At the moment we are doing our best to streamline our sales procedures for CFZ Press, and we have every intention of opening another online shop.
So yesterday Max Blake and I were moseying around the pricing data on the CFZ books, when - to our horror - we discovered the answer to a conundrum that has bothered me for years.
Why is it, I wondered, that such flagship titles of ours such as
Dragons: More than a Myth? and my personal favourite of all the books I have,
Monster of the Mere, have sold hardly at all in the United States and Canada.
Surely the U.S. and U.K. markets are not
that different? After all, our other books sell pretty well consistently in both markets. Well, now we know the answer.
Five of our titles:
Dragons, More Than a Myth by Richard Freeman
Monster of the Mere and
Only Fools and Goatsuckers by me
and
Fragrant Harbours: Distant Rivers and
Granfer's Bible stories by my late father, have never been available in America.
How could this have happened?
Back during the summer of 2005 when these books were released in perfect bound format, we didn't know what we were doing; at least not to the extent that we do today. We were also looking after my dying father, who was being quite difficult for much of the time, and I was juggling doing all this with juggling a long-distance relationship with my lovely fiancee Corinna over in Lincolnshire.
There was a lot of stress going on, and basically Mark and I (and I cannot remember which of us did it; and I am not pointing fingers four years later anyhow) screwed up and only released the books in the UK.
Never mind, cos all this is about to change.
In early October all three books, at a special low price, will be available in the USA for the first time, and will hopefully sell like the proverbial hotcackes, and in one fell swoop both the CFZ's and the global economy will be cured.
Well, one can dream, can't one?
