I am it seems being re-ordered after all!

I feel like I have been running round like a tit in a trance all day long (what a strange expression that is). Mind you, it is my own fault really, since I couldn't be bothered to get out of bed until 9am - it was just too cosy and warm. I have been having really strange dreams for these last couple of nights, but last night I was in some kind of Egyptian temple being initiated into a healing system called Sekkem in what looked like a symbolic womb of some kind. No doubt as it has some kind of obscure meaning, but I am buggered if I know what it is!

Today though I have been to Sainsbury's to get some bits and bobs, had lunch in Starbucks (a big wheaty sandwich which I will no doubt regret for the next three days, since I am supposed to be wheat free, with a cup of tea), taken my sisters Christmas presents round to her flat (thankfully she was not in), been on to the cemetery to see Mum and Dad's grave, and then been to our church to collect and deliver Christmas cards.

Somewhere in between that lot I have also made 2 trips to the Post Office to pay in my royalty cheque, get some cash and post my brother and his fiance's Christmas presents, had a chat with various residents who were in the Post Office queue, and answered an email from Justin Hutchinson, independent author advisor for Waterstones.

What he had to say was not earth shattering, but interesting nevertheless. It seems that I may have been mistaken when I thought that Waterstones branches were not re-ordering, for he says that the vast majority of stores who have sold copies do in fact still have stock. He did not say which branches have sold copies, which I would not expect him to when there are so many of them (I hope). He did though say that there were 173 copies in circulation throughout the company. Having done a quick count of all those who told me they have ordered copies, and a rough estimate of how many they ordered apiece, I estimate that around 240 copies in total have been circulated company wide since this whole thing started in August. This means that I have sold around 67 copies then through the tills, or just over a quarter of copies distributed. This is not a hugely fantastic figure, but a very good start. Once it goes to 100 copies which I am confident it will do in the next couple of months, then I will be off and running.

Of course this figure does not include copies sold through Borders and other sources such as Amazon, which I estimate to be another 50 or so by now. Then there are the 100 odd copies that I have hand sold, bringing the total sales now to well in excess of 200. Only sales through the tills though count as far as sales compilation charts go, more's the pity, because although I do my best to keep records regarding hand selling, according to the powers that be, these cannot be proven, and could be made up. Not in my case though as I have bank statements to prove it.

Here though is what Justin had to say:

"Dear June

I have just checked and I can confirm that a vast majority of stores who have sold copies still have stock. It may be that the other stores have opted not to replenish stock of this, which they are free to do. There certainly does not seem to be any issue with this stock and I do feel that stores would probably not wish to be called to see if they have reordered a title and I agree that your time would be better spend promoting this title. As a company we have 173 copies in stock which is more that enough given the sale at present.

Regards

Justin"

There you have it then, I am still no closer to discovering what the optimum number of copies is for it to be re-ordered as stock. I guess this depends then on the individual store and what space they have available. As Justin says, they are free to make such decisions, and at the end of the day there is not a lot I can do about this. I am better off continuing to contact other stores and outlets and gather publicity. In January then this is exactly what I will do.

The business account has another £210 in it thanks to the royalty cheque that I have just paid in, so I will send out some more review copies, enter a few competitions that I have recently come across, get some articles published in magazines, work on this blog and my main website and basically do what I need to do.

As far as book stores go, I will ring the Waterstones I did not manage to get through prior to Christmas, and then start on Borders. Following that I shall start with the independents, beginning with having another crack at Same Day Books (all three branches) and Mysteries and Watkins in London. The MBS manager at Waterstones in Maidstone Fremlin Walk used to work for Watkins and has provided me with one or two names who may be able to help, since the Manager does not return my emails. I guess like the rest of us he is just too busy - I know the feeling.

Still, if I get nowhere I will just move on and concentrate on those who are going to help me. It's no skin off my nose after all - there are plenty of other stores to contact - 3500 independents in fact in the UK alone and this does not include the smaller new age type stores who have one or two shelves of this type of book, and which ultimately might provide a much better outlet since they are likely to be firm sale. The list which my friend who runs an unnamed spiritual magazine provides will be very useful in this regard. I also need to to order though a directory of independent book sellers from the Independent Booksellers Association. Let's get Christmas out of the way first though.

What is happening then in the book world at large? Remarkably little it seems, as very few news articles or even blog updates seem to have been added to The Bookseller today. Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion has won yet another accolade, this time as audio book of the year via website http://www.audible.com/ He received just over 3000 votes from those who downloaded copies via said website, seeing off competition from a shortlist that included Ian Rankin's The Naming of the Dead, Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader and Andrew Marr's A History of Modern Britain. I must try and find out what is happening to his Turkish publisher and whether the unfortunate chap will be spending the festive season (to Christians anyway) in jail. As an atheist I wonder what Mr Dawkins makes of the PC brigade telling us not to display Christmas cards etc on our desks. Decency prevents me from saying what I think, and you can draw your own conclusions from that ...

God Delusion to be banned in Turkey?

