Changing up a gear

Tags

cover, design, Plank 6, retreat, title, WHSmith, writing

I know I’ve been quiet recently; my excuse is that I was on holiday cycling along the Rhine (which I can recommend for both scenery and ice-cream – the Germans are mad for both).  But I am now home again and work on “Plank 6” is at the forefront of my mind.  There are two key deadlines: on 22 July I am off to Switzerland for my writing retreat (seventeen days on my own, just for writing), and then on 18 October I am hoping to publish the book.  For the writing retreat to be of most value, I need to make sure that I have all but finished the first draft by the time I go – which is only 28 days away.  I’m nowhere near that at the moment, so it’s full steam ahead, carving out writing time whenever and wherever I can.  And the writing retreat should – must – result in a draft that I can send out to my lovely beta readers, and then I need to allow time to incorporate their suggested changes, which could be extensive.  I’m getting the vapours just thinking about it.

And of course the inside of the book is only part of it: before publication I need to decide on a title and a cover and a cover blurb, and organise a launch event.  So no pressure, then.  Over the weekend I put together a list of about fifteen possible titles – some are rather dull, others could work.  I’ll narrow that down to five and then put it to the public vote, as usual, in July.  I’ve started looking for possible cover images and documents, but thankfully can leave colour choice to the cover designer – I’ll be interested to see what they add to our current suite of blue, gold, red, green and purple.

One small update: you remember the book-signing that I did at WHSmith in April?  I’ve been trying to extract from them the vast sum I made from the day (read all about it here) and it’s taken nearly as long as writing “Plank 6”.  They’ve apparently designed a new payments system and I’ve had to submit my details to be approved as a new supplier, along with my invoice.  I’ll let you know when the money arrives and I can treat myself to an extra box of Jaffa Cakes.

Five hours and one cake

Tags

Fatal Forgery, marketing, sales, WHSmith

I know you’ve all been on tenterhooks to know how today’s book-signing session went in my local branch of WHSmith.  Well, not well.  On reflection, this is probably not the shop in which to try to interest people in historical crime fiction by an unknown author.  The staff could not have been friendlier or more helpful; they set up a table for me in the upstairs book department for two hours and then for the next three hours they moved me downstairs into the general shop, by the main entrance (where it’s quite chilly, hence the fetching yellow jacket):

    

Upstairs, there was no interest at all: everyone headed straight for the children’s books or asked me if there was a loo (there isn’t – luckily I have excellent bladder control).  It was good to see so many families in a bookshop, but I have to confess that they mostly bought sticker books “for the car/bus/plane”.  Downstairs there was a little more curiosity, although I am still mulling over this exchange: a woman stopped at my table and picked up one of my books.  “It’s historical crime,” I said, “set in London in the 1820s”.  She put the book down and said, “No” – completely deadpan – before walking off without another word.  No, it’s not historical crime?  No, I’m not interested?  Downstairs was indeed busier, but bestsellers here were chocolate (including Easter eggs), scratchcards and slime.  The most popular book seemed to be something called “Mrs Hinch”, which is about cleaning and was half price.

So let’s get to the hard facts: how many did I sell?  Two books (both “Fatal Forgery”): one to a woman who thought her banker brother would like it, and the other to a nice Slovak chap who was very excited to meet a real author and bought it to prove to his father that he had met an author “even though I probably won’t read it”.  As I had offered a special price on the books (which I had to buy and supply) and WHSmith takes 50% of the sale price, over the five hours I made 98p.  And to cheer myself up on the way home I bought a chocolate cake from Sainsbury’s for £2, so the whole day cost me £1.02.  It’s a good job I’ve resolved to hang fire on the marketing for a while – I can’t afford it.