July book club - The Deaths by Mark Lawson

In reply to various queries...

We had loads and loads of great questions for Mark - and we sent all of them over regardless of whether they arrived by the deadline or not (on which note - especially at this time of year it can be tricky to pin down an exact time for authors to answer your questions which is why we don't always specify a date on the thread. We do tend to send the questions over around 5-7 days before the end of the month as a rule of thumb...that way the answers are up before we move on to the next book. However for all sorts of reasons this is not always possible.)

When we do a live webchat it lasts an hour and there's a limited number of questions we can get through. How many we get through in a not-live Q&A varies though. On this occasion the publisher was impressed and overwhelmed by the number of great questions and subbed the list down for Mark as he's pretty busy at the moment (he was impressed by your "sharp" and interesting questions too!)

So apologies to those whose questions weren't answered on this occasion. Please don't let it put you off.

Re reading the book...we appreciate this is a time of year when people are off on holidays, helping out with extra childcare etc etc But at other times we do specify on the giveaway page that you should only apply for a free copy if you are happy to take part in the book club by adding your comments and questions. Which means you need to have time to read at least some of the book in the allotted time. So do please apply for future copies only if you can commit to at least starting the book as soon (ish) as it arrives.

Generally we run the giveaway a couple of weeks before the book becomes our book of the month/book club choice. This way we can get the list of winners to the publishers in time for them to send out the books to arrive by the first of the month (obviously there are exceptions and for technical reasons the Adele Parks books this month went out a little later so we will run the Q&A slightly later than we would normally) This way you have at least three weeks to read/make a good start on the book and then leave questions or comments. We always send the link to thread over along with the list of questions as we know that both publishers and authors enjoy reading the comments as well.

Hope that clarifies everything. In short - we run the giveaway so that winners get their free copies by the 1st of the month (usually!). Please only apply for a free book if you think you will have time to read at least a chunk of it during that month. We usually send the questions over at some point in the last week of the month and will specify dates where we can. We try to get answers up before the end of the month but for various reasons this is not always possible - either way we get them up asap. We do send over all the questions and a link to the comments, but as with any webchat cannot guarantee that everything will be answered. A lot depends on the author's schedule (which around publication can be hectic to say the least)

Look out for a preview of our September book club which will be up this week.

And now I think I need a . (Well, technically but it's a little early in the day...)