The Pointless Rules of English: it’s here!

The Pointless Rules of English and How to Follow Them is now out in the world, available today for £12 on Amazon or through your local bookstore.

Today is the day – The Pointless Rules of English and How to Follow Them is now out in the world!

TPROE_FinalCover_Solo_v002_M

We hope to see you in London today, where author Lindsey and Antonica of Ink & Locket Press will be cheering on the book at the Poetry Café in Covent Garden, 3–6pm. And don’t forget about next Saturday’s one-week birthday parties in Manchester and Weston-super-Mare!

 

A bookless book launch

The night before our London release party, the boxes of books still haven’t made their way here. Unless, by some stroke of magic or luck, the books arrive in the early hours tomorrow, the London book launch will be without books – pretty much the worst option for a book launch party. 

However! We hope those of you who were planning to come will still celebrate the book release with Lindsey Williams and Ink & Locket! She will be at the Poetry Café as planned, 3–6pm, and is ready to talk about grammar, share her favourite language facts, play some board games, and celebrate in giddy relief that the long-awaited grammar book can finally be bought on Amazon or ordered through your local bookstore.

M. Amelia Eikli will be waiting eagerly by the door, ready to jump straight on a train should the books arrive in time to catch the end of the party. She’ll also be on twitter (#TPROE) to celebrate with you there.

 

 

Come celebrate with us!

The much-anticipated The Pointless Rules of English and How to Follow Them is dropping into the world next week, and we’d love you to join us for the launch – and its one-week birthday!

On Saturday 15th September, join both authors in London at the Poetry Cafe from 3pm to 6pm. You can buy your copy of the book, hot off the press, and hang out with other grammar lovers. Entry is completely free, and food and drink will be available to purchase. We’d love for you to click ‘Going’ on our Facebook event so we know we’re bringing enough books!

On Saturday 22nd September, Lindsey Williams will be celebrating the book’s one-week birthday at the Crompton’s Bar and Tea Lounge at The Britannia Hotel Manchester from 3pm to 6pm. If you didn’t get the book in London, now’s your chance. Some snacks will be provided, and food and drink will be available for purchase. Please let us know if you’ll be there by clicking ‘Going’ on this Facebook event.

Also on Saturday 22nd September, M. Amelia Eikli will be celebrating the book’s one-week birthday at The Stable creative hub in Weston-super-Mare from 12pm to 3pm.  If you didn’t get the book in London, and you aren’t going to Manchester, this is your moment! Please let us know if you’ll be there by clicking ‘Going’ on this Facebook event.

We hope to see you at one of the parties!

Ink & Locket Press

The Pointless Rules of English: cover reveal!

Ever wonder why English is the way it is? Why it’s ‘whom’, not ‘who’; ‘Jefferson and I’, not ‘me and Jefferson’? Do you long to understand what a future perfect progressive tense is?

CoverLaunch_002

We’re thrilled to finally show off The Pointless Rules of English and How to Follow Them, the Ink & Locket grammar book holding all of these answers and more. Its cover comes from the fantastic Jonny Eveson – don’t you just want to read it immediately?

The Pointless Rules of English

Out 15th September 2018, The Pointless Rules of English and How to Follow Them is an approachable introduction to English grammar, featuring a short history of the language and concrete tips on how to improve your writing. As well as clearing up once and for all how to pluralise the word ‘octopus’, the guide takes a look at rhetoric, sentence structure and writing inclusively in the 21st Century.

Celebrate with us

Don’t forget, we’ll be launching the book into the world on Saturday 15th September in London (details to come) with events to follow in Bristol and Manchester. But before that, you’re invited to a livestream on Saturday 8th September with our lovely authors, Lindsey Williams and M. Amelia Eikli.

Sign up to our newsletter to find out more about the livestream, and keep an eye out for more news!

Amelia and Antonica
Ink & Locket Press

Our grammar book has a release date!

Have you ever wanted to know more about grammar and effective writing? Well, you’re in luck, because the book about exactly that will be with you September 15th!

Since our first update, it has undergone a name change, but The Pointless Rules of English is almost ready for your bookshelves.

This book is a collaboration between author, translator and writing coach M. Amelia Eikli, and editor and reluctant internet person Lindsey Williams. They’ll take you through the history of the English language, tell you all you need to know about grammar, and give you some great tips on improving your own writing – from quick lessons on building strong sentences to a whole section dedicated to writing inclusively.

Join the party

Coming up, we’ve got a livestream where the authors will talk about the book and answer your questions (date to come!), and not one, not two, but three release parties.

On Saturday 15 September, join us in London for the launch celebrations.

On Saturday 22 September, Amelia will celebrate in Bristol while Lindsey celebrates in Manchester.

Details of all three parties to be confirmed soon, so watch this space.

We hope you’re as excited as we are to see this book out in the world.

