#Interview – Q&A By Lou with Anne Cater and her #RandomThingsTours as part of Celebrating Blog Tour Organisers @RandomTTours #ReadingCommunity #WritingCommunity #Publishers

Interview/Q&A with Blog Tour Organiser and Blogger –

Anne Cater of Random Things Tours
By Lou at Bookmarks and Stages

As part of the lead up to my blog becoming 5 years old, I am celebrating various people from authors to actors to blog tour organisers. Today I am celebrating Anne Cater, a blog tour organiser of her highly successful and prominent company – Random Things Tours in the form of a Q&A session that gives you all an insight into what a blog tour is, what inspired her to go in this direction and how she goes about doing things, including what an average day looks like for her and the ups and downs. The answers are illuminating and highly interesting. Her route is unusual, and I rather like this, since so is mine. You will also see where you can find Anne Cater and what she offers below.

Anne Cater is the second blog tour organiser who took me onto her list of bloggers, way back when I first started blogging, which I am always grateful for with the review opportunities with great books from various publishers that still come my way. I will say, from a blogger’s point of view for what is required from being on her list, everything runs professionally. smoothly, fairly and she is approachable and it remains a pleasure doing business with her.

Without further ado, let us commence with the Q&A.

What or whom inspired you to become, not only a book blogger, but also a blog tour organiser?I always think of myself as a reviewer/blogger first. That’s how I started and I will never stop reviewing books and blogging about them.My route to becoming a blog tour organiser was a little unusual.Around seven or eight years ago I was at a book event in Nottingham organised by No Exit Press. I’d been reviewing their books for years. The publicity manager approached me and asked me if I’d consider organising a blog tour for them. It wasn’t something that I’d ever considered, but I have a background in Admin and knew that it was something that I’d like to try. That tour was a success and I’ve been organising tours for No Exit ever since.

I’ve worked with Karen Sullivan, the owner of Orenda Books since before Orenda was born, when she worked for another publisher. Karen asked me if I’d like to take over the organisation of the Orenda Blog Tours and I jumped at the chance. I’ve been doing those ever since too.

I didn’t intend to branch out but was asked by Judith O’Reilly to organise a blog tour for her independently published book. I had no idea what to charge and just plucked a figure out of my head. The tour was a success and Judith is now traditionally published.

That’s how it started, and I now organise around 30 – 40 blog tours each month for publishers and also directly for authors.

For those who don’t know, what is a blog tour organiser?

A Blog Tour organiser is exactly what it says on the tin! We organise a tour that focusses on one book (or a series of books). The book will appear on a number of blogs for a set amount of time.

Our job is to ensure that we get the right bloggers for the book. We make sure that the bloggers receive a copy of the book, create a schedule and then send out a media pack. We also share all of the blog tour posts on every tour.

What does a typical day look like for you?

When I first started this job, I already had another job, so blog tour organising was usually done later in the day/evening and at weekends.
In October 2020 I went full time as a blog tour organiser.
My average day begins at around 8am.

Every day I will share the blog tour posts for the day, and any that were posted later the previous evening.
I will go through to find any missing posts and contact the individual blogger with a reminder that they agreed to post on that day.

The remainder of my day is dealing with hundreds of emails. Creating new tours and sending out invitations. Sending out quotations to publishers and authors etc.

I try to finish by 6pm each day.

What are the benefits of going to a blog tour organiser for both author and publisher and for a blogger signing up to be part of a tour?

I think that the big publishers find it really convenient to be able to use blog tour organisers. Publicists have a massive job to do, and a blog tour is just a tiny part of the publicity machine, but for a blog tour organiser, it is their main focus, so they will get a truly dedicated service.

Blog tour organisers know most of their bloggers really well. They know what time of day they will post their slot on the tour, they know their genre preferences and they know if they will read digitally.

An author or publisher can hand over the whole thing to the organiser, without having to worry about getting the bloggers to take part, the organiser will do all of the work.

