And they are also very good at keeping their customers informed. Take this blog post re: a short service outage that occurred today. Open, honest, informative. Compare and contrast with the almost total lack of information I've had from my ISP, F2S.com, with regard to the complete breakdown of their SMTP service yesterday afternoon, and repeat glitches today.

Anyone working in customer service should take note. Sometimes it doesn't take all that much to delight your customers. Showing a little integrity and open communication now and then is a good place to start.

As of April 7th I will be taking up the post of (online) Marketing Exec, working full-time on a wide range of online promotional projects right across their list of top sf, fantasy and horror writing talent.

It's an incredible opportunity for me and one that's probably about as exciting as it gets. I'll be able to do exactly the sort of work I love doing across a wide and varied range of projects in an incredibly vibrant and creative industry. As you can probably tell, I'm looking forward to it immensely.

The only down-side is that as a result I'll have to stop working for my current client roster; except for the Orbit authors whose websites I'm already looking after who I'll continue to work with in my new post.

Making those calls and sending those emails was a bit of a wrench, but every single one of my clients has wished me nothing but success for the future and they're all delighted that I've landed what amounts to my dream job. Have I mentioned what a great bunch of people my clients are (or rather, have been)?

But then, that's genre authors for you - the pick of the crop, as far as I'm concerned...

It sounds like it was a truly fascinating event, with some incredible speakers on the roster: Douglas Rushkoff, Tim O'Reilly, Seth Godin; and that was just the Monday Morning session.

I haven't had time to go through George's notes in detail just yet, but I can already tell that it was definitely an event I wish I could have attended. That's one of the few drawbacks to being self-employed sometimes: no corporate travel budget to tap into for these trans-Atlantic info-finding missions...

For anyone not in the know: the '[M]' is because Iain has two distinct writing personas. As 'Iain Banks' he writes edgy, intensely character-driven, wry-humour saturated mainstream fiction, and as 'Iain M Banks' he writes some of the finest science fiction / space opera / literature-of-ideas stuff around.

The new site is Iain's official, publisher-driven web presence, incorporating both elements of Iain's writing canon. As well as running up the initial design (except the header, which has been provided by Alex Lencicki of Orbit's US office) and managing the Wordpress installation, I'll be keeping the site topped-up on an ongoing basis, with news about Iain's forthcoming appearances and future publications, as well as plenty of links out to reviews, interviews and Banks-related coverage elsewhere on the 'Net... the full website content management service.

Here's a screen-shot of the new homepage. Feedback is most definitely welcome, please do drop me a line via the contact page on the site if you have any suggestions for additional content and / or site features that you'd like to see.

With her new novel, Crossed Bones (US title: The Tenth Gift) she's making a bit of a departure, content-wise; moving away from epic fantasy into the historical mystery / romance sub-genre, with a tale of sixteeth century pirates, a Cornish seamstress captured and sold into slavery in the kasbahs of Morocco, and the modern-day woman who discovers the captive's secret journal and becomes drawn into her story.

Jane wanted to re-design her main website to reflect some of the atmosphere of the book (and the two she plans to write next) and so wanted something visually arresting that highlighted the rich scenery and imagery of Morocco. Knowing full-well that this was likely to be a tall order for someone with my admittedly limited graphic design skills, I turned to a fellow freelancer - Penn Smith of Idesign Creative in Leeds - to come up with the visual elements. I then slotted them into a solid, html & css-based site build, with a Blogger-based news page to allow Jane to run her own updates when required, and provide automatic RSS-feed generation.

Here's the end result:

Do click through and have a look at the rest of the site; the visual theme continues throughout, but the graphic elements vary with the major site sections. And there's a Flickr-based gallery of Jane's own photos of Morocco within the 'Inspiration' section, for extra visual richness.

The audience was mostly made up of London-based publishing professionals - although a few people, like myself, had travelled in from the regions - and we were treated to a good afternoon's worth of relevant commentary on the subject on online promotion for publishers and authors, with some practical advice and case-study examples of successful campaigns included for good measure.

