Diana Jackson’s first ever book-signing event at Horatio’s Ampthill, which sadly is no more!
We love real bookshops here at Eventispress. In fact all authors should make friends with their local bookshops and be a customer. The mutual support is great karma!
It is also a delight to see bookshops blogging about books, giving us updates of releases, events and news. We like the small independent blogs best; those that give an individual and local flavour.
Here are a few independent bookshop blogs we’ve discovered around the UK:
Foyles Book Blog (who have several of our books on their on line site)
Blackwell’s Bookshop Blog (who have certainly been supportive of us in the past, especially up in Edinburgh and down in Cambridge)
How to support your favourite Bookshop from your own armchair:
Just before lock-down we highlighted online bookshops which gave you the opportunity to send a percentage to your favourite local bookshop. Now a few more sites like this have set up, for those still in the ‘buy everything on line’ mode. Here are the ones we know about:
It is important to acknowledge bookshops and give them thanks, because all of our authors now have the same treatment on bookshop websites as they do on Amazon, with author bio, descriptions of books and reviews.
It is harder for small presses like us to be visible in actual bookshops up and down the country, especially following the pandemic shut down, because we are in competition with all the huge publishing companies. This is an area we are working on both by email and by physically visiting and supporting bookshops ourselves.
Hive is an on line bookshop where you can give a percentage of the sale to support a local indie bookshop of your choice. Ignore the ‘OUT OF STOCK.’ It is the cheapest site on the market to purchase the book and it will take a few days for the order to come through.
Brian’s books have always had orders from bookshops, especially locally in Bedfordshire, with whom we have a good relationship.
Ian K Pulham’s novel Ticket to Eden’ is now available in paperback on the Waterstones website and can be ordered through any good bookshop. If you do, then please mention us here at Eventispress.
                   Those were the days!
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!
If you prefer supporting our UK bookshops then we can announce that ‘Murder, Now and Then’ by Diana Jackson is now available on the Waterstones website and can be ordered in any of their stores.
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