One of the most difficult parts of publishing isn’t writing the book. It is all the other stuff – the jacket blurb, the author biography, the author photo, sales and distribution channels, pricing, jacket design and endless, endless proofreading.

Yesterday was full-on. When I worked for a large US company I was introduced to the elevator speech: you are in an elevator with someone vastly important, and you have 30 seconds to sell yourself or your idea. It is a tough discipline, and one that many of us would like to avoid. But sometimes 30 seconds is all one is permitted. In these days of omnipresent media, even 30 seconds is a luxury.

This is especially true of the blurb on a book jacket. It has to encapsulated the book for the reader. It has to be crisp and focused and appealing, and above all, it has to be short. So yesterday I did that. It took me all day.

I also persuaded Fabienne to take some new headshots for the back cover. This is now officially me.