Eventispress is just about holding on, but only just.
With the sad passing of Nigel Lesmoir Gordon in January and the beginning of the UK wide lock down just after Diana Jackson’s book launch of her new novel MISSING Past and Present, to say that it has been a tough year for us (and everyone else) is an understatement.
Our writers, on the whole, focus on real events to spread the word and sell their books, with numerous author talks to groups and on the radio, with fairs and charity functions and sales in places of interest. We have always had a ‘local’ feel to our tiny part of this industry although, over the years, we have enjoyed regular orders from bookshops such as Waterstones and other Indie bookshops, for which we are truly thankful. Unfortunately this plethora of activity, including orders, has ceased.
We do hope to release our books for bookshops again shortly, but up until now distribution channels have been limited to non existent. Even with bookshops opening we believe they are focusing on existing stock and ‘safe bets.’ Our aim has never been to rely on Amazon, but to support bookshops and other organisations too. As all of our worlds have narrowed, however, we have realised that our marketing model is lacking in tapping into this vast online market and not only that, we do not have the resources or profit margins to do so effectively.
But all is not lost!
What have we been doing apart from thinking of family and friends during this pandemic?
- Since we often support charities, we have prepared and published a book of ‘Kinghorn Lunch Club Social Memories‘ compiled by Yvonne Georgeson. This was not only positive in itself, but a moral booster to the contributors, who were often isolated throughout this time.
- Author Brian Kerr is working hard on his third book which we hope to release before Christmas.
- Author Diana Jackson hopes to a special little book close to her heart shortly. More on that soon, we hope.
- We have experimented with Amazon Ads with a focus on USA and this was positive until there was a problem with spoof or maybe Phishing ads, which we did not set up. This has caused the process to be halted while it is investigated by Amazon. It remains under investigation well over a month later with no resolution. The internet is a wonderful but also a dangerous place it seems.
We have, unfortunately, had to say that it is just not the right time to publish the novel of a new author we had hoped to support. If he is able to keep faith with us, then hopefully we will be able to shortly, but we don’t want to publish a book if we do not feel confident we can support it to achieve the author’s expectations, however worthy the novel.
We are a collaborative and with this in mind we hope to be looking for another author to join us when the industry begins to pick up again. This person will not only be a good writer but willing to get involved with the day to day running of Eventispress. A ‘tall order’ we know! A More details of this in the autumn.
That just leaves us to say do keep reading and writing. I don’t know about you, but this lock down has been made all the more bearable with books!
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