Dyslexic Friendly Books – Kickstarter

I’m delighted to see the kickstarter is doing really well and you can find it here 

THE PITCH

The idea that when you become an adult there are no dyslexic accessible printed books to read, bluntly said is ridiculous. BOTH Press, which aims to fill this gap, is a project from Book on the Hill, which is dyslexic friendly independent bookshop set in Clevedon, North Somerset. We are passionate about helping people who have dyslexia, or have any difficulty with reading, to access the joy of good fiction.

We aim to make exciting good quality fiction accessible to those not currently
provided for by today’s traditional mass book market. We are working with talented and award winning authors to achieve this.
With your help through the whole process of the Kickstarter, we aim to publish
and print 8 titles of dyslexic friendly books for adults. Our long term goal is to
continue publishing good quality adult fiction to produce a wide range of books for people who have challenges when reading.

Our initial target is 6 titles. With another two following immediately with your help via the stretch goals . Of course we want to do more and if by your support we really go over over our target, we will produce yet more stunning books with great authors.

Steven Savile is a bestselling British fantasy, horror and thriller writer. He lives just outside Stockholm, Sweden having emigrated in 1997. His published works include The Memory Man, Coldfall Wood, Glass Town, One Man’s War, Parallel Lines, and numerous short stories in magazines and anthologies. He has written for Games Workshop, Primeval, Stargate and Doctor Who. Steven was a runner-up for the British Fantasy Award in 2000 and again in 2010. He has been published in a dozen languages and sold more than half a million copies of his novels and stories worldwide.
Previous titles: The Memory Man, Parallel Lines, Glass Town, One Man’s War,
Coldfall Wood. And more…

The Blurb
Under the pretext of opening a school of detectives, Sherlock and Watson are
summoned by the Swedish royalty. The Great Detective must solve a seemingly unsolvable riddle – how can the king be in three places at once? Why is it happening? And how does this tie in to a string of crimes that seem hound the King’s footsteps?
Watson seemingly alone, lectures at the The Bernadotte Chambers in Stockholm, speaking to his carefully chosen audience how this crimes of murder and mummery had come to pass. All the while waiting for Sherlock to appear and present the final reveal.

Stan Nicholls is the author of more than thirty books and was shortlisted for the 2001 British Fantasy Award. His Orcs: First Blood trilogy is a worldwide bestseller, with over a million copies sold to date. Both Orcs trilogies made the New York Times bestseller list. Stan’s books have been published in more than 20 countries.
He was the first manager of Forbidden Planet’s original London store and helped establish and run the New York branch. He received the Le’Fantastique Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to Literature (2007)
Previous titles: Orcs: Omnibus Edition, Orcs Bad Blood: Second Omnibus Edition, Shake Me to Wake Me: The Best of Stan Nicholls, Quicksilver Rising. And more…

The Blurb
The village of Catterby is beholden to no lord or lady. No one believes Lord Salex Nacandro, a warlord and sorcerer, who’s homeland was far to the north, would be a threat.
They are wrong.
Kye Beven a reluctant member of the ‘Band’, the elite protectors of the village,
lacks confidence. Everyone except Dyan Varike, the best archer in the band,
believes he should never have been selected. When Catterby is menaced by Eskail Gudreen the Emissary of Nacandro, Kye reaches for his bow and steps up to the mark.

Thana Niveau is a horror and science fiction writer. She is the author of the short story collections Octoberland, Unquiet Waters, and From Hell to Eternity, as well as the novel House of Frozen Screams. She has been shortlisted three times for the British Fantasy Awards – for Octoberland and From Hell to Eternity, and for her short story Death Walks En Pointe. She shares her life with fellow writer John Llewellyn Probert, in a crumbling gothic tower filled with arcane books and curiosities. And toy dinosaurs.
Previous titles: Octoberland, Unquiet Waters, From Hell to Eternity, House of
Frozen Screams. 

The Blurb
Molly Landor had always imagined having kids someday, though she had hoped it would be by choice and not by accident. After double checking the test was positive, there’s no doubt about it.
Something strange begins to occur and Molly announces that she will go ahead with the pregnancy. Friends and acquaintances become alarmed her behaviour becomes erratic and Molly announces details of her baby that no one could know, even refusing to go to the hospital to check the baby.
Is it just normal pregnancy mania or is something more unnatural arising?

