How my mermaid workshop went at Bexley

On Friday I went to Bexley Community Library to give a children's workshop based on my first mermaid ebook 'The Quest'. It didn't start off that well because whilst waiting for the train from Lewisham to Bexley I got nervous and had a stomach ache. Once I went I was OK. I got there early so I could help set up for the children to come. Whilst helping out, an older man came in and said he was looking for Julie Day. I said, 'That's me.'. He told me that he'd been looking for someone to talk to about publishing ebooks as he had written both a thriller and children's stories, and had read a magazine about epublishing and had got interested in doing that. Apparently he had already been in contact with a publisher who wanted to publish all his children's stories in one book but they would get so much royalties, the store would get more, and he would get the rest, which wasn't much. He said no to that. Thought that he could get much better money out of it if he did it himself. So, we got chatting about how to go about epublishing and writing in general. He was also a magician and showed me his disappearing 50p trick. I talked to him again a while later before the workshop started about Createspace being free. I had also mentioned to him about the ebook talk I was going to do at Sydenham in September, and gave him my card and wrote down the details of that for him, which he said he would attend. Yay. As my coach, Rebecca Woodhead, would say BOOM.

2.30pm arrived, which was when the session was due to start. One girl had come and was waiting for two others. Whilst she waited, her mum bought a copy of the book from me. At 2.45pm they were all that had come, all the others were either away or in the park. I introduced myself, told them what I had planned for the hour and started. First I read an excerpt of The Quest, which leads on to when Delta the mermaid sees a merman on the last day of the quest. I then got the children to write their own ending and read it out to us afterwards. Then they got to draw their own covers. The library provided all the arts and crafts materials for me. After that, they showed their drawings to me. I liked the one with the squid because it showed that Delta did indeed live under water. Then they asked me a couple of questions, and I sold another book, but no badges.

All in all I believe it was a success. I wouldn't mind going back there again as they were really nice people.

I got home later than I imagined because I had just missed one train, let another go because I forgot the next train stopping at Lewisham had been cancelled, and waited for the next train I could get. I got home eventually, quite happy with the way the event went.