A Brief Overview

I didn’t fulfil my wish last month to post more regularly; will try to do better this month.  But I’ve scanned lots more pictures.  I believe that the book is selling well and within the first week of selling on Kindle I had sold 3 copies with no returns; I am assured this is an excellent result for a memoir which is being self-promoted.

Thanks to Anita Andrews for featuring me as Author of the Month through August, and to Patsy Collins for interviewing me on her blog as well as giving me some good advice about word verification.  Maybe this will encourage more people to leave comments. I must admit that I too have several attempts at word verification and often give up and abandon my comment on other people’s blog.

Joanne Phillips has been an absolute star again this month – thank you for all your help and advice.

If you have bought the Haphazard Gardener please leave me a review or tick like at  http://tinyurl.com/c2yzsvl.

I am blogging again tomorrow and that’s a promise.

Follow me on Twitter - @penelopehellyer

View my website: www.thehaphazardgardener.com

Kindle version now available.

A Kindle version of The Haphazard Gardener is now available – priced at £2.99.  Once again a huge learning curve for me and thanks must go to Joanne Phillips for her help and guidance in converting the original into a mobi file.  I’ve not kept a log of this journey – I fear it might be much too confusing – but if I can do it anyone can. Joanne Phillips saved me much of the hard work; but the last stage was left for me! And I now have the software to implement my novel Alice and other projects in the pipeline to upload to Kindle in the future.

If anyone else has read the book or buys the Kindle version please leave me a review at http://tinyurl.com/cycpevz. If you visit and read this post – please follow or just leave me a comment - it’s always nice to have feedback.

A Change of Direction

July has been a tense and busy month. The Haphazard Gardener was available from Amazon.co.uk  from the 1^st week in July. I have learnt an amazing amount about indie promotion from different websites and authors’ happy to share their own experiences. Several have been particularly generous with their help; they will know who they are, so a special thanks to you.

From this month I will post more regularly on this blog – sharing photographs both of my beautiful garden and from a time when it was not so beautiful.  I hope you enjoy and become as fascinated with the journey as you may be with the book should you wish to buy it.  Please if you visit – leave me a message and follow me.  It is so nice to see new followers.

For the month of August I am being featured by Anita Andrews as her author of the week.  Thank you Anita. 

Today I received my first review on Amazon.co.uk  - 5 stars too – this gives me such a warm feeling.

Be Inspired Award

Thank you to Patsy Collins for awarding me 'Be Inspired' and for her challenge to be creative - as my book is non-fiction.  I'll do my best to impress!  Patsy's ten questions were as follows:-
1. What gave you the idea for your book?
2. Overall how long did it take to write the book?
3. What kept you going half way through?
4. Are any of your characters based on real people even though you must say they're not?
5. Did you ever wonder if you'd have the work published?
6. When you've had one book published do you feel pressure with the next?
7. Would you write in a different genre - or do you always stick to what you know?
8. Do you prefer writing novels to short stories?
9. Do you use everyday happenings in your book?
10. If your book was to be on TV who would play lead male/female roles.

My answers:-
1. My parents journey in life and my love of their work and the garden I inherited. They transformed a scrubby field bought in the 1930s to a woodland gem, which I inherited in 1978.  My father Arthur worked until a few months before his death in 1993 - still informing and advising and sharing his extensive knowledge of plants and gardens. I felt their story should be told, not only did they plant a market garden within an ornamental garden garden full of fine trees and shrubs but they built the house in which we lived.

2. The book has been in the writing since 2002 - when I was recovering from major surgery. 'A gentle plea for chaos' by Mirabel Osler and 'Four Hedges' by Clare Leighton were my inspiration. The serious writing began some years later when I worked with Writers' News tutor Sue Johnson.

3. The support and encouragement from Sue Johnson and my lovely husband Philip.

4. The characters are real of course.  The extensive research undertaken on Arthur gave me a better understanding of the 'man' as opposed to my father. Not until his death did I realise his true worth in the world of horticulture - not only in the UK but around the world. My research on Gay was heartwarming.  The students she inspired in the early fifties still remembered her with grateful affection. Other characters that were part of my life have been omitted.  The book is about two main characters in Part One and two main characters in Part Two and Three and the most important theme - the garden is in each part of the story.

5. Yes and No. I was doubtful of my capabilities until I worked with Sue Johnson and then positive.  She sent me on the conventional route but after several rejections and a couple of yeses from Vanity Publishers - one of which would have entailed taking out a mortgage to pay for the book - I read as much as I could about self-publishing.  I took the plunge with FeedaRead after reading an advert in Writer's Magazine.

6. No. Not when you self-publish.  I've already finished the 1st draft of a Novel - written during NaNoWriMo last November.  And of a children's picture book. I've lots of other ideas too.  The only 'pressure' maybe from Philip - who enjoys my writing and his observation that it gives me pleasure - not quite as much as my beautiful x garden but it is another way to express myself.

