Hello everyone,

After my first full year of running Cerasus Poetry, it is time to take stock and consider the future.

I am proud of the first 3 books we published and grateful to Simon, Ewan and Scharlie for their patience and support.

There are 4 more poetry books due in the first half of this year, from Alex, Julia, Penny and Laurie.

In these respects, Cerasus is a success.

However, the reality I have to face is that sales have been disappointing and I am currently running at a loss.

This is not unexpected. I knew at the beginning it would be a long game just to break even.

There are 2 main areas to consider for improvement: publicity and running costs.

I freely admit I have not done enough promotion, either through social media or by forging contacts. There have been a number of events in my personal life during 2018 that proved major distractions. Therefore, I need to ensure I make more time for Cerasus.

The cost of running the website is due to increase in a few months. Currently, I pay a premium for a bespoke web address with the ability to take payments and make direct sales. Though I make more gross profit on each sale than through outlets such as Amazon, I also have to bear the cost of maintaining stock and spending time on admin and visits to the post office.

It makes sense for me to scale back to running a free blog rather than a website, purely as a shop window, and to allow Amazon to do all the heavy lifting.

This also gives me an opportunity to rebrand and relaunch, still under the Cerasus banner.

One of the options I have been considering is whether to diversify into also publishing short story collections and novellas, which have an equally hard time as poetry.

I have already been approached by someone who wants me to take a look at their novel, but that’s in very early stages of discussion.

As ever, I am open to all proposals and suggestions.

My main message is: BUY OUR BOOKS.

 

 

 

 

 

‘OUTBRANCHING’ by Scharlie Meeuws

“Words are my arthropod feelers with which I carefully sense my way in an outbranching world…

When a poem is a true expression of feeling, it can be liberating. The pace and timing of words reveal a full and surprising range of meaning, which I believe is best expressed through the use of simple language. While I like to depict the scale of events, scenery and emotions, I prefer to do so almost invisibly.

Poems are small on the page, but can swell to fill the mind.

In this collection, poems drift in and out of inner space, explore loss and death, love and feelings, forever interwoven with a thicket of branches, enlivened by an occasional cluster of colourful blooms.”

 

*Non UK customers, please check availability with online retailers such as Amazon, etc.

 

 

 

Plus, check our Special Offers and buy all 3 of our 2018 publications for the price of 2.

 

Ewan takes us from his days as a self confessed adolescent arsehole, through his time as a cold warrior, to his abandoned attempt to become an ex-pat writer in exile, taking stock of his relationship with his father and various skirmishes with women on the way.

Yet he also takes us deeper into the past, to when it used to be all fields round here, to where an endless game of Risk had already long been played on a blood soaked board with real soldiers for counters.

It is tempting to believe that his years spent flying reconnaissance missions, with the world spread out below him unscrolling like a campaign map, tinged with hours of boredom and barrack room banter, shaped his poetic viewpoint, giving him a detached and strategic approach to deploying words.

But there is heart here, just not pinned to the sleeve of his flight jacket.

* Non UK customers, check availability with online retailers such as Amazon, etc.

 

‘painting for lemonade’ by sj howarth

when life gives you lemonade, there is no way to turn it back into lemons, yet this pitcher of poetry retains its acidity and leaves an occasional pip on your tongue, while reminding that each of us is a momentary citrus-tanged effervescence, caught somewhere between sharpness and flatness, in the greater froth of life

though we are taken to familiar poetic haunts – the coast, the countryside, paris – we are also drawn to more mundane locations – mcdonalds, tescos, his mum’s attic – and shown the bleakness of everyday life at one remove – from the top deck of a bus, via a commuter train window, through a living room wall –

 and yet, in those same places, we find small, brief moments that cumulatively (spoiler alert) make us realise that life IS beautiful, after all

read a review here: www.abctales.com and here: www.amazon.com

 Available to buy now in two versions:

 

*(non UK customers, check availability from online retailers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, etc)