The Hairy Plug Monster.....

Having seemingly fallen out of love with the local schools (after all it has been quite a while since the launch of the HPM), I was delighted to have a call from Sue Edwards, the nursery teacher at Arden Primary School - who asked if  I would like to return and read to her class, naturally I jumped at the chance especially as it meant I could spend the day there and perform to all the age groups and get some feedback on Be Careful Ethel.

The whole day was fantastic as class after class welcomed me back like a long lost friend, (so I must have made quite an impression on my previous visit).  I performed 7 readings throughout the day selecting my material depending on the class,  unsurprisingly the younger children wanted to hear about the adventures of The Hairy Plug Monster, while the more mature pupils demanded that I scared the 'bejeezus' out of them with Golden Arm, One Legged Steve and There's Something Wrong with Grandad - naturally I obliged.

I almost blushed with pride when one of the teachers proudly showed me her video that she made of The Hairy Plug Monster with narration and everything, and said that it was a firm favourite with herself and all the class. 

Be Careful Ethel went down a storm, so it looks like we may have another winner on our hands.  As they say on the 'telly' - "Let's go to work".

Early reports from the frontline suggest that Be Careful Ethel is going to be just as popular as The HPM - if not more so

Having been the only book on the shelf for so long, The Hairy Plug Monster has now had to make room for the new kid in town.

We received the first 'mock up' of Be Careful Ethel this week and it looks superb. We came up with the idea of the promotional clip to boost awareness and have already had a very positive response.

I gave the copy of Be Careful Ethel to Maya-Rose's teacher to test drive on her class, without saying who wrote it and came back with the following:-

Erin: "very good, I liked the King and Queen"

Archie: "Fantastic"

Luke: " Liked that the story rhymed"

Maddy: "I really liked it, I liked the 'dont panic' bits

Louie: " Liked the cheesy teddy bear bit

Rowan: " I liked the cheesy teddy bear bit too!"

Ankita: "I want to buy the book right now"

Harry: "I laughed at the cheese teddy bear bit"


Miss Steyert " The children really enjoyed Be Careful Ethel and laughed throughout. Especially when Maurice spread cheese on his teddy bears. The children joined in with the 'dont panic" bits -

Thoroughly entertaining.


So in a nutshell it looks like its going to be as well liked as the Hairy Plug Monster, but could you do me a favour when it does come out -even though I enjoy being told how much you like my stories,

don't tell me - just tell everyone else

Be Careful Ethel

Here is the first music track that we are going to use to promote Be Careful Ethel, it's only the first take and there will probably be a few changes made to it in the future.

 I was asked to create something that had an element of childish fun about it and would look good with the images from the book.  The piece is called 'Be Careful' and is a standard blues riff going from C7 to G and back again.  Its very straight forward and simple and only has 10 tracks on it.  (unlike my more serious pieces which can contain more that 50 tracks).  Click on the bar and let me know what you think.....

It's getting close to that time again.

There is nothing like signing into your blog and finding comments like this one.

"I live in Canada and I am the Grandmother of Noah. I was talking to my hairdresser about "The Hairy Plug Monster" and he knew the book. As it turns out, it's a favorite of his son's. I was delighted to know you have reached international fame! [and not just from a proud grandmother".

This is all very heartening and I still think that slowly and surely The Hairy Plug Monster will take over a small percentage of the world.  However, this week was spent focusing on our next publication -

Be Careful Ethel, which again is aimed at the 3-6 age group with illustration supplied by Kim Eagle and additional post production jiggery pokery by Kul Cuthbert.  Using Blurb.com we were able to produce a mock up of the book and make changes as and when necessary.

Once we have the layout perfected it will be time to start the whole promotional thing again.  Registering it with Nielson and sending out another batch of emails to the hundreds of bookstores, schools and libraries in addition to maxing out on Facebook and Twitter etc. 

At the moment this is definitely the quiet before the storm.  Early reviews of Be Careful Ethel have been very positive and some have even said that they enjoyed it more than The HPM.  ( if such a thing is possible).