Bullying - A Parent's Guide

Bullying - A Parent's Guide has been updated for 2011 and will be on sale on October 1st 2011, from Amazon, all good book shops and the publisher's website. RRPis £9.99.

The updated book focusses on cyber bullying at greater length and also offers tips on how to keep your child safe online.

I also make the point that even princesses can get bullied as Kate Middleton had to leave her school when she was just 13 because of bullying. Because of that she asked that as a wedding gift, people donated money to her favourite bullying charity.

The best advice I can give to anyone who is being bullied, is to tell someone - I know its difficult (hey, I've been there). Bullies lose most of their power when you tell someone.

I have also created a Facebook Page for the book.

Doesn't it suck when your publisher goes bust!!!

On Thursday I was informed by my publishers, Forward Press, who own the Need2Know imprint, that they had gone bust. They published Bullying – A Parent’s Guide in 2005 and were due to publish Caring for Your Dog: The Essential Guide on December 1^st.  This will not be happening.

Now I have to wait to see if someone will buy the imprint and if they don’t I have the option of never seeing my dog book published or trying to get another publisher.  Sadly, it means I can probably kiss goodbye to any royalties for my bullying book, including the cheque I was due to get.  I also won’t get my small advance that was due on publication of the book. 

Unfortunately, this is going to happen more and more these days. 

Although I am very upset about the situation with my books - its hard enough to get published and a tremmendous amount of work has gone into them - I really feel for all those who have lost their jobs.  What a time to lose your job, before Christmas. 

Caring for Your Dog: The Essential Guide

I’m getting very excited.  On Friday I received a copy of the press release for my new book, Caring for Your Dog: The Essential Guide.  It will be published by Need2Know on December the 1^st 2010. 

I decided to write the book for two reasons – firstly as a tribute to my beautiful, brave dog Vic, who suffered from epilepsy from the age of 4-years-old and sadly crossed the Rainbow Bridge last year at the age of 13 and a half.  He enjoyed life right up until the end and I miss him greatly.  Caring for Your Dog has a chapter on caring for special needs dogs like Vic.  Sadly too many people have dogs put down because they see a dog who has special needs as a burden.  That does not have to happen.

The other reason was I wanted people to realise that instead of buying a dog, something that adds to the problem of too many dogs needing homes, they could welcome a rescue dog into their home.  There are so many dogs needing homes.  Vic was once one of them.  Now my partner and I have Benjy, whom we got from the Dogs trust in Glasgow.  My book has a chapter dedicated to the ins and outs of adopting a dog. 

Here he is –

I’d better go now as he wants to chase him around the room with a bone!