People often ask me, ‘How many copies of your book have you sold?’ Which, I suppose is natural. I always give the same answer, ‘I don’t know.’ They seem perplexed by this. How could I not know? I have to go on to explain, I wanted to write a book, if it sells, then yippee! If it doesn’t I’m not going to lose sleep. My debut novel, The Siege of Mr Khan’s Curry Shop, was 20 years in the writing so I’m just so happy that I did it.
My next book took me 3 years, so I am getting better. I recently sent the first 300 words of my upcoming second novel to Writing Magazine for James McCreet to critique. My editor told me I was “brave” he doesn’t pull any punches. For me the first two lines of his summary was good enough. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised to read this at the start of a novel published by a best selling thriller author.” I’ll take that ☺️.
My editor, Esther Chilton, is a Godsend. I am very lucky to have found her as she helps turn an OK manuscript into, what I consider, a good book. So, maybe this second novel will sell and help to eliminate the perplexed look from peoples faces. I’m sure like all things, time will tell. If you have written a book and it’s published but not selling, hey! You have achieved, something so many other people dream of. Give yourself a pat or a high five, or what ever your cultural praise is. I’ve just started playing around with FlexClip where you can create a trailer for your forthcoming book. I’ll let you know how I get on next time.
Happy trails, folks. x
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