Daft idea

I decided lurking around freo trying to fob off an ARC of Hal Spacejock 3 on Ben Elton was a silly idea. (See this post for the background.) So, I employed a firm to do the same job for a bargain AUD $9.75. Yes, for a low nine bucks and change they will hand my books directly to Ben Elton's publisher in Sydney, who will then pack them up and send them to WA or the UK, or more likely just bin them.) I'm happy to share the name of this awesome publicity machine ... they're called Australia Post and they have branches all over the country. Keep them in mind.

(Post office pricing is very strange, by the way. It costs $9.75 to send a parcel weighing less than 1kg to Sydney via road freight, a trip of 5-7 days for your average box. BUT you can buy a pre-paid satchel which will take anything up to 3kg overnight for ... $9.75! Madness.)

While I was posting Mr Elton's books I also sent off all the Hal Spacejocks people won in my recent competition. (It's still open - enter now and your chances of scoring a copy are about 1 in 6.)

I also sent off complete sets to a couple of other big name authors, so their publishers can forward them all over the planet, or bin them. I'm sure the pros get bombarded with books from newbies like me, but what the heck. (Normally my publisher does this kind of thing, but they won't be gearing up for Hal 3 publicity until Oct/Nov. Anyway, I don't let a single day pass without doing something to help my books along.)

Tomorrow I'll be drawing the Hal Spacejock frisbee competition so get your name in now. (Betcha didn't know about that one.)

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)