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). 

While the Cat's away...

I know, I know .....first blog post since January, no good for the stat's and all that - all the Google rankings shot to bits, the world forgets who you are...blah blah blah.

Well I've been busy, (no honest, I have).  Busy trying to find a real income to supplement being a "superstar author".  I also took a step back to reassess my current situation with the publishing business and realised that in its present format the future looks really bleak for the small independent publisher.

First and foremost the economic climate is not favourable, and those individuals who were able to invest money in the arts as a labour of love are no longer as prevalent as they used to be.  So regardless of how good a product is, people are reluctant to finance it. 

In the case of HPM Media Ltd. we have lots of projects on the back burner waiting to be brought to market and the pile is steadily growing.  This includes the several follow ups to The Hairy Plug Monster, Be Careful Ethel, and of course Spooky Tales.

To bring all of these worthwhile productions out requires a lot of initial outlay and even then they have to be distributed and placed in a ever dwindling number of booksellers.  

The cost of distributing and marketing the books then eats into the margins and when you only have one title out there,  it almost costs a pound to make a pound (if you see what I mean)


Invitations to schools and libraries seem to have dried up as well, again most likely due to external forces - (budget cuts) although I did have a good World Book Week, with another invite from Alison Davies of Bury Central Library and one from Hillcrest Grammar.  Needless to say, I went down a storm at both. 

I consider myself a seasoned professional when it comes to performing my work in front of children,  It was heartening to know that " One Legged Steve" went down really well, with "There's something wrong with Grandad" not far behind.

In fact all the poems from Spooky Tales have proved really popular - and now there is a large number of people waiting for the audio book to come out.  Unfortunately we seem to have lost our actor Steve, who has gone off to work on other projects, but have a wealth of talent waiting in the wings to take his place.

To add an extra dimension to the tales, we have recruited Paul Alderson to do the sound design and really bring the stories to life.  It is now looking like Halloween 2011 before Spooky Tales  will be ready for release, and even though it's frustrating to be delayed - it has given me chance to research the best digital outlets and familiarise myself more with the distribution side of things.

Finally, and completely under the radar, Kul has been getting Be Careful Ethel ready for production with the first hard draft being sent of to Blurb.com as I write.  I will tell you more when I know a bit myself.  Once I get the book back, I can register it for an ISBN number and let the bookstores of the world know of it's existence again.  That's when the exciting stuff can begin again.