Instantaneous feedback – and some embarrassing praise.

This week, several events coincided and left me walking on air…

I was assigned, as part of my day job, to the sparkling town of Blackpool (you know, the Northern English town with its own version of the Eiffel Tower)

During my time at the sweet (candy) factory there, I found the largely Polish workforce to be very receptive to my book and I’ve already seen some sales from the bookmark handout, the concept of which I covered in several previous posts.

That might be the end of the sales run, but I’d like to think that the Polish community might pass the word around. After all, one of my minor characters DOES have a Polish Grandmother… 🙂

I also found a fan in a colleague who not only bought my eBook whilst we were working together, but took an active part in promoting it on my behalf, reinforcing my bookmark spiel with his own enthusiastic endorsements.

Thank you Peter! 😀

His sister, Penny, has also bought a copy (on Peter’s recommendation) and she is peparing to read it as I write this. When he told Penny that he was sitting next to the author, she became curious as to my personality and asked him all about me –  something that brought a warm glow to my insides.

Peter read through several chapters of ‘A Construct of Angels’ each evening, allowing us to discuss the events and characters as we worked through the next day, although I had to be very, very careful not to utter any spoilers. As he talked about the book, his obvious enthusiasm for my writing left me with a peculiar feeling of conflict; I was happy that he was enjoying the book and took some pride from the fact that I’d created something that had affected him in such a positive way.

And yet, I couldn’t help but feel slightly embarrassed when he offered praise. It’s a wonderful thing to receive and I ought to soak it up like a sponge as it’s a rare beast. However, being somewhat reclusive in nature I don’t feel at all comfortable when it comes my way – I really don’t know what to do with myself.

So, Peter, if I appeared to squirm and look mildly uncomfortable as you enthused, you were doing nothing wrong.  It’s not you…it’s me. 😀

And yes, please feel free to nag me regarding the sequel, ‘ A Vengeance of Angels’, which has fallen behind schedule due to other committments. I WILL endeavour to get it finished. Plus, you’re now on my beta readers list for when it’s completed. 🙂

McCaw #1:nag nag nag
McCaw#2: All right, all right, I’ll finish the book – I promise!

One other event that cause me to stare and utter the immortal phrase ‘No Way…’ was an abrupt and completely unexpected spike in the number of followers of my author page on Facebook.  In the space of twenty-four hours, the followers rose from a rather sad 11 likes to a staggering (relatively speaking) 256 likes.

:O

There are two possible explanations for this unprecedented event:  I’ve been part of two promotions this week.  One was Cassandra Giovanni’s cover reveal – a reblog on my previous post (as well as being echoed on Facebook and Twitter)  – and the other was ‘The Mega Giveaway’  on the ‘For the Love of Fiction’ Facebook page.

If you haven’t already seen this, please take a moment to check it out. Although if you are reading this on a re-run (i.e. after June ’13), the Giveaway may have ended.  Still, you could always drop in and have a peek at my author page whilst you’re there. 😀

All the events of this week illustrate the power of communicating effectively, whether it’s by word of mouth or by using the Interweb.

Stop Press; I’ve been told that it was ‘The Big Giveaway’ that boosted my author page.  One of the requirements of entry via Rafflecopter is to ‘like’ the author’s page.  That boost to 256 indicates a good response to the giveaway…

Write On!