my publications so far with Ward Wood Publishing. There are two novels: The Finn's Tale and Arthur's Eventful Weekend, and two poetry collections: Midas Touch and Falstaff's Gut. The publisher's website (www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk) has a brief description of each book and there are some excerpts on the pages in the right-hand bar of this blog.

They're all available in book form and on Kindle, from the publisher's website, Amazon, The Book Depository and other online booksellers.

Have you read The Finn´s Tale?

This blog receives between 200 and 300 visitors a month on average. I´ve been wondering how many of you have read my novel, The Finn´s Tale, and if so, which country you are from. The novel is easily obtainable via Amazon, Book Depository and the publisher´s website so international markets are well served. In addition, Stockmann´s Academic Bookshop in Finland and Pocket Books on Helsinki railway station have sold a considerable number of copies and I wonder how many of those have been purchased by foreign visitors to take back to their home country as a souvenir as well as a source of information about the Finnish way of life and culture.

So in this post, I am making a request for those blog visitors who have a copy of the book - and that includes the Kindle version, of course - to add a comment indicating their home country. If you´d like to offer a comment on your response to the novel, I´d be very interested in that as well, of course. It would be great if we could find readers from around the world and on every continent so do please let me know where you are (including Finnish and English readers). I´m looking forward to hearing from you.

Special price on Amazon for The Finn´s Tale and Midas Touch

Here´s some great news, just in time for Christmas: the Kindle versions of my novel, The Finn´s Tale, and poetry collection, Midas Touch, are on special offer on Amazon now at £1.53 or $2.45. If you don´t have a Kindle reader, you can download a free app that allows you to read Kindle books from an ordinary pc. My Mac can read them without needing to download any software.

If you still see the old price, then wait another day. It takes Amazon a bit of time to update their site.

If you´re in Finland, you need to go to the American site, Amazon.com to download Kindle versions. American and Canadian readers will find The Finn´s Tale interesting for its revelations about the life of Finnish immigrants in the early 20 century, especially if they have Scandinavian roots.

Update on Wednesday 12 December: The reduced price is up on Amazon.co.uk but not on the American page. I don´t know why it´s taking so long, but it should be coming soon. Just hang in there, folks. (Amazon Canada has the Kindle version for $2.99 which works out at about €2.40).

Getting The Finn´s Tale into bookshops

Now that the academic year has ended and I´ve got a bit more time, I´ve been doing some marketing for The Finn´s Tale. I visited Helsinki yesterday and had meetings with the managers of three bookshops. I had already supplied copies to Tampere bookshops: Akateeminen Kirjakauppa and the two Suomalainen stores. All three of those shops have copies on their shelves as I write this. So I thought it was time to widen my market area. I´d contacted the managers of two Suomalainen Kirjakauppa stores in Helsinki to set up meetings for Tuesday and I visited the bookstore in the railway station on spec.

The managers were interested in the idea of a novel set in Finland which includes a lot of information about Finnish history, nature, art and culture, architecture and cooking in the course of telling a story. They were quite cautious about the prospects for sales, though. Of course, they know the business better than I do. I think that Finn´s who can read English quite well, of whom there are a great many, and foreign visitors to Finland who are looking for an interesting souvenir, would be likely to buy the book and that´s what I said. The conversation was positive and friendly and I felt that it was a good idea to make that personal contact, although I´m aware that I´m not much of a salesman. I felt that didn´t matter for the kind of approach I was making. The outcome was that one shop took 5 copies to try and the managers of the other two shops took just one copy each to have a closer look at before deciding whether to put copies on the shelf.

And when my business was completed I went to the wonderful Helene Schjerfbeck exhibition at Ateneum.

I returned home feeling reasonably pleased. So if you´re in Helsinki, you can buy a copy of The Finn´s Tale at the Pocket Books shop in the central railway station. And maybe from Suomalainen bookshops in Kamppi and Aleksanterinkatu later, if they decide to stock it.

And you should definitely get to the Schjerfbeck exhibition, too!





Great discount on The Finn´s Tale at Book Depository

Book Depository have just offered an extra 10% discount to their usual big discounts for your book and others, which includes free international postage. They actually must run at a loss with this so it's well worth taking advantage! People need to put in the code APMA12 http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/search/advanced?searchSortBy=popularity&searchTerm&searchAddedTerm&searchTitle&searchAuthor&searchPublisher=ward+wood&searchIsbn&searchLang&searchSubmit=Search

Advanced book search at The Book Depository
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The Finn´s Tale is in the shops again

Good news for readers in Finland: Akateeminen Kirjakauppa has re-stocked my novel, The Finn´s Tale. I don´t know what the situation had been in stores around Finland, but the Tampere branch had sold out several weeks ago. However, they now have new stock.

