I predict a mess...

Yes it's messy time again - now that Outnumbered by Cats is published I'm launching into a new project!

It's another picture book, and the text is already written, so I've got a summer of artwork ahead of me...

Now it's a while since I had my paints out, so things are going to get messy, especially with my little furry helpers... Basil and the Flappy Thing narrowly escaped getting paw prints all over the wet paintings, and that was a book about cats, so I would have sort of got away with it...

Book signings - book giveaways and online ramblings...

So my challenge for the week is to empty the first box of Outnumbered by Cats... that's the books not the cats.

There's only 2 books left in the first box... how hard can it be? It's a small print run of just 100 books, all will be hand numbered and signed.

I've got my marketing team on the case, but they all seem to be napping at the moment... well it is raining.

And they're not the sort of marketing team that I can take out and about to book signings, they really don't like going in the car...

So we're trying a joint effort online, me doing random ramblings and them looking adorable in photos... and so far, views are on the up for my various ramblings, and people are retweeting their cute photos, so we just have to convert those views and retweets to purchases...

OK so someone is getting impatient,
 so what about doing  a book giveaway...

That too seems to be a minefield of Ts & Cs anyone got any ideas they want to share...?

Every cloud has a silver lining

Every cloud has a silver lining, so what is the bright side of a rainy Saturday afternoon in May...?

It's the perfect excuse to curl up indoors with a book... and, after I'd shut the cats out of the kitchen - to prevent another missing chicken incident, broken up several fights started by an argumentative cat, miffed at being shut out of the kitchen, possibly because she had her sights on the chicken, but more likely that she just wanted to stay on her favourite chair: I'd tried several combinations of shutting doors to keep certain parties apart... finally everyone settled down and all was peaceful... my silver lining :)

The true story - complete with photos

After another couple of sales this week, Kryten will soon be getting his box!!

Just 2 more books in this box and then the box becomes a cat toy, to jump in , hide in, and ultimately shred...

Just one more week at launch price of £7.99 - so grab yourself something special - a book from a small print run of just 100 books - each one hand numbered and signed.

Outnumbered by Cats is a true story - share with me the joys and dramas of living with a house full of kittens...  and put faces to their antics with 82 colour photos.

Cats in book cases - it's a cat thing...

Captain, showing an early interest in books - he seems to have been in the middle of everything I've done ever since...

If he's not climbing all over me, he's usually asleep close by... here he is supervising the artwork for Basil and the Flappy Thing. I think he was getting ideas from Basil too - getting ideas for more cat flap capers...

Outnumbered by Cats - tell me the story

Outnumbered by Cats

by 

Anne M Stephenson

Lost in a Book

I met my cat on facebook

I met my cat on facebook – a true cat of the twenty first century. There she was, looking fearlessly back at me from her side of the computer screen.

“So do we want her?” my son Mike asked, hand poised ready to click the mouse and put in a request for this tabby and white kitten.

When the kitten topic had raised its head recently, I’d shocked everyone by saying I’d like to get a female kitten and let her have a litter, of which we’d keep one kitten. Not surprisingly Mike had quickly found a suitable kitten, probably before I had a chance to change my mind, and here she was...  ironic that a mouse was about to change the life of a cat forever. It was one of those pivotal moments in life, I looked at this little stranger, and knew that with a simple yes now, she could become part of our lives, our futures forever entwined, and change our lives as every new arrival does – what I didn’t know was how much she was going to change our lives...

Click – and the request was sent. 

Read the true story of how that decision filled our house and hearts with kittens... written from the kitten diaries I kept along the way - diaries that have chewed edges and paw prints...

Grab a copy now - still at launch price - and postage free

Buy now

Book signings and the randomness of craft fairs

Every so often I venture out from behind my computer screen, out into the world....

Book signings in bookshops are good because people are already there looking for books, but you can't beat the randomness of a craft fair...

I'm usually the last to arrive at these events, because I know I can set up in less than 10 minutes. It's become like a well oiled machine - the tablecloth, the book stands, the books of course - some on stands and some laid flat on the table. Most people like to pick up the ones from the table rather than the stands, who know why... maybe they don't want to risk upsetting the stands. But really not much upsets the stands, they're a tough lot, my display team, valiantly holding up books for hours on end  with never a complaint... (oops, letting my visual imagination run away with me again).

The newest addition to the display is a little flock of sheep, that go with my bestseller But I'm Not Sleepy. I have fairy lights and bookmarks, and the sometimes forgotten notice that says I'm a local author doing a book signing - strangely that's the thing that mot people don't notice...

Although the characters of my latest book Outnumbered by Cats, try to stow away in the boxes as I pack them, I don't think half a dozen cats running round a craft fair would be very practical, especially as the occasional dog comes in...

