Cover

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About the Author

Sam Haysom is a writer and journalist covering culture and entertainment for Mashable. He wrote the bulk of The Moor during National Novel Writing Month in 2015. You can read all about his experience on Mashable’s website. He’s also written a number of short stories, one of which won first prize in a monthly competition run by the dark fiction website Spinetinglers.

A graduate of Cardiff University, he grew up on the edge of the New Forest and now lives in London.

You can follow him on Twitter @samhaysom.

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For my mum, Clare Midgley,

The kindest person I knew.

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Dear Reader,

The book you are holding came about in a rather different way to most others. It was funded directly by readers through a new website: Unbound.

Unbound is the creation of three writers. We started the company because we believed there had to be a better deal for both writers and readers. On the Unbound website, authors share the ideas for the books they want to write directly with readers. If enough of you support the book by pledging for it in advance, we produce a beautifully bound special subscribers’ edition and distribute a regular edition and e-book wherever books are sold, in shops and online.

This new way of publishing is actually a very old idea (Samuel Johnson funded his dictionary this way). We’re just using the internet to build each writer a network of patrons. Here, at the back of this book, you’ll find the names of all the people who made it happen.

Publishing in this way means readers are no longer just passive consumers of the books they buy, and authors are free to write the books they really want. They get a much fairer return too – half the profits their books generate, rather than a tiny percentage of the cover price.

If you’re not yet a subscriber, we hope that you’ll want to join our publishing revolution and have your name listed in one of our books in the future. To get you started, here is a £5 discount on your first pledge. Just visit unbound.com, make your pledge and type MOOR18 in the promo code box when you check out.

Thank you for your support,

Dan, Justin and John
Founders, Unbound

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Super Patrons