Engine Punk

The Imp Club like it. All I have to do is repeat this reaction with Wolseley owners and the 2CVGB. My books have received a shameless plug in the latest edition of Impressions, the award winning magazine of the Hillman Imp Club, headed Stop Press. Over the years, I've contributed a few articles to Impressions and Grahame Pearson the editor said "Members familiar with Bob's style of writing will know it will be a good read. His next book, The Wormton Lamb, will be out around Easter and will feature Hillman Imps, which Bob insists are not gratuitous classic car placements but actually germane to the plot." The Imp Club magazine may not sound like the Times Literary Supplement but it's aimed at just the kind of people I want to connect with - pistonhead hedonists and hedonistas. Hmm. Could be a new word that - pistonhedonist! You saw it here first, folks, if Wikipedia comes looking. Imp club members come from many walks of life, sections of society and diff...

The cover design has moved on a bit since this photo was taken. Consequently, these early versions are collector's items Things are really taking off here at Anarchadia Publishing. And I don’t mean because of the windy weather, either. The first batch of books has just about gone already. Thanks to everyone who bought one. I sincerely hope the luck pennies work for you all. There was a quite a buzz at work on Friday. Thanks to Allie Dawe in particular for enlightening me what happens at proper book signings. It’s remiss of me I know but I’ve never been to one until now and that one was my own! Apparently, the way to do it is to sign and date the book but write any personal message on a separate piece of paper. This makes the signed more desirable by collectors. I was even asked to sign off copies of the banned e-mail! (see earlier blog). Anyway, I hope this of you have supported me from the start can sell these numbered and signed copies for a fortune when I’m famous ...

I had an e-mail today from Lightning Source to tell me The Horsepower Whisperer is available in the US. This was 24 hours after it not being there, so I was dubious this was correct. So I checked and it's there! Updating the listings a few days ago seems to have worked.

The Wormton Lamb has appeared on Amazon a couple of days after setting the title up. It has its full subtitle listed on the UK site and is number two in a list of books Bob Blackman in the US. Number one is by one of the other Bob Blackmans but, yes, I've crossed the Atlantic without knowing it. Amazing. But there's no sign of The Horsepower Whisperer in the good old US of stateside. Both are listed in Canada, however. These anomalies may change once updates to Nielsen bookdata flow through their system apparently.

The proof is here and it looks fantastic! Lightning Source have done a great job and addressed the minor quibbles I had. My rendering for the front cover is sharper than ever and the red go-faster strip is redder than I thought possible. Inside, the paper is really white and the text looks blacker than other books. It looks so vivid. Most of them seem to use a down market yellowy paper that might be made out of straw. And I think the publishers should have a quiet word with their printers for, by comparison with Lightning Source's results, I think their printers might be watering the ink. The cover for The Horsepower Whisperer looks like it's powered by batteries! Either that or I'm feeling euphoric. I haven't seen Bex yet to receive her graphic design analysis. She's probably practising for the London marathon. We're working on the cover for The Wormton Lamb and I got the first version two days with a very excited e-mail about getting excepted fo...

Drooper from The Banana Splits looks nothing like me Tap The Horsepower Whisperer, The Wormton Lamb or Anarchadia Publishing into any search engine and they all show up fairly well in the resulting, er, results. But a number of publishing types have said market yourself as well as your books so I checked out my own branding and looked up “Bob Blackman” on the internet.  This was very interesting. I found a whole list of Bob Blackmans on the net and none of them was me. Actually, that’s not true. The last one was me. Top of the heap was an American football trainer called Bob Blackman who was listed on Wikipedia. Apparently, he suffered from polio but this didn’t seem to stop him and he died in 2000 aged 82. It sounds to me as if his top ranking is entirely justified. Next up was Councillor Bob Blackman who is a Conservative politician. Oh dear. I despise most politicians but especially those who represent the Fascist Repressive Party. In third place was R...

Available now on Amazon While my book lurches towards the market place, like Frankenstein's monster, here's one that a long standing friend of mine, Pete Cross, has recently had published. Shadows in the sky is about Cornish choughs and is a children's book that will also appeal to adults interested in the natural world. It's created a great deal of interest in Cornwall since choughs are the national symbol of Cornwall. However, until recently the chough was extinct in Cornwall but now they have returned and their numbers are growing. This is their story engagingly told by someone who has been watching over the original pioneering settlers for many years. It's attracting comments from some quite notable authors, too. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shadows-Sky-Pete-Cross/dp/1904239072/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195396053&sr=8-1