Publication Week

Happy Publication Week to me!

This was the week of the publication of the first book in the new series. I think it might have been chosen as a Times Book Of The Month which bodes very well for it future.

I'm not sure if the news of the Times is true or not as nobody had told me officially  but it said it on the internet. 

So it must be true.

Like the Loch Ness monster.

I had a celebratory vegan sausage sandwich  from Greggs, munching it while sipping my one black coffee of the day. This young chap was very concerned that I wasn't giving him any of my hard earned roll. He was a tame, and cheeky wee monkey.

As an aside, the Greggs is on a shopping park built on the site of the old Linwood Chrysler car plant. It gets busy during the run up to Christmas and can become so congested that the traffic queue backs up onto the dual carriageway, eventually blocks the exit to the motorway.

So, the powers that be decide to put in a one way system from the 26th November. As the sign said,  cones went up tonight.

The next morning the cones were stacked neatly on the island of the roundabout.

The next day, signs and barriers on the road. 

Next morning, barriers and signs on the roundabout.

Then cones, weighted barriers, signs on the road.

The next day......

Of course it might have helped if the powers that be had placed the cones and barriers where they might have done some good, but they were too 'far in' to the car park, rather than on the bigger loop which would have been easier and more effective.

The people are voting with their feet!

And their cones.

Anyway, the new book is out, at an eye watering price ( over twenty quid, even for the kindle)  that is going to do sales no good at all. But commerce is commerce and these books are printed on very good quality paper and last in libraries a long time so that in itself is an investment in the future. 

To be honest, for the first few days after publication, I was surprised it sold as many as it did.

I did have to defend myself on social media as some folk  seems to think that I set the price of the book and then go and spent the vast sums on Haribos and vegan sausage rolls. 

To be fair, that's what I probably would do....

This was in the week when there was a study published that the average UK author is earning about £7000 from their writing. I didn't read the report so I'm not sure if that was true or what caveats were applied to the figures.

Also this week ( it was a busy week)  I had three Christmas dinners, two of them were with different sets of writer friends. They had a few different takes on the £7000 issue and the cause of the problem.

The discount pricing of supermarket books, for a small band of big authors was cited.

As was the 99p sale of books on kindle.

 As was the rise of the self-publisher.

As was the rise of the very small publisher with no resources for advances, no budget for publicity.

Cost of paper, cost of moving books around were also talked about.

Plus Amazon and other big industry players.

I'm sure all of them apply to a lesser or greater extent  in most situations.

But I live in the  hope that writing a good book might also have some role to play.

 Although I do  have a very sneaking suspicion that being a celebrity might give you a little advantage.

I may change my name to Caro Kardashian.

It has a slight ring about it!