The other traders are usually a friendly bunch, which helps the day go by, through the quiet times. And there's nothing like eating a sandwich to bring out the customers, it's as if they just wait for you to fill your mouth with food to come over and ask a question, so lunch can take a while to eat. My record for longest lasting sandwich was a couple of hours - if only I could remember the filling for that magic sandwich that brought the customers flooding in...

And there's nothing more random than the customers...

• There's the obvious book lovers, who spot the books from the other side of the room and come over with that glint in their eye. 
• There's the ones who look totally uninterested, but get drawn in and often buy one. 
• There's the collectors who buy a signed book to put away and see if it becomes valuable - while quite possibly missing the true value of a book, which needs to be read to be revealed... 
• Best of all is when a book is bought for a small child and placed in their hands to hold and enjoy. Books are precious, but not the sort of precious to be placed on a shelf like fine china. The sort of precious to hold, to read, and to look at the pictures, and to get a little shabby like a favorite teddy...
• Lastly there's the difficult ones, who'll pick fault with everything, but stay to talk anyway, they've no intention of buying, and the books are probably shying away from them in terror in case they get picked... (oops that imagination again...) 

Craft fairs can be fun, and a great way of meeting customers and getting your book out there. 

Monday ramblings and book marketing

Monday ramblings:

Well that was a busy, if a little maddening morning, sorting out the mess I made of my blog header on Friday night, when I would have been better employed leaving the computer well alone and reading a book instead...

My marketing team are busy taking a siesta in various sunny and shady places about the house depending on their current preference - the darker their coats, the sooner they seek shade.

So that leaves me tackling the hardest part of writing a book - namely: shouting about it and getting it out to a greater audience.

    So why should you buy my new book?

• Colour photos - if a picture is worth a thousand words, then the word count in this book is immense - with 82 colour photos of cats and kittens, from all the time when they were getting into mischief and I reached for the camera instead of lifting them down...
• Small first print run - this is a print run of just 100 books, and all the books will be hand numbered and signed
• True story - it's all there, maybe a little too much at times...
• Launch price of £7.99 till the end of May.

The Blurb:

I'd like to get a female kitten and let her have one litter," I said to my stunned family when they raised the kitten topic. Not surprisingly a suitable kitten was quickly found...  and Mitzi arrived in time for Christmas, bringing her own brand of fun and chaos, and demanding friendship from our 5 year old cat Cleo.

By summer Mitzi was quite confused, she came into season and started calling shamelessly. But when a hapless tomcat answered her call, she was far from impressed; causing more than one cat flap drama, and a hole in the door where a flap used to be. 

Eventually nature took it its course and Mitzi had kittens. The first few weeks were blissfully peaceful, watching as Mitzi took care of their every need. We had a week of heartache when one of the kittens was poorly, and then not developing properly, and was destined to challenge and inspire us in ways we could not yet imagine. 

Then they grew big enough to escape their box, and the bedlam began... 

The story that emerged from the kitten diaries, written as kittens climbed on me and chewed the edges of my note books... 

Cats and boxes... it's a cat thing

After all the hard work I'm very proud of my new book - but all Kryten wants is the box...

Help him get his wish - 4 more books and the first box is empty Outnumbered by Cats launch price £7.99 till the end of May

...because cats love to be the centre of attention

Meet Bumble - from Outnumbered by Cats, giving his own input to proceedings...

Not much happens around here without a bit of furry input - in fact there seems to be fur everywhere...

Here is Bumble taking an early interest in the book.

The marketing team - making marketing fun

I've decided that I need some help to shift my stock of books

- so I've brought in a marketing team.


They've agreed to work for commission of food, toys and cuddles... with a possible bonus of a new 'kittie corner' if they do really well...

They were full of enthusiasm to go to the book signing...

Look - I just fit...

Let me just check you've got everything...

I think the cats thought they should go too - after all the sheep went...

Unique selling point and marketing hats

So I'm supposed to be wearing my marketing hat - so what can I say... I need to tell you about my book's unique selling point (USP) well apart from the unique story, a behind the scenes view of living with kittens - and the 82 colour photos, this is a small print run of just 100 books, all of which will be numbered and signed. 

So for a first first - first edition, first print run it's pretty exclusive, and the first box is going down fast...

More attention needed to prevent banana deficit

It has come to my attention that whist internet shopping may be very convenient - especially if your car decides to take a day off and not start at all, it is necessary to have a different level of attention ordering food online, than it is to walk around a shop picking things up.

