International public financial management — my new book

My new book, International Public Financial Management: Essentials of Public Sector Accounting to give it its full title, was published at the very end of December.

The book is part of a project with CIPFA who wanted a book to complement their IPFM qualifications. This is partly to be a a resource for students that seeks to capture the essential elements of the modules they study, and reflects good practice as put forward by CIPFA in its examination syllabuses. It is also partly aimed at people who are not CIPFA students but are practitioners in the public sector who want a concise book covering the essentials of public financial management.

If you want a copy of the book this is the official page on the publisher’s website. You can also buy if from Amazon, of course.

My book is out

Yesterday a courier delivered a cardboard box containing the 12 copies of my book that I have acquired for the book launch next week.
I am really proud of my achievement. It's nearly two years since I sent off my proposal to a few publishers, and 18 months since I signed the contract so it is great to get the book in my hand.
I've riffled through the pages but I daren't read it in case I see a typographic error or, worse, read a sentence I could have written better.
I know that there were pre-orders for the book so the next step is to face up to the reviews.

My book is published on 13 July

My book is published in just two weeks' time. I still haven't received my author copies but they should arrive soon. I'm excited about that. Seeing it all typeset when I was checking the proofs was great but the proofs were in pdf files and my corrections were marked-up digitally. Getting the book in my hands and being able to put it on our bookshelves will be the achievement of a long-held ambition.

I have no idea how many copies it might sell. The publisher, Routledge, must believe that it will sell enough to cover the cost of publishing it. I've had fun over the last few months watching my placing on the best-seller list at Amazon.co.uk. It has languished around 2,700,000th to 3,000,000th but just lately it has moved up and when I last looked it was at something like 140,000th. For all I know this might just be the result of 2 or 3 copies being pre-ordered. For me, I'm simply proud that I have written a book that a respectable publisher thought would be good enough to publish and that some people have been prepared to pay for.

I've been firming up the details of the book launch at Warwick Business School: 6pm on 20 July at the Scarman Road building. Get in touch if you would like to come along.

Back to the blog...

I handed the manuscript of my book to my publisher today. A big milestone for me. There's still all the editing to do but the book should be in Amazon's warehouse by the summer. Meanwhile I can get back to fulfilling my urge to write by posting some items on this blog.

Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector

There are many reasons behind my writing of this blog but I guess the main one is to support my book. Routledge will be publishing Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector in April 2011. I'm really excited about that, especially as it will be published in the USA and Canada as well as in the UK. This blog will help me in a couple of ways:

• as an outlet for some of the material that I have amassed from my research;
• as a resource for my students
• as a resource for any other people studying public sector management, particularly if they are not accountants and don't want to be accountants; and
• if I'm lucky, it will draw some attention to my book when it reaches the shelves of real and on-line book stores.