That’s got you wondering, hasn’t it? What could P and P possibly stand for? Postage and Packaging perhaps? Or Pride and Prejudice? What about Pinky and Perky? Well, you’d be wrong on every one of them, for the P and P that I’m engaging in this week is Planning and Promotion!

Planning – Idea-storming the next Ingleby novel starring Archie and Aggie Stone.

Promotion – Trying to get Medicine Show into the hands of new readers.

And my motto for both will be slowly, slowly catch a monkey. Although, of a truth, I’ve never quite fully understood what that saying means. I’ve never had even the slightest inkling to catch monkeys. And why would I? I don’t even like seeing them in captivity. Free the simians! That’s what I say. But that’s me digressing.

What I mean is that I’m not going to go at either like a bull at a gate (now I do understand that one) but rather do things methodically, thoughtfully and sensibly. None of that foolhardy rushing into things that upended me and put me on my arse last year. Oh no, I’m not falling into that trap again.

If you want to write a novel then my earnest advice to you is to plan the damn thing to within an inch of its stinking existence. And then, when you’ve finished planning it, plan it some more. That’s where I went wrong the last two times and believe me it’s really not worth the stress of not planning it properly.

I got away with it by the plaque on the skin of my teeth on those two occasions and only then because I’ve now got a bit of experience under my belt when it comes to this writing lark. But by thunder, as Lady Stark-Raven would say, I don’t want to go through it ever again.

No sirree!!!

So the next novel, featuring the lovely Mr and Mrs Stone and which will have the word Moor in the title, isn’t going to have even one word typed in anger until I have a full and cohesive plan of where I’m going with it. At the moment I have a rough outline, figuratively speaking, and I have a beginning, a middle and an end. But there’s so much more of it to flesh out yet. And that’s why I shall be spending several hours each day with an exercise book and a new pack of black pens (fine liners being my weapon of choice) working on the minutiae of the story. Just like I used to in the good old days of 2021 when its predecessor – Mutch Wants Moor – was written.

Aah, good times, good times! The world was a younger and more naïve place in those days.

But then, and only then, will I see fit to begin typing. I owe it to my own wellbeing and, indeed, my sanity to do it that way this time.

And then there’s Medicine Show, my shiny new novel which was published a month ago.

I love that book and am enormously pleased with it but I think I made one glaring error and that was the timing of it’s release. I put it out there three weeks before Christmas when the vast majority of hard-working folks were spending their money on expensively priced gifts, high calorie food and strong liquor and had little left to spare to invest in an independently-published work by a largely unknown author.

I won’t say the sales absolutely tanked but it didn’t do anywhere near as well as any of the other Blessham books in its first month and even the filth-fest that is Vole fared much better in February of last year. So, until I’m a household name and Joe Wilkie is on the big screen whilst I’m on the red carpet, I won’t be going for a Yuletide publication again in a hurry.

What that means now though is for me to get seriously creative and start promoting that lovely little book for all I’m worth. Actually, no, on second thoughts I’m not worth all that much so I’ll just promote it as much as I possibly can on the limited budget I have. Just a case of getting it into the right hands, you see.

My biggest selling book remains Ah Boy! and it may take some time for one of the others to knock it off the top spot and that’s down to promotion.

Which brings me to my second piece of advice to you if you’re hoping to write a novel, which is this: Writing a book is a damn sight easier than marketing the wretched thing. And that’s the absolute truth! Remember that.

I would rather have a blind boil in the middle of my buttock whilst riding uphill over cobbles on a penny-farthing with a wonky back wheel than have to market a book. However, being an indie author, I have no choice. And lets face it, a boil won’t lance itself. Ergo, I’ve got to get good at marketing and so I’m going to re-read the wonderful How to Market a Book by the fabulous Joanna Penn over the coming days. I’ve read it twice already and I’m hoping that at the third attempt it will thoroughly start to sink in.

So there’s the plan for January – P and P. Time management is going to be key to the success of the operation and, as you know, that’s something I’ve been working extremely hard at.

Oh! Hang on, I’ve just thought of another P and P – Pie and Peas! Sorry, I’m being a bit silly now.