The Independent receives an invitation to "the private realm of James Martin"

"He is a computer genius, futurologist, inspirational speaker and multimillionaire. But why is James Martin giving his fortune away to Oxford University? Steve Connor meets the mysterious philanthopist on his private island off Bermuda."

That is the introduction to an excellent feature article in the Independent's Saturday Magazine this morning. Steve, the paper's Science Editor, read my biography of James Martin, (The Change Agent - How to Create a Wonderful World), and contacted me to see if Jim would agree to an interview next time he was passing through the UK. Jim said he would rather Steve went out to visit him on his island in Bermuda - "the private realm of the mysterious philanthropist". The result seems to have been an interesting meeting of minds.

Understanding The Singularity

One of the greatest benefits of earning a living from writing is that you are constantly stumbling across new things and people from worlds you had no idea existed.

In the course of writing "The Change Agent - How to Create a Wonderful World", the story of futurologist James Martin, I was introduced to the concept of "The Singularity" - the name given to the fast-approaching moment when the powers of technology and artificial intelligence will come together to overtake the powers of the human brain.

All who work in publishing should be deeply interested in The Singularity and its inevitable ramifications on everything to do with knowledge, learning, writing and reading because soon the shiny IPads and Kindles we were all given for Christmas will seem as primitive as words engraved on stone.

A guy who goes by the name of Socrates is providing a website which does a good job of explaining at least some of what is going on - http://www.singularityweblog.com/ - have a look around it and see what you think. The revolution is upon us.

Ghostwriter - Film Star

The first cut of a short film made about me by a particularly charming and professional group of students from Farnham University of the Creative Arts is now on view at www.vimeo.com/17529822

Cover Designers the Unsung Heroes of Publishing

I'm wondering if it is cover designers who are the greatest unsung heroes of the publishing world.

I have two new books out this month from the fabulous young publishing house, Tonto Books, (see illustrations above), and both have had their covers designed by Elliot Thomson from www.preamptive.com in Newcastle.

Obviously I'm biased, but is seems to me that work of this calibre should make Elliot extremely famous.

My Brave Losing Face

Hang on a minute - a little while ago I was blogging kindly about a certain Dr. Andrew Sharp and his wonderful book "The Ghosts of Eden". I was cheerily passing on the news that the book had won the Waverton Good Read Award (www.wavertongoodread.org.uk).

Blow me down if I haven't now discovered that my own recent novel "The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride" (www.steffimcbride.com) was also nominated for the same award!

I feel that should make me like Dr. Sharp and his book a great deal less, but annoyingly it doesn't. Still would have liked to have beaten the b***** though.

Must remember all those brave losers at the Oscars and similar ceremonies, applauding wildly as their opponents walk off with plaudits and statuettes which they all know should rightfully be theirs.

clap ... clap ... clap ... crap.

I am now a Merchant of Culture

Just completed a first class degree course in trade publishing and the “making of a bestseller” – at least I feel like I have after reading an advance copy of “Merchants of Culture”, by John B. Thompson, which is due out next month from Polity Press.

Don’t be fooled by the everyman sound of his name, this is an author with some seriously heavyweight credentials – a sociology professor at Cambridge, a fellow of Jesus College … a quick glance at his Wikipedia entry is enough to assure you that this is a man who does his research very thoroughly indeed and knows a thing or two about communicating the complicated stuff that’s in his head to the rest of us.

Brilliant title apart from anything else; I really like the idea of being a “merchant of culture”. I don’t know if the Prof came up with it himself or whether it was the result of a brainstorming session at Polity Press, but I bet it was one of those joyous “eureka” moments either way.

From now on whenever anyone asks me how they can get published or get a job in publishing I’m going to tell them to buy this book because it is simply perfect at summing up how the whole messy business works and explaining why it very frequently doesn’t work. I guess it is going to have to be updated fairly regularly, (the edition I received must have been sent to the printers too early to be able to mention the arrival of the iPad for instance), but even once it is a year or two out of date it will still teach a careful reader as much as any three year degree course on the subject.

Green Shoots in Publishing Landscape

Due to visit Uganda for the first time, I wanted to do some background reading. On Amazon I typed in the word “Uganda” and the great machine suggested a number of titles that I had not heard of. I did a little more googling on each title that looked possible and made a selection. I did not have particularly high hopes, which is why it was all the more wonderful to find I had accidentally ordered a masterpiece.

“The Ghosts of Eden” is a novel by Andrew J.H. Sharp. A doctor who obviously knows the country and its people extraordinarily well. It is a beautifully written, life-affirming, thought provoking story and if only it had fallen on Richard and Judy’s doorstep instead of mine Dr. Sharp would by now have a best-seller on his hands.

A little further googling found his website (www.theghostsofeden.com ) and I emailed him a fan letter while still only half way through the book.

His path to publication, it seems, is a classic one. Unable to get any agents interested he read an article about a new young publisher, Picnic Publishing. He sent the book directly to them and they accepted it.

This is the second time I have heard someone speaking highly of Picnic. They recently published “Empires Apart” by Brian Landers, an intriguing study of the historic parallels between the American and Russian empires, which has now been picked up in the US by Penguin. Brian had also been unable to get an agent to take him on and so went directly to Picnic.

I relay this story because it seems encouraging in a number of ways. Firstly it shows that it is possible to stumble upon something new and brilliant on Amazon in much the same way as one might once have hoped to in an old fashioned book shop. Secondly it shows that an enthusiastic reader can make contact with an author almost instantaneously and thirdly it demonstrates that there are young publishing companies out there that are actually reading the manuscripts sent to them and then publishing them for no other reason than they like them and want to share them with the world.

During the course of our emailing, Dr. Sharp heard that he had won the Waverton Good Read Award (http://www.wavertongoodread.org.uk) for best British debut novel of the previous twelve months. Probably not in Richard and Judy’s class when it comes to generating sales, I grant you, but another sign that there are always green shoots to be found if you hunt for long enough in the rubble.