The Last is without doubt my most successful book yet. It has sold close to a thousand copies since release 4 months ago, with several hundred more in Kindle Unlimited borrows, and close to 10,000 copies given away free. Why is this happening? It surely has been down to three things: title, cover, blurb. In a nutshell- the book’s marketing. This post is about the marketing path to the current title, cover and blurb. DESIGN ONE I started off with a wordy, opaque title which I thought was clever, silly and fun. It tied in perfectly to the book, being … Read More
The wardrobes fit!
We hired two guys who came round today and brute forced the wardrobes up over the banister and into the room. The banister got pretty scratched up, but paint will fix that. The wardrobes are massive, very deep, but they look great. The TV stand we bought though was damaged, crunched on the corner, so it will hopefully go back for a full refund. It’s weirdly stressful, receiving furniture- even stuff you want and are mostly happy with. I’ve never experienced it before, having never really owned anything. Maybe it’s a bit like that feeling after you take a cast … Read More
Wardrobe nightmare
The wardrobes don’t fit!! The stairs prevented the delivery men from getting either of our two wardrobes up the stairs, round the bend, and into the bedroom, and poor old SY was at home to deal with it. Now they are in the dining room. To return them costs £100 a piece. But, but but but, I am holding out hope they can be handled in such a way as to get them alley-up and over the banister. I will hire men to do this work with me. It will be like 300 on those stairs. We will battle until … Read More
Little bits of daily life
– These days it’s dark when I wake up at 6:30, though the house is warm from the new Hive central heating controller which turns the boiler on automatically. It goes to 23 degrees Celsius, and if I wanted I could crank that up from my phone via the app connected to the wifi router. – I could turn the heat up in my house from anywhere in the world, as long as I had internet access. Think about that for a minute. – Actually I’ve unplugged it. Not much call for it, really. It seems neat, but the timer … Read More
Painting up a storm
We painted the kitchen and we painted the bedroom and we painted the front room. Masking tape was our savior. Edges were our foe. Great big swathes where the skirting board was the same color as the wall and all four walls were the same color were our great friend. Here is the kitchen transformation- Wallpaper stripped. I should’ve taken a picture with the stripey blue paper up, but didn’t think. It wasn’t terrible, but I’m no fan of wallpaper, and it was cracked, peeling, and pretty poorly aligned in the first place. Here it is with white primer. Lovely … Read More
Alas, the Internet is gone…
More great examples of 2 steps forward one step back today, grr… Did all shower ordering stuff (£500) plus carried 1.5 square meters of tile home, nice Weatherspoons pub lunch, then get home to start painting! I move the new modem so it won’t get painted on, and boom, goes stone cold dead. Call provider- apparently we’re not even supposed to be ‘live’ yet. Well, we were, now we’re not. Much frustration. Many venting. I go on quest for another mobile wifi (a dongle). 5 shops and many quizzical looks later (“I don’t know what you’re talking about”, one shop … Read More
Big in China!!
House stuff continues apace, with every day being a range of two steps forward one step back progressions. Of course the key to remember is that’s a lot of forward steps! It sucks though. Eg, THE SHOWER. For a week tried to get a good plumber to replace cracked shower tray. Got a guy out, came 2 hours late, gave a quote, 1000 pounds +. I sent him photos to email, tried to get him to come back and do the work (even at that price!), but he never came. Get another guy, lined up for that day- he doesn’t … Read More
And lo! there was wifi…
Most of a week has gone by and while we’ve had wifi- a little mobile dongle thing with limited gigabytes (10 pounds for one gb!!)- it hasn’t allowed me to make a single wordpress post. Whaaaat? It’s true. I tried. It gazumped me. But we’ve been busy here, using our second week of holiday to try and get this house in shape. The wifi man came, the British Gas boiler man came (sludge in the system but not bad, ancient boiler with lowest energy efficiency rating, can’t get replacement parts, but working ok), and tomorrow the plumber comes and wil … Read More