Life is a learning curve... I will overcome my last hurdle eventually - I'll rise above it and fly high - either that or I'll beat it down with a stick...

Why do I like to make life difficult for myself?

When I'm working on a book, my mind is usually racing ahead to the next project, and on this occasion I thought my next book would be straightforward, having already found a UK printer of board books... 

However when I came to put in a quote request, the fee was so high it would be barely viable for personal use, let alone to try and sell on to customers, and even at that price it was only printed on 1mm card which I doubt would be thick enough for a board book for a baby. Oh well.back to the drawing board...

Meanwhile I'm hard at work promoting Outnumbered by Cats... well, that is I've passed it on to my sales team - oh wait, I am my sales team...  and so we come back to my learning curve that I have yet to conquer, that of selling online. But all is not lost - I have a book signing at the weekend! It's so much easier to sell books face to face.

But I will overcome my last hurdle eventually - I'll rise above it and fly high - either that or I'll beat it down with a stick...  

Book signing near York - knitting needles at the ready...

I've got a book signing at the weekend - time to get the knitting needles out...

That's right, that's what I said - knitting needles - you see I just like to make things hard for myself.

Not only do I write, illustrate and self publish my books - by the end of 2013 I was looking for a gimmick to add to my table at fairs. My imagination went around in a few circles and came up with the idea of knitting sheep - the characters from my bestseller But I'm Not Sleepy. The sheep caught the imagination of young and young at heart - who wouldn't want to take home a knitted sheep after all?

I have been toying with a design for a knitted cat to link with Basil and the Flappy Thing, but so far I've only produced a knitted head which is bigger than life size,  so I'm not sure where I'm going with that one...

I've heard of an author who takes his cat to book signings, and his cat sits happily on the table next to him, but I can't see that working our for me. I think there would be a riot, especially as there will be birds of prey at the same fair as my forthcoming book signing.

OK, what' am I supposed to do with this?

My life - one long learning curve...

Exciting times... my new book Outnumbered by Cats is now listed on amazon, if only as 'unavailable' and not 'pre-order' which a mainstream publisher would have enjoyed - but hay I'm not put off, I know my book will soon be available in my own online bookshop and at book signings. And in case you're wondering, it'll be available on amazon too - if the unavailable or 2 - 4 week label doesn't put you off...

Meanwhile I'm rummaging around and trying to remember how to customise my new blog and fill it with pictures and links... if I did this sort of thing more often I'm sure it would be easy, but I do tend to spend much of my time either lost in a book or getting distracted by my cats...

Captain supervising the proof reading - and making me pause to take a photo...  and then of course I had to figure out how to get the photo from the phone to the laptop - my life, one long learning curve...

Outnumbered by cats

Newly launched today - my new blog Outnumbered by Cats where I'll be posting all things cat and kitten related...

I think my cats have got wind of their forthcoming fame in their own book Outnumbered by Cats, they've turning into little divas, making demands for constant upgrades in their dinner options - no wait, that's just cats being cats - changing their minds, with no regard to the bulk buy I recently did on their current (now no longer current) favourite food...