Six months have passed since ‘Skiing With Demons’ (SWD) was released into the wild and I thought I’d let you know how it’s been getting on. More than a thousand people have now parted with cash for the dubious privilege of sailing around my addled brain and it seems many have enjoyed the voyage – which is a relief.

To self-publish was a gamble, even though it made financial sense. With no impartial opinion – backed by money – to validate the book as a worthy read, my heart was in my mouth when the publish button was pressed. Not least because of the book’s personal content and the realisation that I’d be baring my soul to friends, family and enemies alike.

SWD wasn’t really finished either, but I was in danger of losing my main sponsor (Dr Debs) if I didn’t stop fiddling with the “bloody book” and return to the housework!

I was nervous because, even though the folks I’d allowed to read the manuscript (friends, family) loved it, I knew they loved me and were unlikely to suggest I “keep the day job”. Initially 54 people immediately bought the book. Unsurprisingly, purchasers were mostly friends and guests who had stayed at Chalet Neige, wondering if they were in it. More surprising were the people who didn’t buy it. If a friend of mine had published a book, even if it was about knitting, I’d buy a copy and sling it on my bookshelf.

Then there was a worrying pause in sales. I started to regret not call it ‘Fifty Shades of Snow’, along with the removal of the salacious content from the early drafts.

Then, from within the 54, emerged the self appointed guardians of the English language. “Appalling grammar”, “A litany of spelling mistakes”, “Shoot your editor.” and, at one stage, I thought I was going to be arrested by the Apostrophe Police.

Dyslexia hadn’t been invented when I went to school and consequently I’ve been ridiculed for my poor spelling all my life. Even though I had enlisted the help of numerous literate individual and professional writers to proof the book, to my horror, more than 180 “typos” were gleefully reported back to me. Some people were trying to help, some were simply wrong, some I suspect just wanted to prove their superiority – though to be fair I had spelt ‘skier’ wrong in one instance!

Then some of the less pedantic within the 54 actually started to read the book instead of correct it and the 5 Star Amazon reviews started to roll in, with words like “Hilarious”, “Honest”, “Impossible to put down” and even “Well written!”

Sales pushed on to 200. Some readers liked it so much they became advocates and started selling the book in their own ski chalets, others bought in bulk to give to their friends.

Then I had a stroke of dubious luck – a myopic journalist at the Telegraph, ridiculed SWD and labelled it as “sexist”. She clearly hadn’t read the entire book just the now infamous ‘Girlfriend Skiing’ chapter that I’d foolishly put online. Had she done so, she might have realised the book was an assault on the male midlife crisis stereotype – but I digress. However, there’s no such thing as “bad publicity” and the orders started to build, pushing past the 300 mark.

Then, to my rescue came SnowHeads. Someone (users are anonymous on this slightly irreverent online ski forum) started a thread about the book. Many of its users empathised with my narrative, wanting to live a similar dream, some had their own Ski Demons and many had even met the Apres Aliens.

Orders started to flood in, critical mass was reached (about 500 books) and social media – fuelled by me – took over. The book became an Amazon “Best Seller”, both in the UK and briefly in France. Then came Christmas, when ‘Skiing With Demons’ proved to be a popular stocking-filler and sales leapt to 700 by the end of December.

Next was my return to Morzine, which I was also nervous about, thinking I might have upset a few of the folks I’d written about. But many were actually disappointed I’d not been more salacious about them!

Reluctantly, I cold-called local retailers and proprietors in an attempt to get them to display and indeed sell the book. I hated every awkward encounter – I’m just not a salesman.

The most amusing moment was when I attempted to get the central bookshop in Morzine to stock SWD. The owner’s command of English was mirrored by my grasp of French, so I ended up explaining the content of SWD through the medium of mime. He was obviously impressed with my theatricals, or maybe he just wanted the English loony out of his shop, but he
bought ten copies either way.

I also plastered Landie with posters and parked her in the centre of town. Congratulatory messages were left under her wipers and I was accosted several times while jumping in and out of The Beast (all very good for my ego and, indeed, book sales).

My other tactic was to use pretty girls. Marketing isn’t really that difficult, especially in “Manzine”, as Morzine is known in January. My female friends would sit in bars start talking about the book to the suitors they’d inevitably attract then I’d materialise with signed copies. This pushed sales up to 1,000 mark.

I was told writing a book was the hard bit. Now I can confirm the more difficult task is getting people to buy it. But had I accepted a publishing contract, I suspect the marketing would have been mostly down to me anyway, vindicating my decision to self-publish.