The night before felt like it was going to be a disaster. I didn’t get chance to go to the bank yesterday to get some change, I didn’t have time to wash my hair and have a shave, so I look like some kind of indie hobo, and also worst of all, I was feeling a little ill.

Getting up at 6:30am on a Saturday is not a great way to start the bank holiday weekend. But somehow I managed to wrench myself out of bed. The drive there was largely uneventful until I got into Manchester city centre, now those of you that know me well will be aware that I can navigate round Manchester on foot pretty well, however, by car in pretty lost. The sat nav actually was no help at all. For one it didn’t recognize the post code, and in the city centre it started to get confused about what road it was on and decided to do some kind of weird dance. No amount of screaming at it seemed to help. After some reckless driving and self endangerment, I managed to locate the Cathedral visitors centre and get set up.

As per my table looked dreadful, but I had picked up a few tips from the fait at Hucknall; so I tried standing books up, stuffing the Frogula bags so they would stand up and actually look like bags. Compared to other crafters it’s still pretty lame, but it would do. Other, professional crafters go to such lengths to make their stalls look good, with easels, stands, mirrors and rails, I can’t help but respect that. They even do rehearsals the day before. It’s not that I couldn’t be bothered, it’s just I can’t really find the time.

It was really good to meet some fellow folksy people. Quincifer was there, of Purple Shmurple fame, and Mary of Quite Contrary Crafts, It’s always nice to see (sort of) familiar faces.

The day on the whole was really slow, a lot of the crafters felt let down by the organization of the fair, the cost of the tables were quite high, this was reflected in the expectations of us all to have a busy day, where in actuality many of us made a loss or just about broke even.

As always, I try to think of a positive spin, its still few more people that know about Waldo.

It didn’t really help that I felt really ill and I was worried about the drive home and if I’d fall asleep at the wheel.

I was hoping to go out tonight, but I’m too run down, so its bed time for me, the power is out on my estate tonight and somehow the toilet is blocked!! So I’ve driven to my parents to watch the X Factor.

All in all it was an experience, it’s always good to see what other artists are doing and to make new friends. Sometimes I can’t be all about the money.

Dave

Ps. Oh, there was a lady there, who bought a badge pack, as her nickname was ‘Waldo’ I thought that was pretty cool.

Howdy, this is the temporary home for the info about Waldo T shirts.

They are now available in the Shop

Hello Everyone! Happy August! So yesterday was the Hucknall Craft Fair, that’s somewhere in Nottingham for those of you that don’t know. It was arranged by Sam of Skyjewels fame.

The whole day felt like a ‘Folksy Event’ with lots of sellers on this site in attendance. I inadvertently set my stall up between two sellers that I had not come across before. Neil from Natural Wood Jewellery & Gifts and Helen from Petal Textiles. Both very friendly and talkative people who had great stalls. FYI, I think Neil is some kind of genius sent from the future! he did however, refer to me as ‘a cross between Dennis the Menace and The Mighty Boosh’.

The venue was a great little place with a nice setup. Everyone’s stalls look great and meticulously put together… as per I wasn’t really prepared and had to use a pink bed sheet borrowed from my parents, and a throw that our cats had pulled to bits.
Some people felt that the day was a little quiet, but that said, its not like we were in the middle of London, so all things considered it was pretty good!

The free tea and coffee was an added bonus and Sam’s mum had made cakes that were absolutely awesome.

I also met SusieJ and her husband, they did a fair share of Waldo promotion on the day which is always welcome.

The great thing about craft fairs like these is the other people that you meet, it’s a great opportunity to pick up ideas and generally network. I wasn’t really fussed about how many sales I got, the way I see it, if just one person buys a book, then that’s one more person that knows about Waldo the Worm! Fortunately, I sold more than one book.

All in all the day was really lovely! A truly positive experience and nice day out, I hope Sam does put on another one, as I would love to do it again, and maybe buy myself a proper cloth for my table.

Dave

Check out everyone’s Folksy store at:

http://www.folksy.com/shops/petaltextiles
http://www.folksy.com/shops/woodJewellery
http://www.folksy.com/shops/skyjewels
http://www.folksy.com/shops/susiej

So for those of you that don’t know, (it can’t be many) I went to Waterstone’s, Finchley Road in London today. It was a lovely day with plenty of people coming to see what Waldo is all about.

