All posts in Musings

My website has been down for nearly a fortnight. My longstanding and (up until now) very reliable website host reported that one of its servers had collapsed. They were working on it, they said; it was their problem, so there was nothing I could do. This drove home to me how very interdependent we are in these days of connectivity. As an author who sells work on-line, I rely on a team – some are known and visible to me, but most are neither. These are the people who provide the expertise behind the website platforms, behind the amazing infrastructure of e-books, behind the internet payment systems; they convert my books from Word into mobi files which load onto Amazon and Smashwords. Most of them work for services which operate for twenty-four hours a day, so most would have their share of unsociable hours. All of them are highly skilled.

Whether I know you or not, whether we’ve ever communicated or not, you’re all vital to my world of interdependency.

It’s all too easy for authors to focus on getting that story in their head on to the screen, or getting that new book out and about. You don’t actually give much thought to what’s happening with your books that are already out in the wider world of readers.

This was brought home to me by a tentative request which turned up recently from a private library, which operates solely on donations. Apparently a few years ago someone donated the full set of my five ‘Annie Bryce mysteries’. A couple of those books, they told me, had been read to death and were now so bedraggled they were having to withdraw them from circulation. Would I consider donating replacement copies?

Read to death? Does that mean loved to death? Let’s hope so! – what more could an author want? Of course I will replace the books. It’s a salutary reminder that readers are making their choices out there, and talking to each other, and sometimes my books are part of those conversations. As I have said before, it’s the readers who are the lifeblood of writing.

This week, along with many many other authors, I received a payment from Amazon for the sale of my e-books for the last six months – not enough to paint the town a very bright shade of red, but certainly enough to make a good start! That got me thinking about the different rewards that come the way of writers. Quite apart from the fun of researching and writing (which is why we all do it, of course) there are royalties for sales from your publisher, the proceeds of any direct sales of your books, and one-off licences for your work to be included in other publications. In Australia we can add Public Library Lending Rights, which flow from readers borrowing your books. Then there are occasional professional fees, if you’re lucky: for speaking, for writing articles and reviews, for giving workshops and judging competitions. None of it adds up to a fortune – or even to a living wage, for most of us – but at least it’s some recognition that your work is valued by somebody, somewhere. And last but not least are the intangibles – like a stranger peering at your nametag at some function and dragging you off to the bar to shout you a glass of champagne to thank you for the many happy hours of reading you’ve given them. That’s probably the best of the lot!

When I decided to travel around Western Australia, I took M.L. Stedman’s wonderful first novel ‘The Light Between Oceans’ with me. Set on – and off – the W.A. coast just after the first World War, it’s a mesmerising story, beautifully written, and illuminated my take on the vast multi-coloured Indian Ocean which eerily seemed to lie in wait for us whichever way we turned.

I made the book last until the day before I stepped off the Indian Pacific, reaching ‘The End’ with deep regret. What an achievement! It richly deserves all the prizes that have been showered on it.

I am in awe.