My goodness.. where does the time go to? Is it me or is December racing along at break-neck speed? It only seems two minutes ago I got my Christmas cards done... just about finished Christmas shopping... but what about all the book stuff too?
You may have noticed I've been slightly absent from social media - well, with being self-published, what you see here is just the one pair of hands... and as I've been working on the new book, other things have had to slow down.
Still this month I had time to do a short interview with Angela Ressa of Katie's Readers in association with Stephanie Blore for her new book Reach for the Stars. That was a lot of fun to do. Her book is all about the different careers we can follow, "Inspire young children with a variety of occupations and activities while encouraging them to find their passion and follow their dreams.". So it was fun to talk shortly about what it's been like being a children's author.
It looks to be a fabulous book (I've not seen the whole thing yet), and I look forward to leaving a review once I get hold of a copy.
I was fortunately also able to help them a little with some of the final stages of their publication, and it's a reminder to me, that one day Singing Frog Publishing will also publish stories by other authors, and I may well be able to help some people realise their dreams of getting into print. A ways off yet maybe, but certainly on the cards at some point. Self-publishing is on the rise all the time, and I'm fairly sure my books would not be on shelves without that. So if you have a dream to publish.. stick with it!
Also this month I had another interview, this time with Jessica De Shong of Miss Jessica's World and that was such a hoot as well. I'd never done such a long interview to camera before (still only about 7 minutes) but she made me feel completely at home and she is so professional that I felt like I was in a studio in L.A. Haha 'almostfamous'!
We had a lot of fun doing the interview and I'll be very interested to see what the finished result is like (she will cut it onto the end of a video reading she is doing). Hopefully that will happen sometime in January, but I'll keep you posted.
I'm up to five paintings for the new book.. and working on the sixth sketch at the moment which is proving a little troublesome. Still I hope once we get to the Christmas Hols.. I will get at least a few hours to do a couple more paintings. Yes, two paintings is my target! I wonder if that resolution will be any stronger than the New Year's ones!
Lastly, and certainly not least.. I'd just like to warmly thank all our readers out there - some of you may find this blog eventually, I hope. It's been a really good year for Singing Frog Publishing and I think we've sold in excess of about 1300 books, with 250 just last month alone and another 700+ downloads too. Lots of positive reviews too which is great. So that's over 2000 of you out there who had maybe not heard of these books until now, and you took a chance.. and for that I am very grateful. I really hope they made some small person happy!
We've hit number 1 in categories for each ebook at some point in the last month - all thanks to your downloads, quite often at #2 in the paperback categories too.
With that... I'd just like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy Holidays, whatever your faith or persuasion.. thanks for your continued support, and see you in the New Year!
Julian