We didn’t have too good a week last week, hence no blogging.
Ed is still waiting to hear about his aortic aneurysm repair, so we practically sit on the phone, and race to the door when the post drops on the mat. Hasn’t made any difference, though. We still haven’t heard a word from the hospital for over a fortnight now. We’re pretty sure Ed had the last of his pre-op tests two weeks ago, but we don’t know how they’re going to approach the repair or when it will be. Somewhat worrying for both of us.
However, he heard today that some wards at the hospital have been closed because of infection, so perhaps it’s just as well he’s not in there yet. There’s always a silver lining.
Ed has given up golf now until next March, when hopefully he’ll be feeling much fitter having got through the op OK.
Just to cap it all, I had two teeth out. One was a wisdom tooth which had broken, so there was almost no tooth for the dentist to get hold of. She had such a job to shift it that my lower jaw performed all sorts of ugly gyrations, and hasn’t been the same since.
Oh well. the weather is glorious and no doubt all will work out fine in the end. That’s what we’re hoping, anyway.
We had a busy weekend, with all the immediate family descending on Saturday (it was lovely) to attend the Paston Day put on by our local church.
The Pastons were arguably the one of most important (and wealthiest) families in Norfolk in the middle ages, and a group of people – The Paston Society – keeps their history alive today by re-enacting the times in which they lived. In church, there were all sorts of medieval crafts to try. Our five year old granddaughter had a terrific day making jewellery, paper, felt, a sword, and learning calligraphy – after a fashion! That, plus the teddy bear rides in the churchyard, and great refreshments, made a much enjoyed day out for the whole family.
In the evening I was singing (I belong to the Brundall Singers, a local choir) in a concert at Caister church, a village church about nine miles away, on the coast. The highlight was not our choir, but twin Chinese girl pianists, aged 18. They started playing at the age of six and a half, and by the time they were ten, both had passed grade eight with distinction! After that they both attended the Purcell School for Music. They were superb.
On Sunday, I took the service and preached at Ranworth church. Ranworth is a village on the Norfolk Broads, with a very beautiful medieval church which boasts the best rood screen in the country. It also has a 500 year old illustrated book, made by monks from nearby St. Benet’s Abbey. It was lovely to be there and we were made very welcome.
After the service there it was two miles down the road to the next village of South Walsham, where I took part in the service and had the privilege of baptising a small boy. Again, a great experience and we were warmly welcomed.
Youngest daughter Becki had been staying for the weekend, but left in the afternoon for Whitby, where she’s giving a lecture on medieval glass and stained glass. She’ll be back on Thursday for next weekend, then it’s a return to Belgium for her.
Tomorrow I’m talking to our local W.I. about books – and hoping to sell a few!
Yes, a busy time. Retirement is suddenly less restful…
It is remarkably easy – and incredibly cheap – to self-publish. There are many routes to this, some of which are described as “joint” publishing and can be somewhat expensive, but I’ve discovered that it is quite possible for anyone with a little technical know-how to publish their work with no help whatsoever.
Personally, I want to choose a route which is economically viable. If, for instance, joint or self publishing is going to cost me around £1000 (or more), then I need to be sure that I can recoup that outlay by selling my books. Because I’m based in the UK and my publishers so far have been based in the USA, it is very expensive for any of my local contacts to purchase books directly from the publisher’s website, because the cost of postage is prohibitive. Local contacts get a much better deal from Amazon UK, where the books are usually discounted immediately they hit the shelves, and postage is either free or minimal. The problem for me is that my royalties from Amazon are around 75p per copy. They are much better from the publisher’s website – but nobody orders from there! Therefore I have to sell well over 1000 books to begin to make any profit at all.
If I self-publish using the very easy templates and software provided free by Amazon, either for Kindle (electronic) publishing, or for CreateSpace (print) publishing, there are virtually no costs, so any books sold produce a profit.
A no-brainer, you might think.
Ah yes, but there are other considerations. Quality needs to be excellent, and here bona-fide publishers come into their own. You need a huge marketing set-up, and again, publishers have this. I’m very glad to have used well-known publishers for my first two novels, Heaven Spent and Babes And Sucklings. I have learned so much about the publishing process and the subsequent marketing, and have been delighted with the quality of both books.
But now I want to branch out on my own, hence I have published Vengeance Lies In Wait electronically for Kindle, by myself, and am awaiting the CreateSpace print proof. I’ve published this under my own imprint of Beasant Books (were you wondering what the B in Janice B. Scott stands for?)
So if you would like to explore the same route but don’t quite have the confidence to attempt it yourself, drop me an email. Beasant Books will be delighted to help you – at a very reasonable cost.
Why not give us a try?