Joel Cornah is an author, journalist, and blogger. His novels, The Sea-Stone Sword and The Sky Slayer, were published BFS Award-winning publisher, Grimbold books. He is an editor for The Science-Fiction and Fantasy Network, which has featured authors such as Brandon Sanderson and Kameron Hurley, as well as TV stars. He is outspoken about his dyslexia, supporting efforts to spread awareness through talks, articles, and books. He runs The Campaign Trail podcast, which has featured critically acclaimed authors, such as Anna Smith Spark alongside its regular players.
Previous titles: The Sea-Stone Sword, The Sky Slayer, The Storm-Forged Throne

The Blurb
The planet Wanda V has been abandoned for some time. The Gates had collapsed generations ago. It was called a waste of time, but the lone scientist, Hala, sets forth to investigate. While Hala collects data on the planet, legends and mythologies that surround these ruins become all too real.
Can Hala escape a god? And what does this self-proclaimed deity want?

Adrian Tchaikovsky is an award-winning British fantasy and science fiction
author. He is a keen live role-player, occasional amateur actor, and has
trained in stage-fighting. He has written over 20 novels and won the 2016
Arthur C. Clarke Award for Children of Time and the 2017 British Fantasy
Award — Best Fantasy Novel for The Tiger and the Wolf.
Previous titles: Children of Time, Children of Ruin, Cage of Souls, The Tales
of Catt & Fisher: The Art of the Steal, The Doors of Eden.

The Blurb
Doctor Hendry, a known pseudo-historian has gone missing. His employers want answers.
Michael is offered a job that pays ten times what he would get standing outside a club, knocking people over. On reaching the London office of the law firm, Branmer & Stokes, four other professionals are waiting. Two mercenaries, Shaw and Kelling, with broad minds and little scruples. Cohen, a paranormal investigator and Doctor Furrisky from the University of East Anglia’s department of history. Together they are given one job. Find Doctor Hendry in his home on the remote clifftop. They find more than they bargained for or even comprehend.

Steven Poore co-produced the Sheffield theatre premiere of Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters. He is a founder member of the Sheffield SF&F Writers’. His novel, Heir To The North, was shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the British Fantasy Awards in 2017.
He has featured in a number of anthologies with the BFS Award-winning publisher Fox Spirit Books.
Previous titles: Hair to the North, The High Kings Vengence, Art of War: Anthology for Charity, Legends 3: Stories in Honour of David Gemmell. 

Blurb
It is 1958 in an alternate Marrakesh. The cold war still wages on and Sputnik has launched, gazing down of earth. Seemingly Russia is conquering space at last.
An uncover agent needs to be extradited and the British expects Marrakesh to
facilitate this. Saif, a local boy has an important mission, to pick up a British spy unnoticed and bring him to the Deputy Security directorate. Saif escapes surveillance in a borrowed Grand taxi, but the pick-up doesn’t go to plan, as the British agent, known as the lighting rod, is the one man guaranteed to make a hard situation, harder.
The race is on to escape the Russian secret service, advanced technology and
bring the undercover agent into British hands.

John Llewellyn Probert was the winner of the 2013 British Fantasy Award for best novella with Nine Deaths of Dr Valentine. He won the Dracula Society’s Children of the Night Award for his first book, The Faculty of Terror, in 2006. Since then he has published fifteen volumes of horror fiction, including six short story collections. His non-fiction publications include a book on his favourite film, Theatre of Blood (Electric Dreamhouse) and he regularly writes about new movie releases at his online review site, House of Mortal Cinema. He lives in a gothic mansion in deepest Somerset with his wife, the author Thana Niveau. He doesn’t sleep much because there’s just too much scary fun to be had.
Previous titles: Nine Deaths of Dr Valentine, The Lovecraft Squad, The Last
Temptations of Dr Valentine, The Complete Valentine, Theatre of Blood. 

Lynda is having second thoughts about joining Dr Sampson choir, but she really needed to get out of the house. Too long she has spent putting herself into boxes for others benefits, but really was a choir in a psychiatric hospital the right way to find something for herself?
Of course it had to be one of those Victorian gothic monstrosities, and of course it had a dubious past, so really it’s just her imagination setting her on edge right. The weather isn’t helping nor is the fact that suddenly she is a prisoner and something does not want her to leave.

What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a learning difference that primarily affects reading and writing skills. The NHS estimates that up to 1 in every 10 people in the UK have some form of dyslexia, while other dyslexic organisations believe 1 in 5 and more than 2 million people in the UK are severely affected.
Dyslexia does not stop someone from achieving. There are many individuals who are successful and are dyslexic. Famous actors, such as Orlando Bloom;
Entrepreneurs like Theo Paphitis, and many, many more, including myself. All of who believe dyslexia has helped them to be where they are now. Dyslexia, though, as I can attest to, does not go away. You don’t grow out of it, and so we are acknowledging that and creating a selection of books that will be friendly to people who deal with dyslexia every day, without being patronising.

What Do We Mean By Dyslexic Friendly?
• Cream paper rather than white.

