Isabel Rogers's Blog

The latest Stockwell Park Orchestra book, The Prize Racket, is spending a fortnight visiting different book bloggers’ sites. I’m so grateful to the bloggers who are hosting me, and taking the time to read my book and share their reviews of it:

Today’s review by Julie Barham (@NorthernReader on Twitter) has made my day! You can read her review in full here.

Occasionally I find a book a really delightful, funny and fascinating read, and this one is well into that category … I was thoroughly hooked. It is amusing in the sense of well written dialogue, realistic characters and a plot that kept me reading into the small hours.

Thank you Julie for your kind words about The Prize Racket. I’m glad it was successful as a distraction from the current world, for a while.

I was delighted to hear today that journalist and self-confessed bookworm Verity Wilde (who reads a terrifyingly large number of books) decided The Prize Racket was her book of the week! She has written a review, which is so generous and enthusiastic I was utterly taken aback. Do have a read of her review here.

Thank you Verity! I’m so glad The Prize Racket is finding its audience.

As of today, it still has an unblemished record of five star ratings and reviews on Amazon so, if you haven’t tried it yet, it is officially perfect.

Happy New Year! We’re gearing up to publication of the fourth book in my Stockwell Park Orchestra series. The Prize Racket is out on 20th January. This time our orchestra is invited to compete on television for a £50,000 prize, along with other musical acts of varying, um, natures. Mrs Ford-Hughes is back, this time singing in Portuguese. We have tiny, dancing violinist children. There is a poet. An awful poet. Nobody can accuse me of not trawling my past to fish for character traits — though I must state legally that I never steal a whole person intact. Where would the fun be in that? I like making stuff up.

I persuaded Don Paterson to write me a bit about that poet for the back cover: I figured he would recognise and enjoy the kind of person I invented. I think he did, though it sounds like he might need some time to recover:

The first week in the life of a new book is crucial, and absolutely key to its success. If you felt like buying a copy, doing that in the week from 20th January would have the most impact. Whether that is from your local bookshop (any bookshop can order you a copy if it’s not in stock), or online via places like Waterstones or other sites, or Amazon – I’m not about to preach about where to buy books. The Farrago link here gives a range of options. Requesting a copy from your local library is another fantastic way to support me, if you prefer to borrow. Did you know authors are paid when you borrow books from a library? We are. Libraries are brilliant.

Basically, any and all clamour you can make for The Prize Racket will be enormously appreciated. I do hope you like it. Every time I finish writing one of these, I miss my musician friends for ages afterwards. They are fun to hang out with.

I’ll be running a giveaway on Twitter next week, if you’re interested. I’ve also written a New Year piece for the Farrago site, which I’ll link to from here when it’s out. Thank you for all your support!

Hello. I have been pathetically quiet here, for which I apologise. BUT I haven’t been idle. The fourth novel in my Stockwell Park Orchestra series is called The Prize Racket, and will be published on 20th January next year. My wonderful cover designer, Clare Stacey at Head Design, has again done a brilliant job:

As with the other books, this one follows straight on in time from the previous book. The orchestra has returned from their European tour (described in Continental Riff), and they start the new term in September not knowing what is about to hit them.

I’ll let my publisher describe it, because they are much better at blurbs than I am:

After a brief and disastrous Resident Poet episode, Stockwell Park Orchestra is invited to take part in a TV competition for classical music. For a £50,000 prize some competitors are tempted to stretch the genre to ‘crossover’ and beyond.

Can a full concert orchestra compete with jazz bands, horn quartets, harp ensembles, and Mrs Ford-Hughes singing in Portuguese with nine cellos? Or will the competition be derailed by the poet’s return, this time sporting live Ambient Sounds? The TV producers aren’t worried: they know a good fight means great ratings.

What was supposed to be a quirky diversion threatens to take over the orchestra’s rehearsals for their own concert, but discovering a voting scam means they must fix things in the TV studio first.

You can pre-order The Prize Racket here, if you feel like it. There are some familiar characters who reappear in this book, plus of course a few new ones. I can’t deny I enjoyed writing the poet. And that’s all the clues I’m giving.

I’m waiting to hear from Farrago about whether they want me to write a fifth book in the series, so my sales figures have never been more crucial! You’re most welcome to tell your friends and family, and any musician you think might enjoy the series.

Thank you!

This Sunday 31st January I am honoured to be the first guest at The Cello Museum‘s new Book Club. The live online event is at 8pm UK time, to make it possible for the Museum’s curators, Brenda Neece and Erica Lessie, to join from New York and Chicago, as well as to be vaguely possible for early risers in Australia! The Museum is an online forum for anyone with an interest in cellos, with fantastic articles and news features available to access from anywhere.

