2023 has been an eventful year for me, mainly due to health reasons. I don’t want to bore you with the details, but if you want to know more, and don’t regularly follow me at jemimapett.com, then skip over there and check out the IWSG posts, which sort of tell the story.
The Cavies of Flexford Common
After some interesting problems, I managed to publish Roscoe & Neville’s story for 7 year olds (Key Stage 1 in the UK). I’ve been selling it at Craft fairs since July, and hope it will do well for Christmas presents.
As it is for younger readers, it is only available as a paperback. To save printing costs, is only available through Blurb, or direct from me at £6 plus postage (shipping), or you can arrange to pick it up at a craft fair (see below). You can check it out and view the purchase page at Blurb through this preview.
Personal appearances
I’ve been able to continue doing my schedule of Mynt Image Ltd Craft and Gift Fairs, thanks to the incredible support of the Mynt Image staff. Basically, they unload my car and get all my stuff to my table, then pack it all back in the car afterwards. They have been so helpful. If any of you authors are based in south-central England, check their venues out and have a go yourself.
I have four more fairs this side of Christmas, in Lymington, Salisbury, Romsey, and Lyndhurst. The posters and dates are displayed on my blog’s front page. You can get a feel for them here.
I am not doing so many next year, but basically have booked one every two weeks from mid-April through to the end of August. Same venues plus one in Chichester. I go to Romsey most often. I’ll decide whether to do more in the summer.
Paperback Prices
One of the features of this year’s fairs has been keeping the cost of books affordable when the basic prices keep going up. It’s gone in four stages – price of paper put the base price up, then distribution costs from Ingram put the add-on up, then they took out the basic level distribution percentage, so they now get 40% of the advertised price! And then the cost of paper/printing went up again.
The price online is the price that online stores can do. The price I do for fairs is the price I can do, and reflects what I’ve bought the stock in at. Some of the books (not many) I sell cheaper than Amazon. But when I next have to buy stock I’ll have to raise my own prices. Which takes me back to the decision next summer on whether to continue doing the craft fairs. Watch this space!
Other possible titles
I have not written anything else this year, partly because of my health issues. I occasionally think of the other projects I had in mind, like a collection of Princelings short stories, including some new ones featuring ‘what happened after book 10’. A second volume of Cavies of Flexford Common really depends on how well it sells at the craft fairs in the next two months.
I do think I should have done an Epilogue for book 10, though. I aim to write that, and reissue the ebook version of Princelings Revolution, which should generate a notification from your online supplier that you can update your edition free. I won’t do a new paperback version, but I will put the epilogue on this website for people to access/print out, and include an amendment slip in my paperbacks.
I’ve been developing a sort of timeline of major characters, mainly for the Amazon promotion pages. I’m not sure how good it looks, but I may test it on you first.
If anything else happens, I’ll let you know, but I hope you have a nice Christmas, and a good new year.
