I found out on Thursday evening that I wasn't on the list of those who had made it through to the second round of the competition. Having invested huge amounts of time and energy into putting myself and the book out there over the last five weeks, I felt a bit flat at first. However the day after the competition results came through I suddenly felt very chirpy - as though I had an instinctive sense that the wave of energy that had swept through and galvanized me into taking all that action towards raising the book's profile had ebbed away, as it was somehow supposed to do. 

I feel very grateful to have had the opportunity to learn so much about the marketing and promotion of the book in such a short time, and feel only enriched and empowered by the whole experience (going on the radio, in particular, was an interesting trip!), and full of renewed vigour in terms of pressing on and finishing the book, at which point I'll be using these new-found strategies (bar the voting, perhaps!) to find an agent and/or publisher (hopefully some time in the not-too-distant future). I'd also like to thank everyone for their votes and interest in my project - the feedback has been invaluable, and has given me an enormous boost of confidence with which to carry on writing, and putting that positive message out there.

All of this feels very much like the beginning of my book's journey out into the world, not the end: so watch this space!! :-)

Just waiting, as the politicians will be later, for the votes to be counted and the results to come through this evening :-) We were originally to have been told the result on Tuesday, but they've given themselves an extra couple of days to make sure the results are fair (there's been more cheating!).
With any luck, I should be able to update my blog with the outcome by the end of today, bearing in mind the competition organizers are in the US, and 9 hrs behind us here in the UK :-)

The competition updates are as follows: the NextTopAuthor site is now rated 56000 in the world for traffic!! An amazing thought! The requirements for round two have now been revealed to the entrants - suffice to say, whoever gets through round one is going to be just as busy in May as we've all been the last five weeks. The voting for round one ends on Monday 3rd May now, not Sunday 2nd, so there's a bit longer to gather in those final votes.
I'm not going to tempt fate by detailing the round two stuff until I know whether or not I've got through. So  I'm just going to hang in there for the next two and a half days and see how the giant cookie of life crumbles for me on this one come Tuesday morning :-) Que sera, sera... I feel, as I have always felt about the book, that everything's taken care of, so I'm not too worried either way.
But it would be cool to make it through, I must say :-)
Happy May morning to anyone reading this, if you're out there - it was a beautiful morning in Oxford in the end, and I was up with the larks to go and join the traditional celebrations in the town centre: singing from Magdalen tower; morris dancing; full English breakfast etc :-) A great start to the beautiful month of May. xx

It's Friday, 30th April, and I have a bit of news to share: I was on Radio Oxford yesterday talking about my life and my book. I'd been told the show would be broadcast today, but for some reason it went out a day early. So now anyone interested can listen again through their iplayer. Go to www.bbc.co.uk/radioOxford, and click on the picture of Jo Thoenes. The option to listen to yesterday's show should come straight up, and my piece is on one hour, thirteen minutes into the start of the show. It lasts for something over twenty minutes, with a break in the middle for travel news and a song (Bruce Springsteen's 'Dancing in the Dark' - love it!! :-)
Hopefully, being on the show should give my votes a boost - in any case, it's been great to have the chance to talk about all this stuff about depression and healing through consciousness change. Not a subject I find being discussed very much in the media at all, so the fact that they wanted me on the show feels like a very positive sign! (A change in consciousness, maybe? :-)
There are a few competition updates to share too - will update this later as now I have to go and actually make some progress on the book!

Well, here I am on the blogspot after a longish break from updating my page..
This has been for various reasons: firstly, having put huge amounts of energy and enthusiasm into promoting my book during the first two weeks or so, I slowed down a lot in the third week, feeling it in some ways to be a fruitless cause as it seemed clear that a lot of the authors were netting vast shoals of fish in their nets because of being already very well established on the web, and well connected in general (perhaps because of owning businesses or whatever); secondly a large number of the people I contacted by email never got back to me with any feedback at all for whatever reason, which gave rise to more of that fruitless feeling as I seemed to be simply throwing coins into the void; thirdly I don't think I ever was a natural born blogger in the first place, and the idea that anyone might be actually reading it seemed doubtful to say the least; and finally, I went away for most of last week to Cornwall to celebrate my 40th birthday, and was quite relieved to let it all go for a few days before coming back to Oxford and pulling all the stops out until the end of April (the voting for round one ends on Sunday 2nd May).
All of which may sound a little defeatist, but have no fear - it was only a phase! Several things have now transpired to put me back in the zone, and make me feel I'm still in there with as good a chance as the next person.
The competition organizers have now told us that, of the original 2500 entrants, only 750 actually put a video or audio pitch on their profile page (making them eligible for votes). As 250 people are still going to go through to the second round, we all now have a one in three chance of making it, instead of one in ten.
The flyer that I'd put round the cafe where I nearly always sit and write the book was supposed to be accompanied by an A4 sized version to go up on the walls. This didn't happen before I went to Cornwall because of an alleged problem with blutak on walls, etc - but now it's been approved, and they've been up for a few days now. As there's a small photo of me on the flyers and 'posters', I'm now a lot less in my comfort zone in that cafe than before, but I'm telling myself it won't be long before May 2nd, when they can come down and everything can (maybe?) go back to normal :-)
The best thing to report, however, is that, having written an email to someone at Radio Oxford about the possibility of my going on one of their shows, and not having had, as I thought, any response at all, it now transpires that for some reason their original reply had simply failed to reach me, and in fact they are interested in having me on after all.
So, at the very last minute, I'm going to be recording with them on Thursday 31st, then the show will go out on the Friday (30th) - just in time, I hope, to mop up a whole load more votes before the end of May 2nd!!
So keep tuning in, campers - it may not be all over yet!  

It's 23:32 on Friday 9th, and I just sent my first ever 'send-to-all' email, something I swore I would never ever do, as I despise their faceless impersonal 'you, the receiver, are a mere satellite and I, the sender, am such a shiny Star' energy so much.
Does this mean I'm sacrificing closely held personal values and principles in order to claw my way to the dizzying heights of Round Two in the Top Author competition?? It's a moot point; meanwhile today it was just the 'm's: the 'a's, 'b's, 'c's and all the other lists under the remaining letters are still beckoning to me behind the curtain of tomorrow...
Not easy, this self-promotion lark, I must say.
Still, I always find it interesting and valuable to experience, even if only temporarily, the world from a new point of view - and now I know what you seasoned bloggers, twitters, senders of 'send-to-alls', and media courting self-promoters feel like. Ha.
Truth is, it doesn't feel so bad, once it's you doing it - is this like it being easier to love your own children than the brats at number 32? :-)
Oh and by the way, I'm not (yet) in the top 150 of the 'vote-getters' - so switch off your tellies, log on and go in and vote for me you slackers, otherwise all of this selling out will have been for nothing!!!
(D'you think the stress is maybe getting to me a bit?)

I had the most wonderful message today from someone I've never met, saying he'd been depressed (but was now ok) and could relate to everything I say on the video, and thanking me for putting my story out there. He called me an angel and then I did actually cry a little bit :-) But it was perfect timing, as my motivation levels were down a bit this morning. I know it's inevitable, and you can't run on full steam all the time, but I really needed that boost!
Meanwhile I had an email from the competition organizers saying that some people are cheating by jumping onto other people's blogs and generally trying to poach their votes - so much for spiritual principles, eh? It's dog eat dog out there in the world of mind/body/spirit publishing, folks!!