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 In
the summer of 2006, a mainstream London publisher told Hazel
Mary Martell that her novel, The Dreamchasers, was
“certainly written to publication standard,” but
he didn’t want to make an offer on it. At the same time,
her home town of Morley, West Yorkshire, was planning its first
Literature Festival and she wasn’t invited, despite being
the town’s second-best-known author. (The best-known is
Helen Fielding of Bridget Jones’s Diary fame.)
Feeling miffed at being both rejected and forgotten, when she
had over 40 published books to her name, Hazel decided to turn
two negatives into a positive and publish The Dreamchasers herself.
She already knew a bit about printing and publishing from her
ten years as editor of the Northern Mine Research Society, but
quickly found out more from the internet and from two superb
books on the subject. These were Publishing and Promoting Your
Book by Pauline Rowson (ISBN 9 780954 804534) and How To Publish
Your Own Book by Anna Crosbie (ISBN 9 781845 281069), both of
which she would highly recommend to anyone thinking of publishing
their own book.
Wanting a name for the new imprint, Hazel chose Thorn Tree Publishing
partly because The Dreamchasers is set mainly in Yorkshire
and the hawthorn tree is such a potent symbol of the windswept
hills and moors of the county, but also in honour of her favourite
book, Wuthering Heights, in the first chapter of which the narrator
says: “…one may guess the power of the north wind
blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted
firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns
all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the
sun.”
Hazel then decided to market The Dreamchasers as “A
Yorkshire Romance” and, to prove she bore no grudge over
not being invited to the first Morley Literature Festival, she
launched the book in the town’s library on Valentine’s
Day, 2007, in the company of the Mayor and Mayoress, as well
as friends and family.
With The Dreamchasers selling steadily, Hazel is now
writing her second Yorkshire Romance, titled Where Two Worlds
Meet, which she plans to publish in the summer of 2009.
A third Yorkshire Romance, titled A Heart Alone, will
follow. Excerpts from all three Yorkshire Romances appear on
the Our Books page. |
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