• A sans-serif font, or a specific dyslexic friendly one.

• Extended spacing between paragraphs, sentences and words

Our Shop Experience
Since we started the project in 2019, Books on the Hill have had many adults
customers with dyslexia come in shop the asking for something accessible to
read. For example, one customer asked if we stocked well known novels in a
dyslexic friendly format. Unfortunately we had to say no, as they just don’t exist.
We have had many adults come in to the shop with dyslexia, who do not read or struggle to read and they believe dyslexic friendly books would have real impact on their reading for pleasure.
We have been so lucky that many great authors have agreed to participating in this project. Not least the great friend of mine, Stan Nicholls who has supported me since my university days examining archaeology and fantasy and writing fictional narratives for my PhD.

Joining Stan in this project is Steven Savile, another bestsellling author, who’s
father lives in Clevedon and is a customer of the bookshop. Then we have the
horror duo that is Thana Niveau and John Llewellyn Probert, both well established and engaging authors, who also happen to live in Clevedon, and be customers of the shop.

The Arthur Clark Award wining author Adrian Tchaikovsky joins us, who I have
known for many years at Conventions across the country. This introduction is the same with Steven Poore, who I met on my first fantasy convention in Scarborough.

We finish the Magnificent Seven with Joel Cornah, who also has dyslexia, and
joined us on our on podcast on dyslexia for the Clevedon Literature ‘Festival in the Clouds’.

Some news items from elsewhere on the web

Something a little different on the blog this morning. We’ve picked up a few submission calls to share with you all.

The first is for a Leicestershire charity that seems like a pretty good cause, so we said yes to giving them a signal boost.

Since 2013, The Big Care Sign-Up has been raising money for Leicestershire based care charities via celebrity charity events and memorabilia auctions.   Following the success of our 2015 event at Leicester’s Guildhall, we are now launching The Big Care Write-up.
 
In September, The Big Care Write-Up will be releasing it’s debut charity short story anthology eBook, “Carers of the Cosmos” and we are currently seeking submissions for our consideration from local writing talent.
 
We would like 1,500-5,000 word stories which use the theme “Carers and Science Fiction” as a starting point for a unique and interesting idea.  There is no limit to the number of stories one writer can submit.
 
Successful stories may also be recorded as audiobooks at a later date so we ask that all submissions are original pieces that have not been published elsewhere.
 
All finished short stories should be sent to Dale Anthony Church at submissions.bigcarewriteup@gmail.com in either DOC, TXT or RTF format and should also be accompanied by a 200 word biography of you and your previous work to be published with any chosen pieces.  The closing date for all submissions is midnight on31st August 2015.
 
The eBook will be available from September as a free download to anyone who donates to our chosen charity, The Carers Centre: Leicestershire and Rutland (Registered as a charity no. 1043956), via our book-specific donations page.”
 
We also have a website with further information about our chosen charity, our previous events and links to our social media at bigcaresignup.wix.com/celebcharityevent.
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Next up a kickstarter highlighted by Juliet E McKenna, blurb taken direct from the site. 

‘This project will fund TWO science fiction and fantasy anthologies, titled ALIEN ARTIFACTS and WERE-, containing approximately 14 all-original (no reprint) short stories each from established SF&F authors in the field—including Phyllis Ames, Jacey Bedford, Patricia Bray, David B. Coe, Walter H. Hunt, Faith Hunter, Gini Koch, Gail Z. Martin, Seanan McGuire, Juliet E. McKenna, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Steve Miller & Sharon Lee, and Jean Marie Ward, plus others. The books will be edited by Joshua Palmatier & Patricia Bray, both editors of the DAW Books anthologies “After Hours: Tales from the Ur-bar” and “The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity,” and the Zombies Need Brains LLC anthologies “Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens” and “Temporally Out of Order.”

Unlike the previous two Kickstarters run by Zombies Need Brains, we are NOT using the Kickstarter to help set up and solidify the small press. Backers of this project will essentially be generating the base funds needed to produce these two anthologies—including payment for the contributing authors, payment for the cover artist, production costs for producing the anthology, etc. Because of this, the reward levels for the anthologies have been lowered to more closely resemble the cost of the final product when it goes on sale to the general public. In essence, backers of the project are simply “preordering” the anthologies, although there will still be aspecial mass market Kickstarter edition produced for backers who help fund the project at the paperback level. This special edition will have a limited print run to cover the orders made by the backers and will not be printed again after the Kickstarter print run. After that, there will be a trade edition issued to the general public that will have an unlimited print run. So get in on the Kickstarter now and get the special mass market Kickstarter edition! Help the new small press Zombies Need Brains LLC expand!’