Kernowkopia at The Sands Hotel, Newquay

A fantasia of fans - wearing four varieties of Stonewylde T-shirt!

Our lovely spot at Kernowkopia

Moonshadow the Barn Owl - from Porfell Wildlife Sanctuary

The brilliant staff at The Sands Hotel, Newquay eating their breakfast

Photo courtesy of Cornmother

Last week was a West Country treat for me. I spent Thursday with Chris Salisbury of Wildwise on Dartmoor, learning about the Earth Walk and chasing rainbows. On Friday I appeared on Judi Spiers' show on BBC Radio Devon, which was great fun. She is a real Stonewylde fan - on arrival I bumped into her in the loo (she has to dash in there while the news is being read) and she said, "Oh, Kit - bright blessings!" She was disappointed that the fourth book isn't yet out but was hopefully mollified by her new green labyrinth Stonewylde T-shirt. She told me that she wears her green man one to the gym and it's attracted a lot of comments.

After the interview and a lovely lunch with some family members in Exeter, I drove down to Newquay in readiness for Kernowkopia. This is billed as "Cornwall's biggest new age festival" and this was its second year now at The Sands Hotel at Porth, just to the east of Newquay. I picked up Mr B from the airport in the evening and we spent the evening relaxing with Cornmother and her Other Half; she's one of our early and most loyal of followers.

Bright and early on Saturday we joined Bo and Carolyn and a whole host of people at the gorgeous Sands Hotel. We were so impressed with the venue, which was beautifully decorated and spacious, but most of all with the staff. We've visited a great number of places this year and can honestly say that the staff at the Sands were the most courteous, cheerful and pleasant of all. Nothing was too much trouble and they were all so very polite. And the prices for food and drink were very reasonable indeed.

The next two days were a whirlwind of meeting readers, talking to people and selling books. The festival was well attended and Bo had given us a lovely spot, meaning we could chat to everyone who came in. So many Stonewylders had made the effort to meet up over the weekend, and many of them wore their special T-shirts. It was really wonderful to see them all there.

I gave a talk on both days of the event and many people attended. I really enjoyed the talks, as the audiences were receptive but interesting themselves, raising good points and continuing discussions after the talk was finished. By the evenings I felt quite exhausted from so much talking!

One of the highlights for me was making the acquaintance of a beautiful python and barn owl from the Porfell Wildlife Sanctuary. We did some shopping for presents for Yule at the lovely stalls, and I was measured for a dress to wear at the Elf Fantasy Fair next year at Beltane. It's going to be beautiful.

We had a long drive back to Reading after Kernowkopia had finished, but it was with happy hearts. Mr B and I had had the most wonderful weekend at the festival. We'd sold lots of books which always makes me feel good as I imagine people going home, opening the first page and entering the world of Stonewylde. That thought gives me such a thrill! Many thanks to Bo and Carolyn for their brilliant organisation of the festival, to Cornmother and OH for their generous hospitality, and to all the lovely people who came along to meet us. This was our last event of the year, and in fact my last one until March as I'm taking a break from all this gallivanting around the country. It was good to finish on such a high!

Power of networking - Australia and Damh the Bard

Pagan Music's latest album

Kit and Damh the Bard in 2008 at Wessex Gathering near Swanage

I first met Damh the Bard at the Wessex Gathering back in May of 2008. It was a very hot and sunny day (hence the awful squinting in the photo above) and I arrived in a bit of a fluster to do a talk in the marquee and sign books with Jerry and Diane Bird at their bookstall. I knew that Damh the Bard was going to be there - and that he wanted to meet me as he loved Stonewylde. It was an exciting moment when this great bear of a man descended on me and enveloped me in a massive hug! I was very honoured to meet him as Damh is a talented pagan musician, a respected Druid and a man with a huge following.

