I have been putting off writing a news blog for a month. Subsequently, it has piled up to the size of a large truck and now I hate shifting this unwieldy mass more than ever. Moan, moan, moan………
However (big cheery smile), I’m doing it now, alright?
Okay, so much shit it’s in no particular order. First come, first served.
Mr Scratchmann has not only sold his book (remember he had two interested publishers?) but I’ve been so lazy about doing ‘fun news’, he has also since done several revisions, had it accepted, signed the contract, been paid the first third of the advance, redesigned the cover, had that accepted, and the book is now on Amazon with its publication date.
God, I hate doing news blogs. Can you tell?
Here is a link to the magnificent masterwork that is now Chucking it All (previously it was the better and original ‘Downshafted’). Don’t blame me or him, that’s the publisher’s choice of title. As is the little strip of tartan – which you recall the publisher insisted on “for the Americans”. (What is wrong with you people? The only Scots who wear, or who have ever worn, tartan are fuckwits who get married in it. And idiotic aristocrats who are Scottish only by dint of being robber baron scumbags circa 1156) Chucking It All: How Downshifting to a Remote Scottish Island Did Absolutely Nothing to Improve My Quality of Life
Although this book details, in a humorous manner, our sad and sorry sojourn on Orkney, it barely mentions me, never mentions DANNY and only touches upon that excellent book in passing while talking about us selling it at Orkney’s County Show. So, other than if you want to know the other stuff I was doing for those seven years, you’ll find no enlightenment on me or DANNY. But I was there, honest; a sort of sad, shadowy figure overpowered by all the sheep and scenery. I haven’t read the book since the first draft but I know that DANNY”s launch has since been removed (it wasn’t ‘relevant’ and was slowing down the action, I’m informed.)
In short, you won’t find any dirt on me in here, mate. But you’ll get a whole hell of a lot on the insanity of trying to escape ‘Big City Life’ by running away to a hell-hole in the ocean. Buy it. (PS. Yes, that is Mr Scratchmann on the cover art.)
Other Amazon news: we now have an Amazon Store where you can find all our books, bundled together for ease of access. You’ll see it on the bottom left there. Amazon is now doing the ridiculously cheap ‘buy a £5 worth of goodies and get everything sent free’ – a golden opportunity to buy DANNY and not have to pay stonking postage charges. Speaking of which, there is someone (Smeikalbooks? Don’t know them, but they have 100% feedback so they should be ok) selling a ‘second-hand’ copy of DANNY for a mere £8.99. Second-hand copies of DANNY are rarer than hen’s teeth. So rare, in fact, that I even know where this one came from – some cunt who assured us he had just the reviewer for DANNY, someone who would not be daunted by the subject matter, or the length, and he would definitely review it. Behold – no review and the book appears on Amazon a month later. Excellent.
Forgive my disillusionment, but I have been banned by no fewer than three – no, four – websites in the past month, for everything from “we don’t allow incest” to “it’s too strong for our site”. It sure has been Month of the Prude. We don’t know what the hell your book is about, but we hate it anyway. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – sex sells, my ass.
Moving on. We tried our first ad on Skin Two. A complete waste of time. And money. Not a single sale. But I’m told it’s very pretty. I haven’t been able to bring myself to look at it, but here it is if you want to see it. The Poison Pixie ad on Skin Two
I had no hand in this ad at all. I have so much lost faith in my ability to sell DANNY I handed it all over to Max to do. But it looks like it wasn’t me giving it the book the kiss of death after all, because this ad has performed no better. Obviously googling pretty pictures of girls in rubber and book-reading don’t go together. Well, it was worth a shot. The ad is a ‘revolving’ ad, incidentally – that’s why the link isn’t live. If you want to see it live you’ll have to look through the site to find it (it’s on for three months). However, we have a press release on the site too. That’s live. Here’s a link if you want to see it, or access the site to look for the ad in situ. DANNY press release Skin Two.
We have two more sites lined up for ads, both book sites this time. And this time I’ll get back in the affray. Why the fuck not? Nothing to lose.
There are finally pictures up on DANNY-is-God.com of some of the main locations in DANNY. I haven’t captioned these yet, Max just did rough ones, but it will let you see them. Where it all happens in DANNY I will caption these with my usual wit and verve in due course. I’ll let you know when.
Also, some of you may be aware that the galleries are still not loading properly here on Blogspirit. To that end, the Jodie pictures are now on DANNY-is-God as well, here The Jodie Party Digest.
However, these are not all the pictures, nor are they captioned. One way of seeing them here on Blogspirit is to look at the thumbnail gallery then click on ‘view as slideshow’ (top right-hand side). This let’s you read the captions first then try and put them together with the full-size photos on the slideshow. Hell, it’s almost a game (show). Maybe there should be shooting and a Game Over at the end.
And speaking of games/competitions – we’re giving away six copies of Cult Fiction on Goodreads. Unfortunately, because I was so slow telling y’all, there are now 380 people queuing up for them. I think lots of them think they are getting Volume 1, because of the way Max wrote it up. He has been reprimanded and was made to write out “I will be careful how I caption stuff.” On the other hand, they’re getting them for nothing, so they should be bloody grateful. If you want to have a go at getting one here is the link (the winners are randomly picked so you stand as much chance as anyone) FREE COPIES OF CULT FICTION!!! Yay!!!
