Wednesday 6 May 2015

Piccadilly Publishing 3 Years on....

It was on May 9th 2012 that we published our first book: Trackdown (Bodie the Stalker #1) by Neil Hunter.

Little did we know that this would blaze the trail that lead us to today (6th May 2015) where, in the UK Western charts our titles take 5 out of the 10 top positions.

 
This only strengthens what Dave and I had thought all along - the Western is far from dead. For The Ysabel Kid Amazon comments run from ...
"Loved it! It was great being able to read J T Edson on my kindle. I can't wait to receive the entire series from the civil war through to rebuilding Texas, the floating outfit series and the 'modern' law makers (descendants of Dusty, Mark and the Isobel Kid etc.). Please, please, please make them all available and very soon. I am one of Edson's most loyal fans."
to ...
"At last JT Edson released as ebooks, I hope they eventually release all of them. I have loved Dusty Fog, the Kid, Mark and all the other characters since I was a teenager. One small niggle is that someone appears to have done a bit of a hatchet job on some of less pc parts of the book, for example those who have read the original books know that the Kid's horse was not called Thunder, these were written in the 60's and certain words used then wouldn't be used now but I thought it was part of their charm."
 
The above is referring to the fact that we changed the name of the horse from Nigger to Thunder. A decision not taken lightly. We haven't gone all P.C. as characters do use the "N" word. That's how they speak, that is their chatracter. But to use it outside that context, we felt wasn't appropriate.
 
Here at Piccadilly Publishing we are proud of what we have achieved. It certainly has exceeded our original expectations. Our Western series cover various subject matters ranging from the traditional Ranch Western (Storm by Matt Chisholm); a Civil War vetern in search of his lost love (The Searcher by Len Levinson); JT Edson's oeuvre; the West through the eyes of a half-breed (Sundance by John Benteen and Cheyenne by Judd Cole); famous figures (Wild Bill by Judd Cole); turn of the century men's action (Fargo by John Benteen); adult Westerns (Gunsmith by J.R. Roberts) and here we are privileged to take over the series at #400 and print original eBooks. Plus lots more.
 
We've tried over genres: war, French Foreign Legion, science fiction and detective novels. But they've never proved as popular as our Westerns. It doesn't mean we will stop dipping our hand into other genres - you can never tell what will hit the sweet spot with readers.
 
We could never have done this without the support of you readers out there. So, we are sending out a big thank you.
 
Here's to the next three years.
 
Best
Mike