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Shortlisted for the Bath Novel Award – and other good things
I’ve had lots of good things happen to my book recently. Actually, they’ve been happening since Christmas, which is how long I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for. But today it was shortlisted for the Bath Novel Award, and it has pleased my head clean off. They say the book “cleverly combines intrigue with […]
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How’s the book doing, Chris?
Sort of all right, thank you. Well, I’ll let you make your own mind up: over 30,000 sales (by early 2016) #1 in Political Humour (UK) #2 in Humorous Fiction (UK) (those are its highest rankings on Amazon) UK – 4.3 stars (out of 5) from 413 reviews US – 4.2 stars from 160 reviews Lately I’ve been finding it a bit […]
Read more...My first interview
About a week ago, I did my first interview. It’s with Lee Strayer, who runs Atomic 27, a company that produces audiobooks, videos, ebooks and real books. Lee used to work in radio, and as well as running the company he’s now narrating audiobooks – the first of which is Prison Planet by Billie Sue Mosiman. […]
Read more...Another good review on Amazon
This appeared today on Amazon: Really funny and pacy. Some of the writing is reminiscent of P G Wodehouse. Very witty and accurate descriptions of London mixed with complete fantasy. There’s very little I like more than hearing that people like my book, especially when they have no reason to be nice about it. This […]
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Guardian review
Today I’m overjoyed by this review by the beautifully named Alfred Hickling in the Guardian: Anyone suspicious that the publishing industry may be run by a small group of corporate-minded killjoys will applaud the DIY-ethic of Shevlin, who has published this quirky comic novel himself. The perpetually astonished hero finds himself in a conspiracy involving murder […]
Read more...The first bookshop copies go on sale
The Broadway Bookshop on Broadway Market in Hackney today became the first bookshop to stock copies of the Perpetual Astonishment. I took them a copy a couple of weeks ago, and when I went back on Saturday they said that their manager had really liked it. So, now they have two copies on the shelves. Coincidentally, […]
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Today’s Metro review
Well, I’ve now read the Metro review. Here it is: ★★★ Self-publishing has its successes, as EL James’s racy ebook series, initially posted on a fansite, proved. Yet there are reasons why editors and publishers exist, as demonstrated by Christopher Shevlin’s debut novel. That’s not to say that The Perpetual Astonishment of Jonathon Fairfax isn’t […]
Read more...Errata
Copies of Perpetual Astonishment that don’t say “Full release edition” on the technical page (is that what it’s called? The bit with all the copyright notices on it) contain the mistakes listed below, which I corrected on 24 July. I hope they don’t spoil your enjoyment of the book. If they do, let me know […]
Read more...The Metro review comes out tomorrow…
Metro is going to review my book tomorrow (15 August). I’ve heard that it’s a bit critical, so I’m pretty nervous. On the other hand, the book has now sold 350 copies, about a quarter of them paperback, so it has had a good innings.
Read more...On becoming less apologetic
Today I rewrote this post about my book to sound more confident and adduce some evidence in favour of the proposition that the book might be good. I’d almost forgotten how diffident and apologetic I felt about this whole self-publishing thing a couple of months ago, before some people started liking the book. I still get […]
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