Latest news 2024-10-15: New blog post: Tales for Our Times Book Launch.

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Farewell to the Hedgehog and Little Duck 🔗

Image of two paperback books with saddle stitch binding.

Ingram (the parent company of Lightning Source, who print and distribute paperback titles published by Dickimaw Books) have announced that their saddle stitch format is being retired on 1st March 2021 because the software and equipment used to print that format have become obsolete. This means that the first editions of “The Foolish Hedgehog” and “Quack, Quack, Quack, Give My Hat Back!” will be going out of print on that date.

The saddle stitch format is where the pages are held together by staples down the spine. This works well for these illustrated children’s books, particularly “Quack, Quack, Quack, Give My Hat Back!” which has double spread images. The other paperback titles published by Dickimaw Books all use perfect bound (and so aren’t affected by this change), which has a stiff, flat, rectangular spine. Perfect bound doesn’t work well for young children’s books which are often opened out flat.

If you have been thinking about buying a copy of either of these books then you will have to order them from an online book seller before 1st March 2021. After that date, there may still be copies available from the Dickimaw Books store (once it reopens) until existing stock runs out.

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image of dickimaw parrot with cookies in cloudsOnce upon a time, a little parrot decided to migrate across the vast ocean to the cloud lands, with nothing more than a handful of cookies. The Dickimaw Books site has migrated to a new web hosting provider and this is the story of its journey.
Nicola Talbot 2019-09-15 📂 Site 🔖 Migration

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image of dickimaw parrot with cookies in cloudsOnce upon a time, a little parrot decided to migrate across the vast ocean to the cloud lands, with nothing more than a handful of cookies. The Dickimaw Books site has migrated to a new web hosting provider and this is the story of its journey.
Nicola Talbot 2019-09-15 📂 Site 🔖 Migration

Recent Posts

Tales for Our Times Book Launch
Tales for Our TimesThe book launch for the anthology Tales for Our Times, written by Norfolk writing group Ex-Cathedra and published by Smokehouse Press, took place in the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library at noon on World Homeless Day (10th October 2024). All profits from the sale of this book will be used to help raise funds to support Norwich-based St Martins Housing Trust in their work to help the homeless into independent living. The book launch included a talk from Dr Jan Sheldon, SEO of St Martins, two readings by authors of the book, and a presentation to the library.
Tales for Our Times: Raising Funds and Awareness for St Martins Housing Trust
Tales for Our TimesTales for Our Times is an anthology of forty stories featuring loss and hope, dreams of love and belonging, biography and science fiction and adventure. Written by Norfolk-based writing group Ex-Cathedra and published by Smokehouse Press, the book will be launched on World Homeless Day 10th October 2024 midday at the Norwich and Norfolk Millennium Library. All profits from the sale of this book will be used to help raise funds to support Norwich-based St Martins Housing Trust in their work to help the homeless into independent living.
The Briefcase: a crime fiction short story
The Briefcase book coverConvinced that his secretive wife, Annie, is cheating on him, Aide meets an attractive young goth at the pub who helps him pick the lock of Annie’s briefcase to search for incriminating evidence.
Smile for the Camera: a cybercrime story
Smile for the Camera book cover.Evelyn, a CCTV operator, sees too much information while she monitors a store’s self-service checkout tills in this cybercrime short story about identity theft.
Nicola Talbot 2024-04-12 (updated 2024-10-31) 📂 Crime Fiction 🔖 News Smile for the Camera
Read an Ebook Week Sale 2024
Ebook coversThe DRM-free ebook retailer SmashWords “Read an Ebook Week” Sale is on from 3rd–9th March 2024. My crime novel “The Private Enemy” and children’s illustrated story “The Foolish Hedgehog” both have a 50% discount and my crime fiction short story “I’ve Heard the Mermaid Sing” and cybercrime fiction short story “Unsocial Media” both have a 100% discount (i.e. free!) for the duration of the sale. Did you know that you can gift ebooks on SmashWords?
End of Year Ebook Sale
Book coversThe DRM-free ebook retailer SmashWords has their end of year sale from 15th December 2023 to 1st January 2024. My crime novel “The Private Enemy” and children’s illustrated story “The Foolish Hedgehog” both have a 50% discount and my crime fiction short story “I’ve Heard the Mermaid Sing” and cybercrime fiction short story “Unsocial Media” both have a 100% discount (i.e. free!) for the duration of the sale. Did you know that you can gift ebooks on SmashWords?
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Children’s Illustrated Fiction
Illustrated fiction for young children: The Foolish Hedgehog and Quack, Quack, Quack. Give My Hat Back!
Creative Writing
The art of writing fiction, inspiration and themes.
Crime Fiction
The crime fiction category covers the crime novels The Private Enemy and The Fourth Protectorate and also the crime short stories I’ve Heard the Mermaid Sing and I’ve Heard the Mermaid Sing.
Fiction
Fiction books and other stories.
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Natural languages including regional dialects.
(La)TeX
The TeX typesetting system in general or the LaTeX format in particular.
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Norfolk
This category is about the county of Norfolk in East Anglia (the eastern bulgy bit of England). It’s where The Private Enemy is set and is also where the author lives.
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Information about the Dickimaw Books site.
Speculative Fiction
The speculative fiction category includes the novel The Private Enemy (set in the future), the alternative history novel The Fourth Protectorate, and the fantasy novel Muirgealia.

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Alternative History
Sub-genre of speculative fiction, alternative history is “what if?” fiction.
book samples
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Conservation of Detail
A part of the creative writing process, conservation of detail essentially means that only significant information should be added to a work of fiction.
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Information about the site cookies.
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Regional dialects, in particular the Norfolk dialect.
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The education system.
Ex-Cathedra
A Norfolk-based writing group.
Fantasy
Sub-genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements.
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Hippochette
A pochette (pocket violin) with a hippo headpiece.
I’ve Heard the Mermaid Sing
A crime fiction short story (available as an ebook) set in the late 1920s on the RMS Aquitania. See the story’s main page for further details.
Inspirations
The little things that inspired the author’s stories.
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Posts about the website migration.
Muirgealia
A fantasy novel. See the book’s main page for further details.
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Posts about the Dickimaw Books store.
Quack, Quack, Quack. Give My Hat Back!
Information about the illustrated children’s book. See the book’s main page for further details.
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Articles that were previously published elsewhere and reproduced on this blog in order to collect them all together in one place.
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Posts about sales that are running or are pending at the time of the post.
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Information about the site settings.
Smile for the Camera
A cybercrime short story about CCTV operator monitoring a store’s self-service tills who sees too much information.
Story creation
The process of creating stories.
TeX Live
The Briefcase
A crime fiction short story (available as an ebook). See the story’s main page for further details.
The Foolish Hedgehog
Information about the illustrated children’s book. See the book’s main page for further details.
The Fourth Protectorate
Alternative history novel set in 1980s/90s London. See the book’s main page for further details.
The Private Enemy
A crime/speculative fiction novel set in a future Norfolk run by gangsters. See the book’s main page for further details.
Unsocial Media
A cybercrime fiction short story (available as an ebook). See the story’s main page for further details.
World Book Day
World Book Day (UK and Ireland) is an annual charity event held in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland on the first Thursday in March. It’s a local version of the global UNESCO World Book Day.
World Homeless Day
World Homeless Day is marked every year on 10 October to draw attention to the needs of people experiencing homelessness.