I made some progress last week with my manuscript, but it was more of a reviewing of my work and learning to put it on Scrivener at the same time. It will take a while yet, notwithstanding the fact that Christmas will get in the way. I’ve no trouble with that. After all; Christmas is to be enjoyed and used as a time to forget the pressures, whether self-imposed or not, that we all have to endure throughout the year. I also resurrected my attempts to get an acceptable, book jacket uploaded to CreateSpace for the paperback version of The Eagle’s Covenant. I’m still struggling with that, but I will persevere.

Last Friday I met a local author, Christopher Joyce, in Chichester. Christopher is a founder member of the Chindi Writers group, www.chindi-authors.co.uk. This is the group of self-published writers I mentioned in my blog last week. I missed them last Monday, so caught up with Chris at Carluccio’s in town. I was encouraged by what he had to tell me, particularly in the way the group promote themselves publicly. They are not a collection of writers who meet to praise each other’s work, but use their collective skills to bring their books and their group to the public. This week they have a stall open in Chichester promoting their books and providing help, advice and encouragement to whoever wants it.

I’ve noticed a movement in my book sales on Amazon over the last couple of weeks. Nothing dramatic but certainly an improvement on November. There won’t be much more now until I begin pushing the boat out in the New Year. Hopefully my efforts will yield some positive results. Maybe my bookmarkers will help too. I sent 100 out to our youngest son in Australia. Some of those will go to America and hopefully nudge people over there into looking at my website and checking out my titles. My eldest son, whose job takes him all over the country has promised to put some about. He’ll be receiving his quota shortly. One of our grandsons works in Scotland, running his own business, www.brokenblonde.com and often meets up with people who might be interested, so he has agreed to help. And so it goes on. Whether it will make much difference remains to be seen, but I live in I hopes.

This week will be a mixture of visiting family, shopping, decorations (putting up) and all the usual things that we fit into the build-up to Christmas. Then it gets manic. Lovely! If I don’t get round to publishing my blog next week, although I will try, I want to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.