I think bloggers all have different reasons for signing up for tours. Everyone is different. I know some bloggers feel incentivised to read a book that they may already own by having a particular date to post, that’s certainly one of my main reasons for taking part in a tour as a blogger.

I also know that some bloggers really dislike blog tours, and that’s absolutely fine too. There’s room for everyone

Why should people choose you in-particular?

I do find this question quite difficult! I work really closely with some other organisers, especially Rachel Gilbey, Zoe O Farrell, Tracy Fenton and the Bookouture team. They are all fabulous at what they do.

I’d suggest that authors and publishers should look at tours that I’ve already done, to see if I cover the genre that they want to tour.

Every single tour is treated in the same way by me. It doesn’t matter if it’s a debut self-published author, or an author who has had multiple best-selling novels, they all get the same service.

What are the upsides and downsides of being a blog tour organiser?

The upsides far outweigh the downsides!
What I love best is that I am my own boss. I choose when I work, and who I work with.
Working with books, and being a tiny part of a book’s journey is an honour and a pleasure. It’s something that I always dreamt about, but never ever imagined actually doing.

The positive feedback from authors and publishers is wonderful too. Helping to launch a book is a fabulous thing to be involved with.

I’ve made a lot of friends whilst doing this job, that’s such a bonus too.

Downsides few, but very frustrating!

Occasionally, I am not able to pull together a blog tour, for various reasons and I hate having to let an author know this.

I am fortunate to work on some hugely popular books and having to tell bloggers that the tour is full is one of the things that I hate the most. Some books are so popular that I have to turn away 40 or so bloggers and every time I send that ‘sorry’ email, I am sad.

Chasing bloggers who don’t post on their date is another time consuming job that I really hate. I’m really approachable, I think most of my bloggers know this and a little advance warning of a non-post, or late post is welcome
Over the years there have been bloggers who’ve arrived, committed to a tour, taken a book and then disappeared, never to be seen again.
I HATE this. It looks so bad, for me and for bloggers in general and I really wish it didn’t happen.

Oh, spoilers! Spoilers in reviews are a huge no-no!

Where can people find you?

Twitter @annecater

Email : anne.lcdp@hotmail.co.uk
https://randomthingsthroughmyletterbox.blogspot.com/p/services-to-publishers-authors-blog.html

Thank you Anne for your time in giving an interview to me – Lou at Bookmarks and Stages.

#Review By Lou of This Could Be Everything By Eva Rice @EvaRiceAuthor @simonschusterUK @simonschusterPR @RandomTTours #ThisCouldBeEverything #1990 #ContemporaryFiction #Music #1990Vibe

This Could Be Everything
By Eva Rice

Transport yourself back to the 1990’s with This Could Be Everything. It even ups the ante with a QR code containing the sound tracks of the era. Discover the blurb and my review below as today I close the Random T. Tours blog tour.

Blurb

From the author of modern classic The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets comes a feel-good novel about hope, love and the powerful bond between sisters.

It’s 1990. The Happy Mondays are in the charts, a 15-year-old called Kate Moss is on the cover of the Face magazine, and Julia Roberts wears thigh-boots for the poster for a new movie called Pretty Woman.

February Kingdom is nineteen years old when she is knocked sideways by family tragedy. Then one evening in May she finds an escaped canary in her kitchen and it sparks a glimmer of hope in her. With the help of the bird called Yellow, Feb starts to feel her way out of her own private darkness, just as her aunt embarks on a passionate and all-consuming affair with a married American drama teacher.

THIS COULD BE EVERYTHING is a coming-of-age story with its roots under the pavements of a pre-Richard Curtis-era Notting Hill that has all but vanished. It’s about what happens when you start looking after something more important than you, and the hope a yellow bird can bring…

Review

The year is 1990. I was in the middle of my young childhood. It wasn’t until just a few years later, I would hit my teens, however, I was very aware of the music and film scene in 1990. It was pre-Richard Curtis era (thankfully as I was way too young to watch anything he produced). This Could Be Everything, well, 1990 had that vibe and as a young child realising the earth wasn’t about to spin off its axis and we didn’t fall off the cliff edge, it may well have been everything (I was an imaginative child alright). . I was also a teen in the 90’s and she captures that vibe well of music and fashion and the wider world well.

