Have a print slot

I'll be aiming to have the books delivered before the 20th of Feb in time for shareholders meeting...

need pdfs to printers by end of next week

need to arrange a day off for delivery dates

Also need to pay deposit of £1520 so have to push on collecting cash. Need at least this sum in by middle of next week and the balance by valentines day.

sent new publkisher forms to alex haslam at Bertrams THE

So should get an order in a bit. Need to remember to send the next two books to Cat Power (good name!) for approval.

made requests to update the prices and bought two new domains

prices should be down to 3.99 across the board soon. Also I've bought kittipedia.org and fluffysthought for the day.

Will be finishing the 2 print ready books and sending them to the printers by Monday.

I'll set up the spreadshirt shop properly and redesign the website this weekend as well.

still waiting on the bank account.

waterstones progress

Dear Rob Thank you very much for returning the Waterstones Supplier Application form to me. I have passed your details onto Waterstones and the next step is that they will be in touch with you within the next few weeks. They will inform you when your details are set up on their Phoenix system and will send you a branch directory. When you receive this confirmation and directory you may begin selling your book/s to the branches. If you do not receive this information, please contact Justin Hutchinson at Waterstones by email, Justin.Hutchinson@waterstones.com

have created an account with spreadshirt

http://www.spreadshirt.net

these guys run a site that lets your customers buy products with your images on them. You get a commission. This way we can have a massive range of products, test out what works if we start selling them, and then go into our own printing, which'll be cheaper...

McDonalds

McDonalds have banned me from using McKittens. this is actually good news. I've ammended the page in question and now I have a PR story - "McDonalds sensor McKittens"

rubber stamps

http://www.vistaprint.co.uk/vp/general_stamps/product_page.aspx?xnav=TsrItem&xnid=aGeneralPurposeStampsRubberStampsLabels&dng=1021817

useful for company documentation, envelopes etc

Better news

Bertrams THE have said yes to the kitten books!

this is good news!

They also work to 55% not 60% so we get a little more money. terms are 90 days

our contact us a guy called Alex Haslam

Should be able to apply for the bank account tomorrow

meeting up with dave cunnington - my company secretary - tomorrow. We should have all the documents necessary to apply for the alliance and leicester business builder account.

I've also written back to the tax man and our financial year is from Nov1 to oct 31.

Tomorrow I have a day off so the investor pack will be sorted, plus I have to finalise the covers etc of Kitten 2 and 3

not such a setback after all

Waterstones will still order the books if you're on their system, and you don't have to be in stock at gardners.

The way ot works is you fill out a waterstones from and send it to garners - then if a store wants a copy of the book, they order it from gardners, who order it from us.

I have now acquireda list of every waterstones and ottakars in the UK.

Bit of a setback

rejected by Gardners - one of the two distributors I was going for. I've written askng for more specific reasons, but it looks like February may be about getting enough online orders to get offline retail to take notice. I will also submit to another few distributors...

a momentous occasion

it is a company!

Amazon re-order

another 24! will despatch tomorrow!

I'm on pubweb

http://www.nielsenbookdata.com/pubweb

and have updated the BICS info

A business plan of sorts

After a chat with miles last night I realise we need some definitive goals. Although we need to get the titles out in the spring to get availabilty, the glacier like speed of the book retail industry means that legitimately we're looking at Christmas 2008 as a big target.

As such the plan should be this

1) launch next two books by march with PR campaign.
2) Move heaven and earth to get stock in as many places as possible
3) generate enough money by september to have enought to print and publicise book 4 for christmas (in practice this means £2000 so we have to sell around 300 copies of each book in 6 months - a sales target of around 40 books a week in total!) obviously direct sales, merchandise etc will hopefuly make this an easier target.

BICS classification

according to waterstones, my first title doesn't have a BICS classification. So I went here http://www.bic.org.uk/productinfo-subjectcat.html

My BICS category is YBCH and my children's Book Marketing Category is A2M69

I've joined nielsen pubweb (this takes a few days) by going here http://www.nielsenbookdata.com/htmlDocs/PubWebRegistrationForm.doc

so in a few days I'll be able to change my bibliographical data (this takes a week to go through)

I also have a form to send off to gardners that waterstones sent me. If Gardners accept me (fingers crossed) I should be laughing. this is all weeks away though - i reckon that march may be more realistic than february to have everything in place

Borders

In order for us to stock a new title, it needs to be available via a wholesaler (e.g. Gardners or Bertrams). If your book is stocked by a wholesaler, please send a copy with an advance information sheet to:
New PressBorders Group,Stillerman House,120 Charing Cross Road,London,WC2H 0JR

i'll do this tomorrow

another wholesaler - Gardners

http://www.gardners.com/gardners/include.aspx?I=/gardners/content/Publishers/A_guide_for_publishers/How_Do_I_Get_My_Books_Listed.htm&M=P5