I thought that as the end of the year is not far away it would be a good time to do a review of Harvey and the Moon Bus.
I didn’t really have any expectations of how well the book would do or how many copies we would sell when I was writing ‘Harvey’. However, before it was published, I had a waiting list of book orders from friends, family, writing colleagues and general acquaintances – all of whom had been hearing me talk about Harvey for some time.
So, when I finally received a box of the books from the printers, I was busy for a couple of weeks signing, dedicating and posting them off to all parts of the UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Over the next few months Harvey travelled all over Europe and with friends to Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Dallas, Texas.
At the same time, I was interviewed by the Buckingham Advertiser and The Thame Gazette, and had an article published in the Writing Magazine’s ‘Under the Spotlight’. A few weeks later this was followed by an article in the Norwegian Forest Cat Club Newsletter, the Bernwode News and an interview in the OU Write Club Society Summer magazine. The publishers also sent a copy of the book to the British Library.
Harvey and the Moon Bus is currently in three local independent bookshops. In June I was invited to a local author day at the The Old Hall Bookshop in Brackley, and later that month we organised a Harvey evening event at Coles Bookshop in Bicester. During the summer The Book House in Thame invited me in to sign some copies of the book and more recently Buckingham University Bookshop and the Buckingham Tourist Information Centre have stocked copies of it.
At about the same time I was invited to showcase ‘Harvey’ (as a new and local author) at Whizzfizzfest – a children’s literary festival inspired by Roald Dahl and held in Aylesbury.
I was also invited to read a few Chapters of the book to some of the children at Marsh Gibbon Primary School during the summer, and I will be doing something similar at Buckingham Primary School Nursery at the end of January 2019.
During the year we attended the Buckingham Craft Fair in the Spring and the Christmas Fair a few weeks ago. One of the highlights was unveiling our gorgeous 4ft 6inch Harvey cardboard cut-out – which everyone fell in love with, and our ‘guess the number of Moon marbles’ in the jar to win a Harvey T-shirt. A boy called Harvey was the winner!
Oh, and we now have a variety of Harvey merchandise for sale: bookmarks, postcards, stickers, and a selection of Harvey Greeting Cards/Notelets – which are proving very popular.
Finally, the publishers ‘Troubador’ have a festival van called ‘Le-Bleu’ which they take to festivals around the country. Harvey has been onboard over the last few weeks as they travel to Christmas events.
Happy Christmas and New Year to you all…
Jill, Harvey, Archie, Chester, Nelly, Gretel, Gatsby, Otis and Olive and the Grey Rabbit