I see from the Independent that Richard Dawkins' Turkish publisher Kuzey Publications is being hauled over the coals by religious fundamentalists. It seems that they are being threatened with legal action by prosecutors who claim that their publication of Dawkins' best selling work The God Delusion insults believers. I don't know they are so upset about myself, as the Turkish translation has apparently only sold 6000 copies since publication.

Erol Karaaslan, the founder Kuzey Publications could though face between six months and twelve months in jail if found guilty. Prosecutors are still debating over to press charges.

It is not the first time that Dawkins' has come against such problems in Turkey, since it seems that Islamic fundamentalists also tried to ban his earlier work The Selfish Gene.

I don't understand the furore personally or even why it was deemed necessary to publish in this territory in the first place - the book discusses Christianity more than other religions, and Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country. It also then puzzles me as to exactly who has been offended. Having read the book myself, I don't recall it even mentioning Islam.

Neither is Dawkins the first author to face controversy. The article states that Nobel prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk and Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink were just two several dozens writers to be charged last year under a controversial law that makes it a crime to insult Turkishness, whatever that means. Pamuk was acquitted, but Dink – who was murdered earlier this year by a teenage ultra-nationalist - was found guilty.

What though does it mean to be Turkish, or for that matter, any other nationality? Does one have to be born in that country or have parents who were, or is it sufficient to have lived there for a certain number of years. If so, then how many? Is a child of Jamaican parents who emigrated to Britain in the 1950's any less British that I am - of course not, for in their hearts they still think of themselves as British, and that is what counts.

This also brings to mind an episode from my favourite science fiction series Babylon Five entitled Infection. It is I believe an episode from series two. It basically revolves around a machine on an uninhabited planet that seems hell bent on destroying everything in its path. When they ask what the machine actually wants it transpires that it was put in place to protect its former inhabitants, the Icarans from raiders by destroying anything that was not pure Icaran. The predictable result was of course the destruction of the entire race. Muslims and for that matter any other fundamentalist regime, should take note for if they do not pull up their own socks and start to behave in a more sensible manner by not being threatened by anything that does not agree with their own faith, they will ultimately share the same fate.

The word atheist is generally recognised in most societies as meaning one who does not believe in God. There is nothing wrong in this, as it is like anything else just one of many widely held beliefs. Being an atheist does not make one less moral or less of anything in fact, in fact when you look at the statistics the opposite is true. The more secular societies are nine times out of ten more tolerant and understanding of each other.

The word atheist has it seems only recently crept into the Turkish language, where it is regarded as a kind of insult. The Independent cites a survey of religious attitudes conducted in Turkey in 2006, which found that less than 2 percent of corespondents claimed not to believe in God. More recently polls showed that just 25 percent of Turks accept evolutionary theory.

On the one hand, while I am the first to espouse religious freedom, and in no way agree with the ridiculousness of this case, one has to ask why the book was published in this territory in the first place, when there seems to be such limited demand. Surely they must have known the controversy it would cause. The cynic or perhaps spiritual aspect of myself, wonders if this was the whole idea, since the only way to really shed light on these situations for them to be open to the light of public scrutiny so that they can be discussed by the world media and these regimes will realise and understand that their views are simply not those of a civilised society.

The treatment of women in Islamic countries has also been in the news in recent days. Firstly of course the ridiculous case in Sudan where a female teacher has been jailed for allowing the children in her case to name an innocent teddy bear as Mohamed. The British Government are I understand intervening to get her released, but in the meantime, some have called for a suspension of aid to that country. They are cutting off their noses then to spite their face.

The other case is that of a young recently married woman in Saudi Arabia, whose husband thankfully is standing by her. It seems that in Saudi Arabia with its extreme laws of sexual segregation, the only way that men and women can form any kind of relationship is for men to stand in the streets with their mobile phone numbers either on display as women walk past with their male chaperone's, or to literally throw them car windows. Somehow then prior to her marriage, this woman then formed a phone relationship with such a man.

After she was married he threatened to tell her husband unless she agreed to meet him, and so foolishly it seems she did. They were driving together when another car swung in front of them, hijacked their own car and drove them to an isolated place, where both her and her male companion were gang raped repeatedly by up to seven attackers. She tried to keep it from her husband and family, but the rapists (who had filmed the attack on their mobile phones) started to boast about what had happened and so the truth came out. Astonishingly the woman was sentenced to 90 lashes and then when she and fer family complained this was increased to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail. The rapists in the meantime were sentenced to between 2 and 11 years apiece.

The world can no longer sit back and allow this kind of thing to happen, we have to send a strong signal to these countries that this behaviour is not acceptable.

June is bursting out all over

May is gearing up to be a very busy month for me with the imminent publication of the brand new updated edition of Genesis of Man, which is finally complete, bar one review, and will be going to print next week, after the Bank Holiday.

The book seems to be attracting a lot of attention at the moment, from various magazines. The Self Publishing magazine, issued by Troubador Press described it in their latest edition as "a very informative and well researched book that would be ideal as a companion to academic studies in subjects such as theology, philosophy and the social sciences." They then went on to compare it as the antithesis to no less than Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, which according to The Bookseller magazine recently passed 200,000 in sales.

