The year kicked in this week. I’ve been up every day in the black and freezing early hours, lighting a fire, hitting the gym, then hunkering down at my desk before anyone else is up for breakfast.
Why? Because my biography of Henry V is coming to its conclusion. And as the action cranks up (and my editors tap their pencils suggestively), this is the way I live. Write, raid the fridge, write, sleep, repeat.
[I’m also writing and recording season 4 of This Is History, but that’s just more of the same.]
That said, the postman knocked twice this week, and on each occasion he produced from his van a stack of brown cardboard boxes, flown over to me from the United States.
The first stack of boxes contained paperback copies of my novel Essex Dogs. The second was full of hardback copies of the sequel, Wolves of Winter. The latter comes out in the US on January 30th - an appropriate date for a book whose action centres on a winter siege.
Anyway. Now I’ve got more copies of my own books than I can handle. So I thought it would be nice to sign some, and give them away to subscribers to this newsletter.
Scroll down to find out how to enter.
So here’s the deal. It’s a simple one.
I’m going to send out five copies of Essex Dogs and five copies of Wolves of Winter. I can’t promise fancy bows or neat handwriting, but I’ll sign them, dedicate them, stick a little postcard and a bookmark in the package, etc.
If you would like one of these books, just reply in the comments below with either DOGS or WOLVES, to indicate which book you’d like.
That’s it. Next week I’ll pick five DOGS and five WOLVES comments at random. I’ll email you directly to get your mailing address. (Do not post it below!) Then I’ll mail the relevant book out, to wherever in the world you are.
Is there a catch? Yes, but only a small one. If you want to comment, you have to be a paid subscriber to this newsletter. I feel like that’s fair - paid subscribers keep this thing going, and there have to be a few perks, right? Also, this is going to cost me about £200 in mailing fees. So, you know.
If you’re already a subscriber, just leave a comment. If you want to become a subscriber just hit this button:
Okay, that’s it! Over to you.
Next week, by the way, we’re going to do the January mailbag Q&A thing. I’ll send out a call for questions on Monday/Tuesday, then record a video post with all the answers at the end of the week. Get thinking of what you’d like to talk about!
Have a great weekend,
Dan x
Well this was kind of cool. I'm closing comments now and will email all the winners directly. (I picked the winning names at random, assigning a number to each comment and then using a random number picker to select.)
The screen-names of the winners are...
DOGS: Bree; Sarah; Miranda Secleter; Evol Gazzarato; Gareth Pritchard
WOLVES: Bridgett Odom; Bonnie Petros; Patricia Gothard; Matthew M. Rice; Karen Clark
Since people seemed to like this - and since I still seem to have loads of books - I will run these sort of subscriber giveaway posts more regularly.
Cheers! Dan
Hey Dan,
I've read them both and loved them, so I'll let someone else win those books. Can you help me with something, though? Up until last week, there was a "Gift a Subscription" link for History, Etc. but it seems to be gone -- or at least I cannot find it. Can you tell me how to find it? I want to send an annual subscription to my mother and several one month subscriptions to my friends. I'll pay for the subscriptions, I just cannot find the sign-up page. Thanks Dan!