Pan Macmillan is kindly providing 10 copies of Ronan’s Echo as a giveaway through the online book club Goodreads.If you haven’t come across it yet, it’s a great way of keeping track of your reading, and for finding reviews and recommendations for new books. The giveaway is open to members from 1 March to 31 March, so sign up and enter the competition!

Several hot-off-the-press COVERS of Ronan’s Echo arrived in the mail yesterday from Pan Macmillan, and they look even better than the image on screen! The back cover is lovely too. Those cardboard ends holding the pages together are such important things. That old maxim – “Never judge a book by its cover” – might be true for the contents, but the cover is what makes someone lift a book off a shelf and turn it over to see what it’s about. And that’s the crucial 30 seconds you’ve got in which to engage a potential reader.

This time in a writer’s life is one of the most exciting, when the book which you’ve researched and sweated over and worried about for such a long time is about to become real, something you can hold in your hand, and give to someone to read. I can’t wait to see the first copy. It will be available for sale from 25 March in good book stores and on line.

In the meantime, have a look at Goodreads. (I’m a member so sign up and be my friend!) It’s reassuring to discover how many people all over the world are reading, recommending and writing about what they like. No matter how we read, whether on paper or on a screen, the book is definitely not an endangered species.