The White Goddess: An Encounter is currently at the printers. We were expecting copies to arrive tomorrow, in fact. But today we were told that the machine that folds the covers has broken. What the hell does that mean? We don't know! But it makes them seem more real, somehow. They are physical things that must be bent and shaped and folded and moulded – and we'll get them on Thursday. All that is very exciting.

Less exciting is the fact that we have to get 200 boxes full of the things up some very steep stairs when they do arrive. If the experience doesn't break me too badly, I'll post photos of myself and Henry moving them. Perhaps even videos.

We'll also be putting copies in the actual physical post. So pre-order yours today!

Meanwhile, also excitingly, I can also reveal today that Galley Beggar has a new signing: Simon Crump. Simon is a genius. (A word I don't use lightly.) A twisted genius. Possibly also a sick genius. But still a genius. And a wonderful, big-hearted and generous genius, under all his talk of murder, failure and making horrible bloody messes of Chris De Burgh.

Our first release from Simon Crump will be My Elvis Blackout. This book was originally published more than a decade ago. It really should have fastened itself onto the national consciousness. Instead, it has all but disappeared. Our mission is to right that wrong and to press as many copies into the hands of delighted readers as we can. We'll be selling very attractively priced ebook versions of the book to further that aim - and also to encourage Simon to write more…

I'll be posting much more about My Elvis Blackout once the ebook comes on stream. For now, here's an article I wrote about Simon for The Guardian.

And here's Simon's blog.

And here's a very quick and entirely non-representative sample from My Elvis Blackout:

Elvis: Fat Fucked-up Fool

His greatest fear was of being poor and he dwelled upon it constantly. He took handfuls of jewels and cash into the backyard at Graceland and buried them – little treasures to call upon should he suddenly find himself penniless. The guys would watch Elvis digging in the dark. He cut a pathetic figure as he grunted and sweated over a growing heap of earth, and they would laugh to see his white jump-suit soiled with mud, and they would laugh at this very sad, but nevertheless highly entertaining creature trying to ward off his worst nightmare, and they would laugh and laugh until the tears ran down their bloated piggy faces and down their fat pink necks and into their fancy silk shirts which Elvis had bought them all from Lansky brothers, because he loved them so.

They never tried to stop him; they knew how violent he could become if you got in his way, especially these days when he always carried a gun, and they also knew he was so drugged that, come sunup when he was still sleeping, they could dig the stuff up and divide it among themselves, secure in the knowledge that the fat fool would remember nothing of his handiwork by the time they roused him the following afternoon.

Some of the guys genuinely loved Elvis. Nearly all of them mimicked him in his habits, actions and dress, although not quite to the extent where they would fuck fourteen-year-old girls three at a time, eat five quarts of ice-cream at one sitting, claim to be Jesus H. Christ, wear incontinence pants under a purple cape and bury their valuables in the yard. However, they did really and truly respect him in the artistic sense, and as a human being, and it has to be said that he set a fine example for all Americans as to how they should live their lives come the happy day they became paranoid prescription drug addicts.

More soon!