Amelia and Antonica
Ink & Locket Press

End-of-year updates

If you follow us on any social media, you may have noticed it has been quiet from the Ink & Locket camp for a while. An unplanned move across the country and long-term illness has meant most of our projects have moved along slowly, and some have been put on hold. Here is an update on our current projects at the end of the year: 

An Unlock-it Guide to Grammar and Better Writing

The grammar book written by Lindsey Williams and M. Amelia Eikli is on its way! Our patient authors have now had their book postponed for over a year, but it will soon be out in the world, with cover art by Jonny Eveson. This funny and informative book will be published in 2018, exact date to be announced!

WARRIOR anthology Kickstarter perks

The perks from the Kickstarter have been fulfilled, with one exception. Getting this LGBT short story collection into schools and libraries has proved a bit more difficult than expected, and we’re still working on placing them all. We expect this to be completed early next year.

WARRIOR anthology stretch goals

The audiobook is not yet produced. There are a couple of reasons for this, but the most important reason is that we really want the voice actors to be members of the LGBT community themselves. As we are no longer London-adjacent, getting all the puzzle pieces to fit together is difficult, but we’re confident the audiobook will be smashing when it’s done.

The sponsored writing course spots for young underrepresented voices will be fulfilled by Storywelling in the first half of next year. We will start the application process in February – look out on our twitter and on this page for more information then!

Submissions

Our submissions window will be closed until further notice.

From all of us at Ink & Locket Press, we wish you happy holidays, a nice and cuddle-filled winter, and an exciting new year!

The hardcovers are here! (And a note about mistakes)

Finally – after months of delays – the WARRIOR hardcovers are here, and they are gorgeous. We got everything we wanted: individual cover pages, a ribbon bookmark and a lovely storybook cover.

They will be sent out on Monday and Tuesday, and should be with the Warriors of the Rare Edition shortly. We’ve been told that it will be an estimated 10 days for our backers in the US, and 2-3 days for our UK backers.

Thank you so much to all of you that have rated the book online, and tweeted and talked about it. This makes us and our authors really happy, and we are so pleased to see how a community is developing around the anthology and the authors who contributed to it.

The hardcovers

In two weeks, we’ll also open applications for spots on the short story writing course that you generously sponsored places for. There are already people interested, and we are so thankful that you’ve given us the opportunity to do support more underrepresented writers.

A note on mistakes

As this part of the project has been so delayed, one of those involved has raised concerns about the author remuneration. Here, we have clearly done a poor job both in keeping our authors updated, but also in keeping the lines of communications open with our backers about what was holding up this reward.

We thought we would tell you a little bit about the mistakes we’ve made in this campaign and process:

When we set up this campaign, we wanted to split between the authors whatever was left when all our expenses (shipping, printing, distribution, production, etc.) were paid. Our thinking was that this would leave the authors with more money than a fixed sum would get them, and that paying all the expenses would be a relatively brief process after the close of the campaign. On the second point, we were wrong.

What we hadn’t accounted for was what would happen in the face of such serious delays or issues in the production. And a lot has happened! The paperback was delayed, the hardcover was delayed and then turned up with a printing error on the cover, the terms of the shipping estimate changed along the way, and then the size of the hardcover changed, shifting up the prices one more time. Suddenly, months passed, and we could still not give a better estimate for when our authors would get paid than “as soon as the hardcovers go out”.

After a while, we kept holding off on giving new updates (and what we felt kept being false promises) until we had received final information from our printers. And, as they were struggling with a production backlog of their own, we kept getting new updates about delays from their side.

We painted ourselves into a corner.

In hindsight, we should have paid out the lowest sum we thought the authors would receive for WARRIOR, and rather send out a “bonus” at the end of production. But, as we kept thinking the hardcovers would go out “next week”, we didn’t.

Now, the hardcovers are going out, which will give us the final sum for shipping, open the window to fix the terms for the audiobook and pay our authors. All our authors will receive their remuneration on May 20th.

We are really sorry for the stress and discomfort this has caused our authors, who have had to wait in uncertainty of when their payment would arrive. We would also like to apologise for the extra stress our lack of communication in the past two weeks has caused, and we wish we had handled this differently.

Here is what we will do next time to make sure this never happens again:

  • We will set a fixed sum the authors will receive upon completion of a successful campaign.
  • We will split and send out a “leftover bonus” once all the rewards have been shipped.
  • Next time, we will set a slightly more ambitious campaign goal, but use paid professionals where we can along the production chain to minimise the risk of delays on our end.
  • We will have proof copies of the work produced before the campaign is ready, so that everything is ready to go upon completion.

Thank you for all your patience and kindness in this process. We have told our authors today that all of these delays would have been disastrous if it hadn’t been for their patience, but the patience of our backers has also been phenomenal.

We are so excited for you to see the hardcover, and to give you more information about the audiobook this summer.

With gratitude,

Amelia and Antonica
Ink & Locket Press

Backer rewards and official release: WARRIORS out in the world!

