Summer Holiday Time

Well, the summer holidays begin today, which means I will have much less time to spend on promoting the book, but it all seems to be doing quite well without me. I'm still putting together some ideas for the book/Give A Child A Chance event. When I have a few more ideas, I will put them to Collette at City and see what she thinks. Looks like it will be early autumn at the earliest before anything happens though.

The Amazon page looks good now because it has finally uploaded the reviews people had so kindly submitted a while back. I had to e-mail Amazon to find out what the delay was, but once I had done that, they were very quick to respond and within 24 hours they were put on the site.

Time permitting, I am going to try to place an advert for the book in a couple of local magazines/papers over the summer, just to keep up the momentum, and I may re-list on eBay again - but I will wait and see how everything goes without it. I also have plans to do some 'mystery shopper' calls to some of the bookshops which have stocked or promised to stock the book, and see how its all going....

Hope you are all enjoying the lovely weather!

Latest update

The account page on the Lulu site tells me all I need to know about the book with regard to royalties, orders etc. With the royalties, I can't deny that it's nice to see that the books are selling, both via bookshops and through Lulu itself. But what is really frustrating is I can't see exactly who is ordering it. Still, I suppose that comes with letting my book go out into the big wide world! I have recently composed a thank you note which will go out with any books ordered from Lulu. This is something Lulu offers writers for free, and I think it's a nice touch.

I finally got around to ordering myself a car sticker to advertise the book (and it looks great in the back of my car, alongside my original 1977 194 Radio City car sticker (thanks Ed!) I have also stocked up on some key rings. These look pretty fab too. If you ever need to order anything like this, I can recommend contacting Phil Dunford at Cleaford.co.uk, as they are quick, professional and reasonably priced.

I finally managed to spend the day in Liverpool yesterday, and will soon have some books on sale at the Tourist Information Offices, and Heritage Projects at the Albert Dock.

Now that things are taking off without the need for me to be so involved, I will be withdrawing my book from eBay listings very soon. Obviously it costs me to list on here, and the book is widely available both in shops and through the internet, often at a cheaper deal than I can offer, but if any of you do experience problems finding a copy, feel free to email me at kathybarham@hotmail.com.

I have been having discussions with Collette Lowe, who is the person in charge of Give A Child A Chance at Radio City and Magic 1548. There is the strong possiblity I might be involved in staging some kind of event over the late summer or early autumn, not only to promote the book, but also to raise some money for GACAC. Watch this space for news of exactly what will happen, but hopefully it will be a kind of 'Retro Fest' with some original 194 people attending. If any of you have any ideas, or could help out in any way, let me know.

Daily Post article 3rd July: "In print - and it was so simple"

After I'd all but given up on the idea of getting something in the newspapers about the book, it's finally happened! Philip Key, a reporter at The Daily Post, has written a piece around my original Scouse Power Press Release. It describes the 'Print on Demand' publishing process, Lulu.com in particular, and uses me and my book as an example (you know the thing:- "Kathy, 43, Civil Servant....." groan!!!!!) Joking aside, it's pretty good publicity for me, and includes Gillian Reynolds' recent quote and the fact that it is selling fast, and is now available to buy just about everywhere. The web address for the Daily Post and Echo, and details of how you can read the article are at the bottom of this post.

Spent Saturday trawling around Liverpool City Centre bookshops, dropping off flyers etc. Also travelled out to Crosby to visit Pritchards, because everyone keeps recommending it as an excellent bookshop. Had already been in touch with Mitch who works there by email a while ago, but was still surprised to see my book already in there at the front of the store when I walked in!

Had big plans for this week - driving around Liverpool talking bookshops into taking some copies - but my youngest son has been taken ill this morning and consequently isn't at school, so I don't know whether it will happen in the short term now.

http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/ (then search icLiverpool for "194 Radio City" and the article will come up)