Well, after a lot of paintaking slogging - much of which was due to sheer ignorance and stupidity, I FINALLY got A Mankind Witch uploaded to Amazon. It is still 'In Review'. I priced it so I will get $4 a copy, which is a lot more than I got for it as webscription book - Amazon pay 70% less a 'delivery fee' (for an e-book?) whereas I was getting 20%. Once it is 'live' I will put the link up here and elsewhere.
I've - thanks Reverence Pavane - got the e-book version of SAVE THE DRAGONS to wrestle with putting up on davefreer.com.
Then it is just THE FORLORN to re-master, and I'm back to new work. That's a bit more complex as there is a cover that needs doing.
And then it is back to writing, as I have deadlines, and work I am trying to do outside the traditional publishing framework, to 1)make self-sufficiency and living off the land easier and less of a hobson's choice. A bit of capital to expend would help a lot. Simple stuff like buying netting for the garden, etc. 2)To make me less subject to their idiosycracies and choice of directions (where someone having a bad day for reasons which have nothing to do with you, at say the publisher, distributor or major retailer can wreck your career (or a good day, make it) and it is all out of your control and there is nothing much you can do about it. That is SO not me. I don't mind paying for my own incompetance or laziness, but I really hate having no control. 3)A few extra strings for my basket or eggs in several bows or something like that. I'm worried about traditional publishing, and about my future in it.
In the meanwhile winter creeps towards us on chilly feet - nice weather at the moment, but I need to cut wood soon, and get my winter planting done. All else that was constructive done today was a little batch of apple tarts which we ate...
Self-sufficiency: the secret is NOT hand to mouth :-). I normally am pretty good about thinking ahead, and doing multiple meals. But the future for us is such uncertain country: we're not too sure of anything, from book sales to where we will live long term (yes, on the island, but more detail, no) or on what. And what we have been sure of, we're usually wrong about. I thought our diet would be 90% marine, with meat as a very rare treat. Crayfish (spiny lobster) would be common, lamb or pork almost never. Rice, veggies, shellfish would be the standby. I have just been offered another pig. We have 3 chest freezers - the biggest is near full of meat. We have lamb, beef, pork, wallaby, turkey, goose breasts, chicken, pheasant, muttonbirds... no duck, but that's because I haven't got there. The fish freezer is the least full, and crayfish are the exception, not the bulk. We eat far more meat than we ever did back in South Africa. I suppose I am compensating for the other insecurities with massive food security, seeing as most of it cost some time and labour and otherwise very little but being in the right place at the right time and being part of the island's odd barter 'gifting' system. I keep feeling I ought to be giving more. People here are good to us.
De nada. If you shoot me The Forlorn I can do the same treatment. It's alot easier than trying to do it manually.
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