More than just a mixed bag

25^th. April 2020

Quite a mixed week for me one way or another. Pat had her chemo on Monday and by Wednesday she was very ill. She ended up in hospital of course, and I thank God for the way the system works in the case of cancer patients like Pat. Within an hour of calling the emergency ‘bleep’ number, Pat was in isolation, piped up to antibiotics with two nurses and a doctor in attendance. She’s home now, four days later and a whole lot better. Her chemo for next Monday has been postponed for a week. Me and the Tuppence are a lot happier now.

And talking about our dog, I had to resort to giving her a shower, blow dry and a clipping. She was due a full groom on Friday, but because of the lockdown, no grooming parlours are open. She wasn’t keen on my attempts to clip her with the electric trimmer, so I had to resort to snipping off bits of fur where I could get at it. I will try again because I can’t let the poor thing go too long without some sort of attention.

On the book front, I finally finished Scott Mariani’s book and have now downloaded Alex Shaw’s thriller, Cold East. I met Alex two years ago in Worthing at a book event. Since then we have followed each other on Facebook. Alex has just signed a two-book deal with Harper Collins. He is already with that digital outfit and very successful too. I’ll start it sometime this week and let you know what I think,

Joffe Books. Yes, I finally relented and contacted them, asking if there was any progress with Past Imperfect. Its been nine weeks since I uploaded the files they asked for. They said they still wanted to publish my book, but they had a big meeting coming up about their backlists and would be getting back to me. It sounded more like “don’t call us; we’ll call you”. I hope not because it was Joffe Books who approached me and not the other way around. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for that.

My efforts at AMS ads has been abysmal, so I decided to put The Boy from Berlin up on Facebook; see how it went. I launched a fairly straightforward campaign and have sold twelve books in six days. And I am in profit even taking into account the VAT on the ads costs. It’s a very small profit but encouraging to say the least. I need to bite the bullet with AMS and increase my daily budget if I’m to compete with FB, but that will need a lot of thought.

And during the week I got signed up as an official carer for Pat. I have had calls from the two organisations involved and received a card for my wallet in case I end up in hospital unexpectedly. This will alert the emergency services to the fact that I look after Pat. I’ll also be getting a key safe for the outside of the house. Its amazing what kind of services there are out there for people who need them. And we are also being contacted on a regular basis by our church here in Aldwick.

And while Pat was in hospital, it gave me the chance to get on with a lot of the jobs that need doing in the garden: weeding, grass cutting, planting hanging baskets and so on and so forth. I could write a book about it. Wish me luck!

Different ways to cope.

April 18^th. 2020

I would like to begin by paying tribute here to Captain Thomas Moore, the 99-year-old veteran who has raised an incredible £20,000,000 for the NHS by walking round his house. Such a stalwart.

It’s been phone appointments and blood tests for Pat and me. Mine was a routine, yearly test with the cancer unit. I was given the all clear for another two years. Pat’s phone call was simply to confirm she was OK for her chemo on Monday. That will be the penultimate one: her final chemo will be a week later. It’s also been a week of tying up loose ends with the various support groups and on-line shoppers. I am now registered as Pat’s carer and have signed up with Crossroads; a professional support group used by the Social Services (or recommended anyway!) Sainsbury’s delivered our groceries yesterday. We got most of what I ordered. And Echo delivered Pat’s prescription milk shakes during the week.

We also had a family Zoom meeting on Wednesday, which meant a lot of smiling faces on screen from as far apart as USA and Australia. It was brilliant. I love to hear the banter between our four sons. They can be quite brutal at times, but it’s always taken in the best spirit. There were about twelve of us on screen, and it went on for about an hour. It cost nothing too. Modern technology, eh? That is one positive you can say about social media: it has brought people together in so many different ways in these trying times.

I spent some time on building ads on Amazon with Brian Cohen’s Amazon Ads School. As always, when the tutor explains the simplicity of formulating your ad etc., it rarely works in practice. My results have been abysmal, but I live in hope that one day the sun will rise on my efforts and I’ll see some really encouraging results. I am also working my way through the Scott Mariani thriller, House of War. I’m struggling but I will finish it: that could be next Monday when I’m sitting in my car outside the cancer clinic while Pat has her chemo.

I know from some posts on my FB book groups, that many writers are finding the forced lockdown extremely helpful in getting words on paper and looking ahead to finishing their books well ahead of schedule. Of course, there are those who have dried up completely, and I include myself among them. I know I’m trying to campaign on AMS, but yesterday I managed to fall asleep during one of Brian Cohen’s training videos. When I came to, Tuppence was sat watching me because it was time to share an apple. Its something we do each afternoon, and often she comes up and nudges me when its time. Dogs are so clever, eh? Perhaps I should get her to do the video training while I curl up at her Mum’s feet.

I’m still waiting to hear from Joffe Books. One of my boys asked me if I was tempted to write and ask what the delay was. I am tempted, but at the same time there could be a genuine reason, maybe related to absence from work because of the lockdown, and illness, or simply the amount of work and preparation that goes into taking on a new author. When I had my first book accepted years ago by Macmillan, I think it was about eight months before I was able to hold the book in my hand. Wonderful time that was. I know Joffe Books is a digital company, so it could happen a lot quicker. Just got to be patient, that’s all. Wish me luck!

