At the beginning of the month I was approached by Freehand Books to work for them for a few months as their digital community assistant. I was thrilled by the idea and didn't hesitate to accept. I've long admired Freehand; they've only been around since 2007 and yet they've already published a lot of really terrific books. Not only is the content top-notch, but the book design is as well. As a book lover I'm all too happy to admit that I judge books by their covers. A book should look sexy. Ebooks are out there hovering in the background, so a book that you hold in your hands should be pleasing to the eye as well. You should want to show it off on your book shelf, you should enjoy the feeling of the paper in your hands. Freehand's books reflect that desire to honour well-crafted writing with a well-crafted cover.

As the digital community assistant for the next few months I'll be reading through all of Freehand's recent titles and creating book club materials for them. I'll also be researching ways that Freehand can generate buzz around their books online. I love that I get to do this job. There's a couple of minor reasons why: I get the option of working out of a building I love (which I will do a full blog post on later, I promise), or working from home (which, lets just be honest, means working in my pyjamas). The main reason I'm thrilled that I get to do this though is because I love helping to create conversations around books. That's why I do the interviews I do for Writer's Block, because I hope that maybe in some small way I might introduce someone to a book they might not have heard of before. To get to create those conversations as part of a job is a great privilege. I'm thoroughly revelling in diving into each book, taking notes and starting to shape book club materials and potential ideas for how to get the word out. It'll be a rich three-month experience, and I'm sure I'll be sharing more of it with you soon.