I should start by thanking everyone at Waterstone’s for their efforts prior to my arrival. As you can see from the photos they made some lovely posters based on the Waldo logo and even had a go at drawing Waldo and Shelly on the chalkboard! Even when I got there, the staff ventured out into the O2 Centre armed with flyers and balloons, all in aid of spreading the word of Waldo and to get people to come into the store. Also there were pa announcements that ‘author David Burgess’ was about to do a reading. They were instrumental in getting people to come over and talk to me and learn all about the book. I even had cups of tea and biscuits on tap! So a big MASSIVE THANK YOU to everyone there!!! Woop woop!

I hadn’t actually read Waldo the Worm aloud since November, today I must have read it about 20 times. I was a bit rusty on the fist couple of goes and made a few of the words up on the spot, but after a while I got back into the swing of things. I was quite nervous about today, as it was difficult to promote it so far away from home, but I was glad that a few friendly faces came along and showed some support.

It was really good to reach a whole different group of people that had perhaps never heard of Waldo or his adventure, it was great to have kids being so attentive and parents asking questions about how the project came about and commenting on how it was good to see a book with such a strong moral core.

I am well and truly ‘cream crackered’ now! And I think an early night is in order! So all that is left for me to say is a thank you to everyone at Waterstone’s and also thanks to everyone that came along and made it special.

Night Night

TopFloorTreasures (Zoe) very kindly purchased a Waldo book off me and mentioned that her daughter Amber reviews books on her blog. Feeling brave, I offered Waldo up for review.

Amber is 11 years old and home schooled; she is an amazing writer and has already written loads of reviews that you should really check out.

I’ve not really pursued getting Waldo reviewed as it were. But getting a review from a genuine customer is far more rewarding that any review from a regular journalist.

I can’t thank Amber and Zoe enough for saying such nice things about him!

Here is the link, do check it out… and feel free to post your comments!

Dave
http://themilelongbookshelf.blogspot.com/2010/06/waldo-worm-by-nosuch-disco-dave-burgess.html

So today, I went into Waterstone’s Hanley to share Waldo the Worm with the local people of Stoke on Trent.

I got to the car park by the Victoria Hall at about 9:30am, I had £4 on me in change but that only bought me 3 hours (rip off). I figured I would sort something out later in the day.

At Waterstone’s I met Christine, the lady who had sorted out and allowed me to come in today, we had a general chat about stuff and she told me that she was worried that the order for the 10 books wasn’t going to come in time, so she had ordered a further 6 books that were in Waterstone’s stores around the country. The original 10 came in time, so I had a total of 16 books to shift.

My stall was right by all the Stephenie Meyer stuff, I didn’t realise the impact her work has had on teen fiction, as there is now a ‘Dark Romance’  section packed with books that look similar to the Twilight saga. Maybe Waldo should become a vampire.

The Day started off quiet, but picked up around dinnertime, lots of lovely people came in for a chat, some people bought their kids and got involved in colouring Waldo in and sticking stickers about the place.  Here is a pic of my old school friend Adam and his boys Josh and Byron having a go at colouring Waldo a different colour.

I started to get worried about my car at about 11:30am, so I called my mum to see if she was coming up so she could bring some change, I don’t think she quite grasped the concept of time as she said she would come about 1pm, 30mins after my time on the car park expired, I explained the situation again, but she insisted she would see me at 1pm. So I resigned to the fact that I’d have a ticket on my car, the attendants are right sticklers on a Saturday.

It was an excellent day overall, I managed to sell 10 books!!! A lady had reserved a signed copy that I have left there, so lets call it 11!

I’d like to say a big thank you to Christine and all the Staff at Waterstone’s for letting me go in and making me drinks and letting me make a mess.

Also a big thank you to everyone who stopped by to show some support and have a chit chat! It would have been quite lonely otherwise.

One final thank you to the traffic wardens of Hanley, for not checking my car during the 90 mins it was without a ticket! Woo hoo!!

Next stop is the O2 Centre Waterstone’s in London. See you at the end of July

Before singing with Parlophone, The Beatles were rejected by at least 5 record labels.

The important thing in life is to not give up. Over the last 7 months or so I’ve often had moments where I’ve thought of jacking in the whole Waldo thing. It doesn’t bring in a great amount of money, it’s a massive strain on my own free time and it means I sit in front of my laptop for about 12 hours a day.

