A photo a day countdown, day 4

Here we are at the beautiful Silkeborg lakes. Notice the dramatic effect!

A photo a day countdown, day 3

 

Another shot, this time we're in Don's living room. I ought to tell you that most of the photos that I post here you won't see anywhere else because they aren't suited for the press. And brace yourself: tomorrow we go psychedelic!

A photo a day countdown, day 2

This one is shot on Don's balcony by my daughter Tea. Hope you like it!

A photo a day countdown, day 1

 

I've decided to do a photo a day countdown to the book signing in Wolverhampton on Friday. Yes, I know that on the Waterstones website it says that Don is the author of "Look Wot I Dun" and that he alone will be signing books in Wolverhampton on Friday and Walsall on Saturday, but don't you believe it! I'm still the author and I WILL be at both signings!

Anyway, some of you have already seen the photo of the day as I uploaded it to Twitter some days ago. I'm a Twitter person, so you'll find much more stuff about the book and about me there than here or on Facebook. My Twitter account is: http://www.twitter.com/LiseFalkenberg

Like the rest of the new promo photos it is my daughter Tea who shot it.

Promo shoot

As Omnibus Press doesn't have a budget for promotion, Don and I had to do our own promotion shoot for the biography. Tuesday I therefore went to Silkeborg in Denmark, where Don lives, to do some photos. I had my daughter Tea with me and she shot the photos.

By chance our editor Chris Charlesworth had sent an advance copy of the book to Don and we used it in some of the shots. I didn't get an advance copy as I'm "just" the author and as such not treated very well. I've been an author for almost 30 years and I've always had great working relationships with publishers world wide, so it's weird that this particular company has decided to totally ignore me. Seven years of hard work writing the actual biography doesn't seem to count for anything, so I have to buy my advance copy at Waterstones in Wolverhampton next week like everyone else!

Anyway, the photo that you see here we are probably not going to send to the press, but I love it anyway. A bird flew by just as Tea shot the photo and Don is watching the birdie, haha!

Mød Don Powell i Danmark/Meet Don Powell in Denmark

Dansk:
Jeg har den glæde at kunne fortælle jer, at Don og jeg holder et lille foredrag på Musikbiblioteket i den gamle banegård, Østre Stationsvej 33, 5000 Odense C., tirsdag den 22. oktober kl. 19.

Jeg snakker lidt om min biografi "Look Wot I Dun", som jeg har skrevet om Don, og som udkommer på det engelske Omnibus Press forlag den 14. oktober, og Don taler om sit liv. Herefter vil der blive mulighed for at stille spørgsmål.

Arrangementet varer ca. 1½ time, det er gratis - og så er der mulighed for at købe øl og vand i pausen!

P.S. Vi kan desværre ikke sælge biografien på Musikbiblioteket, men hvis I allerede har bestilt den via Amazon.co.uk, så tag den med, og vi signerer den!


English:
Now you can meet Don Powell and me in my hometown Odense in Denmark, namely in the Music Library, Oestre Stationsvej 33, 5000 Odense C., Tuesday the 22nd of October at 7 p.m.

Here I'll talk a bit about the biography "Look Wot I Dun" that I wrote about Don and Don is going to talk about his life. You'll be able to ask us questions afterwards. There is no admission fee.

The event is going to last about 1½ hours incl. a short intermission where you'll be able to buy soft drinks and beer, and although we won't be able to sell the biography at the Music Library, we'll be happy to sign it, if you bring it along. You can already pre-order copies at Amazon.co.uk.

Book signings

Don is going to sign copies of "Look Wot I Dun" in the Waterstones book shops in Wolverhampton and Walsall in the UK on respectively the 4th and the 5th of October. These signings are early opportunities to purchase my biography about Don as the publication date remains as October 14th.

Originally only Don had been asked by the publishing company to do the book signings (which everybody found very strange, me being the author of the biography), but then some of you wrote the company and spoke your mind and that helped. I've now been told that I can join Don and participate in the book signings. Thank you so much for your help and support in this. It means a lot to me and hopefully I'll now be able to meet some of you in either Wolverhampton or Walsall!

At the moment Don and I are planning our own book signings and talks/Q&A sessions in Denmark and maybe Omnibus Press is going come up with more book signings in the UK as well. Dates to follow…

Final cover

Here it is, the new "improved" cover where my name is finally spelled right! It's still difficult to see that Don is a drummer, though, and NOT a Noddy clone. It's difficult to see that the title of the book is "Look Wot I Dun" and NOT "My Life in Slade". It's difficult to see that I wrote the book and NOT Don. And it's difficult to see that the book is about Don's amnesia too and NOT just about his work with Slade. What it's not difficult to see is, however, that Don and I had no say in how the cover ended up looking as this is definitely NOT what we wanted! But to be honest, we were never told about the cover and didn't know it had been made until we saw it on Amazon! But here it is and I guess, although we had imagined it a lot different, it could have been worse. They could have spelled my name wrong or something…oh, wait! They did, didn't they? And didn't correct it until last week….
Be assured thought, that despite the cover being misleading, the book itself is what Don and I wanted, telling the true story of an ordinary man with an extraordinary job and his lifelong struggle with amnesia that altered his personality and changed his life forever. We hope you're gonna like it! :-)

Photos finished

We finished picking the photos for the biography a week ago and it was a long and troublesome process. Originally we'd sent the publisher 33 photos for the biography, but the photo editor wanted more, so we sent her another 19, the final number being 52. At least for a while. Then the number was cut down to 32 of which only 17 of our original photos were used as well as 7 from our "second choice" batch. The remaining 8 photos the publishers picked from the usual Slade/Don Powell promotional pics from the 1970s.

The selection is okay, I guess, but it was sad to see so many old and rare photos being rejected and replaced by Slade photos that we have all seen a hundred times before. This was done in the name of promotion, but I think the rare photos would have done the book a greater favour than the usual Slade photos. Oh well… Hopefully I'll be able to show you some of the rejected pics here sometime.

Biography cover

I saw the biography cover for the first time today. They have spelled my name wrong....