Brenda asked me because she said Life, Death and Cellos had the best title for any cello fiction she had ever read, and the book made her laugh. We’ll be chatting about how my musical background gave me the inside knowledge of how to write about an orchestra, and whatever else comes up.

I’ll answer any questions people throw at me. There will also be a raffle for a signed set of all three of my Stockwell Park Orchestra books: Life, Death and Cellos; Bold and Brass; and Continental Riff. We can send them anywhere in the world, so do put your name in the hat! Link below.

Hope to see you this Sunday at 8pm?

Click here for how to join Sunday’s book club discussion.

The ad I talked about last time is now running on Classic FM for a month, to spread the word about publication of Continental Riff. If you’re not in the London or south of England regions, I’m afraid you won’t be able to catch it. However, Rob Wilding at Farrago has put it up on their site for a limited time.

I realised it had already started working when my neighbour hailed me from across the street last weekend, to say he had heard it and was going to order a copy.

Hop over there to listen if you like. The music bubbling along under Simon’s voice is the end of Strauss’s first horn concerto, which features in the book.

And if you fancy buying a copy, that would also be brilliant. Thank you!

My local bookshop, P&G Wells in Winchester, will receive their delivery of Continental Riff copies any time now. Back in 2019, they hosted one of my two launch parties for Life, Death and Cellos for my Winchester friends. The place was packed. We had wine and snacks, and I stood on a box to read so people could see me. We even hugged. Remember hugging? Good grief.

This year, no launch party. But you can still get your hands on a signed copy of Continental Riff, if you’d like one. I’ll be visiting P&G Wells in a few days to sign some, and would be delighted to dedicate one to you personally. 

Contact P&G Wells to order your copy, and let them know if you would like a personalised one, together with any particular message you’d like. 

Alternatively, you can telephone P&G Wells on 01962 852016.

 They also have an online book order form.

In addition, they are on the new online network bookshop.org.

About a year ago, I had an idea. To help my advertising along, what with my books being set in an orchestra and filled with classical music and all, I thought: let’s find the people who already like classical music, and tell them about the Stockwell Park Orchestra series. It seemed so basic I wondered if I was being daft.

But no! Farrago thought it was brilliant, and so I set about researching radio advertising. First thing I discovered – it is expensive. I shelved the whole scheme, doubting it would be possible. My small publisher doesn’t have the ad budget to devote a big chunk to just one of their many books. Fair enough; I wasn’t expecting special treatment.

Months of dithering ended with me approaching it as I would a business – which of course it is. I wondered how I would feel if I hadn’t tried getting my books to the attention of their perfect audience, and realised I’d be kicking myself. Calling it an investment in my brand made much more sense.

I discovered I could basically buy a week’s celebration of my book on Scala Radio, including a possible spot on Simon Mayo’s Book Club. This was silly money, so I decided against. I am now several layers more cynical about how some books get their shedload of publicity. Looking at it logically though, how did I expect a commercial station to earn its money? 

Classic FM looked more possible. It has a bigger audience, and is split into regions for their adverts. I looked at listener figures vs. costs, and went for their London and South regions as having the most listeners, plus being relevant to the book’s geography (it’s based in Stockwell, South London). I did glance at how much it would cost to advertise UK-wide together with their digital output, and looked away quickly, eyes watering, breathing into a paper bag. Two regions it is.

Over Zoom (where else, darling?) I met the extremely capable producer Tim Fortune, who is part of Classic FM’s in-house creative team. Farrago sent Tim details of Continental Riff, plus info about my other books. Tim sent me an initial draft of a script for our thirty-second ad. He was very happy for me to tweak it, and so between us we spent a week getting it how we wanted. I was terrified Tim would think I was an interfering client, but he was delightfully open to any suggestions I had. Or he was terribly good at smothering his irritation.

We ended up with a script that includes all the info we needed, plus (I hope) enough entertainment to stop it being annoying if you hear it multiple times. The speech is accompanied by the final bars of Strauss’s first horn concerto, which features in the book and gets the whole thing galloping along. (This is a picture of an Alexander full double horn, which costs more than £7,000. Alexanders are my favourite. Yes I named my horn soloist Alexander. The layers of nerdy comedy in this book are astounding.)

I wanted the voice of the ad to be brilliant, so I asked Simon Kane – via his agent – and he said yes! I fell in love with Simon’s vocal dexterity hearing him do multiple characters in John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme. He has also recently featured in Ghosts. His comic timing is superb.

