Saturday 11 July 2009

The title is...’Murphy the merdog’

Murphy, the novel, has now sat with my agent, Ian, for a couple of weeks and, as a copyright is now implicit, I can reveal the title of the book is.....MURPHY THE MERDOG.
I had a short reply from Ian upon receipt of the book which made my heart sink – the publishing business is in a real funk and Ian had flagged up a couple of issues on the first 2-3 pages....gulp!

In the past week, I’ve also mentioned the title to a dozen friends now and....only about half of them ‘got’ the title of the book and understood the implications of a merdog. (Three remarked that Murphy was a ‘murdering’ dog!) In fact, it’s quite satisfying that some people didn’t realise what a merdog is. Which brings me to the cover illustration......

I’ve commissioned a superb illustrator, Cathy Balme, to execute the cover and, other work allowing, she should finish it by the end of the month.

2 comments:

AVIANN said...

Where is the cover, or any merdog picture? I am an artist and have done several, and I would like to see how my pictures rank. In my opinion they are very fine. They are of mutt, Borzoi (Russian wolfhound to the uninformed) and Japanese Chin. My Borzoi won breed at Westminster this year. Big dog show in USA.

Aviannfarm@Gmail.com

London Refugee said...

Dear Viann,

Thank you for your comments.
The cover has been done by Cathy Balme and has been sent to my agent along with the manuscript.
We await the verdict.....
I may be able to send you a copy shortly - though my scanner's broken!!!

Good to know you're dog fan - we have 2 of our own amongst our menagerie!
I'd love to see your artistic work if you have a site?
I may well email you privately if you don't pick this up.
Kindest regards,
Neil