This Could Be Everything is nostalgic for anyone who lived through it, after all, who wasn’t aware of Kate Moss or Pretty Woman? It was an era of change, of innovations we see and use today and it had a certain grit.
This book is a must to relive it and also listen to the music tracks in the QR code within the book to get you in the mood, just for fun. Revisit New Kids on the Block, Kylie Minogue, The Blues Brothers, Madonna, Erasure and many more. The ingenious QR code in the book links into the list on Spotify. I really liked this idea.

February Kingdom, aged nineteen also lived through 1990 and it captures that belief of This Could Be Everything type feeling well. This is her take on the year and one where she was coming of age. Turns out humans then aren’t so different from now with tragedies and life continuing on through the darkness. Readers see February’s life and how it tumbled, first with her losing both parents when she was younger and secondly with her losing her twin sister. Just as you think this is going to be an emotionally grim book, it turns out not to be so. February has a lot to deal with on top of the usual stuff of trying to find your place in the world when you step into adulthood and the wider world, but this book has a sunny disposition, not only in the way it is nostalgically written, but in the hope. February comes across a sunny, yellow canary that has flown into her house, whom belongs to Theo, called Yellow. Yellow becomes like a companion, which helps her to navigate life, including grief and makes her want to try to find a future and that light at the end of the tunnel. It shows that things do and can change even when you don’t think it can and as a reader it is easy to root for February.

The book vividly encapsulates its reader, whisking back to 1990 well and what it’s like at that turning point of really growing up. It is a slow burn, but it is well worth sticking with. It is intense at times and lighthearted at times, It’ll take you on a great journey of both nostalgia and the depth of life and all that’s thrown at it.

I totally recommend you get the book, put on the tunes and read!

Thanks to Simon and Schuster for the book, for which I enjoyed a talk about last year and for Random T. Tours for inviting me to review on the blog tour.

#Review By Lou of A Little Piece Of Mind By Giles Paley-Phillips @eliistender10 @unbounders @RandomTTours #ALittlePieceOfMind #BlogTour

A Little Piece Of Mind
By Giles Paley-Phillips

Today I am on the blog tour with a review for A Little Piece of Mind by award winning author and podcaster of Blank Podcast – Giles Paley- Phillips. Thanks to Unbound and Random T. Tours for inviting me to review.

Blurb

From award-winning author Giles Paley-Phillips, this haunting verse novel follows Hobs, a young man struggling to navigate his own mind and the increasingly mysterious affairs he encounters in his supposedly idyllic suburban home town.
When Jenni, the girl of his dreams, suddenly disappears, Hobs finds himself on the trail of Mike Bilk, a charismatic businessman-turned-politician whose alleged role in a local tragedy points to greater questions of political greed and corruption.

As time begins to lose its shape, Hobs is left to piece together his fragmented memories while battling the disorienting anguish of adolescent love and infatuation. With reality crumbling around him, Hobs must confront the possibility that there’s no one left he can trust – least of all himself.

Review

The story cuts and makes you involuntarily take a sharp-intake of breath! Then Hobs, short for Hobart appears…
Think verse books are just for children or students of Shakespeare? Think again. This is becoming a bit of a trend, re-emerging in adult books and they are very good and bring a different freshness, as this one does to contemporary fiction.

A Little Piece Of Mind tells a story of Hobs and through short verses, an entire story is created, so it’s useful for readers with little time on their hands as it’s easy to dip in and out, or, in this case, read perhaps more than what you first intended as the verses enthrall as the story builds and builds and also because they are short.