The first time I ordered my groceries online I received a small but perfectly formed sliced loaf, of the sort I would probably never have noticed if I'd been walking around the shop. Today, in the middle of a bag of apples there was one lonely banana! Now, when I saw bananas priced per kg I assumed I was ordering by the kg, I even changed my initial plan of buying 2kg of bananas in favour of just 1kg so when I pulled my 1 banana out of the bag I had to smile - I wonder if the pickers in the shop have the occasional laugh at the customers expense when such obvious errors occur...

So The thing I have learnt today, is to pay more attention when ordering my groceries online - or face a banana deficit.

...and all this actually proves is that leaving myself time to market my book leads of random ramblings about bananas...

Making a mess

How is it that when I do a book signing at a fair, I'm usually the last to arrive, but never the last to finish setting up. I'm organised and ready to talk to passing people and sign books.

Why then, did signing and packing books on my kitchen table become a scene of total chaos? By the time I fetched my assortment of padded envelopes to actually pack the books, there was nowhere left to put them but the floor, where a passing cat wondered whether to walk on them or stay and destroy them - luckily he chose not to destroy them, he probably saw that I had already surpassed him in messing the place up...

Finally the books were in envelopes, all containing a card with a message on (hopefully all to the same people as the outer envelope was addressed to...) and all that remained was to clear the table.

It occured to me as I packed away, that this was the worst and the best part of working from a kitchen table:
Worst because I have to clear everything away at the end of the day.
 Best because I have to clear everything away at the end of the day, and so, have a clear table to start a new mess everyday.

Out and about in the bookshops

I was out and about in actual shops today, having a nosy around in the new Waterstones in York. The kids' section was lovely, with some lovely new books, and some old favourites appearing as board books. I didn't even go in to buy a book, but, well it would have been rude not to.

And now I've had a nosy around on the online shop, and there are my books listed on Waterstones.com

Self publishing, and why I'm not trudging around the bookshops with my books

My new books are here and ready for sale, so why am I not out there trying to get my books into the bookshops?

Well it's a case of been there, done that, and taken the losses when the bookshops go out of business, and it's not just the small shops, it's the big boys too. Why do bookshops expect to  take their stock on sale or return? I don't order a print run on sale or return, I buy in what I'm confident of selling.

So my position is, I'm happy to sell to bookshops, or supply to them through distributors, but I'n not pushing my books on sale or return anymore.

So my books will be selling mainly from my website and book signings. I'll sign  books for that personal touch, and I'll hand number all copies of my first print run of Outnumbered by Cats, as it's a short print run of just 100 books.

Why such a short print run? Because it's been quite an expensive project to do, it's got colour inserts containing 82 colour photos, and that was after some hard editing down. But the good news is that if you're quick it's at a launch price of just £7.99!

New book now on sale - exclusively from my website

This will have to be a quick post as I've been busy adding my new book to my website bookshop - but the stars of the book are gathering now and reminding me that it's their suppertime.

Oh wait, I can cheat and copy paste my facebook post - then I'll call the magic words that mean it's suppertime, in this house at least, and what are those magic words? it's all in the book:

Finally it's done - The story that emerged from the kitten diaries, written as kittens climbed on me and chewed the edges of my note books...

It's bursting with 82 colour photos - yes I managed to edit them down to 82!

They're currently only available from me - because I've got them all! It's a small print run of 100 books, which will all be hand numbered - how exclusive is that...?

Writer fights technology - and wins!!

OK, not to blow my own trumpet or anything... but, I have just overcome another hurdle, conquered the learning curve and other such buzz phrases. The point is I've managed to add an except from Basil and the Flappy Thing despite the best efforts of technology to thwart my attempt...

So here you are - the first 5 pages to whet your appetite:

 A book for anyone who's held the cat flap open as their cat gave them that look, you know the one... the one where your cat appears to be humoring you from their intellectual high ground.

The art of being busy. Looking busy v being busy and productive...

This afternoon, right this minute I look very busy - I'm typing away at the laptop with notes and a pencil case next to me: I don't even have a cat climbing on me (well not right now anyway). And yet I don't feel like I'm being busy in a productive way...

Why is it that I am actually being more productive when I appear to be doing nothing? ...sat with my feet up proofreading, with a cat asleep at my feet - you see even he thought I was having a nap, and came to join me...

Captain thought proof reading was author speak for nap time.

Maybe I should be more cat - sitting on the garden bench apparently thinking about nothing seems to be the best place to solve the sort of problem that can never be solved sat in front of a computer screen... These are the sort of problems that have to be snuck up on when they're least expecting it.

Come and sit down - look we left a place for you.

Book signing this weekend

It's book signing time again - time to load up a selection of books, not to mention the little flock of sheep that have now become part of deal. Lets hope the birds of prey who're also going to be at the fair, don't spot them and try to carry one off, they're not to scale after all, so might be just the right size for a bird to carry off...