I was greeted with another knock back this weekend in the form of a letter from Scholastic. Those of you who are familiar with Scholastic will know that they often run Book Fairs in schools, so it can be a good market to get into for any writer/illustrator. However, as their letter states;

Our book clubs and school fairs rely heavily on those titles with a strong UK publishing presence, and pictures books are particularly well represented…

Sounds logical, it would be a gamble to take a chance on a relatively unknown title and publisher. The letter goes on to state, (in the same paragraph)

Unfortunately in this case, we feel that the illustrative style of Waldo the Worm is not suited to our current market.

Now it’s possible that this is a mere pleasant let down rather than saying ‘your book is under represented so go away.’

I’ve always been really proud of the illustrative style of Waldo and I feel that it one of the main selling points. A lot of the feedback I receive often praise the freshness of the colours and the simplistic design.

Still it’s always disheartening to face any kind of rejection and I’m sure that there will be more to come. Decca rejected The Beatles with the words ‘guitar music is on the way out.’ and look what happened to them.

So one can only hope that Scholastic are perhaps wrong about the illustrative style of Waldo and that sooner or later things will take off and the lovely woman from Scholastic might be held in the same regard as Dick Rowe.

Dave.

Jen Twinkle bought a Waldo book from my Folksy site the other day. Of course, with any order i’m over the moon but I was really happy when she Tweeted me that…

“You’ll be pleased to hear that my 2.5yr old daughter has gone to sleep with the Waldo book under her pillow – obsessed!!”

Thats great!!! its always nice when I get feedback on how young people react to Waldo!!

THEEEEEEEN, she tweeted me this lovely little pic of her son…

This was his face when greeted with Waldo the Worm the other morning!!!

It’s really touching to be told about stuff like this, as you face knock backs every day in the craft business, so when you hear something positive, it means quite a lot more. Thank you Jen, thanks a billion

To find out more about Jen Twinkle and her wicked shop, have a look at http://www.folksy.com/shops/jentwinkle

Dave

Zoe at Top Floor Treasures very kindly did an interview with me and stuck it on her blog!!! its pretty cool and there’s a lovely picture of me trying to look all cool and stuff!!!!

You can read the full interview here http://topfloortreasures.blogspot.com/2010/05/seller-interview-nosuch-disco.html

If you want to know more about Top Floor Treasures and what Zoe does, you can check out her Folksy here:

http://www.folksy.com/shops/TopFloorTreasures

Welcome to the Waldo the Worm Blog!

Here you will find info on all things Waldo, like events, new things to buy, Where’s Waldo? and the progress of Waldo 2!
In fact, that’s a good place to start, the as yet untitled Waldo the Worm 2.

It’s been in the making since about September last year. I came up with a brief outline of what the story was going to be about. Then I planned out roughly how many pages it would have and what would happen on each of those pages and what the characters would be doing. Around this time Waldo 1 was unleashed on the public and the Promotion Juggernaut left Disco Towers armed with all manner of merchandise. I didn’t get another look in on Waldo 2 until Christmas.

I was hoping over Christmas I would be able to write all the words and rhymes that make up the story, but I spent the most of my two week holiday doing nothing and deservedly so. 2009 had been a busy year.

Throughout January and February I was writing the actual story, coming up with rhymes that didn’t sound silly and sticking them together to make the book. I find this part the trickiest, it’s hard to write a story that rhymes, using short simple sentences and that can appeal to children. I managed to finish the first draft by early March and sent it off to my good friend Shirley Ives for a proof read, it will probably get tweaked right up until its ready to go to the printers!

I’m currently working on the design, I want it to look more interesting than the last book, with more detail and things going on in the background. I’m on page 2 at the min, so its taking a wee while! I’ve had to design 3 new characters for this one!! I’m not giving anything away at present, but one of them is an alien!

In terms of when its ready I really don’t know, I was hoping it would be ready for Christmas, but given current workload and what not, I cant see it being ready until about January. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to launch a book then, so I was thinking of taking my time and launching it ready for the following academic year; September 2010, that might disappoint a few people, but you wouldn’t want me to rush it, would you?

In the meantime why not visit the shop and buy something to tide you (and me) over, whoooppppiie!

Dave