Katherine Roberts

Life as an author is simple when you have only one published book to your name. It finds your ideal readers (quickly or slowly depending how it has been marketed), and if they like your book then they'll look out for your next one. So you publish a second book, and your ideal readers can now compare it to your first. Hopefully they will like the second book too, and look out eagerly for your third, meanwhile spreading the word about the first two. At this stage, the unicorn would count that reader a fan.... am I right? For writers of adult fiction, this works well enough no matter how long the author takes (within reason) to write and publish their next book. A gap of a few years might even create greater desire among the fanbase for the next one. But for a children's author, things are rather harder. Young readers grow up faster than an author can write. So if a children's autho...

If you're wondering why the unicorn has been silent all week, that's because I have a new book out. (In case you haven't heard me shouting about it online all last month, it's over there on the right.) That means I need to tell people. And the best people to tell are those readers who might enjoy it, so I've been visiting Welsh schools to meet some of them. Wales, a favourite Arthurian location. My tour started in Monmouth last Tuesday with a day at the lovely Haberdashers School for Girls, where I spoke to two groups of Year 7 and signed copies of "Sword of Light" in the library at lunchtime. The unicorn thought this school very impressive with its large building on the hill and cool walkway over the main road. book signing in the library at Haberdashers School From Monmouth we travelled to Barry (Y Barri), and after a small detour following a satnav that took us into the middle of a housing estate ( Muse: never trust a satnav! ) we arrived at ...

If you live in the UK, you still have 15 chances to win a free hardback copy of "Sword of Light", which will be posted direct to you by my publisher Templar. Here's how you can win: TEN copies are going... going... almost gone at Feeling Fictional . You just need to enter your email to win, but the closing date is one minute past midnight on 3rd March so you'd better find your enchanted skates! FIVE copies are on offer in the February competition over at The History Girls . You'll need to work a bit harder for these by naming a fairy horse, but that'll be good practice for the Name the Muse competition coming very soon to give me, the unicorn, a name! While you're over at the History Girls, you can also win a copy of Marie-Louise Jensen's new book "The Girl in the Mask" by naming a highwayman. The closing date for this competition is 7th March. So what are you waiting for? We won't be giving away free books for ever. Sooner or ...