Time and Tide

Time is doing funny things. The last time I posted to this blog (3 weeks ago), we had just received an impressive manuscript, which we were planning to publish as a pamphlet. We got our first printed copies at the end of last week. Which is fast for a book publisher, I think. Of course it's not fast for a newspaper publisher or a blogger.

The time thing is this. We don't publish the book until 10th October to give the book trade a little time to find out about it. But, in fact, the book trade likes a minimum of 3 months to find out about a book. (Waterstone's wanted Christmas 2008 book submissions in by April this year, for example). And journal publishers are in another league altogether. I received a Call for Papers today from the journal Leadership. The deadline is March 2009 and the special issue of the journal will be published in August 2010, to 'allow for the reviewing process'.

And this is in the week that I discovered that more people now contribute their opinions online on a range of products/services (including clothes, music and groceries) than seek other's opinions. How do you get writing properly refereed and meet the demand for 'publishing on demand'?

Anyway, I'm very happy with the pamphlet. The Forward March of Children’s Justice Halted exposes the government’s extraordinary and shameful handling of children’s justice in England and Wales. As District Judge Nicholas Crichton says in his Foreword,

“Edward Lloyd-Jones has pulled together the strands of what now seems to be a systematic dismantling of all that has been achieved in the last 17 years. He raises questions which need to be urgently addressed.”

And it's only £5.99. Get a copy and give it to a Minister.