I Got the Publication Day Blues…
I had it all planned out.
Knowing that Tilda’s next adventure would take place in Nargan, the ‘purple’ region of Issraya, I was going to do a run-down of Pre Publication Purple Posts on Instagram up to the day of publication itself on 13th October. The pre-publication publicity was deliberately arranged to be fairly minimal, as Mr Squidge and I were in Amsterdam for a few days over that time. But least there would be something available for potential readers to see.
As an aside, we had a lovely time. We did the obligatory canal boat trip, wandered around the red light district, visited the Rijksmuseum, diced with death when crossing the roads (the bikes!!!), and ate very well at some gorgeous little restaurants off the beaten (and tourist) track. My highlight was visiting the oldest - and only surviving - liquorice shop in the capital, and discovering that Lindt make many more flavours of chocolate than we see in the UK (mango and cream, pistachio, liquorice, amaretto, and champagne!) Schiphol Airport on the way home was an experience, and thank goodness we turned up three hours before our flight, because it took us an hour and a half from booking in to get through security and passport control.
Here are some pics…
Back to Tilda. The ebook was published first, as usual. Lovely! But to me, ‘Publication Day’ is when the paperback becomes available. That’s when I celebrate. Except this time, things were a bit different.
Tilda and the Dragons of Nargan paperback went on sale on the 13th October, priced at £22.27.
Yes, you’re reading that right. Over £20. For a 206 page novel written for children.
It probably won’t have escaped your notice that the UK economy has tanked rather in recent weeks, thanks to Trussonomics, but even allowing for the drop of the pound against the dollar, that price was almost double the cover conversion price. To say I was shocked is an understatement - who the heck was going to buy my book at that price? BInk have been digging though, and it seems that there are rather a lot of glitches in the Amazon system at the moment re pricing and author accounts. Thankfully, by the weekend, the price for Tilda had dropped to £13ish. Still a lot, compared to mass-produced and big-name titles from a bookshop, but a small publishing company cannot compete by pricing their books as low.
On top of that unwelcome situation, Mr Squidge and I have not been well since coming home. We’ve caught colds (definitely colds - we’ve tested negative for covid), probably from standing for so long in an enormous snaking queue of hundreds - maybe thousands - of travellers in the airport .
I can’t share pics of myself with the new book, or video myself doing the unboxing, because at the time of writing this, I have no physical copies yet. (It can take a couple of days for them to turn up after publication, but we’re also suffering postal strikes in the UK and I don’t know if that’s affected their delivery.) All the other things I’d planned to do (wear purple on publication day, have a glass of something sparkling to toast the new adventure) I didn’t feel well enough to do. And I’ve been left with a sense of anticlimax as a result. Publication days aren’t supposed to simply pass by, unnoticed or unremarked.
I will do something of course, when I’m feeling better and I have one of the books in my hand, but I rather fear that Tilda’s fourth adventure has got off to a less than favourable start…
So, a little later than I’d planned, here’s the photo you would have seen on Publication Day; a very close approximation of one of Tilda’s dragons. All that’s missing is the frilled collar around its head…
