September 2014

Francis gives us a speech

Francis Plug- How To Be a Public Author is launched! We had a great party at the magnificent Waterstones Piccadilly on Friday - but there was one notable absence. It turns out that Francis himself has been barred from the premises. It was left to his ameneuensis Paul Ewen to speak on his behalf. But fortunately, Francis did pass on a speech for him to read. I post it here for your pleasure and education. (Click on the speech to make it nice and big):

Win a first edition of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing in our 50% flash sale

The cover of the first edition of 'A Girl is a Half-formed Thing' by Eimear McBride.

Here’s how:

When we first published Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-formed Thing she was an unheard of debut author – and because of that, and the difficulty of judging the novel’s reception, our first run was conservative: just 1,000 copies were printed (rather wonderfully, the same number of copies as Sylvia Beach’s first edition of Ulysses). Since then, of course, Eimear has gone on to conquer the world; she’s been lauded as a major, lasting writer – quite right too. Copies from that first run, which sold out in weeks, have become coveted items. Barely one year after publication, they already change hands for hundreds of pounds; they look set to become a piece of literary history; and every week we receive tens of emails asking if it might be possible to get hold of one. And the answer always is:

– SORRY! No!

Until now, that is…

Website update!

Welcome to the new Galley Beggar site. This is kind of a soft launch while we double-check for bugs and all of that kind of thing. There will be a harder launch soon, which will be commemorated in our newsletter with lots of exclamation marks. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy browsing, and maybe even shopping in our newly swished up store. If you do notice anything that isn't working, let us know and we'll fix it. Otherwise, have fun.