The speakers were all very good indeed; a great mix of heavy-hitting marketing professionals, all of whom were either directly involved in online publishing, print publishing, or providing relevant support services. They included:

• Matt Seaton, editor of The Guardian's Comment is Free mega-blog, introduced the session and spoke on the positive impact of taking a blog-based approach to online publishing.
• Barry Clark of The Future Foundation, who provided some illuminating key stats and trends information, including the fact that this year, social media websites have finally overtaken web-based email in terms of page-impression based traffic figures.
• Cameron Saunders, head of marketing, digital channels at Channel 4 spoke of the huge success of the online pre-launch campaign for the first series of Skins and how the channel is working to keep the momentum going into the second series.
• Peter Collingridge, managing director of Apt, told us of the key challenges facing the industry and suggested an immediate-term action plan for publishers to adopt.
• George Walkley of Orbit Books then provided some examples of practical methods that publishers could use to take advantage of online channels.

A series of quick-fire talks by publishing professionals from various sectors of the industry, all of whom had something positive and practical to add on the topic, then brought the session to a close. All in all, it was an extremely interesting, informative and relevant afternoon.

I was hoping to write up my notes from the session in more detail, but spare blogging time is a very precious commodity just at the moment (for reasons I hope to be able to announce shortly). However, Peter Collingridge has written up his notes on everyone else's segments over on the Apt blog, Times Emit, so if you missed the session or would simply like to catch up with the key points from the other keynote speakers, then that would be an excellent place to start.

Matt suggests:

1. Protecting your admin suite by restricting access to I.P. addresses specified in the .htaccess file.
2. Including an empty index.html file in your /plugins/ directory to prevent anyone from browsing the otherwise wide-open directory (although attempting to access the plugins directory here seems to generate a 404 error instead...)
3. Removing the WP version information metadata from your header.php file to avoid giving easy clues to potential hackers.

Needless to say, I'll be acting on all three of those across my client sites (as applicable, it could be difficult perhaps to get accurate I.P. address information from all my clients) in my next WP-admin session.

Simple concept: add the URL of your Google Reader shared items RSS feed to their database and then every time you select an item for your Shared Items list, it will be added to the stats; automatically aggregating the most-shared items across its readership and creating an on-the-spot zeitgeist for Readburner's homepage.

Early days yet, apparently, but it will be interesting to see how this takes off. Unfortunately, I can already think of one way that less-than-noble marketeers and pro-bloggers could game this particular service (multi Google-account sign ups to share the same item a number of times) but hopefully that will be too little return for too much effort, at least for the time being.

The first session was relaxed and informal. Freelance designer and serial WP-user Leanda Ryan gave a presentation on WP templates that emphasised the great flexibility and adaptability of the even the basic WP installation, and Alan followed up with a few pointers on security. The group responded well, with several members chipping in with advice and suggestions as to useful bits of third-party software, several of which I've added to the ever-growing list of useful bits of software that I really need to check out one day soon...

Alan then asked for volunteers to do a spot of show-and-tell (bribing us with the offer of a free Wordpress t-shirt in the process!) and so I stepped up and ran through a few of the sites in my current portfolio - emphasising as I usually do that they might not be the bees-knees in terms of graphic design, but by heck, they work - and hopefully helping to demonstrate a range of uses that WP can be put to.

Next to volunteer was Paul Fabretti from Stockport agency KMP (see also their Daily Digital blog), who demonstrated two of the aforementioned third-party software suites that he'd recommended earlier, namely Qumana and Windows Live Writer, the latter of which Paul definitely recommends if you have a client who's nervous about the WP interface and would prefer something a little more familiar-looking, as well as well-stocked with helpful editing features. Definitely sounds like one to try.

Nathan Beck, another local freelance designer, then showed us his own portfolio site, which is built on WP but looks completely unlike the 'standard' column-based blog format. Again, demonstrating the versatility of the product. Nathan also mentioned a means of integrating WP, PHPBB and Gallery into a three-in-one community site; something that sounds very interesting. I'll have to drop him a line and see if he can offer any pointers in that direction.

All in all a very good introductory session to a group that should build into a very good opportunity for relevant knowledge-sharing and networking. Hopefully I'll be able to make the next few sessions and get to know a few fellow WP-fans from the area a bit better. And of course, it's always good to be able to swap notes and ideas with someone on the same wavelength.

Four presentations by local creative businesses and artists (Tim and Matt from ManchesterOnlinePrint.com, mixed media artist Dinu Li, Chris from recent start-up film production company Serious Feather and Lauren, who's trying to sell her Manchester Stained Glass arts & crafts training business) was both preceded and followed by a couple of rounds of miscellaneous networking.

During which, I sat and had a good long talk with Gareth from Not Part Of - an event and festival which first ran as an alternative to the Manchester International Festival (although definitely not as a fringe event...) - whom I first met at the David Parrish T-Shirts and Suits seminar back in December.

I also got talking to Bernard Quinn from the Preston-based Northern Lights project, a provider of mentoring services to creative entrepreneurs and businesses across the North West; definitely something I'll be looking into in the future, as it sounds like it could be terrifically useful for a creative entrepreneur like me...

And I'll be attending the inaugural meeting of the Manchester Wordpress Users' Group at the Manchester Digital Development Agency tomorrow evening, which sounds like it has plenty of potential. Will report back on that one later in the week.

Except... they also provided a link to an item that they've posted on their site/blog, entitled 100 Essential Web Resources for Freelance Programmers and glancing down, it does seem to contain some useful-looking third party information. And they've followed that one up with a couple more since, including 50 Tools and Resources to Help You Start a Webcomic.

So, fair play to them (assuming they've done the work themselves and not just grokked it off some other, poor, unsuspecting blogger, says the terrible cynic in me...) and quite a bit more useful than your usual e-spam, it has to be said...

My good friend and extremely switched-on online marketeer George Walkley, the newly-promoted Director of Digital Strategy for Orbit Books' parent company Hachette Livre, will be one of the speakers, along with Peter Collingridge of Apt, a London studio that specialises in providing digital marketing services to publishers.

My ticket is in the post.

I managed 22/30 without having to think too hard, but I obviously didn't waste enough time on console games in my callow youth, so I only recognised a couple of the electronic gizmos on show there. And what the heck was the name of that viewer-thingy with the circular movie-still cards you slotted in the top..?

Anyhow, it certainly brought back a lot of happy memories. Ah, the hours I used to spend playing Subbuteo with my mates back in the '80s. Of course, it's all Pro-Evolution-this and Football Manager-that now, isn't it... I dunno, kids today... don't know they're born... not like when I was a lad...

The panel is tentatively titled 'Writers and the Internet' and although the precise theme and discussion points will be decided on much nearer the time, I'd imagine topics will include setting up a website, making the best use of social networking opportunities, enhancing sales potential through online promotional activities, and so forth.

I happen to know that long-time blogging author Charles Stross is one of the author guests on the day, so I'm hoping that Alex will be able to get him onto the panel as well; as one of the early adopter-pioneers of online profile-boosting, Charles' input would be invaluable, I'm sure.

Generally speaking, the last two Alt.Fiction days have been excellent; condensed conventions that offer a great chance for readers and fans to hear from a range of top-name UK genre authors and for writers to pick up plenty of tips, on the art of writing and seeking publication, from editors and agents as well. Definitely worth attending if you're at all interested in the genre scene in the UK. Tickets should go on sale in the new year.

Along for the ride were ten other incredibly creative business people from around the Manchester area, hailing from a real mix of business backgrounds, artistic disciplines, and project types, but all of them incredibly interesting, talented and friendly folks and each with a similar aim: to build on an existing base or concept; to reach new customers and goals.

By the end of the day I think it's safe to say that we'd all learned an incredible amount; about our own businesses, about each others' businesses, about how to focus on our goals and plan for the future rather than just drifting from half-grasped opportunity to half-failed side-project, and most of all about how being a creative business doesn't mean that you have to be a starving, garret-based artist... it's okay to succeed without selling out.

David was an absolutely excellent facilitator. Unlike some seminars, in which the whole point has clearly been for the speaker to talk about their ideas, their vision and, ultimately, so they could hear the sound of their own voice parroted back at them by their new acolytes, David's approach is much more about putting the emphasis on the participants of the group. He very quickly got a room full of strangers to relax, talk to each other and about each other, and freely discuss their own state of mind, issues, problems and, ultimately, swap ideas and potential solutions for each other.

Okay, from my point of view it helped immensely that David turned out to be a local bloke, based in the town I was born in and a fellow armchair supporter of Bury F.C. to boot, but those were just bonus items. Ultimately, it was his quiet, intelligently expressed pointers, questions and comments that ensured that the emphasis of this session was on us, our businesses and how we could succeed, both individually and perhaps, if circumstances allowed, as future project partners or co-clients. I know I'll certainly be buying my next bit of camera equipment from a chap called Jem who owns the Real Camera Company in Manchester's Northern Quarter, and who happily spent twenty minutes over lunch explaining (with illustrations!) how I could use even my bog-standard pocket camera to take better photographs in future.

So, all in all this is one seminar I'd definitely recommend you try to get a place on. If you live in an eligible area of Greater Manchester then CIDS will fund your attendance for you, otherwise, shell out whatever David Parrish is asking these days. You certainly won't regret the investment.

And before I finish, shouts out to my fellow seminarians (in no particular order): freelance graphic designer Jon Drew, freelance composer and poet Anwen Lewis, Mark Stringer of Bourn Design in Stockport, artist and surface pattern designer Mark Finzel, bespoke bridal accessories designer Lucy Griffiths (no website yet?), jewelled garter designer Beth Lomas, freelance arts and education consultant Annie Anderson (likewise, website pending), urban arts promoter Nick Hardy, 'Not Part Of' festival organiser Gareth McCann and photographic equipment supplier Jem Kime (website planned, awaiting implementation).

Hey, if any of you guys end up dropping by, do leave a comment below, say hi, yeah?

Pendragon Press is a small independent UK press that specialises in a mixture of science fiction, fantasy and horror novels, novellas and short fiction collections and anthologies. Pendragon is run by Welsh Wizard Chris Teague and has published titles by a number of the UK independent scene's best-known writers, winning a number of awards, including several British Fantasy Society awards, along the way.

The new website is built on the Wordpress platform, which will enable Chris to update his own news and content when required, and the design - clean and minimalist, putting the emphasis on the content and the cover imagery - looks like this:

Chris seems very happy with the new site, and I'm sure we'll be talking about additional promotional possibilities in the very near future...

For the visual elements of the new version I adapted the look and feel of the cover design for the paperback release of Richard's latest novel, Black Man (which I can heartily recommend) and the general colour scheme is pretty minimalist throughout, in keeping with the noir feel of Richard's fiction.

Content-wise, the new site includes an expanded bibliography and a new news & views section; a simple Blogger-based page that Richard can use to update his fans with all the latest developments.

All good stuff, and both Richard and his publishers at Gollancz are very pleased with the outcome, which I'm very happy about.

John has been working for the last few years on a stupendously comprehensive tome called Secret Histories, which will combine even more Powersanalia into a huge print volume that's due to be published by PS Publishing to coincide with the 2009 Eastercon in Bradford, at which the aforementioned Mr Powers will be the Guest of Honour. I've seen the proof pages of the book and trust me, it's just incredible. Filled to the brim with original Powers marginalia, doodles, manuscript alterations and more international cover images than you thought possible.

Here's the new version of the site and if, as I am, you're a dedicated Powers-fan already, or if you've ever read anything by Tim Powers at all, then you really need to treat yourself to some quality browsing-time:

The site build is based on the Actinic e-commerce system, which I have to admit is a tad quirky in places, but pretty easy to work with once you get your head around the management interface and design elements. But it does benefit from a superb user community that includes a number of extremely knowledgeable and helpful Actinic experts who will usually step in and point you in the right direction if you're having issues. Kudos to them.

The news link in the main menu takes you through to the aforementioned PS Publishing News Room, which is running on a completely separate sub-domain and the Wordpress blogging platform; a decision I took in order to enable notifications to be put out on the Newsroom in the event of server problems that affect the Webstore, and also to allow clearer tracking of traffic patterns on the two separate sub-domains.

Anyhow, if you're a fan of high-quality science fiction, fantasy, horror and crime then you should definitely check out the PS sale that's running until the end of November - a full 50% has been knocked off the cover price of all pre-2007 book titles, but only while stocks last. Grab a bargain while you can!

The awards are voted for by members of the BFS in an annual poll and are the most prestigious UK awards for fantasy, horror and related fields of fiction (and non-fiction) endeavour. To win an award is a measure of the high regard amongst fans and peers alike, and means a lot to the recipients.

Mark Morris won the Best Non-Fiction award for Cinema Macabre, a collection of short essays on favourite horror movies written by some of the top names in the horror genre (oh, and yours truly... I wrote a piece on The Sixth Sense). Mark was very pleased indeed to win the award.

Mark Chadbourn won the Best Short Fiction award for 'Whisper Lane', which was originally published in the British Fantasy Society's 30th anniversary anthology The BFS: A Celebration and which I really do have to dig out and read sometime...

Peter Crowther's PS Publishing won the Best Small Press award for the sixth time in the past seven years, an incredible feat that's entirely justified by the superb range of titles that Pete continues to bring to the market year on year (which is just one of the many reasons that I'm incredibly pleased and proud to work with PS).

And last but by no means least, Tim Lebbon won the Best Novel award for Dusk, the first part of his dark fantasy duology set in the grim and chilling world of Noreela (that site's not actually one of mine, alas... wish I had that good an eye for graphic design). Tim's a great guy and it's fantastic to see him win the award, especially against such a strong shortlist, and he was also chuffed to bits to win. Marvellous!

And several more of my clients were shortlisted for various awards as well, including Sarah Pinborough, both Les Edwards and his artistic alter-ego Edward Miller and Chris Teague of Pendragon Press, a soon-to-be client whose site re-design I'll be starting work on in October.

Sarah's books to-date are proper, old-school horror stories, with strong supernatural influences and some genuinely perturbing moments to savour. I'm planning on reading a couple of them on holiday this year, with the aid of a dose of bright Mediterranean sunshine and several ice-cold beers to help dispel the shadows...

Sarah's definitely not shy, either; she's launched herself into the genre convention scene (ably aided and abetted by good chums like Tim Lebbon and Mark Morris) and has been a regular on panels (and in the bar) everywhere from WHC2007 to Alt.Fiction, with forthcoming trips lined up to Fantasycon, next year's World Fantasy and World Horror, plus a writer-in-residence stint at the Pen to Press writers' retreat in New Orleans next May. She's also joined the all-woman horror-writers' collective, MUSE; more on which we'll no doubt be hearing in the near future.

So when Sarah got in touch and asked me to help out with a website re-vamp I jumped at the chance to work with yet another pro-active author who isn't afraid to get out there and get themselves noticed. Aesthetically-speaking, she didn't want the new site to look too hard-core horror-esque, on the grounds that she's currently branching out into crime, thrillers and screen-writing as well. Her brief called for more graphic design skills than I have in my locker, so I called in a freelance designer of my acquaintance by the name of Penn Smith who came up with a suitably atmopsheric main header design and colour-scheme, and I then added the page layout and built the site around her work.

The end result is a new-look site that Sarah seems to be particularly pleased with, which is always great to hear, and ought to be pretty much completely cross-browser compatible, accessible and extensible as time goes on. It's online now at www.sarahpinborough.com.

It's been an absolute pleasure working with Joe on the site-build. As a film editor by trade he's got a very keen eye for both visual arrangement and fine detail, so his feedback and suggestions have been great all the way along. And as I've always confessed to not counting graphic design as one of my greatest strengths (but dammit, I'll build you a website that works) I've really appreciated the input.

And I reckon the end result is not too shabby at all, if I do say so myself... :)

Built on the Wordpress blog platform, the site is fully RSS-enabled, makes use of various usability-enhancing plugins, and will be updated by yours truly on an ongoing basis in my new role as the PS Publishing website, publicity & marketing guy. I've been running the current PS site for a few years now, but following conversations with Pete and Nicky Crowther at PS, we've identified a number of initiatives and ideas that we want to explore under the general banner of 'selling more books', and they've asked me to take the lead on putting them into action.

It's a role that I'm very excited about getting my teeth into, not least because I've always been such a huge fan of the whole PS Publishing product line since the first title on the list was launched in 1999.

The PS News Room is the first stage of the process, and will enable much faster and wider dissemination of all the latest PS news and information, especially in combination with the ever-growing PS mailing list. Further initiatives are being developed which will come into play in due course, and time allowing I'll be discussing a few of them here, once I've had a chance to implement them and assess their effectiveness. And once we've finished and launched the new PS Publishing Webstore of course...

In the meantime, here's the News Room. Do pay us a visit and check out the latest updates:

I've set up Philip's site - www.philippalmer.net - on a full Wordpress-based blog, because both Philip and the guys at Orbit really get the whole blogging concept. Philip is really interested in the immediacy of the blogging process and the opportunity that it will give him for instant feedback, especially once Debatable Space is out in January.

And it's not like he'll be short of a thing or two to write about in the meantime, either; he may be a debut novelist, but he's also a radio- and screen-writer of numerous years' experience. There are a few posts on the blog already (Philip prepped and posted a few as the design process went along) that talk about subjects as diverse as Spooks, Captain Jack Sparrow and his recent involvement in the production of a 15-minute radio play about the political situation in Gaza.

Here's a screen-shot of the site:

I was going to start by just transferring the old site onto a new server, but... well, I couldn't resist having a bit of a tinker (as you do), so we've actually ended up with an interim revamp. It's still fairly close to the look of the original site, but I've broken the pages out of the frameset to improve Google spider access, added a bit more info about Richard's books to the homepage and so forth.

There will be a fully re-designed site going live later in the year, with a design that reflects the re-design work that publisher Gollancz have unveiled for the full range of paperback editions of Richard's books, and plenty more bibliographical information etc. Watch this space. And in the meantime, here's a quick shot of the interim site:

I do like the new cover art: I think the imagery reflects the harsh, chilly landscape and bitter, confrontational atmosphere of Winterbirth quite nicely...

There are about 50 new images across the various galleries on the two sites. Generally, the first few images in each gallery are the new ones (although I'm working on ideas for the best way to make that a bit more user-friendly and obvious). Here are some of my favourites from the new batch:

'This is Now', which was used on a Subterranean Press chapbook of three Michael Marshall Smith short stories given to attendees of the 2007 World Horror Convention in Canada:

The quite lovely artwork for the Subterranean Press edition of Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora:

And here's the artwork for the Gollancz UK edition of Chris Wooding's forthcoming novel The Fade:

They're all 'Edward Miller' rather than 'Les Edwards' pieces, I know, but that's because there's just something in the use of colour, form and texture in the Miller work that really appeals to me.

I also sent Les a few questions for an interview piece, which I posted yesterday evening over on www.uksfbooknews.net. He has some interesting things to say about the use of fantasy art in book design, if you're interested in that aspect of publishing and marketing at all.

And I shouldn't leave without mentioning that Les is having a summer sale between now and the end of September. Buy any of the fine art prints available on either website (the vast majority of the images are available as prints, apart from the pencil sketch prelims and anything where the copyright of the work is no longer owned by Les) and you'll enjoy a 20% discount on the usual prices.

Adam has been a client of mine for going on six years now and his website has been through three different incarnations in that time. The third version of www.adamroberts.com went live yesterday:

This time out it's a Wordpress site, and I've been exploring the options that WP offers to use it as a site-wide content management system rather than just as a single blog page. Hence the bibliography section is self-contained within the WP setup, which means that if Adam wants to tinker, he can do so to his heart's content and drive his own news section as a full blog.

Adam also runs three other blogs (Europrogocontestovision, punkadiddle and Rambling Ad Rumpo) and I'm working on persuading him to bring those three within the main blog as well - there's some great content on them, and having it all in one place would really strengthen the main site. Between you and me I reckon that once he's seen just how far superior Wordpress is to clunky old blogspot he'll be looking to at least move those over to WP sub-domains of their own, but I think that bringing them within the main site on a by-Category basis would work even better...

Bit of a departure from my usual line of work, you might think? But actually, there's a very definite genre connection lurking not so far beneath the surface, because the North Star Deli is owned and run by a family partnership that includes a certain Mr John Berlyne, proprietor of The Works of Tim Powers (which, I might add, is due for a renewal and transfer to a Wordpress platform in the very near future...) and UK reviews editor for venerable online genre 'zine SFRevu.com.

The deli itself is located in the South Manchester suburb of Chorlton; Jo and I drove on down there one Sunday a while ago and enjoyed some damn fine coffee and theoretical polenta cake (theoretically, John promised us polenta cake, but actually they sold out on the Saturday... a common occurrence, the polenta cake is very popular...) whilst we talked to John about books, writing, food, drink, and the current state of the world... as you do.

Fast-forward a couple of months to John and I having a very enthusiastic conversation over cartons of spicy far-eastern food in Manchester city centre one lunchtime, whilst discussing the enormous potential for developing the North Star Deli website into something far, far more interesting than just the usual online brochure-dump.

I spoke at great length about the concept of blogging as a means of developing an ongoing conversation: a very direct and immediate link between the Deli and its customers. John saw the potential immediately, and in turn introduced the concept to his partners, brother Adam and sister Deanna.

Thus, www.northstardeli.com is now reborn, on a Wordpress platform, with regularly-updated content and all the character, enthusiasm and foodie-knowledge you'd get from speaking to any of the deli team in-store. I think I'm right in saying that the North Star is Manchester's first blogging-deli, but I suspect it won't be the last, once word gets around...

It's the content that will be a winner though. It's early days yet, but I've already learned much - maybe too much (bacon-mints, anyone?) and speaking as an avowed foodie myself, I'm looking forward to future posts (particularly Deanna's recipes) with relish...

Check it out. Join the mailing list (e-bulletins should start going out in a couple of weeks, and you might learn something from those as well). Leave a comment or three. And if you live anywhere near Chorlton, get yourself down there and stock up on fine food and beverages from around the world, as well as plenty of fresh local produce. Sample the coffee. Enjoy the polenta cake (if you're quick...)

I just wish they'd open a branch in North Manchester (preferably Prestwich... in fact, just around the corner from me would be ideal...)

I reckon if they did that and then set up WiFi access in there as well, you'd never get me out of the place... :)

Currently www.joeabercrombie.com is a holding page containing some information about the first two books in his The First Law series: The Blade Itself and Before They Are Hanged, as well as a mailing list sign-up form and an email contact address. Joe and I will be working on a much more comprehensive site later in the year; the target is June / July (ish), work-load (Joe's) permitting.

Again, it's a simple design, using the parchment background to reflect the cover-theme of The Blade Itself. The only thing I might do differently, thinking about it, is improve the header, try to put it into a gothic-serif font to try to match the book's lettering. That would look better, but give Google less relevancy-matching to get its teeth into, but then the primary domain should grab Google's attention quite nicely. I'll think I'll see how it goes for now.

Jane Johnson, longstanding editor at HarperCollins' Voyager Books imprint, is also a well-established author in her own right these days. She co-wrote the Gabriel King books with M. John Harrison, and then wrote a nordic fantasy trilogy under the pen-name Jude Fisher, as well as the official tie-in guides to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies.

More recently, she's written a series of children's fantasy books under her own name (the publisher's promo website - a very good one, too - is at www.janejohnson.eu). Her new novel, Crossed Bones is due to be published by Viking in February next year and so in advance of the launch of the book, Jane has aked me to put together a mini-site at www.janejohnsonbooks.com, which looks a little like this:

The new novel is a saga of high drama and romance, about the lives of two young women: one of whom was captured by Moroccan pirates in the 16th century, the other a modern girl who turns detective when she's given a piece of embroidery that was created by the first girl during her captivity. It should definitely will appeal to anyone who loves historical adventure tales.

Jane asked me to create a site that reflected the themes of captivity and mystery and had a feel for the Moroccan sands, where Jane herself now lives for half the year. Do please let me know what you think of the end result.

I've gone for a much more spacious, clean-looking design than the previous blue, blue and more blue, which I trink was a bit oppressive after a while. So currently the new scheme is predominantly red/grey, but I'm hoping to have a blue and a.n.other variant - with a CSS-based switching mechanism - to follow in due course, for those who prefer something other than red.

Do please let me know what you think, it would be great to get some feedback.

In effect it's a holding page for now; Jay is hard at work on his next book and so doesn't have the time just at the moment for generating additional content for a full site. So this initial page presents a section of information on his first two books, links to Amazon.co.uk for anyone who would like more information on availability and ordering, an email address for fans that would like to get in touch, and an email list sign-up form for folks to register for further updates as they occur.

Do let me know what you think... bearing in mind that minimalism and simplicity were the client's watch-words, is there anything else that ought to be on the page that isn't there? Or does it do the job it sets out to do?