I’ve been asked to speak at a “Meet the Author” evening in September, at the Hotel Du Vin to something calling itself ‘The Pi Society’.  I’ve googled it and, surprise surprise, it describes itself as providing an ideal way to find your perfect match, offering you personal and friendly service to help you fulfil (sic) your social and personal lives, combining a professional and discreet matchmaking service with local social networking events. A dating agency in Exeter with a heart.

Yikes! I’m not even published yet! How embarrassing!

I reply:

“I’m not a published author, more a would-be one.

I can talk about how to get your book printed on Amazon and Kindle, and also about how to approach agents, the sort of response you get (there are 4 million books on Amazon and the agents only use about one in 700 of the submissions they receive), and why you need to go to them, rather than going direct to the publishers. But sadly I can’t (yet) talk about how to become a successful writer!”

Well she still wants me to do it, and is coming to Dartmoor to meet me in my B&B next week.  Oo-err… I wonder how many people will be there? And whether I’ll manage to pull some lonely-heart-bloke without paying their subscription?

The nice helpful agent of the unusual surname also told me that if you get 21 reviews on Amazon, it kickstarts something in the system which might end up on an email bulletin they send out each day, recommending books.

Crikey Moses! Perhaps this talk could get the ball rolling, and I might finally sell a copy  of “Back On The Shelf” at last!