Sam takes centre stage, or rather page

One of the very hardest things about being a self-published author is the marketing – which is a fancy name for thinking of ways to sell more books.  Traditional publishing houses have whole departments devoted to this, albeit rather less lavishly staffed and resourced than in times gone by, whereas it’s just little old me at Grossey Mansions Publishing.  (Not a real name, but I quite like the sound of it.)  I try to think of one thing a week to promote Sam in all his five flavours, but it’s not easy.  Occasionally, however, something comes along to give me – and him – a real boost.

Many moons ago, I wrote a weekly article for my local newspaper, all about the joys (or otherwise) of living in Cambridge.  “Susan in the City” appeared every Monday for a decade, and indeed I have gathered my favourite eighty of those columns into a little book.  During my time at the paper I met an editor called Alice Ryan, and when “Faith, Hope and Trickery” was coming over the horizon, my marketing task for one week was to contact Alice – now editing the Cambridge edition of a glossy lifestyle publication called “Velvet Magazine” – and ask/beg her to feature me.  And she did!  And here it is, in all its full-colour, double-page, April splendour:

(If that’s tricky to read, you can go to the online magazine instead and head straight for page 64.)

“Velvet” is a giveaway magazine – a rather superior one, in my opinion – and so my lunchtime outing today is to the local hairdresser to scoop up a few copies, which should please Sam as a former barber.  As always, I’ll let you know if the publicity leads to extra sales.