WARRIOR on Kindle is now available for preorder! 

As we prepare to round off the last batch of Kickstarter reward shipments – the gorgeous special-edition hardcovers! – here’s the latest news on the WARRIOR anthology and its upcoming world release.

Kickstarter reward progress

Out in the world:

  • All backer paperbacks! If you’ve not yet received yours yet, it should be with you in a matter of days.
  • All backer ebooks and digital bundles!

Up next:

  • Special-edition hardcovers! We expect to ship these within the next week.
  • The audiobook! This will take priority once the remaining physical rewards have been fulfilled. We can’t wait!
  • The short-story writing course! Thanks to your support during the Kickstarter campaign, we secured 30 spots on an upcoming writing course for young marginalised voices. Course details will be released soon, alongside us opening applications for these spots. To be the first to know when applications open, sign up to our newsletter!

WARRIOR launch: 3 April

WARRIOR is right now available for kindle preorder, and will be available in paperback and ebook formats via Amazon from 3 April!

Text: WARRIOR, a collection of short stories: out 3 April

[Text: WARRIOR, a collection of short stories: out 3 April]

Join us on the day to celebrate the release! Tweet your friends and favourite bloggers using the hashtag #WARRIORantho to let them know these amazing stories are now available for all to enjoy!

Already read the book? We want to know what you thought! Did one story give you the shivers; did another inspire you to take on the world? Post your review on Goodreads to help spread the book to others and, come 3 April, be sure to review WARRIOR on Amazon, too! Writing a review on your blog? Send it our way – we’d love to share it with the world!

It’s been a rollercoaster getting this far, and we couldn’t have done any of it without you wonderful people. Thank you again for all of your support!

Amelia and Antonica
Ink & Locket Press

Presenting: The Unlock-it Guide to Grammar and Better Writing!

We are excited to announce the first of our upcoming Unlock-it series of non-fiction books:

Ink & Locket Press is proud to present
The Unlock-it Guide to Grammar and Better Writing!

Your friend in all things grammar

The book will be released on 12 June, available as an ebook and paperback. It aims to be an approachable yet detailed introduction to grammar and a helpful guide to better writing. It will offer easy ways to improve your writing, a guide to academic essays and papers, and a whole chapter on inclusive writing.

That’s right! In addition to clearing up once and for all when (and why) you should use ‘who’ and ‘whom’, the guide will provide tips on how to write inclusive copy, how to deal with teachers who won’t let you use ‘they’ as a singular pronoun, and why writing ‘trans*’ is more than just a matter of punctuation.

Meet the writers

This book is a creative collaboration between Lindsey Williams and M Amelia Eikli.

Lindsey Williams is a magazine editor and linguist living in London. She is also an active “internet person” who regularly tweets about food, books, social justice and happy dogs over at @pottermoosh. Does the username sound familiar? You may know her from her YouTube channel, where you can get a sneak preview of her love for language.

M Amelia Eikli is one half of the team behind Ink & Locket Press, a linguist, and a passionate creative-writing instructor. If you want a taste of her voice, you can find her over at her newly launched writing hub, Storywelling or on Twitter. She has been on just about every side of the publishing industry and has a passion for language that borders on the dangerous.

Are there any topics you hope the Unlock-it guide will cover? Let us know in the comments below!

The warriors are coming! (and other news)

A little behind schedule but raring to go, our twelve feisty warriors are now on their way to all of our paperback backers! The first arrivals might be spotted in as early as five days, so keep an eye out in your mail! Ebook backers, expect to get your hands on these fab stories by the end of the week to coincide with the paperback release.

Text: The warriors are coming! (and other news)

[Text: The warriors are coming! (and other news)]

If you have not yet answered the backer survey, please do so as soon as possible, or contact us on Kickstarter for help resolving any issues.

In other news…

The hardcover: We’re a bit behind schedule with the special-edition hardcover, but it’s looking fantastic so far and you’ll be seeing more about it soon! Perhaps there will be some previews to come in our newsletter…? Only one way to find out!

The short-story writing course: Through your donations and support, we secured 30 young writers spots on an upcoming short-story writing course (more information to come)! Applications for these places will open soon, as well as regular booking slots. Stay up to date through our newsletter and Twitter to be the first to know.

The audiobook: This has taken a backseat while we ensure all the rewards are fulfilled, and that you wonderful backers get your hands on the paperback and ebook, but we’re incredibly excited to get the ball rolling. Watch this space for more information!

The digital bundle: Some of our backers may be wondering what happened to those digital bundles – they’re on their way! We’re sorry for the delay and hope to get these out within a fortnight. We promise they’re worth the wait!

Thank you all for your patience as we get your rewards out, and for your continued support throughout and beyond the campaign! Remember to follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up to our newsletter for all the latest Ink & Locket news.

Amelia and Antonica
Ink & Locket Press