Royalties, rifles and reviews

Book news:

I'm frankly astonished to find out that my royalties this quarter from Amber Allure Press are one-third up on what they were last quarter, well gosh. Perhaps I'm not doing quite so badly after all, then. Does this justify raising my status from Z-list author to Y-list author? Who can tell ...

Not only that but sales of The Bones of Summer in paperback have actually risen since last quarter also, though ebook sales are alas down. It's all something of a mystery, much like the book itself. Meanwhile, The Delaneys and Me reached No 12 in the Amazon Gay Fiction charts, a fact that caused me to have to lie down in a darkened room whilst hyperventilating for a while, though it's fallen somewhat now.

Speaking of Amazon, new in the Kindle this week is The Boilerman and The Bride, and good grief but some kind soul must have bought a copy as it actually has a rating - thank you, kind buyer! Also new at Kindle is Tuluscan Six and The Time Circle, and this also now appears at All Romance Ebooks. I'm also very pleased to say that The Girl in the Painting is on sale at Rainbow eBooks, and that Creative Accountancy for Beginners is mentioned at Spalding's Racket - thanks, Nick.

Turning to future and hoped-for future publications, I'm thrilled to see that A Dangerous Man is now up at the front page of Cheyenne Publishing, noted as Coming in October - so that's getting dangerously (sorry!) exciting. And I've not only written a draft ending of The Executioner's Cane, the third and final part of my Gathandrian fantasy trilogy, but I've reached the 60,000 word marker in it, which puts me at about half-way through, hurrah.

Also in this section, up at Vulpes Libris this week is (a) my review of Sara Shepard's All The Things We Didn't Say and (b) the Coming Up post for next week - in which the real name of Lord H, together with Lord H's fabulous new photographic website, is revealed for the first time. Readers paying close attention will of course notice the startling similarity in design to my own website, but hey it could be worse - we could be wearing Howard & Hilda jumpers (scroll down to view ...), ho ho. Two of my favourite ever characters, don't you know.

I'm also incredibly thrilled that the aforementioned husband (who perhaps can now be called Lord K in future ...) has also produced his very own Daily Office app for the iphone - so even on the move you need never be far from a church service or an apposite prayer for the day! Never say that as a team my husband and I don't look after your every need.

Ooh, and I am very happy indeed to see that Amazon UK will now be producing a UK-friendly Kindle, so I have already pre-ordered mine, and it should be delivered at the end of August, well gosh. How long I've waited for it indeed - so I hope it lives up to my very high expectations.

Meanwhile, I fear that sales of my e-poetry collection, Sunday Haiku, are regrettably poor - so far only 4 copies have been sold, so I am as yet a little below my best-selling poetry collection, which sold ... um ... 11 copies. My mission is to match that target by the end of August, so if there are 7 lovely readers out there who might like some nature-focused and really pretty good poetry to inspire their year, please don't be backward in coming forward - in all honesty, my sad-writer ego can't take it. Thank you!

And here's another little haiku to whet your appetite:

Sparkling green water
ripples in the wind's warm touch,
embraces the dance.


This week's meditation poems are:


Meditation 401
They knew how to party
back then:

seven days’ worth
of spilled blood,

the dark aroma
from burning meat

and the laughter
of men.


Meditation 402
Behind the prayer,
that sense

of strange connection,
the desert

of abandonment
stretches far away.


Life news:

I'm very happy to tell you that my old University friend, Jane, is currently captaining the Great Britain Rifle Team in Canada, and you can find out how Great Britain is doing on their blog. Go, Jane, go! And huge good luck to all. Mind you, the one time I've been lucky enough to see Jane shoot in a national competition, she spent the first 20 minutes of her alloted 30 minutes doing absolutely nothing at all except checking wind speeds and directions and seeing what her competitors were up to, and then took up her rifle and fired all her shots almost perfectly in the space of about 3 minutes. I did wonder why none of her team members bothered turning up to support her until the last 10 minutes - apparently, that is the Jane Messer way, and very good it is too.

This week, I've also popped up to London to see Jane W (another Jane!) and had a fabulous time putting the world to rights and talking houses and what to do with them. Must be my age, you know, and our current house-buying efforts, of course. I've also played some rather appalling golf, which coincided with some incredibly good golf from Marian, who won by miles, and very deservedly. Perhaps I should take a cricket bat next time? I might well do better ...

Yesterday, Lord K (ha!) and I were at Glyndebourne to see Don Giovanni. Verdict: very disappointing and surprising poorly staged, although some individual performances, such as the man-servant and the bride, were very good indeed. However the big excitement was that we sat in the same row as antiques expert, Tim Wonnacott, who was extremely pleasant indeed when attempting to squeeze past me. And hey, I was good! - I didn't giggle or scream: ooh look, it's that man off The Antiques Roadshow on TV - so Lord K is very proud. I am indeed a prime example of modern dignity, well for an Essex Girl anyway.

Anne Brooke
The Prayer Seeker's Journal