The first shipment of the Artist’s Survival Cookbook has arrived. Just in time for the Indie bookfair at the Northshore Event Centre this weekend. For all my overseas friends… the book is now available at Amazon. I haven’t quite figured it out, but they already discounted the book, strange. It is also available on the CreateSpace Store, but here it is my intended price. This is one way of robbing the author of their royalties. Why would anybody buy it on CreateSpace when you can get it cheaper from Amazon, and the shipping is also cheaper there too. Grrrrr. But that is not what I wanted to write about!
The Indie bookfair was a very intersting affair. The exhibitors were small publishing houses, self published authors and companies that offer publishing services for those who want to become published authors. The visitors were mainly the latter or people who knew someone who was exhibiting. So there weren’t many sales to be had all around. I had prepared little bags with one bean plus a Dede instruction card on how to grow the bean, and on the back there was info about the book . At least the visitors were very happy to take the little gift and hopefully they will grow the bean and look up the book on Amazon (slim chance though, but I got some attention). As I was invited by my friend Dee to share her stall, I still came out ahead and Dee herself didn’t do too badly. We both made good contacts with people we can work with in future. And that is invaluable. The comments about the puppets were also nice. A few people knew the puppets from their exhibition and from puppet month last year, so they are little celebrities in their own right.
Personally, I get anxieties when I see so many people in one place all wanting to sell their books. I am pretty sure every single one is worthwhile reading and everyone poured their lifeblood into their work and then there I am, with a book too and wanting to sell it! I think I will have to retreat and play with my puppets again for a little while :)
dedepuppets 
Well, congratulations. Good on you for doing this. For all of us this is a learning experience. And anyway, everybody has a book inside them somewhere that is struggling to get out. I am also amazed that Amazon can discount the book so soon. I remember Marks and Spencers in the UK doing something similar with their buying power to small time producers (mainly knitting factories) in Leicester, and ultimately destroying them in the name of their own investors. So on those grounds i shall avoid Amazon, even if it is only a small personal protest. By the way, how did you get yours published?
Thanks for your supportive words. In my previous life I was actually a publisher before I stranded on these remote shores without having decent language skills. This however, was a lifetime ago and publishing has changed dramatically. This time I simply formatted the book and uploaded the pdf to CreateSpace. I am quite happy with the quality. And as I have no money the advantage is that I don’t have to fork out a big sum as they print it on demand. It is relatively risk free, though I won’t earn much per copy. But like with so many things in my life I consider it an investment in the future :). I just wonder when the future will start I hope it will be in time before retirement :)
Thanks, what an interesting life you have had. I shall look at Createspace and see if I can do something with them, I’ve always wanted to publish a book on the history of X-ray Art – small readership, so it sounds as though Createspace is a good way to go.Thanks for the heads-up. By the way, I think your language skills are pretty excellent, especially as you are fluent in at least two languages that I know of.
That is the problem with Amazon. CreateSpace is a subsidary of Amazon. Well, they don’t care who sells the book,the author gets simply more on CreateSpace. So they can make it cheaper on Amazon because they don’t have to pay the author that much. It is all a bit, mmmmhm. We know what we have to think about that, eh’.
Gratulation! Deine Ausdauer ist bewundernswert. Viel Erfolg bei den weiteren Verbreitung, Liebe Grüße Juergen
Danke. Es ist weniger die Ausdauer, als dass ich das Projekt als Ausgleich gebraucht habe, um nicht verrückt zu werden :)
Das klingt gut und irgendwie auch nicht. Ich jedenfalls finde es beachtlich, dass Du trotz der Widerstände das Projekt so weit vorangetrieben hast. Liebe Grüße