A Little Piece of Mind allows readers into the mind and life of Hobs. It’s a beautifully written book, showing his mental state and his life of finding the girl of his dreams – Jenni; where the story moves along and it shows a bit about her relationship with her mother. Readers see and feel the emotion of Hobs when Jenni goes mysteriously missing. You can feel and see the urgency and desire of Hobs to see Jenni again. The writing becomes quite intense in places. The pain is there and feels real for Hobs as aspects of life seem to swirl around him as he pieces bits of what is going on together.
Hot-shot – Mike Bilk is quite the high profile character, who he ends up on the trail of. He’s an intruguing character with quite a lot of influence and power, for readers to get to know.

A Little Piece of Mind captures something quite cerebral on one-hand and on the other, sheer emotion and characters to get your teeth into and also care about in this pacey book that creates a desire to keep turning the pages to see what happens next.

#BookReview By Lou of The Family Man By Kimberley Chambers @kimbochambers @HarperCollinsUK #RandomTTours #GangsterCrime #CrimeFiction #GangsterFiction

The Family Man
By Kimberley Chambers

Spectacular and mightily gritty with a fast pace. This is slick gangster crime with edge, at its best!
Thanks to Random Things Tours for inviting me to review and to Harper Collins for providing an exquisite Limited Gold Edition of the book. Follow down to find out more in the blurb and the rest of my review below…

Blurb

A brand-new series from the queen of gritty crime

A fascinating interviewee and a brilliant raconteur, Kimberley has appeared on BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio 4 Saturday Live, Loose Ends and Front Row, BBC Radio 2 Graham Norton and the Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio…

MEET THE BONDS…
Kenny Bond is finally out of prison after doing a long stretch for killing a copper, and is determined to get back to life on the straight and narrow. He’s got a lot of time to make up for, he’s missed his beloved wife, Sharon, and his family is growing up fast.
A FAMILY LIKE NO OTHER…
Kenny’s son Donny might lack his father’s edge but his twin grandsons, Beau and Brett – well, they are Bonds through and through. Like him, they won’t let anyone stand in their way.
BUT THEY’RE ABOUT TO MEET THEIR MATCH…
Family comes before everything else for Kenny. There’s nothing he won’t do for them. But there are enemies from his past he can’t shake off, and a family feud is brewing. Kenny’s determined that nothing, and no one, will threaten his family. But can the Bond family stick together when someone’s out to take them down?

Review

The Family Man is fast-paced and enthralling. It’s full of grit and pulls readers into the authenticity of the underground of a gangland family.

The Family Man tells the story of The Bond family throughout the 1980’s and into the 1990’s. For a gangster family you really get the sense of those family bonds and the whole juxtopositions that is especially embodied in Kenny, who is a gangster and murderer, yet really cares about his family. Don’t be mistaken, there is nothing that is cosy and warm as such. This book feels authentic in language and situations used. It has bags of intense grit that builds from Wormwood Scrubs and throughout the book.

The bonds between the family are put to the test and there’s someone after them… It puts into question how far someone will go to protect their family, even in the gangland world.

It’s interesting reading how Sharon, a devoted wife to Kenny Bond, really feels about things as she has spent so much time standing by her man, even though he was banged up in prison. The relationships in this family and strong feelings really come through in this, at times, visceral book.

There, even in such an underground of life, is emotion in many ways, felt by the characters, simmering away, but all the while, in the forefront is that knowledge they are gangsters. The family feud that brews and betrayal, adds another level of intensity and grit.

About the Author

A truly unforgettable character, Kimberley injects authenticity into her gritty gangland crime novels set around the east end. She came to writing later in life, having worked as a street trader (being promoted from tea girl to sales when she rugby-tackled a shoplifter), a DJ and a cabbie.
Fed up of scraping a living, she set her mind to writing a novel, despite being laughed at by friends and family, who dubbed her ‘a female Del-Boy’. But with her creative mind, colourful life experiences and memorable covering letter (‘Take a chance on me, you won’t regret it. This time next year I’ll be wearing Prada, not Primark’), she quickly had five agents knocking at her door and a publishing contract. Fifteen novels and three Sunday Times number ones later, she’s top of her game and an incredible inspiration.
Join Kimberley’s legion of legendary fans facebook.com/kimberleychambersofficial on and
@kimbochambers on Twitter.

