The people behind Lovereading
These days, it is harder than ever to find the book you want to read next – particularly because of the sheer volume and choice of books you can find on the net. So at Lovereading, we only feature books we have read and believe are great reads in their category.
We have developed some unique online tools to help you choose your next read, including free 10-15 page Opening Extracts of every one of our Featured Books. And our readers particularly appreciate the regular magazines we send them recommending books they like might love to read in their categories of choice these are completely free and come with no commitment to buy.
Since we started Lovereading, we have added more and more books, ( we now have over 7,000 Opening Extracts) more and more unique features (you will love Author Like for Like) and more and more readers all of whom we would like to thank for their ongoing help and support.
We hope all of you who love reading continue to enjoy what we are doing. We certainly love doing it for you!
The people behind Lovereading
Peter Crawshaw, Co-founder & Director
My great loves in life, aside from my wife and three sons, are technology and books. These two passions have come together nicely with Lovereading, where we use the best of the net, and the best people, to make choosing books a joy. When I was seven I read The Hobbit, which really kick-started my reading life. Now I sometimes take a longer route to work just to fit in a few more pages of whatever novel I’m absorbed in. I love good crime fiction like Greg Isles or Peter Temple but, unsurprisingly, I now read a wide variety of fiction because of the day job.
Before starting Lovereading with Louise and Hugh, I worked for more than 15 years in some large companies, as well as running my own marketing consultancy. Probably most useful to my work now were the five years I spent at Book Club Associates.
Louise Weir, Co-founder & Director
My love of reading only really began in my early teens; before this I was busy trying to be different from my bookworm sister. But when I discovered what I was missing out on I wasted no time in devouring every book I could find, from action and adventure to more girly fiction. I’ll be the first to admit that high-brow literature isn’t for me.
Since setting up Lovereading I’ve become a huge fan of ‘tween’ and teen fiction. There are so many brilliant stories, and with two daughters of this age I’m able to suggest authors they might enjoy. Tim Lott’s first foray into children’s literature, Fearless, and talented debut novelist Sharon Dogar’s Waves are two wonderful examples.
I’ve spent almost 20 years in the book publishing/retailing industry working in some of the top five publishing houses in the UK, and have been responsible for launching many, now internationally famous, authors in the adult’s and children’s market.
Hugh Salmon, Co-founder & Director
I’ve always loved reading, but I seem to have two problems. The first is I can only read when I’m able to give a book my undivided attention i.e. the rare occasions when my two sons and my daughter are out, and the TV is switched off. The other is time. I find it frustrating to read a couple of pages of a book, put it down, then pick it up again later to read a couple more. And if I read before bed I always seem to nod off and lose my place.
But recently I’ve discovered a new trick. My favourite genres on Lovereading are literary/contemporary and biography/autobiography. So I save the novels for when I can give them my absolute undivided attention, and I listen to the biographies and autobiographies on audiobook. They’re not so plot driven, so they’re great to listen to in a more sporadic fashion.
My career background is in major multinational advertising agencies and for a time I managed O&M Thailand, the biggest agency in Asia outside Japan. In 1999 I founded my own advertising agency, eponymously named The Salmon Agency, and one of our clients was the publisher Hodder Headline, which is how I met Louise.
Sarah Broadhurst, Editorial Advisor and Book reviewer
Sarah Broadhurst spent her early working life in the book trade in both retail and wholesale until the arrival of children forced her to look for freelance work she could do from home.
Her position of paperback buyer in Hatchards and then director of a book wholesale company gave her a wide knowledge of all sectors of the trade. She felt the trade lacked unbiased opinion, every publisher had the “best thing since sliced bread” and she knew the trade would benefit from an independent overview of the book published each month. She sold her idea to the trade journal The Bookseller and has, for the last 25 years, been writing a monthlyarticle (from home!) on the new paperbacks on offer.
Over the years her opinion has become highly valued in the trade and she has become an expert in her field,contributing to many radio and television shows and reviewing in a wide range of newspapers andmagazines from the Daily Express to Good Housekeeping, she is now judge for the Costa prize for Debut writers.