The book is also available online, direct from the publishers:
http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-mh-tft.htm

or from The Book Depository:
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/

And don´t forget that you can read the opening two chapters (almost) from the Kindle version on Amazon.

The Finn´s Tale available in a Kindle version

My novel, The Finn´s Tale, is now available from Amazon in a Kindle version. I don´t have a Kindle reader myself yet, but I´m seriously thinking about getting one. There´s also a `Look inside the book´ feature on the novel´s Amazon page. I think this is such a good idea. It gives you the chance to read the opening of a book that you are interested in but not sure that you would really want to buy and read. I often use the feature when it´s available. For The Finn´s Tale the excerpt that you can read on the Amazon page is almost the whole of the first two chapters. I think it gives a good idea of what the book´s about, although those first two chapters are set in America, before Len travels to Finland. The atmosphere changes a lot once he arrives in the country. Well, I guess there´s only one way to find out what that part is like.

Tamperelaisille

For people living in or near Tampere; Akateeminen Kirjakaupa has sold out of The Finn´s Tale, but I believe they are getting copies from other branches in Finland and / or re-ordering from Britain. The staff, of course, will be able to tell you the exact situation. The last time I checked, there were still copies in Suomalainen Kirjakauppa.

The book is also available from the publisher´s website:

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-mh-tft.htm

or from The Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/

For those planning to join my reading groups in Tampere Työväenopisto this autumn, I will bring copies of the book to the first class for purchase.

So the bottom line is: don´t panic! The book is available.

Article about The Finn´s Tale

I´ve just heard that Tampere´s local newspaper, Tamperelainen, would like to publish an article about my new novel, The Finn´s Tale. What a good idea, I thought, so I´m meeting them, either later this week or the start of next week. The article should appear soon after that.

I´ll put more information on my blog when I know the details. Everyone who lives in Tampere can read the paper, of course, but if the article goes on Tamperelainen´s website, I´ll post the link here. It´ll be in Finnish, of course.

There are details about The Finn´s Tale, including the opening paragraph, at the top of the right-hand column of this blog.

Homecoming

I got back from my trip to London yesterday. The reading in Swiss Cottage library was a very enjoyable event. Many thanks to Adele Ward and Abul Kashim for organising the event and to all those who came along to listen and to read their work in the open mic part of the evening. It was certainly a lively event.

As one part of my reading, I read from the scene where Len visits the Finnish National Gallery and views several works by famous Finnish artists. As these painters are often not well known outside Finland, except to people with a special interest in visual arts, I showed slides of the paintings Len describes. For anyone who has read, or is reading, the novel and who doesn´t know the paintings, they can be found on the Ward Wood website at this address:

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/mhp.htm

Actually, they will be interesting for people who haven´t read the novel, too. If you don´t know these artists, they´re well worth getting to know.

Since the titles and artists are not given on the website, I´ll give them here, in order, starting from the top:

Albert Edelfelt: Boys Playing on the Beach, 1884.

Hjalmar Munsterhjelm: Forest Pond by Moonlight, 1881.

Ellen Thesleff: The Echo, 1891.

Helene Schjerfbeck: A Wounded Soldier, 1880.

Eero Järnefelt: Children Playing, 1895.

Verne Thomé: Boys Playing on a Sandy Beach, 1904.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela: Parisian Street Scene.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela: Rotting Fish, 1884.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela: Wild Angelica, 1889.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela: Marjatta by the Waterside, 1896.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela: Lemminkainen´s Mother, 1897.

Akseli Gallen-Kallela: Ad Astra, 1907.

I arrived home early on Sunday evening, just in time to watch Finland win the ice hockey world championships. I refrained from dancing naked in the town square in celebration, though, and a lot of people are very glad that I did.....refrain, that is.

If Bach had been a mushroom...

This is a scene from the middle of my novel, The Finn´s Tale. The two central characters, Len and Päivi, are collecting chanterelles in the forest. Bach makes a surprising appearance:

We followed a small path for some way, then left it and walked between the trees to where the land began to rise gently. ‘This is one place where we could find some,’ she said. ‘They are often half concealed under other plants and undergrowth. You have to look very carefully.’

There were plenty of mushrooms around, but we were interested only in chanterelles. We went side-by-side, a few feet apart and scanned the ground carefully. It was a real thrill to find them, nestling half-hidden amongst the grass or moss. They’re a brilliant, butter-yellow and the shape is so elegant, like a fluted trumpet. I felt a thrill every time I found one, like finding a nugget of gold, a gift from the forest gods.