The Great Silence by Doug Johnstone @doug_johnstone @OrendaBooks #RandomTTours #TheSkelfs #TheGreatSilence #CrimeFiction

The Great Silence
by Doug Johnstone

The Great Silence is the latest book in The Skelfs series. They are back. Thanks to Random T. Tours for inviting me to the blog tour and to Orenda Books for gifting me the e-book. Find out more about this Edinburgh based crime book in the blurb and my review below.

Blurb

Keeping on top of the family funeral directors’ and private investigation businesses is no easy task for the Skelf women, and when matriarch Dorothy discovers a human foot while walking the dog, a perplexing case presents itself.
Daughter Jenny and grand-daughter Hannah have their hands full too: the mysterious circumstances of a dying woman have led them into an unexpected family drama, Hannah’s new astrophysicist colleague claims he’s receiving messages from outer space, and the Skelfs’ teenaged lodger has a devastating experience.
Nothing is clear as the women are immersed ever deeper in their most challenging cases yet. But when the daughter of Jenny’s violent and fugitive ex-husband goes missing without trace and a wild animal is spotted roaming Edinburgh’s parks, real danger presents itself, and all three Skelfs are in peril.
Taut, dark, warmly funny and unafraid to ask big questions – of us all – The Great Silence is the much-anticipated third instalment in the addictive, unforgettable Skelfs series.

Review

It is great to be reunited with Dorothy, Jenny and Hannah, of whom each have a chapter dedicated to them and it rotates through them until the end of the story. It starts with a nose-wrinkling moment with Dorothy and her collie dog – Einstein. It’s definitely a most unexpected opener.

The Skelf family own a funeral business in Edinburgh, but also there are investigations to conduct. This isn’t your usual funeral parlour, this is one where investigations also occur, so it’s quite a lot for the Skelf’s to juggle.

In a way, like previous books in this series, it presents itself as something a bit more genteel, but when you get into the detail, nestling amongst some humour and the beauty and fun of Edinburgh and its surrounding areas, such as Leith and Portobello including the zoo and Cramond, (which Doug Johnstone adeptly leads his readers round), it’s actually quite dark and full of mystery. There seems to be many mysterious deaths that turn up in the mortuary; there is one presenting with no clear cause of death or DNA match. There are also mysterious limbs by Leith, not necessarily matching up with each other. There’s mystery and black humour in the way it is written, including some strange embalming.

Nothing is straight forward and some people aren’t either, as Hannah’s got a new colleague who is an astrophysicist and absolutely convinced there are aliens. To add to this strangeness, there may be a mystery surrounding a big cat. As well as mysterious deaths, there is also grief, high emotion, much tension and family dramas; it’s a story of multi-layers that also sees the Skelf’s in danger and a lot of life questions and contemplations about life, religion and more, being questioned are considered.

About The Author

Doug Johnstone is the author of twelve previous novels, most recently The Big Chill (2020). Several of his books have been bestsellers and three, A Dark Matter (2020), Breakers (2019) and The Jump (2015), were shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year.
He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions over the last decade – including at a funeral parlour ahead of writing A Dark Matter – and has been an arts journalist for over twenty years. Doug is a songwriter and musician with five albums and three solo EPs released, and he plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of crime writers. He’s also player-manager of the Scotland Writers Football Club. He lives in Edinburgh. Follow Doug on Twitter @doug_johnstone and visit his website: dougjohnstone.com.

#BookReview by Lou – The Boy Who Couldn’t by R. Coverdale @RLCoverdale #RandomTTours #TheBoyWhoCouldn’t #InternationalFriendshipDay #8-12yearolds #ChildrensBooks #PrimarySchool #Nature #Badgers

The Boy Who Couldn’t
by R. Coverdale

The Boy Who Couldn’t is a positive story that is perfect for 8-12 year olds, that is great for the home and for school, with highly relevant and teachable themes.
School Resources are available and there is also a fun quiz at the back of the book.
Find out more in the blurb and review below. There is also fascinating information about the author after that too, as well as website and social media links for her and the Badger Trust.