Her speciality is supporting new authors. Writers who have atough time getting recognised. She has backed unknown first novels from the likes of Terry Pratchett, Joanna Trollope and Minette Walters and joins us now in introducing some of the unknown stars of the future to you.
admin :: Apr.10.2008 :: :: 15 Comments »
I am looking for people to review by book, which was published in February of this year. The title of the book is, “One Angel’s Journey.” Do you know of anyone (individual or company) that does reviews? Thank you for your consideration of my inquiry.
on 28 Jun 2008 at 2:43 pm
Hi Linda – If you are having problems getting your book reviewed then you may be interested to know about a recently launched website http://www.lovewriting.co.uk – where independently published authors can promote their books direct to readers.
on 30 Jun 2008 at 2:52 pm
The first two books in my series “Tork and Grunt’s Guides to Business Skills” will be published on September 18th and I would be happy to post my comments about why I am writing this series. Do you have a facility for authors’ comments?
The first title is Tork and Grunt’s Guide to Effective Negotiations, and I’m delighted to see you’re already listing it – I am ready to do anything I can to help you sell it! Warm regards – Bob Harvey
on 03 Jul 2008 at 11:50 am
Hi Bob – the best place for you to start – if you would like to get your books featured on Lovewriting is this link http://www.lovewriting.co.uk/publishedauthors – where you will find all the info etc that you will need to send us.
Peter C
on 03 Jul 2008 at 4:01 pm
Doesn’t the opportunity to use lovewriting.co.uk seems to be a scam applied to new self-published authors? I believe it is not made clear that Lovreading has a high traffic ranking of 249,000 but the Lovewriting site on the other hand has a puny rating of 3,460,000. If new authors think they’ll gain similar benefits from using lovewriting as lovereading they’ll be very much mistaken.
Doesn’t lovereading have a genuine offer for self-published authors or is this just a quick excuse to take money from the inexperienced?
on 26 Sep 2008 at 1:20 pm
A comment from creators and owners of Lovewriting. While understanding your position, we can reassure you that we hope Lovewriting is much more than ‘just a quick excuse to take money from the inexperienced (authors)’.
In fact our motives, we believe, are much more positive than your post indicates. Since we started Lovereading, we have been contacted by hundreds of authors who have been unable to find a way to market their books. Some of these have already taken the self-publishing route and are seek ways to promote their book(s) to readers. Others haven’t invested in the initial costs of self-publishing their book because they have been concerned that once they have their book finished, how will they tell readers about it?
In response to these contacts, who have usually asked for their books to be featured on Lovereading, we have had to explain that all the books on Lovereading are read and reviewed by a team led by Sarah Broadhurst. Admittedly, these tend to be books published by the major publishing houses and have passed the two tests of being picked up, edited and published by a publisher and then favourably reviewed by Sarah Broadhurst. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day for us to spend the time and money to read and review all the books that are sent to us.
However, some of those we have read have been very good. And we know, from personal experience how difficult self-publishing can be. Have you, for example, considered purchasing a children’s book one of us self published? Do as You Would Be Done By’ by Hugh Salmon and Anthony Stileman. We know it’s tough out there.
So, we tried to create a way we could help independently published authors promote their books and for readers to ‘find’ them. What we came up with was the Lovewriting concept where the main difference between a Featured Book on Lovewriting and a Featured Book on Lovereading is that, on Lovewriting, the independent author writes their own ‘review’ which we have called on the site ‘Why I Wrote This Book’.
Our objective has been for independent authors to take a more positive view of Lovewriting than you have. With their help, we hope we can build the site to a level i) where Lovereading visitors really can discover new books in their genre of choice by clicking through to the Lovewriting site and ii) Lovewriting can become a force in the market in its own right.
As you will have noticed, Lovewriting makes clear near the top of the Home Page that it is still a ‘Beta Site’. It only even reached this stage a few weeks ago – and we have only just started to build on what we believe is a solid formula.
Finally we do not think £100 is an unreasonable amount to charge in order to create author and book pages where the book can be sampled and bought and eventually be linked into the larger community of Lovreading. Even with the ‘Why I Wrote This Book’ content being generated by the author (rather than us reading and reviewing the book) very few authors have provided all the information we need all in the correct format so there is a certain amount of time required chasing this up and then ‘creating’ the page by uploading the information. Unfortunately we have to pay people to do this as well as web hosting costs etc.
