A new member of Clan Donald
Posted on Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
My wife Mary gave birth on Sunday (February 12th) to a healthy 3.14kg (six-and-a-half pound) boy. We are calling him Robert David Hilary Donald – known as Robin. Not, actually, after my character Robin Hood: it’s a family name; my grandfather and uncle were both named Robin. Anyway, both are OK after a tough birth. Here’s a couple of pics:
Audio books: listen to the voice of Robin Hood
Posted on Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
This is just a quickie post as I’m literally running out the door. A couple of people have asked me about audio versions of my books – and the answer is yes, you can get them as CDs. Outlaw and Holy Warrior are already available from iTunes and Audible.co.uk. I think Amazon have them, too. And King’s Man is coming out as an audio book in July 2012 at the same time as the paperback version. OK, gotta run now . . .
A few little bits of King’s Man business . . .
Posted on Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
As some of you might have noticed, the hardback version of King’s Man has been unavailable from Amazon since before Christmas. For several weeks now, I have been ranting and raving and sending acidic emails trying to get Amazon to list the hardback so that people can buy it. Can’t tell you how frustrating that has been. But a phone call from my publisher yesterday has completely soothed me: it’s not that Amazon are refusing to stock King’s Man in hardback. It’s that they have sold out, and the publisher doesn’t have any more printed copies either. I had thought that not very many people had wanted the book and it turns out that its scarcity is a result of its popularity. I’m well chuffed, I can tell you.
But if you do want a hardback copy of King’s Man, you probably won’t share my delight. I can suggest two things: either you email me – I still have half a dozen copies of the hardback in my garage and I can send you a signed one (for a reasonable price, plus p&p) or you can click on “paperback” on the Amazon page and get one of the trade paperback versions of the book. These are bigger than normal paperbacks but contain the same story. So there you are.
Talking of paperbacks . . . I now have the definitive date for the mass-market paperback release of King’s Man. This is the normal size one that will be, hopefully, in all the supermarkets from July 5th onwards. And the hardback version of Warlord will come out a couple of weeks later on July 19th. And I might as well tell all my American readers that King’s Man is coming out in the US in November – the 3rd, I think.
Here is the cover of the US version which they sent me yesterday; I’d love to hear what you all think:
Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Justin Bieber to star in 100 billion-dollar movie of Robin Hood
Posted on Monday, January 23rd, 2012
OK, you got me. That is an outrageous lie. I was thinking the other day about a seminar I went to a few years ago when I worked at The Times when they were telling us how to write headlines for online articles and, basically, they said you should always put the names of stars in the title (and large sums of money). That way, claimed the experts, when people are browsing the net they will be attracted to your site by the double-whammy glamour of celebs and buckets of cash. Sorry, low trick, I know. But there is some justification in running these guys’ names in the headline: I quite often get asked who should play Robin Hood and Alan Dale if they ever (you never know, fingers crossed!) make a movie of one of my books.
It’s quite a tough one, actually. Who should be the heroes of the Outlaw Chronicles? I like Johnny Depp enormously, and Jude Law seems like a nice chap, too (I met him briefly before Christmas) and he’s a first-class actor. I don’t really know much about Justin Bieber, except that he’s insanely popular with the young ‘uns, although he seems a bit thick; actually, as dumb as a lump of cheddar – sorry, Beliebers, but there it is!
So who should it be? Who do you think should play Alan? And who would be a convincingly ruthless Robin Hood? Email me and let me know!
Other news
King’s Man will shortly be available as an Audio book, hooray! – and while the hardback is listed as unavailable on Amazon (some sort of glitch that they can’t seem to fix) I have copies of the book at home which I will sign, wrap-up and send to you at a very reasonable price, if you really want one. Contact me if you want a copy, and we’ll make some suitable arrangement.
Some bits of news for you
Posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2012
It’s going to be a rather eventful year for me, I think.
I’ve just heard that King’s Man is being published in the USA on 13 November 2012 – which seems like a long way in the future but I expect the time will pass quickly. Back in good old Blighty, King’s Man is coming out in paperback in July and the same month Warlord will be published in hardback. So three of my books are coming out in English in a year.
Added to that, the German version of Holy Warrior is due to come out in March 2012, and the Spanish version of King’s Man will also be published in that month.
In other domestic news, my wife is expecting our second child in mid-February.
That’s all for now. I’ll post more updates as I get them.