We kept in touch loosely via e-mail, and then earlier this year he invited me to do an interview with him for Druidcast - the Druid Podcast. I must confess I'd never heard of it and had no idea what it was all about - but having met and liked Damh, was happy to go ahead. We did the interview, which lasted about 45 minutes and was very enjoyable. Damh was professional and fun, and what was so lovely was his enthusiasm for Stonewylde. He said that I could expect a surge of interest once the podcast had gone out, as it had a huge worldwide following. I was surprised at this (and I must admit, just a tiny bit sceptical - silly me!). Damh was right. After the podcast was broadcast, there was a huge spike in hits to my website from all over the world, and a flurry of e-mails, orders for books etc. And a lovely e-mail from Philip Carr-Gomm (chief Druid in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids) inviting me to do a guest blog for him whilst he was abroad. I was very grateful to Damh for the opportunity he'd given me.

Damh and I follow each other on Twitter and I noted that he was going on tour to Australia. I wished him a bon voyage and have enjoyed reading his tweets whilst away, and following the links he's been posting. But last week a strange thing happened. A huge flood of orders for Stonewylde books came from Australia. Loads of them. I was mystified, wondering if someone down under had posted a blog or something - until another tweeter suggested maybe Damh was responsible. Of course! I tweeted him and asked and he replied that he may have mentioned Stonewylde! He also said that his gigs were going very well and it could be that afterwards, people may have gone to his website and then discovered our old podcast from April. I guess that's possible but I reckon he's been doing a bit of PR for me. Nothing else could explain the amount of orders from Oz that came in last week.

I got to thinking how incredible the whole networking/Internet thing is. Really really incredible. Damh and I hadn't met but he'd read my books and knew I'd be at the Wessex Gathering from checking out my website. We met and liked each other and kept in touch. He arranged an interview over the Internet, did it via Skype, and published it via an Internet podcast. I subsequently received a great deal of orders via my website, and lots of new fans and readers. Damh then goes to Oz, talks about Stonewylde, and next thing I know there are loads and loads of orders coming through. Hopefully these books will be delivered from next week onwards, and the recipients will enjoy Stonewylde and maybe tell their friends, blog about the books, help spread the word.

Isn't it absolutely amazing how the world works nowadays?

PS to hear the original podcast with Damh the Bard, follow this link: http://bit.ly/7SNRjO And do listen to Damh's music too!

Free books for Yule - madness or good marketing?

Beautiful beech trees in November

The leaves are almost gone now, and in fact I'm quite surprised there are still any about after last weekend's storms. Beech trees, as pictured above in a wood near me, really are my favourite. It's their variety of colours - from that brilliant impossibly lime green in May through deeper shades of green, then gold, russet, yellow and finally ... nothing. Although they make a thick golden brown carpet all winter.

It's a strange time of year now, this bit in between Samhain and Yule. Or Hallowe'en and Christmas, whatever you like to call it. The lull, where nature is closing down and battening its hatches before winter truly sets in. I always feel less energetic and more sleepy and lethargic, and I'm sure that hedgehogs and squirrels have got it right. Hibernation seems an attractive prospect when you're faced with a dark, rain-lashed morning. It's at times like this that I'm grateful for not having to leave home in the dark to make my windswept way to school and inspire a classroom of sleepy, grumpy children. A brisk circuit of the lovely park behind my house, and then I can settle down with my laptop and a cup of coffee. A trip to the post office may be necessary later on if orders have come in, but other than that it's warm and cosy working away with Stonewylde.

My life at the moment revolves around increasing sales and gaining the maximum amount of publicity for Stonewylde. I've spent much of the summer and most of the autumn out and about promoting the books, and when I'm not "on the road" I'm busy on the Internet using all the available avenues to make the world aware of that magical place I've created in Dorset. I suppose I do what every person working in the PR dept of a publishing company does, but I'm lucky in that I'm just promoting one series, they're my own books that I feel very passionate about, and I'm working from the comfort of my own home.

