Having travelled to England from Brazil to launch my historical novel “Captain Cobbler” and then flown back via New York to launch the novel in the USA I am now wondering how sales will fare…?
My very first customer at my very first book-signing in Louth on October 1st, the 477th anniversary of the Lincolnshire Uprising, was a young lady, who introduced herself to me as Gail Melton. She told me her great grandfather had been a shoemaker in the town…. so there seems a great probability she was a descendant of Nicholas Melton – the Captain Cobbler in the title! Very exciting!
I sold quite a few books at the various book-signing events I was at, but numbers varied at these events as, occasionally, the pre-publicity had been less ‘upfront’ than I may have hoped. The ‘Catch 22’ problem for an independently published book is that the traditional bookshops will not stock them unless they think they may sell… so you have got to sell quite a lot to make them sit up and take notice. For many book-buying members of the public, however, their book-buying depends upon what they see in the bookshops, so if the book isn`t there….!!
The answer seems to be to make the book a success on the online book sites such as Amazon but that takes a lot of publicity to bring public awareness high enough for buyers to specifically LOOK for your book…back to the ‘Catch 22’ again! Do please go and make sure of YOUR book order however – see the link below and order one now while you are online!!
iUniverse, my publisher, should have provided me with a “publicist” for the US market, but, without apportioning blame, that did not happen as it should. Serendipity took a hand here, however, and, as I wandered the subways of New York , seeking inspiration, I happened, one day, to come up out of the subway at Hunter College not far from Central Park, and decided there may be a possibility to set up an event actually in the Unversity. I tried the History Department, but no staff members were present to talk to me, nor anyone in the English Department but an administrator there suggested I might like to talk to their “Creative Writing Department”…?
“Yes I would, please”, says I, and eventually get to see a gentleman going by the delightfully Dickensian name of Mr Lewis Frumkes, who used to write for Punch magazine. Cutting quite a roundaboutly long story shorter, this conversation ended with an introduction to an acquaintance of Mr Frumkes, one Ben Franks, who is a publicist and we were able to ‘do a deal’. Neither one of us knowing the other it was a potentially risky venture but it turned out remarkably well. Starting from Thursday afternoon of the 24th October my new publicist, Ben Franks, managed to find me around 20 interviews on Radio stations around the US of A before we left New York on the evening of Sunday 3rd November (and a few to be had, by phone from here in Brazil, in a couple of weeks’ time – well done Ben!)
If you wish to you can listen in to one of these interviews by going to this site … http://boston.cbslocal.com/the-jordan-rich-show/ and scrolling down until you find my name This interview was recorded whilst I was in New York and then played on November 8th by which time we were back in Brazil.
For anyone wanting to follow up on getting hold of a copy of my novel, whether the paper version for a Christmas present, or the electronic version for yourself, you can do that by visiting Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com ) or Amazon.co.uk ( http://www.amazon.co.uk ) or by logging on to iuniverse.com (http://bookstore.iuniverse.com ) – the kindle edition e-book is only $2.99 or £1.85 in English money.
Back to “normal” blogging soon
Keith Melton - Green Lib Dem 