Lulu.com has listed my book, The Long Sleep
on Amazon.com!

I've got a new job! I start at North Tyneside Council as a Research and Information Support Officer on the 1st July. No students, no parents, no EMA. And an extra 4 grand a year. it's all good.

Candy has had an operation on her ankle, so she's back on crutches for the next six weeks. She's survived a week so far but she already starting to go stir crazy.

This comes from Katrina Stonoff, over at Stone Soup. Admittedly, she is a good friend - the only person I've 'met' through LJ who I have subsequently actually met, but she's also a very good critic - she gave me a wonderful reading of Down Among the Yla. She also has a couple of copies to give away in her weekly Book Giveaway contest.

So, I am very, very happy about what she's written.

Although this one was verbal rather than written. It did come from someone who is not a member of my family though. It's from a colleague who teaches English Lit. He said that he really enjoyed it - there were a couple of points which made him wince (although they were only minor points, so nothing really to worry about). However, he praised the story and the dialogue (which he said he thought was really well written). And, even better, he told me that he read from page 80 to the end in one sitting because he really wanted to find out what happened! He was disappointed at the end because he wanted more and asked if there was going to be a sequel.

I know it's really only one step up from my mum saying it's the best book she's ever read, but it was good for me, after the crappy day I had at work today...

I really need a 'P'word for 'final' don't I?

I have 25 orders for the book. Which I am very happy with. I'll probably order 30 copies, which means I can send two or three off to places for review and have a couple left over in case anyone else decides to buy one.

Yay me!

With three days to go, I've made 13 sales. Which is really pretty good, I think. Obviously it's not the 100,000 that I was hoping for, but I'm certainly very happy with it. I need some sort of push to see if I can get it over 15. Or even, dare I say it, up to 20?

In my desperate attempt to prove to the publisher's that they were wrong not to accept The Long Sleep, I have, so far, made six sales. Okay. Not quite Times bestseller list material. But it's six more sales than I had before I self-published!

I am ever so pleased to announce that The Long Sleep Pre-Publication Sale is now on!

From now until Friday 17th October, I am going to offer The Long Sleep postage free - and signed. (or unsigned, if you prefer...)

It costs £7.50 ($13.25/€9.60).

All you have to do is go to my website and click on the PayPal link there. You can even read the first chapter there for free!

Thank you ever so much! (And thanks even more if you pimp it in your own LJ!)

I got home as quickly as I could this afternoon so I could look at the book.And it was a thing of beauty. A couple of minor problems that are now fixed - the front cover image wasn't quite centred properly and I didn't add a blank page at the beginning to ensure that the story started on a right hand page, but that's fixed now and I think it's going to be excellent.

So far, I've got about 10 confirmed pre-orders. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a few more.

I've just had a text from Candy saying that the proof copy of The Long Sleep has arrived. I want to go home and see it now!

Last night I finished re-editing The Long Sleep and sent it up to Lulu.com. I'm now waiting for my proof copy to arrive.

In the meantime, I'm gonna run a poll.

I am considering running a pre-publication sale. The reason for this is that I would like to have some copies on hand to send off review purposes and perhaps try and get a few copies into local bookshops. However, I have no money spare to get them. So, if I could raise some money beforehand, I'd be able to do this. Obviously, I need to so something to provide an incentive for this, so, what I'll do is this: If I was to say that I would send you your copy free of postage costs (and signed!), would you be prepared to splash out? It is probably going to cost £7.50 (that's about $14.00 or 9.50 Euro).

Poll #1266602
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3

Would you be interested in buying a copy?

And, in this case, I'm publishing a book.

This started at the weekend when I was speaking to my friend bottomofglass. He has written a role-playing game and self-published it through Lulu.Com. I had a look at the copy he had and thought it looked extremely professional. I've also actually bought from Lulu before (a graphic novel called Tranny which was very well done.

So, I thought I'd give it a go with my first novel, 'The Long Sleep', on the basis that doing something with it is better than doing nothing with it.

I'm about two thirds of the way through re-reading and re-fiddling with it (it's a long time since I last looked at it - pretty much since I was living in Paris), so I think I'm going to be ready to get it published in the next couple of weeks. At the very least, it'll mean I have a book of my very own on my bookshelf.

This morning, Max woke up with a nosebleed at 5am. It wasn't serious and he was back to sleep very quickly. I, however, wasn't. So, I did something useful with the extra couple of hours available to me and designed a cover for the book.

And here it is, behind this here cut (although you can see a little preview in my userpic.
( Are you ready...? )