A new era of updates has started today, in my latest marketing initiative for the Sam Plank novels. A while ago I explained that I was focusing on assembling an opt-in MailChimp mailing list of people who were actively interested in hearing more about Sam, and the books, and the history behind the books. It’s been a fairly slow start, but then I think that’s the nature of the beast: word of mouth (or rather, word of inbox) takes time to spread.
In my mind the theme of these regular updates (they will be coming out monthly) is now clear: they will deal with extra detail pertaining to the novels themselves. (As opposed to these blog posts, which talk about writing and plotting and self-publishing and book design and marketing and anything else that is preoccupying me as an author.) And the first one, which I sent out this very morning, looks at the history of the Berners Street Hotel, which took over the buildings where Henry Fauntleroy – the banker in “Fatal Forgery” – both worked (number 6 Berners Street) and lived (number 7 Berners Street). If you’re now thinking, darn, I wish I knew more about that, well, why not head over to my subscriber page and sign up so that you don’t miss any more monthly gems.
As anyone who knows me will testify, I am a fantastically organised person. There are few things I love more than a plan, except maybe a timetable. And I have indulged myself by creating a mash-up of the two with regard to these updates: I have spent the past hour putting together an outline of the updates that I plan to issue – and the giveaways that I plan to feature – from now until the end of 2019. It’s the level of organisation of which Sam’s Quaker banker friend Mr Freame would have wholeheartedly approved.
Susan Grossey 
Dear Susan
Thank you very much for sending through the inaugural Sam Plank update. It was very interesting to learn more about the Berners Street setting from the “Fatal Forgery” book.
I’m as impressed as ever with your level of organisation and future planning. I’m not quite up to the 2019 stage yet but I am pleased to report that I’ve worked out my plans for the rest of the day (which include a slight excess of motorsport and football action).
Best Wishes
Graham
It’s good to know that you enjoyed the update, Graham – as it’s a new initiative, I’ll need to work out whether people find it useful/interesting, or whether it’s pure self-indulgence on my part!
I use MailChimp for my Jersey Joggers mail-outs. I am super disorganised and I find it helps my discipline no end for this purpose.
Hope that mailing list grows. It should be of interest to anyone curious in exploring old London.
I get the feeling it’s one of those programs that I will use to about 0.5% of its capability! I’d love to have the time to explore it fully – maybe one day… But for now, it’s doing the job of allowing me to design and write updates, keep track of subscribers and – here’s the creepy bit – seeing how many times each subscriber opens the update, and whether you click through any of the links that I provide… It would be scary if I could work out what to do with any of that information. Good job I can’t.