Farmer Drama

Smashwords

 I've just spent a day and a half converting my book into a suitable format for the Smashwords website. This enables my book to be published in various ebook formats including .mobi format for the Kindle, Epub for ipod/iphone, PDF and others. It will be interesting to see how it takes off and whether it affects the sales of my paperback. I have a good feeling about it.  You can download a sample in any format here.

The East Germany Tapes - November 1989

Ich war dabei. I was there. That's what it said on the tacky t-shirt I bought in West Berlin in November 1989. However unlike other Westerners - reporters, news crews and tourists - I had walked through the wall from the East side to the West.  I only arrived in East Germany a few days before, to undertake a report on theatre for the British Council. Within three days of my arrival in a country where many of my interviews were conducted in whispers, the wall was broken open. When it happened, I was in Dresden, visiting a theatre. Obviously I wanted to find out what was going on, but with only an East German interpreter to talk with, it was hard to know how safe I would be going through the wall. The East Germans themselves still felt very unsure about the situation so would not tell me much.

I understood basic German and spoke it fairly badly, so watched the TV news in my hotel room to try and understand what was going on.I had with me an old-fashioned tape dictaphone on which I recorded my interviews, and now my own personal reactions to what was happening around me.  I still have the tapes. So here follows the first of my podcasts from twenty years ago. It begins as I just come out of a theatre from a play that I found fairly deadly. It includes extracts from German and BBC broadcasts that I picked up.  Despite these, it was with a feeling of trepidation that I set off to cross through the wall. Click the link below to hear the 5-minute podcast.

EastGermany-Part1

More copies available at Waterstones

Having checked again recently, I have discovered my book must be stocked by more branches of Waterstones than I imagined.  Currently it is available at Bracknell, Chelmsford, Edinburgh (which is encouraging as I took a copy in there and asked them to stock it), Glasgow, Leeds, Lincoln, Luton, Manchester, University of East Anglia, Slough, Wells, Worthing and York.  If the branches that stocked it last month are waiting for new copies, that makes 21 stores in the UK.  Think I'll keep an eye on this :)

Waterstone's rules OK

I spent a fair bit of time wooing my local Waterstone's to stock my book.  Over the past couple of years, all three stores in Norwich agreed to stock it and seem to be selling 8 to 10 copies annually. No great shakes. However, thanks to Stephen J Sweeney, a fellow writer at Lulu, I have found out that the book is currently available at 16 stores across the UK, in Birmingham (x2), Bolton, Bracknell, Chelmsford, Dumfries, Exeter, Glasgow, Manchester, Norwich (x3), Reading, Romford, Wells and Worthing!

This could all be down to the fact that I knew someone who worked at the local branch of Waterstone's and decided to recommend the book to head office.  Perhaps it is also due to the continued high sales at Amazon.

Another Lulu success story

Great to read about other writers' success stories with Lulu. Corinne McKay has written a book about working as a freelance translator and gone on to sell 2,500 copies since publication in 2006.  I admire her resolve in keeping on writing every day to get the book finished - even if some days it was just one sentence.  Now if only I did that on my next book I might get it finished!  Like me, her book supports her business - and vice-versa.

500 in a month!

 I'm a bit shocked. Last month I sold 69 books. This month it was 506. My previous record was 308 - and I was pretty pleased with that!  Certainly my book is an education text book and it does better at the beginning of school terms, but this was a fantastic surprise. 

I was pleased to note that I had a big increase in US sales - from a previous high of 46 to 108. I am currently tweaking my listing on Amazon using methods in Aaron Shephard's Aiming for Amazon and hope for even more sales! I use the Amazon blog facility which enables you to add extra information. It makes the page more interactive and has already brought in another customer review.

How my book came about

I love playing drama games and began collecting them in a big folder when I started acting in the seventies.  Soon I was trying them out on other people, and I noticed that both children and adults enjoyed them.  I kept playing my favourite ones, adapting them, and learning more.  As soon as the internet arrived, I posted a selection for others to use and this grew into a now-thriving website.  An e-book followed and I soon realised the potential for publishing this paperback.

It's packed full of activities that have been tried and tested for over thirty years.  As an actor, I've used the games as warm-ups.  As a director, I've used the games in rehearsals to stimulate ideas. As a teacher and drama consultant I use them to help children's learning in history, literacy and across the curriculum.  I love the fact that whoever tries them out next will find a new way of using them.

If you want to find out more about these games and activities, here is the website that started it all:
www.dramaresource.com

Plugging your book through Amazon Associates

I have tried out one of the methods from Plug Your Book by Steve Weber – using a Google search to find people who are Amazon Associates and might find my book relevant.  I used the following search:

"in association with amazon.co.uk", bookstore, drama games

This brought up sites of people who recommend books for sale through Amazon, on the theme of drama games.  I sent an email to four sites found through this method and three of them agreed to plug the book. One of the webmasters wants to write an article with me and another sent me a glowing email:

Just thought you might like to know that your book has averaged one sale a day since it was first displayed on www.dramateachers.co.uk ten days ago. (Some have been multiple purchases.)

 

It is very rare indeed for one book to sell as consistently as this. 

 

I would attribute this to the fact that it represents exactly the type of inspirational content that visitors are looking for when they seek out drama ideas on the site.

This website is selling far more copies of my book than I sell via Amazon Associates on my own site.  Not surprisingly, it suggests that people may value a book more highly when it is recommended on sites other than that belonging to the author!

I can’t wait to try more Plug You Book ideas, when I get the time!

Plug Your Book

This month I've sold over 320 copies of 101 Drama Games and Activities, mainly in the UK through Amazon.  US sales are beginning to creep up too.  I've just been reading Plug Your Book by Steve Weber, which is very readable and has dozens of ideas for promoting books online, especially in the States - very useful.

Chatting to somebody recently who has just written a text book for a publishing house, I've realised that I am making ten times as much per copy - because I've self-published using Print on Demand.  So this has really bucked me up to get started on my next book.  I'm pulling together notes and articles from my website and computer and have already amassed over 17,000 words - as much as in my current book.

Off his trolley - a case of assault

The tragic news about the banker who was beaten to death in Norwich on Sunday morning, had a particular resonance for me.  I had my own experience of a brawl in Norwich the day before - in the vegetable aisle of Sainsbury's.  As I was pushing the trolley a man in his 70s suddenly fell heavily onto the floor in front of me.  His face was bleeding, he looked stunned and was finding it difficult to breath.  I immediately knelt down to see if I could help him.  Meanwhile another man started shouting loudly, "He tripped me up.  He pushed me!" to the injured man's wife, whilst acting in a threatening way to the man lying prone on the floor. 

The wife meanwhile was telling me her husband had emphysema, which explained his breathing difficulties.  He looked as though he might not make it.  My partner and I got help from the staff who put the guy into the recovery position and rang an ambulance.  Meanwhile, the angry man - who was at least 60 himself - went off shopping and was arrested by police after being found in the alcohol section. We tried to continue shopping but couldn't really concentrate.  We saw the man - Colin - being helped into a wheelchair and later talked to him at the police station where we went to give a statement.  It turns out the other man had punched him because he wouldn't move his trolley out of the way.