Anyone following this blog will probably remember me mentioning my first ‘return’ of Turn of the Tide and my wondering what in the title page could possibly have turned someone off.
All has been revealed. It appears that (and I don’t quite know how) at some point in the last 2 weeks the text file for Turn of the Tide was replaced by the text file for A House Divided. Net result – anyone attempting to download Turn of the Tide in the period between 26th October and yesterday (10th November) may have been sent the wrong file. I say may because I checked with someone who downloaded it on the 30th October and their’s was ok, but someone downloading last weekend got the wrong one.
And my first ever return? Probably (hopefully) someone who immediately picked up on the error.
So huge apologies to anyone who was expecting to read Turn of the Tide and got A House Divided instead. I hope you will all realise and return the ebook file.
And to the 6 people who have already done so – the problem has now been solved, and you are safe to re-order. This time it should be right.
A very frustrating problem to have arisen – especially as I don’t know how many folk have been affected, in fact the problem was only discovereed because one reader kindly sent me a message on LinkedIn to alert me.
It looks like November may also be a roller-coaster month!
Positives: In the last week I have had the feature in the Southern Reporter (local newspaper), a review in the Scottish Herald (national newspaper) and have just been interviewed for a feature in the Ayrshire Post. Brechin Library Reading Group have begun reading A House Divided (as part of a Reading Agency ‘Home Grown Talent’ initiative) and I will be making a visit next Monday evening to a local Book Group, who are also currently reading A House Divided. I’m really looking forward to their feedback and discussion.
Negatives: The biggest one is, of course the problem with the ebook file – and I do hope not too many folk have been affected (not often an author hopes that there haven’t been many sales). But running a close second was the discovery that there was a mistake in the bookshop discount set for the paperbacks of both books on the distributor’s system, resulting in a net profit to me for any sale of the princely sum of 10p per book. Not the best hourly rate for the effort involved!
Happily that has now also been rectified and the book is set to a normal shop discount, but yet again I found myself hoping that sales over the past 2 1/2 weeks have been slow.
But now I’m looking ahead to Book Week Scotland when I have several speaking engagements and hoping, now that these teething problems are sorted that sales will start to increase… and especially that folk haven’t been put off by the glitches.
Still, winter is coming and the long dark evenings – perfect for curling up by the fire with a book…