Well this is a short one this week. I just wanted to give a quick update. I've finally archived my files for Jumbo Giant Sausages to clear the decks. This means that the book, the cover, the internals are finally settled. I'm really happy with how it is now, and I don't think there'll be any more minor tweaks to this edition. Tweaks such as they were were fairly minor anyway, and some may not have noticed them in any case. I just wanted to make sure everything was right, so I can pat the sausages on the back as they leap out the pan and into the world for their brief moment of fame!
There's a lot to do when you self-publish - I may have mentioned this before!
So now the good news is I will turn my new attention and focus to the next book. Really sorry I can't tell you anything about that yet.. but as a consequence there may be a bit less posting here for a while, while I ramp up momentum on that. I'm just very excited that before too long, a fourth book will be taking shape, and I'm keen to see how long that one will take and if I'll be able to improve on the almost two years that Jumbo Giant Sausages took from start to finish. I will be doing the illustrations for the next one.. but I have another story that I can imagine will work well with a skilled illustrator, so I hope you may well see something sooner than two years. Gosh I hope so!! Some authors knock 'em out every three or four months!
Jumbo Giant Sausages is doing really well, we're already up to 10 reviews, and I think 9 of them were 5-star on Amazon. It's been up in the charts in a few nice categories. (Still a bit of tweaking to do there, as for example it's not really for 'up to 11 years' as Amazon says currently!!) So a few emails to write yet to sort some of the classification.
The big news is, I've stopped worrying about it. A lot of people really like it.. and that's good enough for me and a sign that I can move on to the next one.
I was in the Star Cafe in Paignton recently (who have a copy if you're passing) and the little girl who was reading it there while I was having breakfast came over to me and said 'I like your book, it's good!'. So there you have it.. if someone who is approximately four likes the book.. then you can relax.