End of a Chapter

Another chapter in our lives came to an end last Friday: two friends of ours have sold their house here in Spain and are returning to the UK this week. We’ve known them for about sixteen years and consider them among our closest friends. But tempus fugit as they say; and as we grow older, our priorities change. We travelled down to their home in Andalucia to have a meal with them and say goodbye, although it isn’t really a farewell because we also intend to return to UK once we’ve sold our place here in Spain; which means we will see them again.

As a result of that trip on Friday I was unable to add any words to my book. I reached 33000 on Thursday and, had I been able to keep up my average, I could have notched up another 1500 by yesterday. However, other events got in the way. I had to replace a ceiling fan in our bedroom which ate into much of my afternoon time on Saturday. Yesterday, Sunday, we were over at a small fellowship in Pilar de la Horadada where I preached the sermon. And in the afternoon we had company, which took care of the remainder of the day.

I managed to complete a further chapter to my book by last Thursday and, like a lot of writers I found myself lying in bed re-writing parts of it. I often see myself further along the story than my current position and get quite excited thinking about how the story will develop. Later this week I will be interviewing a friend who worked as a prison warder for thirty years, serving in some of the hardest prisons in UK where some of our most violent offenders were incarcerated. I need some gritty realism when I come to that part of my book, and I’m looking forward to putting it all on paper. Of course, my friend will come over to our house with his wife and spend most of the day with us, using the pool and having lunch etc., so that will be another day when I will not add any words to the manuscript. But at least I will be adding to the book, so to speak.

I have had a couple of promotions this month on two kindle sites for my historic title, HELL’S GATE. So far there has been no improvement to my sales figures for that. I have another promotion for THE EAGLE’S COVENANT tomorrow on one of those sites, but it looks like it might follow the same path as HELL’S GATE. This leaves me with a conundrum: where is the best place, with my fairly low budget, to place my adverts? I know I can use BookBub, but the cost is fairly high with no guarantee of a return. I am currently thinking of ‘CheapeBooks’. They seem to be very professional and dead straight in what they offer, and the price is reasonable, so maybe I’ll attach myself to them next month. I think it’s fair to say that no matter how good a writer you are, no promotion will get you nowhere, unless you are very, very lucky. So – wish me luck!