I love that in the UK, International Women's Day follows hot on the heels of World Book Day. The Wonder Girls is my offering for them both!
I had a fabulous day on Thursday, I visited the wonder-full children of St Monica's Primary in Southampton and did my first assembly. It was nerve-wracking beforehand but the actual experience was lovely. We talked about books and reading, I read them the opening, we even sang! They were brilliant at going along with my cheesy version of heads shoulders knees and toes. The amazing Eden sat in the hot seat wearing Baby's green silk jacket and answered questions about how it felt to be knocked off a lamppost by a cabbage. And then there was the wonderful young man, possibly in year three, who nodded so earnestly when I admitted that as a child, I found learning to read hard. I'm passionate about inclusion. I don't want anybody left behind. So, as wonderful as it was to see how many children at St Monica's love to read, it was as wonderful to connect with a young person who might be struggling.
Plus, I sold 49 books, thank you St. Monica's!
The cancellation of The London Book Fair was a bit of a mouldy old cabbage. On Tuesday I was going to find out, at the fair, if I'd won the The Selfies Children's Award. It's a one in six chance, so probably not, but it would have been great to have had all the publicity. No doubt they'll announce the winner some other way, may even be a better way.
I'm off to London tomorrow, anyway, to an event that's bravely going ahead. I'm hoping to learn how to sell more copies of the ebook. I'm advertising on Amazon but doing something wrong because it's not that people are clicking and rejecting, nobody's clicking... hmm. Selling the eBook in greater numbers would fund editors and proofreading, so I'm prepared to throw my Amazon angst to the wind for that.
I'm pushing ahead with The Wonder Girls 2 - haven't made as much progress as I'd like this week - head was full of assembly on Thursday! I've contacted Anne Glenn for another marvellous cover, which I'll need, to do a kickstarter campaign for the paperbacks. Before I can commission her though, I need the whole story in a readable version and not yet having a complete readable version is also stalling me putting TWG2 up on Amazon for pre-order, which I said I was going to do. Aargh, I need focus!
Haven't yet worked out how to be organised enough to get photographic evidence of school visits, so here's one of my props instead.
Thanks so much for reading.
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