we playing the waiting game, we are, the phair and i. we’re waiting for the proof to come back. the feeling is very similar i expect to some anxious parent waiting on for the nurse to come out of the delivery room with the fruit of their loins. ‘look sir, you have a monkey boy.”

in the meanwhile, i’ve gone and done the book cover. we were actually going to spring a couple of quid for a professionally done one – phair rated a good cover as fairly important for independent book sellers from her superstars writing seminar – but the problem was getting someone to do it. i wanted to try 99designs where you could write up your requirements and sponsor a contest online. i thought that was way too cool. the phair wasn’t too keen on that so she asked around. no luck, so screw them all. i did the cover.

i’m a polymath. i have many skills. not finding someone to do a book cover is not going to throw me off. not having the graphics software to do it right isn’t going to throw me off either.

i did 6 versions in the end. All on MS Word – yes, i know – i’m a Word junkie. basic covers, nothing fancy. i was going to do more until the phair said enough, then the phair posted all 6 versions online on FB for voting. in the end the field was narrowed down to 2  and then i made the final cut. so that was that.

afterwhich we worked on the book blur – done – and the prologue – also done. now we need to come up with a basic marketing plan. this is the part that’s difficult for me at least. i think the best way forward would be to identify 50 people most likely to influence others to buy the book and send them a free copy. only thing is, i can’t name 10.