Its going to take a very long time to become an overnight success

So now we have a book, The Hairy Plug Monster - if you didn't know, and I suppose the hard part starts now. Its all rather like at the birth if a child, I mean you conceive the idea, then about 9 months later your book is born, delivered into the world by a publishing house and that's it. They hand you the book all wrapped up in its swaddling clothes and send you both out into the big wide world.

We are now in a position to start marketing the book, but are hampered slightly by the fact that Authorhouse have put quite a hefty shipping charge on the book - which in my view seems slightly myopic on their part. How many more sales would they make if they lowered their charges to the public for shipping? Its a pity as well ,that never once did they advise of the additional cost's - Initially I was really vexed about the whole affair and pulled the add off Facebook, however the book itself is 42 pages in full colour and I suppose it's weight must be taken into consideration.

However, in order to give "my fans" lol - better value for money, we are looking at alternative printers for the book, but as HPM Media Ltd are a publishing house in their own right we shouldn't need a company like Authorhouse to do most of the work for us - and subsequently take most of the profit.

So now the search is on to find a printer who can not only produce a high quality product, but one who can do it consistantly time after time, for all of the books. In light of this I discovered a new website called Bobex UK where you can pitch your needs on the web and prospective clients will try and bid for your custom.

Its been an emotional week, and at the end of it all The Hairy Plug Monster
is now available on Amazon, Author House, Barnes and Noble and will soon be available on Waterstones -

Congratulations its a book

Its slightly later than I had planned to tell you, but the book The Hairy Plug Monster is available to buy from Author House, I checked with www.hairyplugmonster.com website but the link hasn't appeared as yet.

As soon as I knew that the publishers had released the book, I have spent all day telling everybody.

The girl who sold me a lottery ticket,
The girl who sold me Danish Pastry
All my friends on Facebook -( I expect I will soon find out how close we really are by the sales figures.)

Random people in my contacts list - in fact everyone I have met, I have spoken to MEN the local media syndicate, gone to the schools library service and shown them my wares.

"Have you got kids?, you have? That's great, I have just released a book " - yada yada yada

The last eight months have been spent dreaming of this day when I can finally say - "I am a published author" now the only thing that is on my mind is " How do I let the world know that I am a published author" and why don't they know already.

I suppose this is the learning curve that everyone must take - I expect that by the time I come to publish The Hairy Plug Monster goes Shopping, Be careful Ethel, or The Marvelous Mouse I should be a dab hand at self publicity.

I cant describe the feeling that I get when I read The HPM to children and watch their eyes light up at the antics of Maya and the HPM - nor the satisfaction of watching my three year old daughter look into the bath at the draining bathwater and tell me that the noise I can hear is the sound of the HPM drinking all the bathwater.. every child I have read the story to wants to believe that there a HPM underneath their bath and I have heard of instances where they have bent down with their ear to the floor listening out - just like the book.

Job Done I would say, well at least the easy part.

Ramblings

I have managed to squeeze out a few opening lines for a new piece based on Maya's reluctance to look after a cut on her leg and risk infection. With my kids at least I find that trying the softly softly approach never seems to work, so instead I told her she would end up like my friend.

One -Legged Steve


" who's that ?" she asked

well I said and made up a tale about a friend who didn't look after a cut on his leg......and it fell off!!!

The look of shock on her face was priceless, and it wasn't long before a flannel bathed in Dettol was applied to the graze.

Its strange how a simple throwaway comment can evolve so quickly. Just in the same way I suppose that The Hairy Plug Monster evolved from an "off the cuff " comment to what could be one of those classic books that every child has on their book shelf.

So here is the opening gambit let me know what you think

There is an old pirate,
Called One-legged Steve
Who lives in the same part of town that I do
There’s a sad sorry tale,
Behind the strange name
And the reason that Stephen needs only one shoe!

Of course that is not all of it, but that is all I am going to post today...

Catch up with you later

Almost there

For the last week I have been emailing radio stations to see if I can get my book on the air, however, as yet no-one seems to be interested although it is early days. I know that the concept of the HPM and the other stories to follow will definitely appeal to both parents and children alike and eventually word will spread.

This is one of the problems with operating on a shoestring budget, it would be nice to tell the world on every commercial break that " The Hairy Plug Monster" is out on sale and is brilliant!!!! so buy it - and subsequently people do.

The reality is though, that the HPM is going to have to rely heavily on "word of mouth" and via the Internet which is going to take a long time. For anyone who has read the book, I would welcome your comments good or bad. Naturally I will publish the good ones on this blog - and keep the bad ones to ourselves ( but obviously take on board whatever is on your mind).

So that's basically it for this week, there is not really a lot to report to you, admittedly the HPM should already be out on sale, but as we have knit-picked over every detail (including a 4 week delay due to choosing the font) we are about 10 days behind schedule. The good thing is that once the book is out, it will be out forever.

Its time to start crossing fingers!!!