Ignoring can also be bliss in some cases (not just ignorance :>)

One important lesson that I learnt in promoting my book is to let go or ignore promises (casually or seriously) made by others on helping me when those promises are not carried out. Don’t be overcome by bitterness or hold grudges against them. Bless them and move on. After one or two gentle reminders, give the person benefit of the doubt because there are many different reasons the person did not make good his/her promise.  It would be better if the person offers an explanation. However, I suggest bless them and move on.

I will give an example of how to deal with it in my future blog.

Merry Christmas to all :>
Wish you all a wonderful time during this festive period.

I will be traveling to Canada to see my folks starting this Saturday and the blog will be put on holiday schedule. Regular publication will resume in 2015!

December can well be the busiest month of the year. Among other festive-related activities, book promotion may be put on the back burner.

Besides offering a 25% Christmas discount on my book, I have 2 other ways to promote my book.
1) Adding a promotional postcard of my book to Christmas card
2) Subtly reminding my friends and family of my book in my emails of season’s greetings

As of last Friday (12-Dec), there are 10 Amazon reviews on my book between the UK (9 reviews) and US (1 review) sites.

The average rating is 4.8 out of 5.
The highest is 5 out of 5.
The median is 5 out of 5.
The lowest is 4 out of 5.
The standard deviation is 0.42.

Another encouragement arrived last week over a coffee with a friend who finished reading my book.

He said he had already started taking a painting course that he always wanted to do in the past few years, but hesitated. He is now enjoying the course. I have not seen any of his paintings yet.  However, as I said in the book, each person is on his/her own journey at a speed suitable for him/her and the most IMPORTANT thing is having FUN and enjoying the “ride”.  Don’t let others and/or yourself discourage you!

A friend of mine who is taking an evening French class to brush up her French told me last night that my book helped her.

She followed my example of bringing a drink (non-alcoholic just for the record) to the evening class and it actually boosted her concentration in class.

Yes, it is difficult to stay alert after a long day of work, but we can find little things to help us fight the battle of “dozing off”.

 

It has taken a while but the figure finally arrived today from Amazon. I have sold 5 copies of Kindle version of my book: 2 copies from the U.S., 1 from the U.K, Germany and Canada each. Oddly enough the profit margin is roughly the same for both printed and Kindle versions even though there is no printing cost in the case of Kindle.

A good friend of me who is a shrewd professional investor and also a board member of a major UK financial film, proposed to invest in the audio version of my book for an undisclosed portion of its profit. He recognized its potential particularly for people who prefer listening to reading and/or long-distance commuters.

 I took it as a compliment and promised him to look into it.

Today I followed up with a few people that had expressed interest in purchasing my book at last Friday’s Christmas party. Some of them recalled it after a gentle reminder of the conversation but some failed to remember probably due to the intake of alcohol at the party (or other unknown reasons). Well, I am sure people made more costly promises than the purchase of a book under the “influence of alcohol”. I eventually managed to sell 2 copies today and there are still a few reminders that I need to gently provide later this week.

Funny things ususally happen when they are least expected.

Over a coffee with a few friends today, we had a controversial discussion of my hobby as a frog miniature  collector.  I said I had written three blogs recently on this subject.

After coffee, I went the V&A museum in London to have some quiet moment alone and I spotted an unusal status.  I looked closer and found out that it is called The Frog Princess.

Details of the princess are:
The Frog Princess
1929; cast 1938
By Gilbert Bayes (1872-1953)
The Frog Princess was commissioned by Bayers’s old friend Mrs Margaret Huston Jones for her garden in California.
England (London)
Bronze
In the possession of the sculptor at the time of his death
On loan from the Gilbert Bayes Charitable Trust