Archive for books for all ages
Ebooks are here to stay!
Posted by: | CommentsNow halfway through our 2011 Christmas Craft Show season, I can safely say that ebooks are here to stay … I actually love them myself and who would have thought!!
We are getting so many requests as to whether our books are available on ebooks (they haven’t had time to read our info sheet yet) or they have noticed it and comment that they will definitely be buying them on Kindle, Kobo, Sony, iPad or their Smartphone. So many options now. I’ve also been able to adjust Robert’s thinking that this is a good thing … except for one thing – we have lots of books in the basement to sell so we’re a long way from switching totally to technology!
With so many books and so many readers that live at a distance from us in the Pacific Northwest in British Columbia, this is definitely the way to go. From our sales reports and the cheques coming in, I know how popular eReaders are first hand. If we can get readers to purchase many books instead of just one (due to their meeting us at a local market then not purchasing again due to high shipping costs), we can only be winners.
A fantastic bonus of ebooks is the ability to make the print larger … far easier on the eyes than using a magnifying glass for those with vision issues. I demonstrate my Kobo’s varying font sizes at the shows and people are amazed. I think we should be selling ereaders too!!
The other bonus for us is that our books will be available to an international audience even when we can no longer sell our paper books at markets. Of course, we’ re hoping this day is a long time in the futu
re, but what do we know!
So please pass the word to all your ebook reading friends who love good historical novels, and we thank you 
What is Historical Fiction?
Posted by: | CommentsWe are constantly amazed when people ask, “What is a historical novel? Is it non-fiction?”
The easy/quick reply is: A novel is always fiction, but a historical novel always contains some component of history.”
According to Wikipedia … “Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional. Writers of stories in this genre, while penning fiction, attempt to capture the manners and social conditions of the persons or time(s) presented in the story, with due attention paid to period detail and fidelity.“
My love of historical fiction began in my mid-20s, then fast-forward 25 years or so to 1990 when I decided to research my family history and discovered my own fascinating links to ‘real history’… Scottish history in particular. This began a new and extremely heightened interest in historical novels, especially those set in the UK and Australia.
I was not to know at the time that in 1998 I would begin a new career as a publisher and that the books I was to publish and later co-author, would be … historical fiction! To date (2011), through our company, Whitlands Publishing, I have published 10 novels for my husband, bestselling author J. Robert Whittle. The first of these was a novel set in London, England during the Napoleonic Wars Lizzie: Lethal Innocence. Lizzie quickly became his first Canadian Bestseller. His fans reacted so loudly to this book, wanting to know what happened to Lizzie next, that it soon had a sequel and another until there were four books (Lizzie Series – shown at left).
Whittle’s fans were instrumental in persuading him to next write yet another historical novel series set in our local area of the Pacific Northwest in Canada and the USA. The first novel was Bound by Loyalty. This series became so popular it exceeded the popularity of the Lizzie Series. This bestselling Victoria Chronicles Trilogy is set in the Pacific Northwest (Canada and USA) and years later, we are still having to reprint due to its popularity.