Blurb

The school bully is the only one who can save them.

James’ life has been turned upside down and now the local bully has made him a target. So why would his mother insist he should invite him over? Especially when they’re hiding a secret badger clan at the bottom of the garden.

Now the badgers are under threat from a gang with fighting dogs and the badgers aren’t the only ones in peril.

Danger is approaching and it will make the most unlikely of heroes.

A story about becoming the person you can be, not the person you are expected to be.

Review

The chapters go between James and Greg, beginning with James, who is in the middle of a real life drama, he didn’t expect to be in and his parents are in some financial trouble. It is however his 11th birthday and is a home with love in it and fun. His dad is into adventures and wildlife and home life is quite stable. He’s quite inspirational and takes time with his son, teaching him about badgers and they build a badger sett with Ahmed. Older children and young adults may be inspired to get into the outdoors and create dens, learn about wildlife and nature and have fun along the way.

When readers meet Greg for the first time, he is just turning 13. His parents are also having some issues, as does Greg himself, but finds being amongst nature calms him down. His homelife is, in complete contrast the James’s homelife, more unstable, and where he feels rather invisible to his parents, and his dad has been in prison, but he does have Uncle Kev, who shows him different things and pays him attention, when he visits.

James and Ahmed come from better off backgrounds than Greg does and different places, Greg from an estate and the other 2 boys not. They do however meet in the woodland, even though they feel awkward and Greg can be a bully, plus there are just differences because of their circumstances.

The book deals with bullying and what Greg feels like when he is the one who is frightened and James and Ahmed are showing bravery, instead of how it used to be the other way round, but in the end it is Greg who also has to show some courage when men come and start capturing badgers with their dogs, even though he initially freezes. There’s much trepidation and so much that will have children gasp and have them gripped. There are twists and turns as human and badger lives are put in danger. There’s also courage of a different kind, which is turning your life around for the better…

It has the absolute best of endings that will have everyone smiling by then.

Children will either be able to relate or they can empathise with people who’s home lives are perhaps similar or different from their own. It also shows how families can be different from each other, which encourages this empathy and understanding, as well as how very different people can end up in friendships, even when it doesn’t seem it would be likely due to life circumstances. It also encourages care for wildlife, in-particular, badgers. It also really highlights wildlife crime too.

At the back of the book, there is a True or False Quiz that readers can do for fun or in a classroom setting, that will enhance their understanding of what they’ve just read. In addition to this, there are also teacher resources that can be obtained, so it can be used in depth in schools.

There is a website at the back of the book, I’ll also include here, for The Badger’s Trust, for those interested.
www.badgertrust.org.uk
The author is also responsible and has included info about what to do if children/young adults do ever find themselves in danger in the UK and also the number for Childline: 0800 1111

About the Author

Rachel Coverdale was born and bred in the beautiful North Yorkshire countryside in North East England. Raised with copious amounts of animals but without the distraction of a modern TV set, she turned to books and her own imagination for entertainment. Animals were and still are a huge part of her life and inevitably they made their way into her stories. Believing strongly in fresh air, nature and outdoor play to give children a sense of fun and freedom, Rachel uses her books to encourage children to connect with nature and venture into the countryside.

Having taught as an English teacher for many years and now settled happily into the role of school librarian, Rachel ensures all her books are not only creative, imaginative and exciting, but also of great educational benefit. Teaching resources and a scheme of work are available for “The Boy Who Couldn’t”.

Rachel is regularly featured on BBC Radio Tees Book Hour with Bob Fischer and Shack discussing and reviewing her latest reads. She also travels her native North East England paying visits to Primary and Secondary schools, giving talks on her books and about the importance of nature and the environment they live in.