Sandstone Press

The proof of the pudding

Posted by RLD on 11th March 2010

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, or so they say. Books have a different kind of proof and two sets have arrived here at Sandstone Towers over the last few days. It is always a mouth watering moment for the editor after working for so long on a project. It is also a bit of a come-on though, since the proofs do not come in the final form of the book, not even on the same paper. It is another step in the life and an inch closer to actually holding that precious object that can never be altered (and so had better be as good as it can be), and never trumped, that culmination of hopes and dreams, the final tactile, aroma rich stimulant to the imagination, the hard copy book.

Robert Davidson, Sandstone’s Managing Director, spoke at Glasgow’s Aye Write! Festival on Monday last. The subject was our advancing fiction list of Gaelic language novellas. Our author Floraidh MacDonald and the Gaelic Book Council’s able Director, Ian MacDonald, also spoke.The discussion quite naturally advanced to ebooks and Sandstone’s plans in that area. As regular visitors to this web site might have guessed, it has been a long slow process. The efforts, not only ours but also our designers and new colleagues at MPS, will prove worthwhile; that’s for sure.

As you will see in the not too distant future, the Sandstone Press range of ebooks will be rather in advance of those curently being supplied to readers by much larger publishers. In the meantime you can take a flick through a few of the pages on our web site right now. Please do refer to the top of the Home Page for the particular books. We will also have another technical innovation on one of the book pages (which I won’t name yet), again in the not too distant future.

RLD spoke with Hamish Brown on the phone today (Thursday 11th March) and we are very happy to report that he is recovering from his recent hip replacement operation. He is, as he puts it, ‘anxious to get on with life’. We especially wish him a speedy recovery because his coming travels will be in pursuit of a brand new title we will be publishing next year.

A special HELLO to Elisabeth Hill who has commented so positively on Stuart Campbell’s most recent blog, ‘The Letter’. Before you leave the Sandstone Press web site please do take the time to explore, not forgetting to visit our ever changing Blogspot.