Confessions and Card Readers
How not to sell books...
I’d like to start today’s offering with a confession. I entreat those among you who regularly sell items at fairs or readings or suchlike, to please stifle your guffaws at the following tale of woe.
I worked in a bank for thirty years.
No, that’s not the tale of woe. It merely serves to establish my level of supposed financial acumen in your mind.
So far, so showey offey.
Now, the confession.
Earlier this year I completed a series of four novels. Three have been published already and the fourth will be available on the 18th of this month. Last month, I gave a talk to a group of mostly retired gentlemen – a so-called ‘Mens’ Group’. The organiser not only gave me permission to sell some of these books, but positively encouraged me to do so.
Much of the talk was drawn from Books 1 and 2 in my series - “Saved by the Bull” and “Saved from the Desert”. They are followed by “Saved by the Gris-Gris” and the series finishes with “Saved by the Colonel”.
A courier delivered ten copies each of Books 1 and 2 to my house in time for the talk. I lugged the box to the venue, struggled up the stairs to the private room and set out a couple of examples in what I hoped was an attractive manner. The illustrated talk was received well and people queued, eager to buy.
It was then I discovered that nobody carries cash or cheque books these days.
As playwrights note in the margin of some script, ‘Exit Stout Party’.
The first result? My graph of sales volume has yet to show an upward trajectory.
The second result? I had to struggle all the way home with a full box of books, back and arms aching.
The solution? I have now acquired a card reader which links to my mobile telephone. See picture above! Funds will flow through the magic of the Interweb into my account. I just need to be invited somewhere to give another talk.
If you can’t invite me to give your group a talk, then I invite you to check out Books 1, 2 and 3 in my ‘Al Sharika’ series.
The fourth and final book will be published and available on the 18th of July – it’s ‘Saved by the Colonel’ and is the climax of the whole series.
See https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTHQ5YWH in America and https://www.amazon.co.uk/Saved-Colonel-Book-Al-Sharika-ebook/dp/B0D52ZRTWK
in the UK.
‘Ear ‘ear 😄