Not one of immortal days, just eternal

Well, this morning we went to the taste of Flinders thing which was, sadly, a real let down. Look, the island produces (commercially) some of the best garlic, olive oil, salad leaves, wallaby, crayfish, abalone, honey, beef, lamb, garfish, muttonbirds. That's without going onto things like the home made produce or handcrafts, and the game animals. I expected - at least, to have products made from the above and raw materials (ie. local mayo and soap from olive oil, nougat from honey etc... and the raw materials on sale. This is marketing, for which I have all the natural talent of your average zombie selling zit cream to teenagers. We had the CWA doing tea and scones, some local jam (for sale not taste and buy) and Freckles and the Bakery selling... their normal produce, someone else selling pies... Some of which might be quite nice, but not exactly a gastronomic introduction to the island's treasures.

Which brought me to the rest of my day which was... marketing. Well, trying to set things up to do so. Doing all the legwork which I have zero skills at and no real grasp of, for goodreads, trying to get my webpage sorted, trying to get it so I could have amazon links on it. Trying, futilely to get facebook and twitter and google+ and linkedin and uncletomcobblysillyness all to interelate. I object to giving my time and content as free add ons, to publishers and retailers for the around 10% they give me of my cover price - if I'm lucky(books you buy in Australia for ludicrous prices... earn me 64 cents, US cents at that. Which I will get in 9-16 months time. Yes, actually, I do resent this), but if I don't do the promotion and marketing -- thank heavens for the help of some friends--It just is not done at all (and yes, oddly, for 90% of the income, I expect 90% of the cost and work to come from that 90%, not 90% from me, and 10% from them. Mr Grumpy here!) Anyway, thank heavens for Tania and O'Mike and Paddy, or my 10% share would be even smaller. I feel getting me to write the blogs is possibly something only I can do. But I can either spend time writing or on social media. Not both. And I am so _not_ a salesman. Certainly not good at blowing my own trumpet! I'm not a computer geek either that has endless hours to spend setting things up. I'm not paid large amounts, so hiring someone to do this is not a possibility (trust me, I would, if I could.). I'm a writer. If people -ie my publishers, retailers or my readers want me to write books... then no, I will not spend much time on twitter. (here endeth the grumble).

Anyway we had two grilled little zebra perch (can only be speared, which is why they're not often on the menu, despite being a delicious and not rare fish). Stuffed with fennel leaves and grilled they were utterly delectable. Life on the island is so much better than life looking at a computer screen in some city, so I should be very grateful, and I am.