‘They tend to grow in colonies,’ Päivi said, ‘so when you find one you will probably find others.’

‘There’s something quite baroque about them,’ I commented, when we’d just finished clearing one fairly large colony. I held one on my palm. It was almost weightless. ‘If Bach had been a mushroom, he would have been a chanterelle,’ I added.

Päivi giggled with delight. ‘That’s a lovely saying, Len. If Bach had been a mushroom. I must remember that.’

The Finn´s Tale comes to Finland

My copies of my new novel, The Finn´s Tale, arrived yesterday afternoon, just as I was about to leave home to meet Eevi in town for a meal. Good timing; dinner turned into a celebration. The production quality is extremely high, as I´ve come to expect from Ward Wood Publishing. The book is printed on good quality paper and the cover image is really striking, I think.

Bookshops in Tampere and Helsinki have got information about the publication but I´m still waiting for a response from them. And I will be doing a reading from The Finn´s Tale at Swiss Cottage library in London on Friday 13th May at 19.00. I´d love to meet any readers of my blog who are able to get there. Copies of the book will be on sale. It can also be purchased from the Ward Wood website:

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-mh-tft.htm

or from The Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9780956660275/The-Finns-Tale

Going to the printer

The final edit is completed. Whew! The Finn´s Tale should be going to the printer this week. I´m extremely pleased with the whole project and really excited at the prospect of holding it in my hands very soon.

Some Finnish friends have asked me how long it is. That´s a good question and behind it, for non-native English readers, is the thought, `How long´s it going to take me to get through it?´ I fully understand that, of course. So for any other readers of this blog who aren´t native speakers, I can let you know the exact answer. In its published form the story begins on page 9 and the last page is 169 so the text of the novel runs to 161 pages. It´s not too long, in other words.

The Finn´s Tale opening paragraph

This is the opening paragraph of my new novel, The Finn´s Tale, due from Ward Wood Publishing at the end of March. The tale is told by Len, an American with Finnish roots who visits Finland to meet his Finnish relatives and find about about the country and way of life and learns some unexpected and surprisings things.

Right from the start, Finland surprised me. When I arrived in Helsinki the temperature was 80 degrees Fahrenheit and it was one of the warmest places in Europe. For that day, at least. It didn´t stay that way the whole summer. Coming out of Helsinki airport the heat was noticeable and I felt overdressed in a sweater and jacket. I´ll admit to having been thrown a little off balance right at the beginning of my Finnish experience. I had always thought of myself as partly Finnish, which I am; my grandparents on my father´s side emigrated from Finland to America in 1920. And although, at the age of forty-four, this was my first-ever visit, I´d always thought of Finnishness as something I could take for granted in my idea of myself. And now here I was, being caught out by the weather, just like all the other tourists. It´s true, though, that Finnishness had played a negligible part in my upbringing. In a way, it had been conspicuous by its absence, but that absence was always present, if you take my meaning. I felt it was there as a kind of backdrop against which all the immediate experiences of everyday life took place.

Available to pre-order:

http://www.wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-mh-tft.htm

The Finn´s Tale cover

Here´s the cover of my new novel, The Finn´s Tale, due from Ward Wood Publishing at the end of March. I´m delighted with the effect Mike Fortune-Wood has got with the photo of the woman´s hand which portrays a key scene in the plot.

The final edit of the novel is well underway and I´m really pleased with the way it´s going: no major revisions, just some tweaks here and there to make sure the text flows smoothly. I had to get permission from Minnesota Public Radio to use two short passages from an article on their website, as well, and I can say that they were jolly quick in their response and extremely helpful. Much gratitude.

So, not long now. I´ll post some more details as the big day draws closer.

My New Novel

Well, these are exciting times. Hot on the heels of the publication of my poetry collection, Midas Touch, Ward Wood Publishing will be bringing out my novel this spring.

It´s called The Finn´s Tale and it tells the story of Len Makinen whose paternal grandparents emigrated from Finland to America in 1920. In the late 1990s, when Len is just turned 40, he re-establishes contact with his Finnish relatives. He starts to construct his family tree and collect data for a family history. Then, in 2000, Len visits Finland, meets his second cousin, Päivi, and other relatives. Len learns what it means to be a Finn, and a lot of other things besides. And at the end of his experiences he writes the Finn´s tale, which is actually not his own story.

I´m dead excited about this one. I´m working on the cover image now with Mike Fortune-Wood and working with Adele Ward on the editing. More news coming very soon.