Photo Diary

DSC_0027.JPG, originally uploaded by michael_jecks.

The last week has been lovely. Gorgeous weather, and clearly the robins are getting frisky. They don’t realise that there’s a fair wait until Spring. Sadly the seasons are all so mucked up now, that there are some songbirds which are mating already, which may well spell disaster. With any luck a cold break will make them realise their error before they lay their eggs and see them freeze.

Meanwhile, life’s getting interesting. Last week I was contacted by my credit card firm, to ask why I’d suddenly started using it. And only for transactions to Italy. Well, the short answer was, I hadn’t. And so the two and a half thousand pounds which had gone through my account was nothing to do with me. After a short discussion they agreed to reimburse me for the money. Makes you wonder how much cash is actually stolen, though. And today I was told that only a tenth of the money was actually returned to my account! So I cancelled the card and burned it, along with the PIN number. I don’t think I can afford to have that worry.

Because worries there are a-plenty just now. The amount which is paid to authors is reducing here in the UK. There’s no competition in bookselling, so the publishers are forced to ever lower margins and ever smaller payments to most of their authors. Oh, the very top guys still get fortunes, but ninety percent of authors are now seeing their incomes reduce – and by significant amounts. There are many authors who’ll have to jack in writing completely. The retailers really are killing the geese that lay their golden eggs.

I am increasing the number of talks I give. It means less time to research and write, but it is at least one way of getting more cash into the bank and paying the mortgage. I just have to try to write faster and win over more readers. Life is not getting any easier, sadly!

So – if you know of any film producers who’re keen for a medieval story, please point them in my direction. Any money gratefully received!

For more photos like this, go and look at Flickr.com/photos/Michael_Jecks where there are many more shots of Dartmoor in the winter.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 12:09 am and is filed under Dartmoor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.