77 ways to pack up a house

 Ratty's activities uncannily mirror our own although he looks better organised than we are, with superior technique. Also, his packages seem more interesting than ours. He'll probably store his stuff into the space next to ours: 13 cubic metres for ours; 1.3 for the rat's.

The rat and I are keeping a few small Rosa Mira balls rolling in the mornings and after lunch emptying drawers into boxes/bags/rubbish piles. Focus and decisiveness are fine and elusive things.

This week:

I found an ebook called 77 Ways to Find New Readers for your Self-Published Book. It's hard to imagine an uglier, more utilitarian title but I bought it. And no, RM ebooks are not 'self-published' but apparently the author Laura Pepper Wu is the indie authors' (and small publisher's) marketing goddess. She looks about 21 so I dare say she has her finger on pulses I've failed to detect. Ratty will work his way through her marketing tips, one a day for 77 days, starting tomorrow. Or Monday at the latest.

I discovered this week that Christine Buess who painted the cover image for The Glass Harmonica makes and sells gorgeous patchwork and knitted quilts and throws at her online shop, Swister's.

I can't point you to the Kilmog Press site: they must be too busy with their publishing comeback, producing Starch, Volume One, a NZ literary journal, 84 pages in hard covers. It's certain to be a beautiful collection. Located in Dunedin, New Zealand, Kilmog Press creates small edition, beautifully handmade books. Covers are created from individually hand dyed papers and illustrated with woodblock prints all handcrafted in-house. Kilmog writers are selected for innovative and original poetry and prose, often outside the commercial mainstream.

The Happiest Music on Earth is undergoing its nth formatting tweak and will  make its appearance very soon.

Blown south

Home again, in time to miss the Auckland tornado — except that our applause went north for the brave efforts of our daughter's namesake and sister-in-law who tried valiantly to breathe life into the storm's only mortally wounded victim. Here it's degrees cooler and autumn, without a doubt, today dank, still, and grey — perfect for garden spiders to showcase their cobwebs — clock-faced, hammocked, or tattered — outlined as they are by drizzle.

It's also the perfect day for digging in at the desk. Helen has come up with a lively plan to tease the palate of our readership for Slightly Peculiar Love Stories; Christine Buess is designing the pages of what is now a single document (or will be as soon as I've completed a cheerful, enticing foreword). Sophie, alluded to above, has almost finished manipulating and photographing the funky digital cover.

I saw the film 'Potiche' last night, a French 'screwball comedy' featuring Catherine Deneuve as 'trophy wife' turning MP. Of course it was absurd but Deneuve made convincing portrayal of a woman growing into her own skin, heart, and wider vision. I like to think that Rosa Mira Books is quietly giving some of us opportunities to fill our boots and stride out — whether as writers, publishers, publicists, designers, bloggers, even readers. (I reckon The Glass Harmonica works this way in the reader's imagination, which is why I wanted to publish it; it's a story like fertiliser or taurine, only far more appetising and longer lasting.)

Talking of which, the print on demand version will be available soon (oh 'soon', that slippery little word on which I nonetheless rest one elbow, sometimes two) via Lightning Source (as soon as someone in NZ gets up and running with multiple-outlet POD, let me know, please?) and when the proof version arrives, Dorothee and I will each drink something fizzy and cheer because however nifty and versatile the digital version of a book, to hold the thing itself gives the writer (and publisher) an unparalleled thrill.

Take a look

It's possible that the final paragraph of The Glass Harmonica: A Sensualist's Tale has at last been tweaked to perfection, just in time for the stylist and the proofreader who advance like lawn-mower and garden roller upon the author and editor.

And look!

The cover image was hand-painted by Christine Buess of Longacre Press fame, designed, more or less, from a description of Henry's waistcoat with its pièce de résistance, the tomato, or pomme d'amour.

Dani Wright has cooked up a marketing plan that includes Rosa Mira going seriously online. Soon. The inevitable is imminent and I'm almost ready for it. We have some plans on the front cooker in the U.S. too. Kind of exciting.

Meanwhile, thanks to Helen Heath's weekend reading round-up I've found a couple of expansive articles on Why Readers Hate DRM (digital rights management) and The Future of Publishing Takes Shape on Faber's blog, The Thought Fox. Points pondered in the latter include the editorial process which I am pleased to state will be Rosa Mira's strong suit in an industry that has been forced to reduce its editing TLC in recent years.

It's possible the website will go live this week. You'll hear it first here.