I've just done a brave thing and launched our special promotion for Christmas/Yule, which involves giving away free copies of Magus of Stonewylde. I sent out an extra newsletter at the weekend advertising this, even though I normally try not to bombard my loyal followers with stuff. There's nothing worse than signing up for someone's newsletter and then being inundated with junk mail. But this is a very good deal - a copy of the first book in the Stonewylde series for just the cost of postage and packing.

This might seem a daft thing to do when I'm clearly not a rich author and need to make money on the books. But during the summer I attended a business seminar at which Scott Pack (publishing maverick extraordinaire and hyper-active tweeter) was extolling the marketing virtues of give-aways. We all love to get freebies. And as Stonewylde is a series, and one that can become a bit compulsive, I know from the sales figures that a very high percentage of people who read the first book go on to buy the second, and virtually all who read the second go on to the third. So it makes sense to try and get as many people hooked on the series, and what better way than giving away the first book? I let Scott know of my promotion, and the dear man very kindly tweeted about the offer. @meandmybigmouth certainly has his uses when it comes to broadcasting to the world, and is generous enough to help small people like me.

I've had an amazing response so far. I created mayhem in my post office yesterday when I tried to post all the free books ordered via my website. I actually caused their computer to crash, and the huffing and puffing in the huge queue behind me was alarming! I'm really hoping this latest promotion (along with the special deal for buying the whole trilogy) will help Stonewylde. For a home-grown series, it's doing so very well, but the publishing world is a nightmare and every report I read is full of doom and gloom. I follow a lot of blogs, tweets and newsfeeds about the publishing industry as a whole, and it makes depressing reading.

But luckily because Stonewylde is something very magical and different, I convince myself that the nasty grey recession stuff doesn't apply to me. I also ignore the sheer cynicism and incestuousness of those in the industry. I've recently started looking for a literary agent because I realise that I need one to help steer me through the minefield of rights. I've started getting enquiries about selling the foreign and translation rights and have no idea how to cope with this. We all know that literary agents receive a lot of manuscripts from wannabe authors, commonly referred to as "the slushpile".

Last night one particular literary agent whose name I shall not divulge was going overboard on Twitter as she worked her way through the slushpile in her office. It was amusing up to a point, but it made me sad to think that every manuscript she was merrily rejecting with a blase and witty toss of the hand and tweet of the keyboard represented someone's hopes and dreams. However dreadful each manuscript may have been, some poor person had spent a long time pouring their soul into it, hoping it was good enough to be read by the world. To see her tweets as she mocked and scorned each one was in the end rather heart-breaking. She commented later that she'd lost several followers - I'm not surprised. It's that sort of cynicism, fuelled by her friends' guffaws and in-jokes, that makes me quite glad I'm not really a part of the publishing industry as a whole. To have got this far as a complete ingenue and ignoramus is really quite amazing, and I think I prefer to remain on the outside looking in at the big boys (and girls).

Anyway, I hope this special Yule promotion continues to go well. If you're reading this and want to find out more, just look on my website. There's no catch, I promise! I just want to spread Stonewylde even further, and if every person who gets a free copy of Magus for Christmas then goes on to buy the next two books, and champ at the bit for the fourth book, my cunning plan will have worked!

Stonewylde comes to the Big Green Bookshop

Kit Berry and Simon Key at the Big Green Bookshop

I spent a lovely evening at the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green, and it was great to meet Simon Key and his business partner Tim West at last. Simon found the original e-mail I sent him back in April 2008, not long after the shop had opened, and it made me realise just how long I'd been hoping to visit this special shop.

I was made very welcome and plied with wine right from the start. Tim even presented me with my own blue glasss goblet, which you can just make out in the photo above. It was a horrible wet and dark Friday evening, but we tried to make the event as cosy and welcoming as possible. We put candles all over the shop which created a soft and magical light when we turned off the horrible fluorescent strips. Good job Simon and Tim own their own business and make their own decisions re "Elf 'n Safety". We were all responsible grown-ups and there was no conflagration. Unfortunately it was so dark that none of the photos have come out very well! Thanks to Simon for sending me the one above, taken with the lights on.

