I have made 2 of my ebooks free today on Amazon!
All I ask is that you write a review if you like the books and help spread the word to others (hopefully this will increase sales as total sales in 2 months is currently 1 book!)
free ebboks
head over to Amazon NOW and get the books! if you look closely at the photo you can see my other free book on the bottom left!
click here
Image Credit: Google
So here I stand at a crossroads in my life.
Which direction do I take next?
This is where I need help because I have NO IDEA what to do anymore.
What am I these days? am I still considering myself a writer? I am trying to write a new book but in all honesty I feel like I am wasting my time with a new book if the others are not selling.
I wish I was not so into the stats side of things like this blog and book sales, then I could happily plod away without worrying why people are not reading this blog, or commenting and why books are not selling.
Are the books too expensive? £5.20 is the current price for the paperbacks but out of that I only make £1.20 or so per book so dropping the prices wont help me personally but is it better if they were reduced?
Is it just that people are not really that interested in books on depression, most likely this is the case but as the stats show 1 in 4 people will suffer surely there is a market. Perhaps I am just not very good at marketing and should be bugging more people to spread the word.
I am sick and tired of the constant financial struggles in my life that I feel are holding back my mental well-being. It is hard to focus on getting back to “normal” when all you can think about is “can I eat today because the freezer is getting empty and the kids need to eat first”
The sad reality is that it is going to get a lot worse come April when the universal credits system comes into effect in the UK – as it stands already we are going to be at least £100 a month worse off and that is not taking into account the guaranteed rent increase that will happen next year (also in April) so in all likely hood it is likely to be £200 a month worse off!
We are struggling to survive now as it is so how the hell are we going to cope with the new changes? not the government care as they sit in their homes fiddling expense claims and doing bugger all but make our lives worse while lining their own pockets! That applies to MPs in all parties not just the current government.
Naturally it is changing to benefit everyone, bullshit it is! because a minority of people cheat the system they are forcing everyone back into work, regardless of health issues. As the lady at the job centre told me “the plan is to get everyone off benefits!”
Here is the problem though I struggle with mornings! Everyday I cannot function until I have visited the little boys room at least 4 times! On my good days this is not such a big deal but those days are few and far between. So imagine me starting a new job and spending the best part of the day sitting on the toilet, gonna go down well with new employers isn’t it! That is assuming I can actually manage to get a decent nights sleep before hand to wake up on time before even worrying about public transport as I no longer have a car. Lets also not forget that I will need to have money to pay for the travel expenses to get to and from work for the month in advance you have to work.
Then there is the stress of updating your housing benefit application which basically works like this:
Inform the council you are now in employment
They immediately stop your claim and request 3 months worth of pay slips
you ring them and explain that you have been in the job 5 minutes and therefore have not worked 3 months to give them the pay slips they require
you end up falling behind on the rent
you ring the council again and they do nothing to help – assuming of course than you can get them to answer the bloody phone
or even better they expect you to head down to the offices but you can’t because your working and cannot get any time off
your landlord then tells you that your behind on rent and start sending eviction warnings
said eviction warnings start to make you ill and you end up having time off work because of the stress
you lose job and start back at square one again meanwhile the council refuse to backdate your claim and landlord still on your back
you wait weeks for benefits to start again !
how do I know this? because it has happened to me every time I have gone back to work from being unemployed! EVERY SINGLE TIME!!
Universal credits will hit everybody who claims benefits for more information check here the benefit payments will no longer be weekly all benefits will be grouped together and paid monthly. I struggle with fortnightly payments so monthly will be a nightmare to deal with!
The reality is unless I go back to work I am going to be living in poverty but then I need to be ready to cope with working and at the moment I am nowhere near ready!
Thats why I need to learn to promote my books better to start earning some money from them, or the shop full of awesome moose items or get myself out there to try and raise some money so for once I don’t have to stress about finances and focus on getting back to Garry!
On the plus side it is awesome having the self service checkouts at the tesco express store down the road from me as I pay using my embarrassing collection of copper and silver coins rather than having the person on the till look down their nose at me for pulling out 5p 10p and 20p coins LOL
Image in everything for the moose dontcha know!
I am the poorest materialistic person in the world!
I am about to publish a post which contains my attempt at a novel inside it. I would like some feedback on it as I need some inspiration/motivation from somewhere as today I have none!
It is password protected, if you want access to it please let me know via the contact page and I will send you the password
Or if your feeling really clever you can guess it
Be warned though so far the book has over 22k words!
Today my open letter to depression was featured on the Mind website as part of their blog http://www.mind.org.uk/blog/7248_my_letter_to_depression
The response has been wonderful, full of support and to be honest better than I ever anticipated.
It is great when something you have written speaks to so many people, or inspires them to do something.
When you feel low yourself but know that you are helping others is a great feeling. I am so incredibly proud of myself today.
Hopefully people will check out my book now as well… at smashwords you can preview the first 20% of the book before you decide to buy it https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/213574 is the link for those who asked. Have a read of it you will not regret it. You will also be contributing the new tattoo I want if you buy it 🙂
And the poetry book is getting more submissions by the day I cannot wait until this gets finished and published!
Today I can look forward to what is about to happen with a sense of achievement rather than the usual doom.
My romance book has 10000 words written and the feedback from that has been remarkable.