And so, a couple of weeks ago, I clutched a phone to my ear listening to Simon Kane record take after take of our script, each one slightly different as requested by Tim. The level of nuance they achieved between different takes astounded me. I was efficiently professional at all times and merely said hello and thank you and that was marvellous to Simon when really I wanted to squeak I LOVE YOUR VOICE PLEASE DO THE SCOTTISH TRAIN MANAGER FOR ME. I had to make do with hearing him say ‘Continental Riff by Isabel Rogers’ loads of times instead.

So: starting next week, Classic FM will be running an ad for Continental Riff for a month. If you live in London or the south of England, you might catch it. Let’s hope it persuades lots of people to try the Stockwell Park Orchestra books!

Continental Riff, the third book in my Stockwell Park Orchestra series, is published next Thursday 14thJanuary. The cover is again created by Clare Stacey at Head Design, who has done all the books in the series. I thought you might like to see how we arrived at them.

It was a wonderfully collaborative process between Clare, me, and my editor Abbie Headon. Abbie sent Clare a short outline of what the book was about ­– bearing in mind the cover was started before the book was completely finished, so some of this was conjecture because I am a defiant pantster when it comes to writing. (Planner vs. pantster is a whole other post but you get the idea.)

Clare tells me this is normal, as she often works with a lead time of up to a year. ‘The amount of info we receive varies wildly, from a vision the editor would like depicted on the cover, all the way to being sent the manuscript, so we can have a read and get a feel for the story ourselves. Most briefs run somewhere in the middle with an outline, as well as some important passages to the script. I’m lucky to work with two excellent colleagues at Head Design (big up Justinia and David!) who can be tagged in if the brief I’m working on needs a fresh set of eyes on it. We solely design book covers, which we all agree is pretty wonderful, as we are all very fond of reading books too.’

Clare came back with three totally different options to develop:

I was immediately taken with the blue one. Abbie admitted her first inclination was for the curly text one, but was ok with me having an allergic reaction to ‘girly curly’ letters and pastels. The cello shaped one was also great, but Abbie pointed out we might be limiting ourselves in future books if we started with the shape of a specific instrument.

We refined and simplified the image at the bottom of the cover, to fit the text about it being part of the Stockwell Park Orchestra series. As you see, our early thinking was to make the series a mystery one, but feedback from proofs said there wasn’t enough mystery to warrant that, so we went with the more general ‘series’ instead.

We switched the conductor to be right-handed (even left-handed conductors usually have to learn how to hold the baton in their right hand, which seems very unfair).

Clare again: ‘On an average job, one idea will be chosen to work on further, and then it’s a process of back and forth for a few more “rounds” until everybody is happy with the final cover. Needless to say, it doesn’t always work out this way. There have been one or two covers […] I’m talking in the region of 40+ visuals – and no, I’d better not name names!’

My favourite moment was when Abbie and I realised we had embedded an actual viola joke on the cover, by leaving them out altogether. We justified this by reasoning that if the view was to be an accurate front-of-orchestra one, then there are no violas on the outside edge facing an audience. So far no viola player has complained.

Once the strong image of Life, Death and Cellos had kicked off the series, Clare worked with those elements on the next cover for Bold as Brass. Still an eye-catching, full-saturation colour. Still the vertical lines I love, and the silhouettes of key characters to give a flavour of what was in the book. The physical size of Carl the trombonist looms nicely, and she caught the animosity between the two lots of school kids brilliantly.

And so to Continental Riff. Once I’d sneaked my title through (it was touch and go because the word ‘Continental’ needed to be downsized to fit across the book), we again went with the theme of strong colour, stripes and silhouettes. This time Clare had the great idea of slanting the lines to indicate movement, as the book is about the orchestra going on tour. We have a picture of Ingrid clutching her clipboard, and the toppling timpani. You’ll just have to read it to find out what’s going on.

Huge thanks to Clare Stacey for sharing her design knowledge. If you ever need a book cover, she’s your woman. When I asked her about her experience with my books, she replied:

‘I think of your Stockwell Park Orchestra series fondly for three reasons:

Here’s to the time we can once again meet in person and enjoy retro snacks!

Hello. We’ve just about made it through this year, and probably the less said about it the better. To take our mind off it, my publisher Farrago has just opened its own online shop where you can get any and all of the funny books they sell. Including mine, but many others too!

If you feel like a late, instantly deliverable present, try their Give A Smile promotions on ebooks. Or if you want any friends and family to catch up with my Stockwell Park Orchestra series before the third book, Continental Riff, comes out next month, they are doing a deal on those too.

Brace yourself for me going into Full Publicity Mode after Christmas to let people know about Continental Riff. If you live in London or the South East of England, you could catch it being advertised on Classic FM, which was brilliant fun to be involved with and may get its own post where I can fangirl properly about hearing Simon Kane say my name over and over again in different ways.

Wherever you are, I hope you enjoy a peaceful Christmas and a much improved 2021.