Proud To Announce The Stranglers Join Book 2

 

I am very pleased to announce that The Stranglers have kindly agreed to let me publish a photograph I took of them on their 40th anniversary tour in Guildford recently in the forthcoming book. I wish I had contacted them a little earlier than 24 hours before the gig as I think they might have been willing participants give a bit of notice. Lesson learned target potential subjects well in advance! The good news is of course that the list of high profile participants is growing. If anyone has any ideas or contacts please let me know...

The Legendary Punk Rock Artist TV Smith Will Feature In The Book

The latest high profile artist to come on board book 2 is TV Smith, the former front man of legendary punk band The Adverts renowned for their hit Gary Gilmour's Eyes. Over the last couple of months I have reintroduced myself to his music through the recommendation of a customer at work! I am going to see his solo show in Reading in April, and as soon as I sent him a message about me taking a photo of him he came straight back agreeing to it. If all other artists would do the same!

Book 2 - Status Quo On Board!!!!!

I had the most amazing email today informing me that Status Quo, one of the biggest bands to have come out of the UK in the last 50 years are on board with book 2. They have responded to my request to photograph them by giving me a photo pass for one of their London gigs at the end of March, where the original line up are playing together for one final time. This pass gets me into the pit at the front, where I will be allowed to stay for the first ten minutes of their set taking photos. This is a wonderful photographic opportunity for me and I intend to take full advantage and capture some great photos for the book. It's going to be a great adventure and certainly make for an interesting chapter in the book to be published later this year.

300 Sales Achieved

 

To get an overview about the book click here.

I am really happy to announce that the book has passed the 300 sales mark. Getting from 200 to 300 has taken over a year and been quite an effort. There have been times where I have wondered whether the book has come to the end of its natural journey. Yet each time I consider this possibility something happens and it seems to get a new lease of life.

I would like to thank everyone who has bought the book and supported it as without the kindness and generosity of those people it would have ended its journey a long time ago. It is the people who come on board who not only buy the buy the book, but spread the word to friends who make such a difference and to all of you I thank you so much!

I still feel that the book has the potential to sell a lot more. The reviews on Amazon have been terrific and with the kindle edition being just over £2 its pretty good value. I wish the paperback could be cheaper, but by self publishing and printing to order on Amazon it's out of my control. The kindle edition still makes a few more pennies for the charity even though it is considerably cheaper than the paperback. Having said that I think the paperback is a lovely thing to have on the bookshelf and a constant reminder of what the purpose of the book is. And at just over £5 it's still pretty good value! :)

So once I again I ask everyone who has supported the book to keep spreading the message and help me push the book towards the next milestone figure of 400. The more people who get on board and help me with this and market the book the more chance it has of achieving this. 

Oh to have a publisher behind the book! :)

Celebrity Quest For Book 2 & Book 1 Nears 300 Sales

 

To get an overview about the book click here.

By choosing "people" as the theme for the forthcoming book 2 this opens up the world of celebrity to me. My thoughts are that if I can get some celebrities on board it would help generate interest in the book and potentially increase sales and of course help raise awareness about this terrible disease. Over the last week I have begun the process of trying to make contact and that is hard enough in itself. I am heavily reliant on social media and I am a mere drop in the ocean when it comes to hoping my message will make it to the celebrity and get read! So Facebook and Twitter are being relied upon for this, but occasionally I have managed to get an email address for management which seems to be a good route as they have tended to reply. I am also trying the agents route too. I soon realised I will need a thick skin for this as the chances of getting replies seem to be slim, and it might well turn out to be a numbers game. The motto of course is if you don't ask you don't get and I am going to do plenty of asking. In the first week I have approached over 25 celebs including high profile names such as Kylie and David  Tennant, but also people that I do have a real connection with especially from the world of music. If and when I manage to get any celebrities on board I will announce them on here. For starters a musician has already agreed and when I have the picture in the bag the name will be posted, but its not one anyone will be able to guess though :) So this could be an interesting route, but at the same time I am totally convinced that the real stars of the 2nd book will be the ordinary people and the potential there for photographs and stories is limitless.

With 298 sales book 1 is so very close to going past the landmark figure of 300 now. Its just needs a couple more people to come on board and support and but it. The Beating Bowel Cancer Book page on Facebook has had a great week with many new faces on board so its exciting times on all fronts. I have also started dropping the first of the 100 postcards which hopefully will lead to some stories and I have joined a group which is doing something a little different which I will announce in the next week or so. So as things stand there are 702 sales still required to reach my dream goal!

100 Postcards

To get an overview about the book click here.

Over the last year I have been completely inspired by a wonderful blog called "60 Postcards", which has now been published as a book. Rachael Chadwick lost her mother to cancer in 2012 and decided to celebrate her mum's life by leaving 60 postcards around Paris asking the people who found them to contact her. The book is wonderful and I would highly recommend you reading it, the best book I have read in a long time. So I have decided to try something similar and have bought myself 100 classic heritage postcards, which I will leave in as many different and varied locations as I can. The idea is for the people who find the cards to contact me and tell me a little bit about themselves and what they were doing when they found the postcard, and then I will post the responses and stories on here. Hopefully it will also hope spread word about the book and generate some extra interest in it.

I did try a similar thing last year, but I think I made a few mistakes. I got my book cover printed as the design and as nice as that is it probably wasn't something that was going to hook people in if they happened to see it lying around. Hopefully these classic photos will grab the attention. The other mistake I made was also pre-printing them with the text, which made them a bit impersonal on reflection. This time I am writing them by hand, although these days I am so out of practice writing by hand! 

So why not have a go at this yourself, as if it has just a fraction of the success that Rachel had with her 60 postcards in Paris the resulting stories could be amazing!

Book 1 News & Book 2 News

To get an overview about the book click here.

February turned out to the be the most successful month the book has had in over a year. This was no doubt mainly down to the half price promotion of the kindle edition of the book. Its always difficult when using discounts to promote a charity book, as of course by discounting the price the amount of proceeds from each sale is reduced. However people have obviously bought the book at the discounted price, when they otherwise might not have bought it, and every single sale is a valued contribution to the fund raising quest. It was a seven day promotion in UK only, and next up I will try it in the USA and see if that largely unsuccessful territory so far comes on board? It has reinforced my enthusiasm for the whole project though, and if I could just come up with that elusive way of breaking the book out into the wider book buying audience and raise some serious money for the Beating Bowel Cancer charity.

 

Moving on to book 2. Having chosen to do a theme this time and for that theme to be on people I am busy coming up with plans. I have a few photos already in the bag from the last year or so, but I am more excited about the new possibilities the doing people will bring. Already I have approached a few people with a view to taking their photo and the response so far has been positive. As and when I have the pictures in the bag the identities will be revealed, but for the moment they shall remain a mystery. One exciting possibility is of someone I approached on twitter and got a potential yes response. It is unlikely that even those who know me well who guess who it is, but if it does come off I will be incredibly happy. It also means I will continue to ask potential subjects as the worst thing that can happen is I get a no...