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The Kindle edition of this book says that it’s by Sue Hepworth ‘in association with Jane Linfoot’. What does that mean? Elsewhere, Sue Hepworth gets the only credit. Anyway, many thanks to the blogger out there who recommended this book, because I found it a very enjoyable, funny, light read.
Sally is about to be sixty and her husband is living in a cabin in America to get in touch with his inner Thoreau. The children have left home and she thinks, ‘what hope is there of sorting out my life before I die – a has-been writer and a washed-up wife?’ She’s written one book, which sold quite well but times have changed in the publishing world and her agent can’t place the new one. So Sally decides to self-publish, both in paperback and e-book form.
The book is written as a diary so we follow the many trials of the self-publishing author in some detail. ‘You could write a book about self-publishing. My book would contain three words: “DON’T DO IT.”' Her agent has stressed the importance of maintaining a media presence so Sally feels obliged to have a blog and to tweet every day. Her trouble is finding anything to say: ‘The best thing about self-publishing – apart from being able to choose my own book cover (yay!) is that it will give me something to blog about.’ Most diary entries end with the tweet of the day and it’s amusing when a horrendous day produces an anodyne tweet about how pretty the snowdrops or whatever are looking.
There has to be a love interest, and one which will appeal to the, ahem, more mature woman. As soon as Sally meets a handsome man on the local cycle trail and takes an instant dislike to him, it’s obvious where things are going. Of course nothing is that easy. The gorgeous man has poisonous daughters, Sally’s brother and then one of her sons plus girlfriend all move into her house and old friend Wendy seems to be round all the time. How is a person supposed to write? To find out whether the book and the romance are successful, you’ll just have to read the novel. Plus, budding authors could get quite a few tips about publishing from it.
