Glorious London weather and interesting submissions!

Posted in Neem Tree Blog on September 21, 2019

The sun has shone consistently in London – even the gargoyles have been smiling! As we’ve rushed around this week, we’ve appreciated the soothing greens of both Gordon and Tavistock squares. We’ve admired the spires of St. Pancras and noted that most of us rarely look up at buildings. On to publishing matters: we’ve received some very interesting submissions though our website – it’s always exciting when a new submissions email comes through! Even though we can’t accept all manuscripts, we absolutely appreciate the hard work, stamina and overcoming of self-doubt that it takes to get to that final manuscript. Our hats off to all authors.

The Umbrella Men (paperback) by Keith Carter is ready to go and we are very, very excited about @Annecater’s  #randomthingstour for the book that kicks off October 2nd, the day before publication day on October 3rd. Here is a link to Keith’s interview on the Author’s Show again: Keith on @theauthorsshow discussing The Umbrella Men

David Ross, our US based author of our first Middle Grade adventure series, The Three Hares: The Jade Dragonball, will be doing book signings at his local bookshop and library. How do full-time teachers, like both David and Scott Lauder, his co-author for the series, find time for book signings? Any ideas would be very welcomed!

We continue to commission covers and edit books for our list for 2020 and we hope soon to sign with a new sales and distribution partner. We really appreciate that accessing the infrastructure of publishing is key to survival for an indie publisher. We feel we are finally breaking through the barrier and getting traction. Everyone has been incredibly helpful with introductions, which we’ve really valued.

We will be entering our newly published novella, Trees for the Absentees by Ahlam Bsharat for the Palestine Book Awards, among others. The book has been superbly translated from the Arabic by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp and Sue Copeland. We are sending books to Ahlam and hoping she can do some book signings in Palestine.

As the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall looms in November, we are gearing up for the UK paperback release of Distant Signs by Anne Richter in November and the US and global release of the book in all formats. We are lucky to have excellent translators and Douglas Irving’s English translation is wonderful to read. Distant Signs provides a real insight into family life in East Germany in the post war years leading up to the fall of the wall and we assure you the characters will stay with you long after you’ve finished the book. Unification has not panned out to everyone’s satisfaction and yet a wall coming down by the sheer force of people on the streets willing to change the status quo has to be commended and marveled at, especially as barriers continue to be built and populations forcefully segregated in other parts of the world: https://www.thetrumpet.com/18350-do-east-germans-regret-the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall.

And we are hoping that Toletis will be visiting international schools in Madrid soon where his creator Rafa Ruiz lives. Toletis is an eco-activist and every time we see children protesting about climate change, we are reminded of him. We leave with this review from Green World magazine, “The values contained in these pages – of love for the outdoors, animals and plants, friendship, family, being in touch with your emotions – make the world a better place. If you believe that the best hope we have for a safe, peaceful planet is to teach children to love the environment and one another, then I recommend that you read Toletis with the children in your life.”

Till next week!