The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

https://bluemoosebooks.com/

Bluemoose Books is an independent publisher based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. Kevin and Hetha Duffy started Bluemoose in 2006 and as a ‘family’ of readers and writers we’re passionate about the written word and stories. Stories are transformative and as publishers we delight in finding great new talent. We don’t have the heft of a London publishing house with the millions of pounds to promote our writers but we do manage through innovative marketing to get our books into high street bookstores and reviewed in the national press. If you’re looking for orange headed celebrity books, you’ve probably come to the wrong place. But if you want brilliant stories that have travelled from Hebden Bridge, across the border into Lancashire, down to London across to Moscow, Sofia and Budapest and into the United States, Australia, India, Colombia and Greenland, Iceland and Bosnia Herzevogina then Bluemoose is the publisher for you.

I’m surprised we hadn’t already added Bluemoose.

Bluemoose has put out a call for help,
A wholesaler (Bertrams) has gone into administration and Bluemoose has lost money. They’re asking people to buy books from them directly.

I have the books I wanted most and I’ve just splurged on Booker books, but I ordered If You Look For Me, I Am Not Here, I love all things India, and Gabriel's Angel, after death therapy sounded too wild to pass up.

Ariel Kahn’s Raising Sparks, Anna Vaught’s Saving Lucia and and Rohan Hession’s Leonard and Hungry Paul would be three recommendations.

And of course they nurtured Benjamin Myers up to and including The Gallows Pole - his Bluemoose books went with him when he signed for Bloomsbury, but his tweets show that he is still on good terms with them.

Like the Galley Beggar SOS last year, this one seems to have attracted a lot of support.

They’ve talked about offering a subscription, it seems like a good idea.

WndyJW wrote: "They’ve talked about offering a subscription, it seems like a good idea."

I'd definitely be up for that. They are a consistent publisher

Me too, they’ve been talking about for awhile. I know nothing about business, but I can’t see a downside to money upfront, other than keeping track of subscribers, but that’s what computers do.

2021 list (from Twitter hence the Twitter IDs for authors):

Captain Jesus by @colette_snowden - 28.1.

Domestic Bliss & Other Disasters by @IonsJane 31.3.

Panenka by @MumblinDeafRo 28.5.

Fallen by Mel O'Doherty 28.6

Three Graves by @Sean__Gregory 26.9

It took me a moment to figure out what the numbers are after each book. We would write those 01/28, 01/31, etc.

I’m really hoping they start a subscription service

They’ve been promising one for awhile. I don’t know anything about the financial aspects of publishing, but I can’t see a downside for a smallish press.

A nice shout-out to one of Bluemoose’s star writers in Lit-Hub.

https://lithub.com/very-different-wri...

I haven’t read Lee Child, but I know he’s a genre writer so I was pleased that Heather Martin noted the difference between “genre-subverting” Heidi James and Lee Child in a much less judgmental way than I am managing to do right now.

Profile in the Guardian today, highlights what Duffy calls the class ceiling in literary fiction.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...