It was great to meet the people who'd turned out on an evening when most sensible people would have snuggled down in front of the TV and the fire. We had a lovely time and I really enjoyed speaking to everyone and signing books for them. And at the end of the evening, Simon even gave me another present - a bookmark with a picture of two rabbits on it, which he tried hard to convince me were hares!

I'm so glad to have finally met Simon and Tim and visited their shop. Do go there if you can, or take a look at their website here. They've done such a brave thing, setting up their own shop like this (see my previous blog for more details) and it's good to support the little guys who have the courage to pit themselves against the big boys. Long live the independents!

Big Green Bookshop - what an honour!

Two blokes, one bookshop, no idea ...

Time to celebrate - the grand opening

Tim West and Simon Key open the shop to a great fanfare!

Simon Key enters the world of Stonewylde - from which there's no escape

(All photos courtesy of the Big Green Bookshop)

This Friday 6th November I'll be spending the evening, from 7pm, with Simon Key the celebrity bookseller in his very special shop. I'm so honoured! I was telling him tonight that I'm more nervous about this event than any of the others I've attended this year. I've spoken to huge audiences at much bigger venues (we're limited to 40 guests at his shop so it's going to be one of my smaller talks in that sense) but The Big Green Bookshop is so famous and important in the bookselling world that I'm in jelly-fish mode at the moment. And by that I mean quivering rather than stinging.

You may wonder why a small independent bookshop tucked away up in Wood Green, north London, is so important. It has a very interesting history, and what Simon and his partner Tim West have done is absolutely ground-breakingly brilliant. I have such respect for what these two guys have achieved, and so it seems do many others. Which is why they're doing so well.

Simon and Tim used to work for their local Waterstone's branch. Between them they had over 35 years of bookselling experience. It would be true to say that they were pretty dedicated to their careers in bookselling. But then, in one of their rationalisation moves, Waterstone's decided to shut the shop. The local community organised a petition and protested vehemently at the closure of the only proper bookshop in the area - but to no avail. The branch shut, and Wood Green was without a bookshop.

But the story didn't end there, as it's sadly done in many other towns. Simon and Tim decided to open their own independent shop and set about it. I remember first reading about them on someone's blog on the Internet, and immediately joined their Facebook group. They chronicled their struggles - finances, premises, legalities - until finally they were given the keys to their new shop. They'd run a competition to name it, and The Big Green Bookshop was born.

They appealed for help on Facebook. They needed labour and expertise to decorate and fit out the shop, transport and tea-makers, pairs of willing hands to muck in. They found help in abundance, people enjoying the chance to support the "little guys" for once. I wanted to help but live too far away - but I watched their progress and was so glad for them.

Just 23 days after they'd got the keys, and only 7 months since the demise of their branch of Waterstone's, Simon and Tim were open for business. The Big Green Bookshop opened its doors and began trading, to fanfares, balloons and ribbon-cutting. The local community rallied around and showed their support, and have done so ever since. This was in March 2008, and despite the recession that's bitten so hard since then, Simon and Tim are going strong.

They're still proactive on Facebook, maintain a regular blog, and do a lot of Internet networking. They're the darlings of the media and get a lot of good PR this way - because we all like to see people who've refused to accept defeat, stuck their necks out and taken risks. And succeeded! One of their secrets of success is the immense amount of hard work and long hours they put in. They hold events in their shop almost every week, and sometimes more than once a week. They have all sorts of authors in, and also encourage their younger customers with regular children's events. Including a nasty ugly face competition online, where we had to vote for the ugliest child (not quite as cruel as it sounds as they were pulling the most hideous faces!). They also run four book clubs a week - so their success is certainly well deserved.

