I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. When I finished writing "It's A Stray Dog's Life" I felt elated. When I signed the publishing contract I was scared as I was entering the unknown. Now the book is out I'm finding my life is all but lived on social media. After all nobody will buy the book if they don't know it exists. In many ways it's an exercise with no end as a book never dies. I find myself asking myself what creature I've let loose on a regular basis.
I'm not overly helped in my writing endeavours by the gorgeous Smokey. Her attempts at distraction when she gains access to my bedroom/office are slowly becoming legendary. I think she might be becoming jealous of Princess, Buster and Snowy so is slowly writing her own book. Looking at the photo her book is clearly going to be titled "The Cat's Bum".
Not everything has been distraction and tiredness though. There have been some real highlights. The biggest of which was the UPS driver knocking on the door with a large parcel. Of course I knew what was inside but being able to open it with my parents to reveal copies of my first book was about as cool as life gets. I've finally achieved something to be proud of!
There have been photos of people receiving the book flooding my inbox and sharing their excitement on social media. Life doesn't get much better than knowing you've spread a little joy.
My wanderings to hand out presents hasn't abated either with dolmus trips into the local town carrying signed posters and books proving more fun than I could have imagined as the drivers spend more time looking at the book and posters than at the road ahead! My favourite stall holders at the local market and pet shop were amazingly enthusiastic to receive these small gifts even if the cold weather recently made smiling almost painful.
As such the journey through writing the book to seeing it on sale continues with me learning every step of the way. It has taught me one thing. All writers are bonkers. We must be otherwise we'd never put ourselves through this not knowing whether anyone would ever read or even like our great works of literature.
It has made my decision over the future very easy. I've used the pandemic to build a library of different books ready for publication so, like it or not, there's more to come over the coming weeks, months and years. Whether that's with a publisher or by going down the self-publishing route is the only major question I have yet to answer. I will give you all enough notice to pre-order the next books so don't worry you won't miss out. I promise there's also another book about the stray dogs in the pipeline (as well as Smokey's bum) and, possibly, a few more than that if I can escape social media long enough to write them.
The most common question I've been asked in the past few weeks is how people can help with the book. Obviously buying it comes top of the list. Equally importantly there are a couple of things everyone can do to help every author of any book you've enjoyed.
Share the title, website, book cover etc. with all your friends and followers on social media. It makes a huge difference.
If you've enjoyed a book leave a review online. Everywhere from Amazon to Barnes & Noble, from Waterstones to Google or Goodreads allows you to do this. The more reviews a book has the higher it rises in the rankings and the more people see it and can share your experience by reading it. Just remember if you liked it 5 stars is good. If you didn't 5 stars is bad! (Ed: Do you think they might spot what you did there?)
That's about it from me for this time. This blog was going to be on a totally different topic but that will have to wait.
Don't forget you can still buy the book by clicking the link below. If you have already done so then please do leave reviews. You can even send me one through the contacts page (I hope) and I'll post it under a new reviews page soon.
Best wishes,
MaxS and the Strays
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