A short promotional film showing off the first of the Very Alternative Guides.

Nice review and comments on the Covered book from the ever wonderful Shindig Magazine on their Happening blog. “A great project and hell of a lot of fun. This is definitely a fine book to flick through when friends are over for a music session.” Read the full review at the Shindig blog; we’ll even forgive them for getting the url wrong!

Stock of Covered has finally arrived. Everyone who pre-ordered via our online store has been sent their copies ahead of it reaching the shops. I also did a short slot on BBC Radio Sheffield about the book earlier in January. What a strange experience. Once admitted into the upstairs waiting area I was left for nearly twenty minutes gazing at faded prints of our local football teams (in better days) wondering if anyone knew I was there. They were running a radio special on back-ache, which was clearly more in tune with the listeners, so I was on air for about five minutes total (which included a record being played!) before being ushered out in time for the news. Lots of interest in the book from other media sources though, and it’ll be interesting to see what the reviewers make of it all.

This is the final cover spread for the Covered book. There is a page showing how the front cover developed from initial visual to the final design on the site, titled What’s In A Cover.

A really nice full page preview for Jan’s book Covered! appears in the October 2011 edition of the UK monthly Word Magazine, which covers music, books, film and other aspects of popular culture. The decided just to take two well known album sleeves and feature a load of covers which have gone on to borrow the original ideas. I’ve added a scan of the page which you can see on the site here. This is the first of what looks like being a number of articles on the book, and it’s great to see people picking up on the theme. The book itself is at last in production, and we’ll have details of the Easy Shop up any day now for people with a conscience who have to order online but don’t want to support the activities of high-street destroying giants. Still can’t figure those Word magazine covers though, they just miss the mark on so many levels for me. I appreciate what they’re trying for and it’s nice to avoid the generic look so many magazines sport these days, but if you want to do that go and see what titles like Little White Lies are coming up with for their covers.

To anyone spotting the Top Of The Pops title being advertised by Amazon and others (even Sainsbury’s online!) as available to buy, ignore them. We’re sorry about this but these companies are now so big they can more or less do whatever they want. A lot of the big online retailers do this sort of trick to grab orders, rather than waiting until the book is actually out (I’ve seen CDs I’m working on being advertised as for sale when I haven’t even finished the cover artwork!). Personally I never buy new books online, but always order through a proper high street shop. If the big book companies had any sense they’d get together and organise their own online site, which doesn’t screw publishers, and then refuse to sell to Amazon and the like. J.K. Rowling has shown it can be done).
But if you haven’t got a local shop and want to pre-order, our own dedicated online store will be up and running very shortly. And the Easy shop will also have some exclusive material.