I missed our Chindi author of the week spot last week for some reason, so I want to make amends for that now. I would like to introduce Susanne Haywood who is a cat lover. She joined Chindi recently but has been active in the literary world, penning such articles as the one at https://katzenworld.co.uk/2018/06/04/so-youve-decided-to-adopt-a-human/. Naturally we wish Susanne all the best with her furry friends and hope she’ll enjoy plenty of books sales.

Last Wednesday was a ‘book’ day for me. Will Patching came to see me in the morning, bringing the book I’d won in an on-line competition. I could say that Will came all the way from Thailand to hand me the book, but that would be the imaginative writer in me adding a little editorial licence to the truth. As a matter of fact, Will was visiting UK and staying in Bognor. His brother lives just round the corner from me, so it meant an enjoyable couple of hours talking about books. And Will had a great deal of useful information which he passed on. I’ve already acted on that and joined up with Dave Chesson of Kindlepreneur (www.kindlepreneur.com). Will has used it quite successfully. Hopefully it will help me with my promotion and marketing, and I suspect that in the long run I’ll make gains I can see, but how much and how many depends largely upon the effort and time I’m prepared to put into it.

Later in the day I was at The Steam packet pub in Littlehampton where I joined up with two Chindi authors, Isabella Muir and Helen Christmas, for a talk on writing crime novels. Supporting us there were Patricia Feinberg Stoner and Rosemary Noble. Patricia organised the evening, and Rosemary has been responsible for organising several events for the Littlehampton festival next month. The evening event at The Steam Packet was a kind of practice for us all. At first I thought we would struggle as we were put into a corner, but the whole pub paid attention as we got into our stride. The Landlady, Arletta, was a star; she looked after us really well and even bought a book off each of us. I’m sure the Chindi group will be invited back again. I hope so.

Last week I put my boxset into Kindle Select. I did this because I’ve sold about one in the two years the box set has been available. So imagine my surprise when I saw that within a day or so, I’d got just short of 1400 page reads. You can see the box set at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01KYAOZZG. It’s called Michael Parker’s First Three Novels. The set is cheap to buy at £4.75 anyway, but I think I’ve made more from those pages than I have with the set sitting there for the last couple of years.

As a result of meeting up with Will Patching and being pointed in a sensible direction (more discipline), and also because of watching David Penny on an SPF podcast, I’ve decided to put my WIP on the back burner until I am reasonably happy with my promotion and marketing efforts. I still have a long way to go, but hopefully I’ll see the light at the end of that very long tunnel. Who knows? Wish me luck!