Sheep are more unruly than books...

The sheep?

These are my little woolly ambassadors...  

They are the characters from But I'm Not Sleepy, which is my bestseller, but they are in danger of taking on a life of their own. In the lead up to a book signing I'm far more likely to be in the middle of a sheep crisis than having trouble with the books - sheep are more unruly than books...!

What I need next is a sheepdog to round them up... just like Downboy the sheepdog in the story.

 

 

Writing back to front... or just lost in a book?

Normally when I write, I write a story first, and then illustrate it - but not this time...! 

It's not the first time I've sat down to write one story and ended up writing something completely different, but that usually happens at the writing stage, this time it happened in a sketchbook.

At the beginning of the year I sat down to illustrate a story that I'd already written and polished, but as I started on the illustrations I just couldn't seem to get them how I wanted, and that's when I started drawing giraffes...

Now it's not the first time I have drawn giraffes, but I hadn't had a story in mind, or book planned. This was an invasion of giraffes from somewhere in my imagination, and suddenly the illustrations were flowing and the story was taking shape. I now have several outlines for this story, and several working titles, but mostly I have a lot of pictures which almost tell their own story, so I'm thinking that this book doesn't need too many words...

This is still a work in progress, and you could say that I'm very happily lost in a book!

#LostinaBook 

Trying to Focus on a wet Thursday in Feb...

OK time to focus - no not go and drive a Focus - focus on books! But what to do first...?

Create a book - I'm busy painting characters for my next book, and they're coming along very nicely. They're still just hanging around deciding what to do though...

Sell a book well hopefully you can help me with that - go on, buy a book... you know you want to! I'll even sign it for you - it'll be just like meeting at a book signing... except that we won't meet, and we won't have to go out in the cold - well, I will, obviously, I'll need to post the book. But I don't mind, honestly!

Get Lost in a Book - I could very easily go and light the fire early and curl up with a book that someone else has written - all the work is already done, all I'd have to do is to start reading, and allow myself to slip into the imaginary world that's already been created... hmmm sounds good... but no, I shall go and create something new!

Fighting distractions

I'm fighting distractions this morning, and apparently I've already lost, as I've just noticed it's past noon and I haven't started the main mission of the day, which is to create a quiet / busy book. The delivery of two new books is not helping either - they're sat on the table, just within reach, tempting me to start reading, but once I get lost in a book I won't get anything else done - am I addicted to new books I wonder...? I suppose as addictions go, it's not a bad one to have...

Hidden treasure...

OK I know I've said it before, but I have a little bookshop... and like any bookshop it has treasure within, in the form of books. So the mission is ongoing to draw people into my bookshop.

I've tried links and keywords, sharing, posting and tweeting, and what have I learnt...?

I've learnt that people will follow a link to my blog, but rarely to my website, I'm beginning to think that my bookshop is hidden by some sort of invisibility shield...  or someone bigger is stood in front of it, so no one can see it. Well this little bookshop is breaking out, going on the rampage... and going to get noticed.

There's a competition running - everyone loves something free right? It started on page 4, but maybe I should bring it out into the open, put it on the homepage - in the window...!

I can't be the only one struggling to get a little online shop noticed - if you have one too, leave a comment and we can share ideas...