In the meantime, with limited resources, we will publicise Lovewriting wherever and however we can and continue to persuade Lovereading visitors to go to the site.
on 29 Sep 2008 at 10:47 am
Hi,
I am running a short story competition on the theme of “modern celebrity” in conjunction with the publication of my novel “The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride”. Do you think it is something your readers would be interested in?
If so details can be found at http://www.steffimcbride.com .
Hope you like the idea.
Best wishes,
Andrew Crofts
http://www.andrewcrofts.com
on 01 Nov 2008 at 3:17 pm
Hi There
I have just published my first book with Mediarace UK. Book is Sci-fi/Action mainly targeted to younger audience but of course nowadays also older ones read these as I have noticed when delivering books to customers
Book is called WSS – Gathering
I was wondering how you choose books for sale? Would you be interested in my book?
Please see additional inf at http://www.pennala.com
Kind Regards
YSP
on 11 Nov 2008 at 10:54 am
You and the Sky Arts Book Show have definitely stepped up my reading quantities and broadened the things I’ll try. My taste is very eclectic and not very mainstream (for a woman, especially), so I love the excerpts, which allow my to try a writer’s style and tone. A real plus!
It would be nice to see science fiction (so often orphaned and bound with horror, even by you folks!) given an opportunity to show it is an important and very varied genre. There are so many good works that the mainstream readers never consider/hear about except through (usually poor) film adaptions (for more on this see an interesting blog at: http://www.empireonline.com/empireblog/post.asp?id=364). And the sub-genres are extensive (fantasy, hard-core science, historical, ….). Yes, there is dross out there but there is in any genre. You should give readers some help in finding the good stuff.
on 22 Mar 2009 at 10:43 am
Hi
I have just published my first book on http://www.lulu.com called “Flaxman’s Guide to surviving an NHS Hospital Stay”. It is a book containing tips on how to make an NHS hospital stay more comfortable. It contains a list of things to pack; “Your Survival Kit”, it explains a variety of things that you may encounter in this new and alien environment, and it expresses changes to expect when you return home. A must for any shortly to be in-patient or a gift for an existing in-patient that you may be visiting.
I would be very interested in receiving as many reviews as possible. Please assist.
Regards
Pete Flaxman
on 05 Apr 2009 at 4:26 pm
Dear Sarah,
Firstly, can I say how much I love your website, especially the idea of being able to read the first chapter of a book before buying it.
Having read about your support for debut novels, I wondered if you would be interested in my novel, Half-truths and White Lies, which was the recipient of the Daily Mail First Novel Award 2008 and was described by Joanne Harris as ‘A story of secrets, lies, grief and, ultimately redemption, charmingly handled by this very promising new writer’. (The original quote was ‘young writer’ but this was altered after they found out that I am 41.)
Although you have it available to purchase, I was unable to for author details under my surname.
Thank you.
on 11 Jul 2009 at 2:31 pm
Lovereading.co.uk is a regular read of ours. Thanks for the pithy and spot on book summaries.
We’re happy to see Jessica Rushton, author of Luxury, at number 3 on your Top Ten Opening Extracts. Thanks everyone for reading.
Jessica talks about plot, narrative and structure in fiction writing at the London Writers’ Club on October 13, for details see http://www.londonwritersclub.com
The club is for writers of all levels who want to mingle with, learn from
and enjoy the company of other writers.
Jacqueline Burns and Kirsty McLachlan
on 07 Oct 2009 at 9:31 am
I have just published my first novel ‘When Tomorrow Comes’. How would I go about getting the synopsis onto your website?
on 19 Nov 2009 at 9:11 pm
Hi Joanna – if you have a publisher get them to get in touch contact@lovereading.co.uk.
Or perhaps you might want to promote it yourself via our website http://www.lovewrting.co.uk
For it to appear on Lovereading4kids we would need to read it and then want to recommend it to our readers
Hope that helps
on 20 Nov 2009 at 5:07 pm
Dear All,
I am studying the home studying Proofreading and Editing Course with Maple Academy and would be more than happy to proofread any work for free of charge. I also review books in my spare time, as illustrated in my blog.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
With warmest wishes,
Lydia
on 30 Apr 2010 at 4:03 pm