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?
Yes, the long summer holidays are drawing to a close, marked by the last Bank Holiday of the year. Nothing now until Christmas, which I suppose still counts as this year, but it feels like next.
Anyway, traditionally the last summer Bank Holiday in the UK is wet, windy and cold. This year it’s merely a little chilly, but with bright patches of sunshine can even be classed as warm at times.
With such clement weather, and with youngest daughter home for a day or two, naturally we decided to go blackberrying. It’s what you do on late summer Bank Holidays in the country.
We collected several freezer bags of blackberries (OK, the bags were small, but who’s counting?) a good many scratches from brambles, stings from nettles, close encounters with distinctly unfriendly branches whipping back into our faces, and a thorough soaking from the one short shower which was enough to drench us. So we were happy.
Fortuitously, we met with a friend en route who has a tree laden with so many pears she doesn’t know what to do with them, so we collected a back pack of pears too.
Anyone got any recipes for pears and blackberries? Bung it method preferred. Or I could just throw them all in the freezer.
Summer tends to be visiting time in Norfolk. We’ve had two lots of visitors, and have some more arriving on Friday, although that one is only a flying visit involving lunch.
It’s lovely to see them all, and we’ll settle down soon for another year sans visitors.
We’ve been a bit unsettled lately because we’ve recently been told that Ed has to go into hospital soon for major surgery. His aortic aneurysm — we’ve been living with that for around five years — has reached the stage where it needs to be repaired. This involves endless pre-surgery trips to the hospital for various tests, so that the surgical team can decide the best approach.
All somewhat disturbing, but thank goodness for the National Health Service – I can’t begin to imagine the cost if we had to pay – and it’ll be lovely when it’s all over and we can stop worrying about whether the wretched aneurysm is going to burst.
On a happier note, we had an mini Antique Road Show at the church this morning. A local valuer gave his time to value antiques brought by local people. Ed and I confirmed that nothing we have is worth a bean!
It was an excellent morning, and the church had put on a fascinating local history display to entertain people while they waited for their turn.
And the rain didn’t start until this evening!
It has to be Murphy’s Law.
Today our rector, Paul, went on holiday leaving me to take the Sunday services and the Wednesday Communions for the next couple of weeks. He hadn’t had a funeral for several weeks, and there were none in the pipeline.
Just before lunch I had a call from the funeral directors. An elderly lady has died, and the family would like the funeral to be next Friday. How’s that for Murphy’s Law?
Since I retired, I’ve got out of the way of being constantly on the alert for funerals and juggling my time around them. It took a while today to decide how I could manage to shuffle my engagements without giving them up altogether, but I think I’ve done it. Now all that remains is to contact the family (they were out when I rang the first time and engaged when I rang the second time, but third time lucky, I hope) visit them to ascertain what they would like at the funeral, sort out an organist, prepare the service, write the oration, and deliver it all.
Tomorrow I’m taking three services, and the Communion service on Wednesday is followed by some guests (who also rang up today) coming unexpectedly for lunch.
And on Monday, which happens to be our wedding anniversary, I’m going to the hospital with Ed to find out whether – or when – they are going to repair his aortic aneurysm.
Don’t you just love retirement? It’s so restful with nothing to do.