Matthew Williams's Blog: My Diary as an Author - Posts Tagged "the-hinckley-times"

Still trying to get on top of this blog. Hence, I'm still writing this as historical events rather than in the now. (Bit like I do in my novels sometimes lol)

As I mentioned in an earlier post. March was a good month for sales and some nice reviews came in on Amazon UK. I also mentioned that I'd set the ball rolling on a few other things, some of which are now bearing fruit, while others are still lurking in the shadows waiting to leap out hit me with another high or a cheap low blow! (Here's hoping it's the former lol)

http://AllAuthor.com invited me to enter my novel Shadowchild in the cover of the month awards for the month of April. I love a good competition and signed up.

April 1st - My cover campaign began and I took an early lead. That lasted all of a day before I was rudely shoved out of the top ten - Grrrr!
I picked myself up and decided to focus on staying in the top 25 so I at least made the cut onto the shortlist, it proved to be a little easier than expected and I ended the first week hovering around 3rd place. Okay I may not win but 3rd place still gets a prize and a month of promotion, I'll take that :-) I figured.

10th April - My publisher sent out my press release for Shadowchild. I have to say that I was extremely doubtful it would have an impact, but it was offered for free so, of course, I took it gladly. I worked tirelessly, following up with all the local media outlets, just trying to generate some interest in Matthew Williams and his new book Shadowchild. I mean, seriously! What do the media care about nobody publishing something? But I'd worked bloody hard on this novel so I wasn't giving up easily.

14th April - Cover competition going nicely, Shadowchild poked its head into the top 500 kindle books on Amazon UK. Then, BOOM! Contact from a local newspaper - The Hinckley Times wanted to run a story on me and after the interview they found an angle to go with.

19th April - www.myranour.net/horror Blog invited me to write a piece which is due to go live on the 22nd May. Awesome!

20th April - A friend, Stephen Helmes,
author of Nightly Visits invited me to write a piece for www.lisaswritopia.com as the spotlight author for June. More great news!

21st April - Another newspaper (The Redditch Standard) local to where I grew up wanted to do an article on me. This was becoming a brilliant month!

28th April - A friend who I grew up with messaged me on facebook saying 'Wow Mat your in the Redditch Standard!' My first small taste of newspaper fame lol. Actually that's not quite true, I was on the front page on the Daily Mirror when I was 18 months old - The Bionic baby they called me, after I shrugged off a car.

30th April - Final day of the cover of the month competition, I had a slender lead and rallied every last vote I could muster from my facebook followers (who are all awesome, thanks!) Was it enough? Can you feel the tension :-) lol

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the my next post, I'm nearly caught up to the present now - PHEW!

Okay so April didn't see any new reviews, and sales were pretty slow. Sort of a steady trickle throughout with only the occasional lunge into the triple digits in the Amazon rankings.

That said, it was highly productive on the networking front. Many new friends, followers & contacts, and some good media related bits and bobs cropping up too.

1st May - Drum roll please, I bet the suspense from the end of my last post is killing you, right?
Shadowchild crowned cover of the Month for the month of April by www.allauthor.com - well chuffed :-)

2nd May - An uneasy feeling knowing that copies of my books sent out for review were due to bear fruit very soon. Nervous about what the reviews will say if I'm honest lol.

3rd May - Arcticle in the Hinckley times went live, it's such an exciting time, I'm buzzing :-)

4th May - Star Wars day so it's bound to be good :-) It certainly started well, I got some reviews come through and they were excellent. It seems my writing isn't quite perfect, but it certainly seems to stand up against most in the horror genre. I had a tear in my eye when I read some of them, they were so good!

Lunchtime and BBC Radio Leicester call me up saying they saw the piece in the Hinckley Times and want me as the lead story on the morning show on Tuesday 9th May - WOW! How cool is that?

7th May - Article in The Hinckley Times goes from print to internet; extra facebook, twitter, web exposure - Awesome!

8th May - Now I'm all caught up and nervous about being live on the radio tomorrow. Some people are never happy lol

Thanks for reading and please stay tuned :-)