More successes to report

It looks like I might be in Jerry Simmon's newsletter again this week, since I have just had another email from him. The list of stores that have ordered has now reached the grand old number of 21 - 17 Waterstones and 4 Borders. Will be sending a copy to the local Radio station today as well - BBC Southern Counties. They do feature local authors on some of their programmes, so fingers crossed. In the meantime, Paul is going to try the Daily Express Book Club and the Mail on Sunday and is also hoping to contact Barnes and Noble when his contact is back from holiday. The book is only on sale or return in the UK though, not North America.

He has also given the name and number for his contact at IPC Magazines, who publish womens weekly's since they are often looking for 'real life success stories' etc, and may be interested. Will have to pluck up the courage to give her a call then later on today.

On Friday I was told that the 30 books that Gardners had initially ordered did not arrive, since they sent the order to the wrong place. This would not normally have been very good news, since the stores have ordered would have been waiting for their orders to arrive and wondering what was going on! However, in my case it has turned out to be excellent news, since they have orders far exceeding that in number already, and have out another order in this time for 80 copies !! I have sent a press release round then to all on my mailing list and as many of those free press release sites I can find as well as the Publishing News forum ! Almost forgot to mention as well that my copy of The Self Publishing Magazine arrived yesterday (I am featured as self published success story in there), and it looks very good !

Still holding my breath ...

Coran and I had a lovely day today at Stonehenge and a well deserved rest. It was really nice to just sit around the stones lolling about in the sun with a good book, and have a leisurely drive back, watching everybody else overtake.

I have just rung Paul to get the lowdown on what is happening. He has spoken to Borders today and they have requested further information, which Paul's contact will pass on to the Buyer who is in charge of my genre. He remains confident that they will bite. He will try Waterstones on Monday, whom I expect will say the same thing. Writers News in the meantime remains a cert, as does the feature in Self Publishing, which I organised myself some time ago. The Times is also a possibility. Paul informs me that Richard will be putting out a press release some time next week, which will go on his own website, and will be circulated to other "interested parties". If he needs me to post it on a few of the free press release websites I can certainly do that as well. I will speak to Paul on Monday and see what the plans are.

I realise that neither Paul or Richard can promise results, but we are going to give this our best shot, and I feel confident that at least one of these contacts will bite. For my part I have some radio contacts of my own from the newsletter that I edit, and can also contact some of the local papers. One of Coran's clients has some useful media contacts so I might contact her and see if she can help.

Still holding my breath and keeping those fingers (and everything else) crossed!

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.