A fresh pair of ears

There's one on the other side too

Here at Bugged Towers our software is playing up, so we can’t post any more writings just now – but will do soon. Meanwhile, a warm welcome to the right ear of William, a new friend of Bugged, who arrived a few weeks ago and just had his hearing test. He’s fit for eavesdropping and ready to go.

Our own gestation process is going well. We are just under a month away from delivery of a bouncing baby book. Print-on-demand (POD) publishers CompletelyNovel are acting as midwife. For us it’s an experiment – can new technology get a good book into print quickly, cheaply and well, to support writers and give them a worthy new outlet? POD is sometimes associated with vanity publishing – but we think it has lots of potential to do more. With professional editing and design, can it offer a worthwhile platform for new writing? It’s certainly fast and cheap – the book will be out whilst our July eavesdropping is fresh in the memory, so the bright shiny seeds you planted in summer will be in your mum’s Christmas stocking.

So – that’s what’s in it for all of us who took part in the big eavesdropping of this summer. But what’s in it for them, eh? Anna Lewis from CompletelyNovel tells us:

“The team at CompletelyNovel.com is thrilled to be helping Bugged to create the anthology which will proudly carry the work of many of those wonderful eavesdroppers who joined in with the competition this summer. We immediately loved the idea of Bugged – we’ve had many a laugh over the summer when snippets of people’s conversations have wafted up through our open office windows from the trendy coffee shop below. A recent personal favourite was when a young teenager earnestly asked her mum, “Yeah but if they are barristas, right, why aren’t they wearing wigs?”

“We’re strong supporters of new writers, as well as being general book nuts, which made it even better that Jo and David decided to publish with us. CompletelyNovel.com is an online community which offers writers a place to share their work with others as an online book and sell as a paperback too. We’re passionate about projects in the literature space which both challenge writers and celebrate those who get out there and do something a bit different. We will soon be organising our second 24 hour Book Project, and next year we will be hosting the 2011 Author Blog Awards. If any of you crafty eavesdroppers would like to find out more, please check out our website!”

Well of course, they get a much bigger audience through our book than through a single-author book. But they do seem to be putting their money where their mouth is. They’ve been very helpful, genuinely supportive, and are offering us a discount for Bugged writers…. but you’ll have to judge if it works when you see the book. We hope that all of you will join in this experiment and help us to spread the word. We’re almost ready to show you the cover – next time, my lovelies…