When I first wrote my book, Beyond Mercy and my first few poetry books, I was very ill, and unable to try the conventional way of publishing - via a publishing house. I hadn't either the energy, strength or will to do so or have to fight to have the books accepted. I know the value of what I write. From the perspective, experience and knowledge of 35 years of work as a doctor/psychiatrist I want to pass on what I know, whilst the publishers are interested in profit.

I didn’t know what to do. Books are written to be read and mine were no exceptions. They are no use to anyone stuck in a storage room or unread. I write to continue ‘offering’ my  therapeutic knowledge via poetry and my somewhat different knowledge through my books

For example,  Beyond Mercy is about a past life with links through time. I believe the central story about lives in 1497 and done without any research, will, one day, be proven to be true . You must read the book to understand ‘how’ and ‘why’ and ‘where’, though the ‘when’ is probably not accurate, as I cannot see the future.

Getting back to my subject of selling!

I initially made my websites, describing the books and selling through Paypal. That option still, of course, remains. The main one which sells my books is www.plppublishings.com

I had a viable number of each book printed locally. Then I took a little while to work out how to make Kindle books and eventually converted them all to that medium.Finally, after I had an email from The Book Patch and finally from Amazon telling me about Createspace. I prepared them all for Print on demand on The Book Patch and finally for Createspace.

Shop retailers take anything from 40-45% of the selling price and I just cannot make a loss, nor do I want to price the books out of people's reach to suit their percentages. But, despite the POD now available for my books particularly in USA, though Createspace is expanding to other countries,  I want  to sell my already printed books.

Having been prompted to do so, I have taken the decision that, besides my website selling, I shall list these already printed stock of books on ebay.co.uk. I am retired and with time to 'do the needful'. It should/could be fun. I had to pick a seller's account name - it is cardsandbooks2012, which seemed appropriate.

I had about 20 reruns with my first offering – poem/poetry cards, ie A5 size cards with one of the pictures from Growing Up book on the outside and its related poem inside. These are lovely (even though I say it myself!)  blank cards for anytime messages and quite cheap.

I must confess that all my life, though bright enough to become a medical doctor/Consultant Psychiatrist, I have difficulty filling in forms accurately. I find that they either don't ask the right questions, the questions could be answered other than with the options given, or I don't understand what is meant. For instance, on the ebay form there is 'unit quantity' and also 'quantity' . As I didn't want anyone paying for one book and expecting 20, or visa versa, I haven't included that question/answer in my listing - at least, not yet, until I know if it may or may not be useful information.

I wonder if, amongst the hundreds of thousands of books and cards offered for sale, anyone will find mine!

I shall just wait, with patience, and see.

Audrey Coatesworth