No separation

April 11^th. 2020

What a week again for all of us. Doesn’t help having to look after a sick wife knowing that each time I go out I may pick up the bug. I received an email from Sainsbury’s though, telling me that they now have me on their list as a vulnerable person and I can register with them for on-line shopping and I am allowed priority slots. Great. I signed up, gave them my bank card details, filled a shopping trolley and went to the checkout. No, it doesn’t work like that. There are no slots. Not only are there no slots, their on-line calendar shows nothing at all: no reserved slots, no booked slots, and no special slots for registered, extremely vulnerable people. Can’t email them either because all their email addresses are ‘no reply’. And incidentally, I have a full shopping trolley parked on-line with Tesco too! Where next then, Aldi?

My book world is showing a very small sign of an opening because of Book Bub ads. I’ve sold eight books this month on D2D, and this is often reflected when I advertise on BB. The sales are spread around Apple, B&N, Kobo and Nook. Some are with Amazon, so hopefully I can make some inroads into higher sales. Or maybe my AMS ads will come to life and show some presence on my dashboard. I’m in for an Advertising exercise with Bryan Cohen’s ad school next week in which he will be challenging his students, and any other outsiders who sign up, to spend five days with him on-line rising to the challenge and realising a profit on AMS. Don’t know how I’ll manage to keep up with him, but I’ll just have to set some time aside and make the effort. I won’t neglect Pat though.

Last week I mentioned memories, and how songs trigger them. Well, something else triggered a memory for me: a post on FB. The person was singing the praises of Sir Keir Starmer, newly elected leader of the Labour party, and at the same time making some unpleasant things about Boris Johnson. Don’t know why this person thought it necessary to sling a bit of mud, but maybe that’s how some extreme politicos work. Anyway, my mind went back to when I was working for a living at the potato factory. It was a twelve-hour night shift, I was the only maintenance man on shift, and a pump had stopped working over the potato store. It was at the bottom of a 50,000-litre tank and I knew it would be blocked with mud. It was ten o’clock at night; just the right time to be in the pub on a Saturday night, but I had no choice but to call in Wally and his gobbler. Wally was a small man, about 5’3”. He always wore a single-breasted jacket and wore a cloth cap. And his face was covered in lumps; loads of them like lumpy porridge. Poor Wally. The gobbler was Wally’s old tanker, which we often used to suck out blocked drains and sumps. And Wally was an ardent socialist. Anyway, I managed to suck out all the water with a submersible pump, and then removed the inspection plate at the bottom of the tank. It was obvious what the problem was as me and Wally peered in at the sea of mud. And while all this was happening, Wally was banging on about Margaret Thatcher and the workers revolution which was about to come. All the Tory wasters would be put to the sword and the country would become a true socialist haven where all the workers would enjoy what was rightfully theirs. So, there was a working-class Tory and a working-class Socialist with a problem, but I knew it wouldn’t be Wally who would be clambering into that tank with a shovel to dig the pump out. We’re all in this together.

Still haven’t heard from Joffe Books. Wish me luck and stay safe!

Fencing and painting

April 4^th. 2020

Another drab week for Pat, but she’s pulling through now. Two more weeks to her penultimate chemo, then one more. I know we could all do without the pandemic, but it makes it increasingly difficult knowing that I can’t put Pat in her wheelchair and take her for a walk along the prom at Bognor, just to cheer her up. When we were clapping at 8 o’clock the other night, I joked that Pat was clapping for me because I was her carer, but we are under no illusions as to who the gesture was for. I don’t envy those NHS workers who have to go into work daily, at the ‘coalface’ so to speak, and hope they don’t catch the virus. Quite scary.

I finished the book I was reading because of the amount of time I waited in the car while Pat was having chemo (not allowed in with her now). This was ‘House in the Woods’ by Mark Dawson. It was a five-star read; I would recommend it. I had planned to start on Scott Mariani’s book, House of War, but managed to get distracted by David Jason as Inspector Frost on ITV hub. Maybe next week I’ll give Mr. Mariani a look.

I found myself thinking about a development in my pulp fiction thriller, which I get to when I can and don’t expect to finish until the end of the year. Anyway, I came up with some pretty good ideas, mulled them around a bit and decided I should get them into the book and help get me somewhere in the development of the story. Trouble is I was in the shower. Perhaps I should have a waterproof pen and notebook with when I take shower. I can remember some of the bright ideas I had, but it was eight hours ago and I’m beginning to flag. I might get round to jotting them down somewhere.

My book sales for last month were pretty good, but that was because of the Book Bub featured deal. I sold about 400 copies of The Boy from Berlin, and a few of my other titles. I’m back on the flat line again but will be looking into adjusting my advertising campaigns. Doing that is quite complicated, and I’m almost in awe of those writers who can crack the minutiae of Amazon ads and sell hundreds of books a month.

Another job I have to keep on top of is the garden. And that’s the reason for the photo this week: our garden seat which takes pride of place outside our front door. It needed painting, which I did yesterday, and finished off retightening all the screws so it doesn’t fall apart. It’s this part of the garden — we call it our cottage garden — which looks lovely when the hanging baskets and the wisteria are in full bloom. That has always been Pat’s domain, but she’s too frail to tackle it now, so it’s my job. And I mustn’t let her down. I spent part of the week repairing a fence that had succumbed to the high winds in February and March. I had to patch it together because I couldn’t afford the time to spend at B&Q looking for the right wood and getting it cut. I don’t even know if B&Q are open though. Anyway, the fence is back up and soon the wisteria will be trailing its way through it.

That’s it for the week. Still haven’t heard from Joffe Books. Wish me luck.