This is the second attempt at writing this post today. The first time, on hitting the ‘publish’ button, it disappeared into the ether of cyberspace never to be seen again. Fingers crossed.

Good Vibrations has an exciting new spine! When I originally ‘built’ the cover of the book on CompletelyNovel.com, I falsely imagined that my spine would have to be a boring one written simply in plain text. But I found out this morning that this is not the case. Yippee! Browsing the bookshelves of various London bookstores earlier this week, I came to the conclusion that you don’t initially judge a book by its cover, but by its spine. So, purchasers of Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie will, in future have the benefit of a funky spine to look at on the shelf and those who potential might buy the book from a bookshop will have a spine to entice them into doing so… You can see it here on the left. Nice, no? I added the ‘CyclingEurope’ badge at the bottom of the spine as that’s what most books seem to have; a recognisable name of the publishers. My publisher is this esteemed website so it has the honour of being mentioned on the spine.

In developments elsewhere… Amazon, Waterstones & WHSmith still don’t show the synopsis for Good Vibrations on their websites. 🙁 I have asked CompletelyNovel.com why but no response yet. On a more positive note, I was able to get back to Cordee with details of the distributors of the book – Gardners – so that they can order some stock and list on their website. They are the distributors who supply Evans Cycles so you never know, I may one day find my book on the small bookshelf that they have in their stores.

Frustrating that the delivery times by the online bookshops are very misleading and that Amazon insists on saying that Good Vibrations is ‘out of stock’ when it was never ‘in stock’. The print-on-demand nature of the publication is not recognised by such language. I live in hope that they will see sense. It’s also curious to see that secondary sellers are also jumping in to sell Good Vibrations as well, usually at a higher price that the main chains. On Amazon.com, one company even claims to be selling ‘used’ versions of the book which I find a little difficult to believe.

The publishing adventure continues…