My novel, ‘Never: A Word’, one year on

It is now one year since the publication of my novel – and it has been an eventful one!

More than 80 people ‘attended’ its Zoom launch, allowing me to reconnect with old mates and also reach a new audience too.

Following this, I was asked to present a virtual session at the 2021 Sturminster Newton Literary Festival (which I did from a holiday cottage in Whitby after legging it back from the beach!) and then, again virtually, as part of the opening panel for the Middleway Words festival in September. As Covid restrictions lifted a little, I was able to share a ‘live platform’ in September at Wirksworth Festival with three other local authors. We were then asked to repeat this for Belper Arts Festival in December.

Sales have been reasonable for a self-published book and I have sought to find ways to keep it in the public eye without trying the patience of my mates and others on social media. Always a fine line!

I have really valued feedback from readers which has seemed more plentiful than for other things I have written in the past. I began receiving unsolicited emails and verbal feedback of a very complimentary nature soon after publication and, knowing that the book has ‘reached’ readers, has made the effort involved in creating it very worthwhile. Thank you again for this.

I have mused on the business of written reviews after asking most of these respondents whether they might put their positive comments into a review for Amazon. It always feels like a Big Ask and I am really grateful to everybody who has done so. I also understand the reluctance of people in this respect. The book is rather ‘serious’ in tone and perhaps this discourages the penning of light and fluffy recommendations, that it seems to require a ‘serious’ and ‘literary’ type of review. And maybe it inevitably does.

Whatever, thank you for your observations and comments in the various forms these have taken and for any recommendations that you may have made to others in the meantime.

Now, on to that problematic (and potentially embarrassing) second year of publicity and promotional activity!

Thanks everybody.

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