1. MY NOVEL THE SISTERHOOD IS OUT THIS WEEK. I do not apologise for being in all capitals, either, because I am ridiculously excited about it. It’s a really good book, actually. I’m so pleased with it (though my beta reader, JL Merrow, and my editor, Amanda Jean, need to take some of the credit).

You can buy it at Bella books or at Amazon – but it does appear only to be available on American sites at the moment. Does this mean I can do further squee when it’s available in the UK?

2. I saw the ARCS (the final copies) of All About The Boy at the beginning of the week, and they’re gorgeous. Goodness, my work looks so good in it. I know that sounds silly, but it does. And talking about editors? Sasha Vorun is bloody marvellous, too.

3. Then yesterday I went on a course about marketing, run by Miles Allen. It was really interesting and useful: it doesn’t matter how well I write, I need people to read what I’m writing. And it’s difficult to know how to reach an audience. This helped. (Plus I accidentally sold a book in the car park afterwards to a man who had been somewhere completely different and did not look like the target market for a lesbian historical novel 🙂 He was also, incidentally, an extremely lovely man.)

4. In non-writing news, Splendid Son got a trophy for ‘most improved player’ in his under 10s football club, so I’m very proud of him.

5. Lovely Partner also was part of a fencing group who came second at a tournament last weekend, so I’m proud of him, too.

6. I have written half of my article about women’s role in the Abolitionist movement in Britain (the abolition of slavery). This is for Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine, and I know a lot about it because slavery accidentally ended up as a fairly major plot in The Sisterhood. (This is entirely due – and this is a true story – to a random comment my mother made when I was ranting about the book when it was a quarter written. Something she said managed to change the entire course of the book. If you know an author and you make a random suggestion, please be aware that they may end up miles deep in research and cursing your name, even as they write the best book they’ve ever managed!)