Argleton: A story of maps, maths and motorways

Argleton is a novelette that I wrote in 2010. Through the magic of Kickstarter, I turned it into a self-publishing project, producing paperbacks and hand-bound hardbacks for supporters. If you’d like to read it, it’s now available in these Kindle stores and is currently on sale at a discount:

• Kindle UK 77p
• Kindle US $1.20/$0.99 (people tell me it’s 99¢, but I see it as $1.20!)
• Kindle France €0.89
• Kindle Germany €0.89
• Kindle Spain €0.89
• Kindle Italy €0.89

And if you’re prefer it for free:

• Argleton, PDF (344 kb, probably the nicest reading experience)
• Argleton, plain html (suitable for Read Later or Instapapering)
• Argleton, plain text (if you see odd symbols all over the place in your browser, try setting your encoding to auto-correct, or download and read offline)
• Argleton, ePub (huge thanks to Terence Eden for converting it for me.
• Argleton, Mobi (further huge thanks to Terence for this one too!)
• Argleton, as a WordPress page (also suitable for Read Later or Instapapering)
• If there are other formats you would like, please let me know.

And the audiobook is available, currently in two parts, from Bandcamp. Or you can listen to it here:

If you’d like to share any of these files with your friends, please do. Argleton is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 licence, so feel free to do mash-ups, translations, or anything else with it, so long as you don’t sell it or works based on it.

Reviews

Argleton has had a couple of reviews already:

• Beth Dunn, who described it as a “a beautiful, beautiful handmade book”.
• Fiona Campbell-Howes, who said of the story, “far more accomplished than I expected, nipping along at an engaging pace and weaving all kinds of geeky concepts – memes, trolls, copyright traps, smartphone apps, geolocation, data mashups, crowdsourcing, alternate reality games – into an absorbing and satisfying story that really made me feel as if I was there with the main characters.”

You also can read the reaction from people on Twitter.

If you’ve written or have seen any other reviews, please do let me know!!

Newsletter

If you enjoy reading Argleton, please do consider signing up to my writing and bookbinding newsletter (or sign up in the sidebar there to your right). I’ll keep you up to date with all my writing and bookbinding projects, so you’ll be the first to know about my next novella, The Books of Hay.

Blurb

Matt is fascinated by the story of Argleton, the unreal town that appeared on GeoMaps but which doesn’t actually exist. No one knows how the mistake made its way into the most widely used map in the world. Accusations that it was a ‘copyright trap’ intended to catch out businesses using the map data without paying for a licence are vigorously denied. GeoMaps promises to remove the anomaly but yet, it persists.

Finally, Matt can resist no longer. He persuades his friend and flatmate Charlie to drive them both down to to find the non-existent town. And when they are standing on the very spot, at the exact longitude and latitude that defines Argleton, Matt sets in motion a chain of events that will take him places he didn’t know existed… and which perhaps don’t.

Thank Yous

This project would not have happened without the kind support of my Kickstater backers. Thank you, one and all:

Adam Milner, Adrienne Travis, Aaron Davies, Akos Beres, Alison, Alison B, Allan Jenkins, Bill Allen, Almah LaVon Rice, Andrew Linke, Andy Sturdevant, Antoine Fortuin, April Chase, benmason, Andy Markowitz , BrandonGibson, Blair Frank, Ben Tesch, Ben Thelen, albert bechtel, Brett Camper, Brad Milton, C Ferguson, Casey Thong, Cathy Cooper, Chris Allen, Christina Svendsen, Christy Dena, Cliff Fuller, con christeson, Amanda Hepburn, Daniel Howard, David Clay, Donia Conn, Diane Brewster, Paul J Dickinson, Dmitry Kohmanyuk, Jennifer L Smith, Belle, David Miller, daniel taradash, Elsa Brander, Beth Dunn, Elisif Brandon, Karin H, Fiona Campbell-Howes, Fred DeJarlais, Gary Turner, Carolyn M. Barry, Gia Milinovich, Keith Kunkel, Kevin Jackson, Gretchen Stelter, Patrick Lynch, adele, hep1013, Hope Swann, Perrin Randlette, Leila Anasazi, James Sheahan, charlie taylor, Jennifer DeMarrais, Jesse Bowline, Jessica Spengler, Joel Mitchell, John Rochester, John Mazzarella, Jonas Oestman, Joe Milazzo, Julia Millard, SusanWalther, Kelsey, karen hester, Kate Trgovac, Kathryn Service, Kevin Bluer, Kevin Makice, Kevin Marks, Iain Baker, Ralph Brandi, Jennifer Cowley, DivNull Productions, Noirin Shirley, Mike Little, karen, Kat Manalac, Jason Lee, Liana Weiland, Lisa Hendrickson, Lorin O’Brien, Lucy Gunther, Maria D, Michelle Saevke Leopold, gingerbeardman, Matt B., Matt Zimmerman, David Shane, Gavin Bell, Melissa Anderson Sweazy, Stephen R. Bulson, Michael Nolan, Miles Taylor, miriam, barry stone, Mildred Kennedy-Stirling, Mary Lucking, Asaf Sagi, nancy may , Nigel Shardlow, Eric Wayne Norlander, Joey Coleman, Paul Clarke, Kevin Nguyen, Andrew Blake, paul d mcnair, Pierre L’allier, Dan Dickinson, Richard Kempter, Rebecca, Bob Martinengo, Rose, Roy Bayfield, Randall Payton, Robin Sloan, Stefan Schmiedl, Saunak Shah, TScheffner, Scott VanGerpen, slabelle, Shedworking, Bonnie Sherman, John Clark, simon, Steph Troeth, Brian, Jon Wilkie, Jack Finch, Stephanie Booth, Stephen Weston, Steve Walker, Steve Outing, stevemosby, Susan Ator, Sydney Padua, Irish Viking, Beth Nobles, Thursday Bram, Truman Proctor, J. Moore, Delia Stearnes, vlaskovits, Vicki O’Shea, Michael Weiss, Wil Scott, Zach Greenberger.