7. I am already writing in different genre but I would like to write a fictional biography/memoir about one of Philip's notorious relatives way back in history - but that would have to include a trip to Australia.

8. I don't mind which genre I work in as I long as enjoy what I've written. I wouldn't write scary of crime novels - these would bring back too many bad memories.

9. Obviously for The Haphazard Gardener I did - and my novel Alice is based loosely on my experiences - though also well fictionalised.  I don't know how you can't be influenced by the people or experiences you've had in your life.

10. I can't answer this - all four main characters were such unique people!

To take part and to place the award on your website - you must thank the person who nominated you - choose five nominees and set them ten questions. My nominees are:-

Jane Risdon - for making me laugh with her posts and her support.
Joanne Phillips - for her instructive website and support and encouragement.
Jerry Fresia - much of the above won't apply to you - though you are the author of books - but you are an inspirational person.
Joanna Cannon - for her beautiful stories - so full of poignancy and a deep understanding of life.
http://grace-passingclouds.blogspot.com - filled with beautiful poetry.

The Sunshine Award

I am posting especially to thank Joanne Phillips - author of 'Can't live Without' for awarding me The Sunshine Award way back in May.  Joanne's blog is full of interesting information about all things writerly including self-publishing - since we 'met' she has been very encouraging and supportive. 



with thanks to Joanne Phillips

All you have to do it write five things about yourself.  Include the logo in your post. Link to your nominees and link the person who nominated you.  Simple - can't think why it's taken me so long!  Here are five sintillating things about me.

1.The book that gave me the inspiration to tackle my book The Haphazard Gardener was Mirabel Osler's 'A Gentle Plea for Chaos' and Clare Leighton's 'Four Hedges'. 

2. My favourite author is Alan Bennett - for his dry sense of humour and matter of fact storytelling.

3. My biggest heartache was leaving my beautiful garden is Sussex in 2005.

4. My happiest decade + was from 1989 when I met my lovely husband Philip to 2005 when we sold up.

5. My favourite things are flowers, trees, mountains, clouds and waterfalls.

My five nominees are:-

1. Jerry Fresia - an insprirational artist & author who lives on Lake Como. Sign up for his newsletter for a magical journey.  http://fresia.com/blog
2. The owner of the next blog appears to be anoynmous but it is a wonderful blog of poetry, photographs and flash fiction.  http://grace-passingclouds.blogspot.com/.
3. Joanna Cannon - http://joannacannon.wordpress.com/ - Joanna writes truely wonderful words full of understanding and perception.
4. Tracy Fells - http://tracyfells.blogspot.com/ - Tracy is from Sussex a county I miss very much - she has intersting posts and lovely photographs.
5.  Julie - http://internet-pets.blogspot.com/ - Lots of information and gorgeous photographs.

A new month - a new beginning

A new month – a new beginning!  Today I published my book and set up distribution to www.amazon.co.uk – http://www.thebookdepository.com/ – and several other book distribution companies.  At the moment it's only available from www.feedaread.com. If you live in Italy you will have the same problems as me and need to wait for Amazon or the Book Depository to be ready to sell it.

I have waited all month.  Apparently FeedARead weren’t receiving my emails!  After a few tense weeks I managed to make contact and my book was sent to me.  Today I thought that I would have to write – ‘still not arrived’ but it arrived on Friday and today my book is out there for all to buy, except it will take a few days to filter through to Amazon etc.  I am pleased with it.  I can’t promise that there may not be a few typo’s still – read June blog to understand why!

Now to promoting the book!

I have an author page @ www.facebook.com/TheHaphazardGardener  and a new website @ http://www.thehaphazardgardener.com/ as well as this blog.  When my book is at Amazon I will create an author page there as well.

Trying to be Positive

The Haphazard Gardener is back with FeedARead proofed and waiting to be printed.  I have made some changes and hopefully found all the mistakes; but I seem to find typos in a lot of things I read.  With so many hours spent by different people checking and yet still missing the most obvious mistakes I am convinced that you read words as you want to read them.

FeedARead contacted me today to say I could order my author copy to check before launching!  This time it worked – I could go to my account and order one – although the postage seemed a bit steep BUT I couldn’t have it posted to my address. They don’t deliver to Italy.  I am so confused with all of this.  One reason for choosing them was that they were International – they have known from the outset where I was based – I asked a few questions before I took this route! 

I’ve sent an email with HELP written in large text and have received a reply today – if I send them my address they will send one out to me – so I am another step nearer to having the book out in the big wide world!

I have been working on my new website to be published when the book is launched.  I was given the domain name by my daughter and son-in-law ‘because we are so proud of you’.  I won’t tell you what I felt for a couple of days whilst trying to set the website up – but now it is well on its way and looking good.

I need to add gadgets, create a QR and add lots more text.  I’ve used the phrase ‘learning curve’ often but for me it is a very steep hill I am climbing.