It’s all happening today! First of all, the divine Helen Hollick has featured a little piece by me on her terrific historical fiction blog, Let Us Talk of Many Things. She gave me free rein – rather brave – and I decided to write about how I explore Sam’s London. And quite by chance I realised that it is an interesting blend of old and new, as my two most-consulted resources are a map from 1827, and the Transport for London online journey planner!
Secondly, I have taken delivery of my “Book of the Year 2017” promotional stickers. For those of you interested in the financial side of things, I ordered them from Vistaprint, using – with her permission – the logo designed by Helen. I chose circular, matte, easy-peel stickers to mimic those seen most often in bookshops, and 120 small stickers (3.6 cm in diameter) cost me £26.03 including delivery and VAT. That’s nearly 22p per sticker and a wild extravagance, but I treated myself. I have now put them on the copies of “Portraits of Pretence” that I have in stock, added them to the books in my local bookshops, and posted them to the more distant stockists in Ely and London. I have also been keeping a beady eye on sales for a spike, given all this publicity, but it is so far proving elusive.
And thirdly, I will be launching the “Plank 5” title poll at the end of this week. My creative team and I (that’s me and the husband) are looking at a long list of possibilities in order to narrow it down to the final five. The big thesaurus is out – the one with its own special magnifying glass – so it’s serious stuff. Voting will open on Friday.