Next, we’re making a film – What it is to be a DANNY Fan. I just made that up, but we are making a film of our DANNY fans and we need YOU! (Imagine a guy dressed as a flag – any flag – pointing at you right now.) If you’ve read DANNY and loved it, hated it, wanted to make it compulsory in schools, prisons, insane asylums, then please shoot some film for us. We have mini DV tapes which we will supply you with. All you need is a mini DV camcorder that takes tape and you’re ready to go. We also have a list of prompt questions which you are welcome to have, or you can make up your own. Talk for minutes or hours. I really don’t care.
If you would like to sound off about DANNY in any way just write to Max at poisonpixieltd@btinternet.com and he’ll set you up. We want people from all over the world – come on, folks, we need you!!! (Are you feeling roused yet?)
On a similar theme, we need some DANNY evangelists (in the UK only, as yet) to put out some of our ‘Don’t give crap this Xmas’ cards. Here it is.
It’s postcard sized and you can leave them anywhere you think people might pick them up – book reading people for preference. We leave ours in the university restaurants, the foyer of same; in three coffee shops (one of which is a bookshop) in town; the other university’s union, and several shops that put out flyers (trendy clothing stores and record/DVD shops are also good). But things like hairdressers, clubs, bars, and other places I never go are also great. So please, if you have some places you could put cards, contact Max at the address above and he will send you same – in any quantity you desire.
Remember, if you want to read future volumes of DANNY WE NEED YOU TO HELP!
We still really need reviews. Volume 2 is still terribly under-represented on both US & UK Amazons and Cult Fiction has no reviews at all. So if you haven’t reviewed them, please, please review them. Don’t care what you say – although lavish praise is good – just put down some thoughts and let people know they are worth reading. And you can shove the same review on as many sites as you like – you don’t need to think up new and fabulous things to say. Also, if you’ve never reviewed Volume 1, please – knock yourself out. It’s always good to get new reviews. Freshens the listings up.
We do have a newsletter which keeps you up to date on everything and it helps us keep track of people who have bought DANNY, which makes marketing a whole lot easier, so please, sign up. The button is on the top left-hand sidebar, just under my pic.
You do know that is my pic, don’t you? It’s always my pic. I seem to keep falling over people saying, “At last, we can see what Stone looks like” when they’ve tracked down some obscure blurry photo. Stone’s pic is always on her blog, folks. There’s also a huge gallery of them at www.chancerystone.com. Yep, more pics of me than a porn junkie’s stash. Of course, they’re all ancient. I am now 78 with long grey hair down to my navel and one tooth.
Lastly, talking of pics yet again, and bringing us sort of full circle, I’m going to be closing this blog down. The archive has got too big for Blogspirit to handle. I suspect I’ve run out of memory (no, Blogspirit doesn’t say anywhere). I think this is what is causing the photo problems. I only have a couple of options: 1. Remove some archive. 2. Buy a bigger site.
I don’t want to do the first and I don’t trust Blogspirit enough to do the second. It’s been a very good site for me. It’s really easy to use, is generally efficient and does great stat information (oh yes, I know everything about you). But, and it’s a big but(t), they are absolutely hellish when something goes wrong. In the four years I have been using the site they have never, ever, answered an e-mail. I e-mailed them solidly for a week when the photos wouldn’t work and never got a reply.
So….. on that basis I feel very reluctant to hand over top dollar for their ‘Pro’ site option. Therefore, we are going to shift asses over to a privately hosted, self-governed blog. Something I should have done about two years ago.
This means that there will be no censorship problems (presently any blog I run with ‘profanity’ in the title will not come up if you click on it via the sidebar – aha, some of you thought I’d deleted those, didn’t you?)
I will be able to run huge picture galleries, and keep a massive archive of all my blogs, arranged as I want, plus get all the stats I need. We’ve already bought the domain name and the software to create it – all I need now is the energy to help build the motherfucker.
Right, I’m done. I’ll leave you to ponder on the name of my new blog. Just think of the title that will most annoy all my fabulous detractors. Go on, you’ll never guess it…..
Ah, I live to serve.
To subscribe to this blog, without divulging your email address simply post the following text into your RSS browser: http://www.poisonpixie.com/chanceryblogfeed.xml
A new fan who wants to know the background and history of DANNY? Then visit The DANNY ‘Wikipedia’
An ardent fan who wants to keep abreast of new developments, be first to see new book covers; in short, be ahead of the crowd, plus get to ask awkward questions? Then come join The Dirty Club, the members-only site hosted by the author, for in-depth analysis and discussion of the books The Dirty Club.
Not yet discovered the wonder of The DANNY Quadrilogy? You can check out all the volumes currently in print at Poison Pixie where you can read an extract of Volume 1 for FREE! Or start your collection on Amazon here where you can also buy a ‘sampler’, entitled CULT Fiction, containing an introduction to The DANNY Quadrilogy and an excerpt from Volume 1, for only £2.99.
You can also see me in person on my YouTube site (as well as DANNY’s various trailers and ads) here or you can see the same material on the Poison Pixie film site where you can also hear our Mr Scratchmann read his delightful comic verse in his podcasts.
Lastly, there is an independent DANNY Discussion Board run by fans, C Stone’s DANNY where your host, Jodie, will frighten you with her in-depth knowledge of DANNY, and offer to dissect it to an unhealthy and sleep-depriving degree long into the night.
