Another sale in the US

I've just checked my author section on the Trafford website and found that another Monster Under The Bed book has sold in the US!

I was over in Canada last week skiing, and even having a go at some off road driving, but now I must get back to work on my book, this year seems to be running away with itself already. Why do I always have more things to do than I can ever fit in?

A new picture book

Well I've lost a few weeks to a bad case of flu, but even through the fog of flu remedies I've managed to get a bit done on my new picture book. I've got a first draft written, and some illustrations done. I'm doing the text and pictures together with this one, as I did with my first picture book 'The Monster Under The Bed' as the two need to evolve together.

When working on pictures I find that I do a lot of sketches before I finally 'meet' my character face to face, then I have to practice drawing the same character with different expressions. Often new dialogue with come once the characters have a face and their characters start to take shape.

Happy New Year

Well here we are at the beginning of a new year, and back to getting up in the dark!

As usual I have more ideas in my head than I have time to commit to paper or computer. I have the next in the Doodle series to edit/rewrite, do illustrations for and publish, but that's on a back burner for now at least as I have a picture book whizzing round in my head and if I don't get it written soon it's not going to let me get any sleep!

Also I need to do some work on my website, and work out some marketing and publicity to get some book sales moving along in the coming months. This is the down side of doing everything myself! The last time I had a concerted effort on doing my website, spreadsheets, and all the other things that I class as admin and the theory part of writing, I found that stripping wallpaper was the perfect antidote to follow a morning of thinking too hard! There's nothing like being destructive to get over stress caused by computers!

Nearly Christmas!

Well it's nearly Christmas again, I didn't sell as many books at school fairs as I did last year, but then money is tight at the moment. My best Christmas event was a Christmas fair in the furniture shop in Green Hammerton.

The book launch at Borders was by far the best event of the year.

Next year I need to work more on publicity and getting my books out to a wider audience. 3 of my 'Monster' books have sold in Norwich recently direct from Trafford, so that's a step in the right direction.

Merry Christmas to everyone reading my blog, and here's to a successful writing year ahead.