I have had the books for three days and have almost sold the first 50 copies. Who says poetry doesn’t sell? Mind you, I did target folk who have read our stuff before. Some even thanked me for approaching them! This is so much easier than trying to shift novels. Thanks for all the advertising. Sorry I can’t send any to the States. It would cost more to post than they were worth and I’m not ebooking them. Now to concentrate on the pantomime!
Category: books
The Band
Good music lifts the spirit or soothes the soul
The steady heartbeat of the double bass
A bell-like banjo tinkling out a rhythm
While racing drums that stir the listener’s blood
Cause feet to stamp and hands to clap in time.
The mournful trombone adds its rousing sound
A vibrant trumpet next takes up the tune
But, over all, the soaring clarinet
Makes listening live to jazz a pure delight.
We may arrive in tired or harassed mood
But hearing this great band has done us good.
anthology
I now have 50 copies of our anthology, “Reflections, Then and Now” to start distributing. A few will come to the jazz with us tonight. Then I’ll have to get some envelopes for the ones ordered that need posting. I actually sold the first copy in the printers’ while I was collecting them. I showed it to another customer and he bought it on the spot!
“That’s the way to do it!” I never stop feeling excited when I publish a new book and maybe my enthusiasm is catching. The friend who did the cartoons hasn’t seen the finished product yet. She’ll be there tonight so I hope she likes it. I suppose I am a dreaded vanity publisher but the others haven’t contributed any money. They will have to pay for all but the first copy. I should make a small profit which will go to charity.
As long as I see it in print I’m happy, especially as all our other books are listed in the back. I have taken the advice to put contact details inside. I’ll put an example in my next post.
anthology date
August 10th is the publication date for our anthology “Reflections, Then and Now”
I took a rather poor picture of the cover on my phone.
Anthology
A draft copy now in my possession. We had to add two more poems to fit the ‘four’ pages in a booklet but I had plenty in hand,
The cover looks great, with one of Joan’s cartoons on the front and the four of us on the back.
Review. We need to Talk about Kevin.
I haven’t seen the film and I know I have come to this late but it is the first book for a while that I have felt urged to return to when I should be doing something else.
The idea that a mother could feel so estranged from her own child is not so peculiar as I have known that situation, when a mother tells her son “I wish you had never been born” and the effect it has on the child.
However, Kevin has a hatred of ‘other’ from birth and this would make any mother less loving. The conflict between her and her husband, and his self imposed blindness to Kevin’s faults makes one want to wring both their necks, or send them for counselling.
My one problem with the story is that, if she was as intelligent as she seems, why on earth did she have another baby?
Thanks to Lionel Shriver for writing a book that I didn’t want to finish and an ending that seemed as satisfactory as it was horrific.
Pantomime
After a discussion with a technician about sound effects I began to realise that producing a pantomime, even if just in audio form, is going to take up more time than I anticipated.
I need to get the cast together for a preliminary reading and then find a date that suits everyone when we can record. I am afraid there are not enough parts for everyone who wants to participate and, because the readers are all so well educated and have lovely voices, some of the volunteers sound alike.
The Sea Scribes, our local writing group, are designing their own website so , as soon as that is up and running I will try to link with it. In the mean time, I have just begun to read “We need to talk about Kevin” and the writing knocks me out. I’ll do a review when I have finished it.
