Please take a few moments to read the following.

If you want to contact me - please use e-mail, not snail mail. Why? Because you'll have to send letters via the book publisher, and I won't get them for five or six months - or even longer. I've had letters forwarded to me a whole year late. I don't know why publishers can't forward mail promptly, because it doesn't cost much, but they just don't. I'm fed up apologising for delays, and I'm even more fed up with disappointing readers, so I'm asking you not to write letters. If you want to ignore this advice , be prepared for a very long wait, and don't send an SAE - your stamp won't be valid in the UK, and I can afford a little postage. If you want an autograph, it's best to e-mail me and give me your street address.

I try to read and reply to all mail I receive, but sometimes it's just not possible; I'm frequently out of the country, and I don't have any minions (not even evil henchmen) to do my bidding. It's just me running this business.  What follows is information to save your time as well as mine.

If you just want to say hi, then please do - don't feel obliged to rack your brains and compose something long and worthy. I'm not awarding marks here. Hi is just fine. And I know some people are deeply affected by the books and want to tell me about it but wonder if I'll think they're daft. No, I won't think that at all. If you want to tell me, I want to hear. I really do.

But if you're asking for information, please pause and look through the FAQs page first to see if your question is already answered, because 90% of specific questions I'm asked are covered pretty fully there . It'll only take you a few seconds. If you send me a question that's already answered there, all I'll do is send you the link to the relevant FAQ. The FAQ tab is next to the contact tab you used to reach this page. The reason I have FAQs is because of what it says on the tin - they're questions that people frequently ask, and answering the same question several thousand times a year eats many hours of writing time that I just can't spare. So I've given you FAQ answers that are actually in more depth than the individual ones you'd get from me.

General guidance - my apologies, but the following are no-go areas :

1. Please don't send me story ideas of any kind or fan fiction about anything - I can't even look at any of it for legal reasons. I have to delete it unread.

2. I can't give you individual advice on writing - all the information I can give you is already on this site, in FAQs, Writers' Stuff, and other pages, or on my blog. Besides, if my advice was any good, I'd have to bill you for it, and I'm expensive.  (And again, there are legal issues if you show me your unpublished work.) If you want a professional book/script doctor, though, contact John Jarrold.   He knows his stuff.

3. I can't help you with school or college projects - sorry, folks, I just don't have enough hours in the day to do it.

Okay...if you've read the FAQ and still come up empty, and you're not after items 1, 2, 3, or 4 above, mail me at this link.