March 2025

1st: I was back at FirstSite in Colchester, this time AM author Carley-Ann Osborn was with me. We sold books and spoke to interesting people.

8th: World book day event in George Yard Braintree. This was a Gruffalo themed event Carley did readings from her book ‘The Cute Newt’. I was there to support Carley and to provide a small sound system as this was an outdoor event. I didn’t read anything as my books are not actually suitable for 6 year-olds.

9th: I was at Foakes Hall Dunmow with my good friend and fellow AM author, Aki McKenzi. We sold books and met interesting people. It was an arts and crafts fair and we were the only authors there.

12th: The London Book Fair. I had a great time at the LBF. I spoke to the good people on the Austin Macauley stand and ended up being interviewed by Danielle. No doubt that’ll show up on social media somewhere.

15th: I was at the Prose and Prosecco Event as part of the Brightlingsea literary festival. This was a showcase style event for local writers. I had no written entries, but I did get to sell a copy of my book ‘Abbey’ and I also got to play some songs with John, my duo partner. We did Paul Simon’s “Homeward Bound”, The Turtles “Happy Together”, Amen Corner’s “If Paradise Is Half As Nice” and David Bowie’s “Sorrow”. His was not the original, but it’s the one everyone knows. The Animal’s “We gotta get out of this place” was the penultimate and the final song was the most appropriate. Why was it appropriate? I hear you ask. Well, I sell quite a few books at local markets, people come up, look at the books and say, “I like to read, but I won’t like any of these.” So I dedicated Bo Diddley’s “You Can’t Judge A Book By Its Cover” to those people—that raised a laugh. What was unexpected was the call for an encore, so we did The Everly Brother’s “Dream”.

22nd: I was at Chelmsford indoor market with Carley-Ann Osborn. It was not as cold as previous visits so far this year. I was really pleased for Carley, as while we were there, her book ‘The Cute Newt’ hit #32 on the Amazon list.

Though this venue is not the best in terms of book sales, we are starting to get noticed and referred to as ‘the authors’. We are thinking of ways to develop and expand on the market idea to include other authors and make it the place to go to get the books that the big shops won’t put on their shelves.

28th: Costa Clacton. This was unusual as it was a daytime event, not a huge amount of sales, (when I say not huge, I mean zero) but it’s good for exposure and didn’t cost me anything. I gave out business cards — if only I could make money out of that………

29th: Once again I was back at Braintree Artisan market with Carley. The first really warm sunny day brought the shoppers out and the market was busy. My books sold well, in fact, so well that I thought I was going to sell out at one point. We were only there for 4 hours, any longer and I would have sold out which would have been good and bad at the same time.

30th: Finally British summer time is here. And yes I did forget to change the clocks.

Post Views : 40