fairs – The Princelings Books: Jemima Pett

14 April, 202512 April, 2025

Celebrating the Chronicles of Marsh

It may sounds daft, but I’m celebrating the first paperback sale at a craft fair of Chronicles of Marsh.

I generally assumed that most people would start at the first one, the fourth at a pinch, and then… well some may be continuing to work their way through, and some have probably switched to ebooks, since they are cheaper and readily obtained. But I have reread all the books in the last year, doing my best to imagine coming to them with no prior experience. I concluded that if you are happy with jumping into a series in the middle, you can start with any of them.

At Lymington of Saturday, I had several conversations about the series, taking my potential buyers from start to finish in about ten breaths. I did that in Lyndhurst too, a couple of weeks earlier, but the only ‘odd purchase’ was when I realised that buying books 1,2,3,4,and 6 was a more logical choice of five from the series (five attracts a discount) than including book 5 (Talent Seekers). The 1234-6 group cover most of the key Hugo/Mariusz elements. There’s a small matter of book 10 to finish his involvement, but he’s the main link for those books. (Well 123 is the trilogy, which is its own link).

At Lyndhurst, without the book rack finished

So what would make someone start with book 9? It was an older person, who liked the idea of seeing the timeline through Fred’s eyes, as part of the introduction to his reign. Of course, it maps the downward spiral of contentment in the Realms against the uptick of technology. I’ve wondered whether the two are necessarily connected, or whether it’s just one of those things. Do people just aspire to new technology, whatever the cost to their happiness? Anyway, I think it will probably work, and if he wants to go back and see ‘how it unfolded’ he can do so.

I suppose it’s a bit like seeing the third Lord of the Rings film without seeing the first two.

I’m sure he’ll enjoy it, and that’s the main thing.

But I’m really happy to have sold a copy of Book 9 at a fair in person. The only one still to be treated to that honour is The Princelings of the North, book 8. I have hopes that one of the younger readers might jump straight in there after Messenger Misadventures! Time will tell.

30 March, 202411 March, 2024

My Gift Fairs timetable for 2024

If you are in South/central England, or planning a trip in that direction, you may want to visit a craft & gift fair for one of my personal appearances.

I’m using four venues in 2024: Lymington, Lyndhurst, Romsey and provisionally Salisbury or Chichester

The details are in the posters below (click to enlarge them).

My schedule is:

April 27th – Romsey
May 25th – Lyndhurst
June 8th – Romsey
June 22nd – Lymington
(tba) – Lyndhurst, Chichester or Salisbury
July 20th – Lymington
July 27th – Lyndhurst
August 10th – Lymington
August 24-25 – Salisbury (prov)
August 31st – Romsey

I have all the Princelings books in paperback to sell, and of course I’ll sign them if you like!

I also have my scifi books, my short story collections, and my books for younger readers, plus my father’s memoirs.

There are also two notebooks, with pictures plus lots of journalling space – the Princelings one, with chapter illustrations and quotes, and a full-colour George’s Guinea Pig World one.

Autumn and Christmas Fairs are yet to be confirmed.

8 November, 20234 March, 2024

A review of 2023

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.

11 August, 202228 July, 2022

More Craft and Gift fairs in Southern England

I’m doing more craft and gift fairs during the rest of the year. You’ll remember from my January post that I’m doing the Mynt Image Craft and Gift Fairs in the Hampshire/Wiltshire area.

Here’s a selection of stalls during the first half of the year:

I tend to put my banners back to back, with the one for the ‘Meet the Author’ short story volumes and for White Water Landings facing the way people are walking around the room. I’ve sold a good number of Princelings books, mainly the first one, not surprisingly. White Water Landings goes extremely well in this area, as many people remember the Sunderland base at Calshot from after the war until the sixties. Many people tell me what their own fathers or grandfathers did in the war as a result of chatting about my father’s memoirs.

Book sales itinerary for autumn 2022

For the rest of the year I’ll be visiting as follows:

20 August: Lyndhurst Community Centre
26 August (Friday): Lymington (Masonic Hall)
17 September: Lyndhurst Community Centre
1 October: Romsey Town Hall
5 November: Lyndhurst Community Centre
19 November: Romsey Town Hall
3 December: Lyndhurst Community Centre
I may get a late entry to Salisbury in December or late November, also.

All the fairs are free entry, and run from 10 am to 4 pm.

If you’re in the area, maybe visiting the New Forest, or the Isle of Wight, or Salisbury’s Cathedral (or Winchester’s for that matter), or even Stonehenge, why not divert to one of the events and meet me in person!

I’ll have all the Princelings books (and Messenger Misadventures) with me – unless I’ve sold out!

Talent Seekers country

This is all Talent Seekers country. Castle White Horse would be located among the chalk downs beyond Salisbury; Castle Forest is sort of in the New Forest, and Castle Deeping is roughly where the Queen Elizabeth Country Park is, north of Fareham (on the A3). But I took a great deal of liberty with the geography of this area–best to say it’s fictitious, but inspired by certain landforms!