Can someone lend me a pencil?

    At the time of going to press my total "distribution" is 83. A 60% rise from this time yesterday. The sales haven't changed but the free copies of The Facebook Killer #1 are moving. Nothing is happening on Kindle, all of the "action" is on smashwords. Financially I am down about £30 / $60 due to internet usage. Otherwise I am quite satisfied with the progress.
    The two books have passed smashword's autovetting process and they are now being vetted manually (by real human beings) to make sure the formatting is correct, they will then go on to the premium catalogue. Without an ISBN they cannot be forwarded for sale by Apple, Sony or Borders. However, smashwords have a free ISBN allocation system, which they have currently run out of but they should have more in a week. Then I will be rich beyond my wildest dreams.
    I have made the executive decision to only plug my free book on the forums within which I have been lurking. I refuse to spam or bump my threads. Fair enough, I reckon. I don't want to bang on about a book which turns out to be slagged off (even though my Great Aunt Doris loved it). I don't have a Great Aunt Doris btw.

    OK Gameplay: Push the free book. Develop a cult following. Hope that the cult following have a dollar or two to buy another book from me. Easy! What could be simpler? There we have it! End of experiment!

    Now back to the subject of my controversial book, with which I intend to cause so much controversy it will fly off the digital shelves. Well? About an hour ago, I posted the first two chapters on a forum which is devoted to the people I had hoped would be offended. Alas, my first reply was, and I quote ....

    "Interesting idea. I quite like it actually.......well, that's my opinion as the young generation, and as a person who is not all too close to the church yet. I am though not sure how older people, or people to whom the bible is more important than to me (which is about almost everyone on this forum, as I'm in my beginnings still) will react.....it would be interesting to read some of it.... the idea gets me curious"

    Not the vitriolic reaction I quite expected but what I did like was that kid's signature, "I might condemn what you have to say, but I will give my life for you being able to say it."

May I round off by replying to some comments.

I love your optimism..... me, I've sold 300,000 since last Christmas and even I'm not convinced I'll hit 500,000 by next Christmas! By Stephen Leather   Thanks Stephen, as a major international and highly-acclaimed author, I appreciate you visiting my blog. If you are the great blue whale, I am the minnow's poop-shoot and I hope to kick your arse one day! No offence, you understand?

   

I love this idea, I've just shared your blog with my 700 friends on fb. You never know, you might get some response! By Kate Aaron   Thanks Kate. Everyone loves an underdog. Thanks for your support.   That's a crafty approach, M. Look forward to seeing how it plays out. But didn't you just release your first novel? Slow down man, you're making the rest of us look bad. I haven't had any luck with Smashwords. About 15 samples but no sales. Could be I'm doing something wrong. Hopefully your experience will be better. At one sale, it already is. Later gator By Tim McGregor Aah Tim. One of my first followers and a man with a high pedigree in the film / writing industry. I am sincerely proud to have you on board sir. I just wanted to say that I was enjoying your blog. I wanted to give you a bit of a helping hand so I 'tweeted' your link, and another of your followers replied to me. So the band is growing. Good luck - I am watching with interest. Nixie By Nixie Turner   Thanks Nixie, the more, the merrier. If I followed the "advice" on self-promotion I would have Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and numerous other sites. I have decided to keep it to the minimum. This blog.   Best of luck! My goal is a bit different but we both're almost on the same boat. I would love to share my experiences with you on this blog. By Manohar Chimmani   Keep us updated Manohar!     Thank you my friends and remember...... "I might condemn what you have to say, but I will give my life for you being able to say it."     M.L. Stewart.