Making Contact

It has been another interesting day. I don't normally write this much more than once a week, since there is not really a need for this. This morning though I was invited to a fairtrade coffee (and tea) morning, and met some people who may be very useful indeed in the months to come. The first of these and possibly the most exciting was a freelance photographer who works for the local paper. Quite apart from his usefulness for the newsletter that I shall very shortly be Editor of, he also sounded interested in my book and promised to talk to the staff at the office re contacting me with a view to doing an article. I may even suggest getting people to order copies through the paper, at say a couple of pounds off or something like that, or even get a competiion going where the first one to correctly answer a question wins a free copy and everyone else gets a coupon for money off a copy. It would be be easy enough for me to drive down there once or twice a week and pick up the entries etc, but will as always have to see what they say ... I have already been mentioned in one edition as the soon to be Editor of my own village newsletter ...

The other lady I met was the organiser for the local WI group. Apparently you have to 'audition' to be accepted as one of their speakers, but once you are on the books as it were, receive invites to go and do talks all over the area. There are loads of WI groups all over this part of Surrey, so this could be a good opportunity. We exchanged contact details and she will also be in touch, unless I contact her first ....

The other thing I have just done is to add an events calendar to the events page on my website so that people can click on it and see straightaway what I am doing. I have seen this on a number of other sites and it seems to work well and should be a useful addition. I have also upated the aforementioned events page with PDF's of the psychic fair this weekend and the craft fair at the end of May, as well as jazzing up the existing PDF's on earlier events with some snazzy clip art images. It now looks very good then.

Water and Wine .....

Since we moved to our new house just before Christmas, I have been amazed at just how much there is going on around the area - loads of groups and fairs etc all over the place - all potential venues for selling and promoting books. You would have expected the opposite, since it is not a large town, about a third the size of our old one, if not smaller. There is though a real community spirit here, plus the fact that so many of the residents are either retired or semi retired and therefore have much more time on their hands to enjoy leisure pursuits, and also the fact that all the little villages around here have their own halls with various groups etc.

The village newsletter have agreed to let me have a free advert for the next advertising year, which starts in June, around the time that I take over the Editors reins. This seems only fair considering that I shall be volunteering my services for free. This should though help me to make me much more well known on the hill and within the local community. The wife of our Chairman, and current Editor, runs a women's group who meet at the village hall once a month, and she is going to book me in at some point to do a talk there as well.

In the meantime though, I have confirmed my place at the psychic fair this weekend (Sunday) at Burgess Hill and I have today booked a table for a craft fair which is taking place at a local vineyard. This wiill be at the end of May and promises to be good. The table is only £10 for the day (10am-6pm), so I should do really well. Naomi, who is one lof the members in My Writers Circle, a writers forum that I a member of, does these things all the time and says they are brilliant, as her books are always one of the cheapest things for sale, and she therefore sells a lot of them. For £10 then it has to be worth a shot.