Nexus magazine also plan to issue a review in their June/July edition, which hits the shops at the end of May. This ia real scoop, since this magazine has a worldwide circulation in excess of 200,000, being translated into no less than 11 different languages. It is read by everybody who is anybody within the alternative history and conspiracy theory world. I have asked them to Email me a copy of the review so I can hopefully put a few snippets in the new edition, and that at the moment is the only thing that is holding things up.

It looks as if Paradigm Shift magazine may also be printing a review in either their next edition, or the later August edition. My good friend and writing buddy Leslie, whom I met via My Writers Circle, very kindly agreed to write the review, following her excellent reviews on both Amazon sites. She has more than earned a mention on the acknowledgements page, as has my other other American writing friend Nadine Laman. Nadine was the one who first introduced me to My Writers Circle and has been instrumental in introducing me to several other influential people who love the book, such as Jerry Simmons and Ben Ruddy, who together run the Nothing Binding project, aimed at helping to promote independent authors. You can hear me talk about the book in a recent interview with Ben here.

I have several other exciting events planned for the coming months, all of which can be seen on the events page of my own site. The first of these is a meeting on 25th in Kent with several other self published authors to discuss joint marketing plans. Following that I shall be holding the Wednesday gathering at our local church on 30th, and on 31st I have booked a stall for the annual summer craft fair at a nearby vineyard. Then on June 11th I shall be special guest on the Phil Harris radio show, All That Matters, on Internet Voices Radio, New York. This is one of the top 10 rated shows for the eastern seaboard. Phil has very kindly agreed to give the book some advance publicity by reading some of its reviews on air in the weeks leading up to the show. More details on how to listen in will follow just as soon as I have them.

I also take over the village newsletter this month, with the June edition my first one. I am busy preparing for that, following up various local news stories and articles. I have an interesting idea for an article of my own if the local paper are interested, re famous author Jane Austen, and her connections to the local area. So many people call me Jane, that I might as well turn the similarity in our names to my advantage. After all, one has to use all the tools at ones disposal to get publicity, and you know what they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity. I often wonder whether if I had been a long lost relative, those mainstream publishers would have been quite so fast to reject my work. Possibly not ...

You can see from the above that at the moment, June is quite literally bursting out all over!

Genesis of Man compared to God Delusion

This at long last is the long awaited image of the brand new and soon to be printed cover in all its glory. I am sure you will agree that this will have quite an impact and help the book to be taken much more seriously, which it most definately needs.

Last night we had a telephone call from the couple who bought our old house to say that they had some post for us. This morning we went over there to collect it, and I was pleased to find that one of these items was notification from a magazine called Self Publishing, together with a complimentary copy, to say that they had printed a review of my book on page 29.

When I read the review I was truly astonished and delighted beyond words, for they have compared me to none other than Richard Dawkins, the best selling author and self proclaimed aetheist, whose book The God Delusion topped the UK and US non-fiction best sellers list for a full 6 months, selling thousands of copies worldwide (200,000 in the UK alone). Even better, they have given me permission to reprint this segment on the back cover of the new edition, which I will hopefully finish proof reading before the week is out ...

The review then reads:

"Genesis of Man covers some highly topical and controversial subjects regarding religion and science. If you have read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, then you will love this book, because it serves the opposite viewpoint.

The book is well researched - it is laden with scientific, Biblical and historical evidence to support its arguments. However, although there is sound understanding of science, the book seems to place more importance on its Biblical and historial evidence. It is also written with a lot of personal input from the narrator, which helps the ease of reading and can 'speak' to the reader. However, the first person narrative approach may appear to some readers as informal, and make the work appear less reliable.

Whilst the book is written as though it is addressing a vast and diverse audience of believers and non-believers, there are some infelicities and bias that suggests thar only certain groups of people are being targeted. The narrative focusses mainly on the Abrahamic religions, with a greater emphasis on Christianity. This may make its arguments appear somewhat incomplete to some readers, because there are six major world religions to be accounted for, rather than three.

This is a very informative and well researched book. It would be ideal as a companion to academic studies in subjects such as theology, philosophy and the social sciences. The book also achieves what it set out to do; answering all and more of the questions in its blurb"

No sooner did I ring Richard, my Editor and give him the good news, than I got an email from the UK office of Nexus magazine to say that they are also printing a review in their June edition. The magazine is based in Australia but has 4 English language editions, (UK and Europe, US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand) plus 10 foreign language editions (Italian, Greek, French, German, Polish, Croatian, Russian, Romanian and Japanese) with a combined print run of 100,000 copies. The circulation will be at least twice this amount! This then is very good news indeed.

They are also sending me a complimentary copy. I will hopefully be able to print their review in the updated edition as well. This could do amazing things for my book, since Nexus is the leading magazine for conspiracy theorists and alternative historians, read by many other authors in this field. If just one percent of readers buy a copy as a result, this will be 6000 copies sold! I am jumping for joy at the prospect.

At long last things really are beginning to happen.