Light out for the territory

In the words of H. Finn,

I’d a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn’t a tackled it, and ain’t a-going to no more.

Actually, that’s going a bit far. Working For Yourself hits the shelves of a bookshop near you (if you live in the UK) on September 3, and although writing it has been rather like giving birth - albeit, as I said to one of the guys at Which, with rather more swearing and screaming - it hasn’t put me off writing another one. I’ll blog a bit more about it when publication time approaches, and, as soon as I get time to do some work on the site template, a ‘buy Bill’s book’ section will appear in the right hand column. I’m in a position to do that that now because, yea and verily, the almighty Amazon that seeth all things and knoweth all things hath actually been listing the book since the middle of May, at which stage it was still only half written. Admire the listing page here and try to resist the temptation to email me with ‘I see they’ve discounted already!’-type gags, as I’ve heard just about every possible variation on the theme already.

I’m going to spend some time writing the blog entries that I’ve had no time to post for the past two months - so if you’re one of the intelligent, irresistible individuals who reads this blog via a feed, your newsreader is going to get hit by about a dozen posts next week, all of them pre-dated to make it look like I conscientiously write my blog every night before bedtime.

A couple of shoutouts: first of all to Greg Veerman and the other guys at Breukelman Kubista Group who write the superb marketing blog Freshglue.com. In a recent post Greg discussed some of my thoughts about the importance of clarity in copywriting. Fresh Glue is a blog I’m going to be watching very closely, and I recommend you do the same.

Second, to US copywriter Lloyd Alexander. Lloyd isn’t in much of a position to appreciate the salutation, as he passed away back in May. I didn’t even know he’d died until the Guardian published his obit today, scandalously late. Anyway, Lloyd gets a mention here not just because he was a copywriter, but because he wrote the truly fantastic children’s books The Chronicles of Prydain, which you may remember as the inspiration for the Disney movie The Black Cauldron. As a kid growing up in Lincolnshire, it was Alexander’s novels that first made me interested in Wales, where I now live.