Todays scoreboard reads Depression 0 Garry 1
Just because I can and because I am so proud of myself check out the reviews my book has had so far:
5.0 out of 5 stars Diary of the Depressed Moose
10 Aug 2012
Several times throughout the book sentences jumped out at me as being profound in their meaning and highly quotable for years to come. Knowing that I would be reviewing the book after reading it, I was looking for things to quote, things to be both positive and negative about.
Notable Quotes: far too many to be published in a review!
Positives: Extremely honest and refreshing to read, particularly as it was written by a man!
Negative: I’m sorry Garry, I found a negative! Being a Man U fan I struggled to see how Arsenal losing a match could make you feel down so that was the one part I couldn’t relate to! Joking aside, the only real negative in the book is the fact that it could leave people shouting ‘Too much information!’ at their screens. But seeing as how I’m not squeamish, it didn’t particularly affect me!
Overall, I would recommend this book for its readability, its humour and its frank honesty about a man with depression. He makes it so clear that his aim is to help others as well as himself and that it is not a sign of weakness to seek help for depression. In fact, he writes (and I wholeheartedly agree) that for men to seek help in this day and age is a sign of strength, not weakness.
Garry’s other wish is to help tackle the stigma that surrounds mental health, particularly men who are affected. This book should go a long way to doing that and it was a privilege to journey with Garry, going from the edge (literally) to his current struggles with the illness. I am looking forward to a sequel which will detail his recovery and I sincerely hope that one is in the works!
The book of poems that I am hoping to publish is beginning to take shape thanks to people who have kindly submitted their work. See here for more details
I have started putting these into a word document and formatting ready to be uploaded once I get more poems.
So far I have 28 poems but I am looking for a lot more before I go live with it! I am thinking a minimum of 50 poems but would like 100!
I need help coming up with a title and also someone who is artistic to come up with a front cover for the book, obviously I can’t get that done until a title is chosen.
I suggested “Tales from the Asylum” but some people may find the word Asylum comes with too much stigma, which we are trying to fight, so what suggestions can you make? Someone suggested “Tales from The Edge”
We need something catchy that will make people want to download this book.
What about The Depressed Moose presents “Poems from The Edge”?
Ideas needed friends!
Thank you to everyone who has been spreading the word please continue to send people to this blog, particularly here the more submissions the better the book and the more money we can raise for Mind!
=================================================================================
UPDATE 16TH AUGUST
Book title is
The Depressed Moose Presents “Stepping into the light – Poems from the Darkness”
So far I have had 24 people submit poems – Thank you everyone who has sent me a poem!
The deadline for submissions is now 30th August as I intend to get this edited, formatted and published online on 1st September
Keep spreading the word and get involved!
The number 13 is an unlucky number for a lot of people.
My book has sold 13 copies! That’s the good news.
The bad news is that I consider 13 to be an unlucky number!
I have had a difficult weekend, spending most of it promoting the book via twitter and Facebook. At some point people are going to get fed up with me but until then I am milking it for all it’s worth to get people to notice and then buy my book.
When your as poor as I am then you have to do what you have to do to make some money!
The whole weekend has been spent in a state of exhaustion. Constantly being tired is not good especially if you’re short fused like me in terms of temper. Luckily most of the weekend has been spent on my own with Sheryl and the kids being out at the grandparents.
This means I have been taking my frustrations out on silly things like the keyboard almost going for a world record distance when it spells my words wrong. After all it is the keyboard making the mistakes and not me, right?
Of all the symptoms of depression the one that bothers me the most is the tiredness. It seems like I am tired for 20 hours a day! There is nothing worse than waking up and still feeling exhausted is there?
Give me about 2 hours after waking up and I will laying down again for an hours sleep!
So this week has started off with an exhausted moose! Only way is up from here!
In other news I have been completely taken off guard by some of the comments my book has received, on amazon it has two 5 star ratings and on twitter people have contacted me to say that they have enjoyed what they have read so far.
If only I could accept the praise it would be wonderful but that’s depression for you! The fact that people have taken the time to review the book or contact me is just unbelievable and in my moments of clarity I feel such an overwhelming feeling of pride that it is actually ME that is on the receiving end of praise.
By the way did I introduce you to Patch?
Patch the pooch!
I gave in to Lilybet’s puppy dog eyes and we got given a doggie!
The good thing about having a dog is that I HAVE to go out now and take him for walkies, although it’s more a case of him taking me for a walk.
Apart from his morning walk, which I cannot do until visiting nature myself LOL, I take him out 2 times a day for a good long walk. This is a good thing for someone who has been known to only leave the house in emergencies only.
So I am making strides, although I’m hoping it doesn’t get to the point where I only leave the flat with Patch at at my side.
Who knows maybe next I will be swapping my “comfy trousers” for some that smell clean and fresh LOL
As a treat I have created a coupon valid for the next 7 days only that drops the price of my book down to $2.50, a bargain if ever I saw one!
You need to purchase via smashwords where you can download it in many formats even pdf! and you can purchase via paypal too!
Its better to sell 1 book half price than 0 at full price isn’t it?
So how do you get the discount? I hear you cry..
Simple
Your coupon code is UT82P (not case-sensitive).
Customers enter the code prior to completing their checkout.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/213574
All I ask in return is that you go forth and spread the word to your friends so that I can become rich (when the royalties come through) 🙂
Share via twitter, facebook or where ever you please any exposure will help break down barriers against mental health!
It will also give you a warm, fizzy glow knowing that The Depressed Moose will have a little smile on his face
Fly my pretties! Fly!
The Depressed Moose 