Shortlisted for the Bath Novel Award – and other good things

The Bath Novel Award 2014

I’ve had lots of good things happen to my book recently. Actually, they’ve been happening since Christmas, which is how long I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for. But today it was shortlisted for the Bath Novel Award, and it has pleased my head clean off. They say the book “cleverly combines intrigue with comic, astute observation which made me laugh throughout.”

It was Viv Groskop who told me to enter, after she saw a tweet from them saying they’d like more comic novels. It was also Viv who put me in touch with Colin Midson, the book PR supremo who got me my Guardian review. Viv is basically a fairy godmother to everyone who knows her, and implausibly lovely. She’s also, as her funny book “I Laughed, I Cried” inadvertently reveals, superhuman. Let’s just say that if the Ukraine were friends with her, there’s no way it would be in its current position.

Anyway, my book started selling much better at Christmas. In fact, its Christmas present to me was to get into Amazon’s top ten bestsellers for humorous fiction. It’s been in and out ever since, and last month it sold its ten thousandth copy. With that milestone out of the way, I risked putting the price up, which seems to have increased sales slightly. Last week, for the first time, the book brought in a liveable weekly wage. That has finally made me stop feeling embarrassed about having self-published. (The nice reviews and messages have also had a huge effect. Should I admit that I re-read them when I’m feeling low?)

The result of all this is that I’ve been feeling confident enough to start a sequel to Perpetual Astonishment. I’ve got it planned out and have written three chapters.

I’m very grateful for all of this.