Web Wow

Iain has been working very hard on the website, and we now sport a guestbook, a mailing list subscription page, are Paypal enabled and also have a proper order form for people not wishing to use Paypal; and he has applied some SEO... our clicks have skyrocketed and are nowhere near slowing down. The growth seems exponential.

That is great - exactly what our books can use!

Learnt another very ouch lesson. Friends or no, first the contract, then the action. Not having a contract can destroy a friendship, and it nearly did. The trust is considerably lessened, on both ends I'd suspect.

And in the same line: Priorities. I spent an inordinately large amount of time on input on a project that isn't mine (and may never be). The priorities are completely wrong.

Result: My priorities and deadlines:

1) Finish editing Solar Wind III so it can go for proofs

Freedom Fighter

2) Finish finishing Prof Alan Solomon's book "Not Another Scale Book" and send for proofs

Not Another Scale Book!

Apart from keeping the income steady and looking after the studio, those two books must be top priority now, not to be sidelined by other projects again until their completion.

Book Promo at an art restaurant and gallery

It seems to me as though we are beginning to gather a core of solid supporters. This is really wonderful. It feels great building up 10 (not 1) books by different authors in a beautiful display along with pretty posters etc; the display looked great but you'll have to for now take my word for it because my camera phone refuses to communicate with my computer (I suspect it's the computer's fault).

18 months back I sat at the Karoo Cafe, at wit's end, waiting for someone - anyone - to show an interest in my newly published novel, "The Mystery of the Solar Wind". Sitting there wondering what I'd done wrong: Hadn't I put up enough posters? Hadn't I notified the newspaper in time (no I hadn't); why was nobody interested? I did make two sales that day; but I didn't regard that as any kind of success.

When they told us this time round that we were not allowed to bring musical instruments, we knew that it would be a quiet event again, more for the people who arrived specifically for us than anyone else to take an interest. And so it has been; however, surprisingly many people arrived specially to come and say hi to us and how is the promotion going. We had a lovely time.

From party to party to party. It's like learning to bake a cake by experiment, having to guess not only the quantities but the actual ingredients (without any prior knowledge about cakes). This time the noise was missing, so anyone not associated with us didn't know there was something going on - especially because of the placement too. The promo on the 30th of April was a lot more successful from a sales angle. But that is regardless; promos will continue to happen.

What is heartening is the growing fen. It's really sweet to see!

Now for a fresh angle on sales.