Just wanted to post a little update on my book, ‘Personal Use’, now that I’ve had some sales reports. You guys have bought loads of them, more than I ever expected. Thank you! You’ve surprised this old hippy, in a very good way.

And thanks for all the nice tweets, comments and reviews too!

When you write a book, or rather when I wrote a book, I genuinely had no idea how it would be received or perceived. It’s one thing when your friends tell you they like something you’ve written, you know they are biased in your favour. Or polite. Or both. But it is another thing entirely when complete strangers pay actual cash money to read it and then tell you they enjoyed it. It’s kind of blown my mind.

All this is new to me. My career in the media has always been way behind the scenes. I help make other people look good. how I’m perceived has never been an issue, until now.

I’m trying to draw confidence from the positive reception I’ve received. And I’m trying to believe in the book and myself more, which isn’t easy when I’ve spent most of my life undermining my own progress and success. Hey ho.

It’s amazing I’ve had any attention, considering my bumbling and cack-handed approach to promoting it. But if I really believe in what I am doing, I know that it will require a bit more commitment.

I’m ready to make that commitment, I’m ready to do more as the northlondonhippy, but I think I’ve gone about as far as I can go on my own. If I want to take things up to the next level, I am going to need some help. I need to find someone who is good at PR and promotion to work with me. The problem is, I don’t know anyone creative, hungry and up for the challenge of trying to get exposure for an anonymous author who is not comfortable with this sort of thing. Mission impossible, eh?

There’s a lot I am willing to do. I’ll participate in podcasts, do print interviews, radio interviews and I would consider public speaking too. How about a university speaking tour? That would be cool. I’m still in no rush to do anything on television, but that may change in the future. I know part of this is trying to infuse my message with some showbiz razzmatazz. Let’s see how that works out. I’m sure I could get some laughs, probably before I even uttered a single word.

Someone quite nicely described ‘Personal Use’ as a ‘future underground cult classic’, which is a very kind, flattering, over the top thing to say. But let’s pretend, just for a moment, that might be true. What should I be doing to make the most of this once in a lifetime opportunity? What would you do? If you have an answer, any answer, please get in touch. I really do need all the help I can get.

The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, online cannabis activist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over a decade.  The hippy recently published his first book, ‘Personal Use’ which details the hippy’s 35 years of recreational drug use while calling for urgent drug law reform. 10% of all profits from this book will be donated to drug charities, annually. You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy