Margot Ellis · Novelist

Blogs & writers

About the Margot Ellis template

A calm, bookish site for a literary novelist in Bath. It opens on her new novel with a cover drawn in type, then gives readers the synopsis, her earlier books, where to hear her read and questions for book clubs, and ends with a way for festivals and press to reach her.

Margot Ellis is built around one book. The opening band is deep green-black, with the title The Glasshouse Year set in tall gold italics beside a cover made entirely from type and a fine line drawing of a glasshouse, so there is no photo of a real jacket to replace. Under the hook sit the publication date of 4 February 2027, the format, 368 pages, a price of £18.99 and the publisher. A synopsis follows on warm paper beside a photo of a Victorian glasshouse, with two short reviews and a passage from chapter three set against a sunlit greenhouse path.

Three earlier novels are listed with their years and a single line each. Events 2027 shows five dates as a calm list: a publication evening in Bath, a festival talk in Bristol, bookshop readings in Falmouth and Ludlow and a garden talk in Shrewsbury, each with time and ticket price. A short bio pairs a portrait at a window with a Georgian street and a fountain pen. The reading-group corner offers eight numbered discussion questions on a dark band. The page closes with Contact for events and press, a form asking for name, email, organisation, an enquiry type of event, interview, reading group or other, and a message, next to the agent and publicity contacts.

To make it yours, put your own title, publication date and blurb into the hero and type your name onto the cover; its colours come from the same palette as the page. Swap the reviews, earlier books and tour dates, and rewrite the questions for your own novel. The same quiet layout suits poets, memoirists, illustrators with a new picture book, historians publishing a first trade book, and small presses launching one title a season.

What's on it

• New novel with a typographic cover
• Synopsis and reviews
• Three earlier novels
• Events 2027
• About the author
• Reading-group questions
• Contact for events and press form