And in two days' time, I shall be there as their guest author! After following them and admiring them for so long, I really can't believe it. The Bookseller are sending a journalist to cover the event, and we've sent out a lot of invitations on Facebook. I'm really hoping for some support from my lovely Stonewylde readers too. Simon will be selling the books at a good discount, along with our greetings cards and T-shirts, and there'll be refreshments too. I shall be talking about Stonewylde, reading extracts, answering questions and signing books. I'm very excited and was especially delighted to see the photo of Simon wearing a Stonewylde T-shirt!

I hope many of you will be able to come, and bring your friends too. It's a free event and you don't even have to buy anything - just be there to give me a bit of support. Even if you've already got Stonewylde books, you may find something else there of interest as they stock a really wide selection, and we're not talking about rotten old supermarket books here! The bookshop's been in the news all this week as they've just teamed up with Gallic Books in the first known "twinning" in the book industry ever! An independent bookshop twinned with an independent publisher - a stroke of genius. I told you they were ground-breaking, didn't I?

Trick or Treat - is it on the way out?

Last year I blogged about Hallowe'en and my aversion to kids knocking on my door expecting sweets or money. Especially sullen teenagers in a cheap mask and football shirt. I told of how one year, after several visits like this, I had armed myself with a waterpistol and had squirted the hapless callers. I thought this was quite amusing as no harm was done at all, but someone reading my blog took offence and I suspect she doesn't follow me any more.

On my community site last year there was much discussion about trick or treating, and I started to think that maybe I was just being a miserable old bag. People wrote how they bought sweets especially for the little callers, and how cute some children looked in their adorable Hallowe'en outfits. I guess my aversion was because my experiences had all been with quite threatening or at best, half-hearted, teenagers who hadn't made any effort at all with their costumes, but were quite aggressive and surly in their demands. Althought I still have problems with the idea of children out in the dark knocking on people's doors and roaming the streets - it seems to fly directly in the face of all the stranger-danger stuff we teach them.

But this year I decided to lighten up and actually bought some chocolate eyeballs. I was quite looking forward to pressing them into a small sweaty hand. But nobody came. I was on Twitter and it was interesting to see people's reports of the Trick or Treating in their street. Jonathan Ross had loads of callers - and he was holding a party as well. Another lady counted thirty visitors in total. But many people reported no callers at all, and were quite disappointed when they had to eat all the sweets themselves. These seemed to be in the majority, and it made me wonder if Trick or Treating was actually fizzling out, after seeming to be taking off in recent years.

I noticed that lots of people were holding Hallowe'en parties (obviously helped by the fact that it fell on a Saturday this year) and I saw many advertised in Village Halls and other public places. Perhaps it's recognised that both children and adults just love dressing up in Hallowe'en fancy dress, and the Trick or Treating is only to give them an excuse to do this and show off their costumes. So if a party is on offer, that's infinitely preferable to traipsing the streets, knocking on doors and maybe even getting squirted by some nasty old woman like me!

What experiences did others have this year? I'm thinking of the UK and Europe here of course - I'm assuming my US and Canadian readers had lots of Trick or Treat activity. And what about Australia and other parts of the world? It would be really interesting to hear if others noticed a decline too in door-knocking activity.

I also noticed how much more merchandise was available in the shops this year. It seems each year Hallowe'en becomes even bigger. My local Sainsbury's had the whole of a long aisle devoted to it, and had decorated the front of the store. John Lewis's staff, when I visited on Wednesday, were in fancy dress and looked splendid! The female sales assistants had all dressed as witches and I overheard a very funny thing - someone was on a walkie-talkie and said, "Children's Department Witch to Shop Floor Witch ..." It was very incongruous, especially as she was wearing black and purple striped tights and was covered with cobwebs, but trying hard to be efficient and helpful to her waiting customer.

Personally I hope that Trick or Treating is dying a death in the UK, where it's only been going a few years anyway. I think it's great if people are dressing up and going to parties together instead, children and adults together all in Hallowe'en costume. This seems to me to be a lovely return to what the festival was originally - one of the eight pagan celebrations of the year when the community would join together for feasting and fun. And not a chocolate eyeball in sight!