August 21, 2012

Edinburgh

Six months have passed since the publication of The Battle of Inchcolm Abbey. That has allowed us to take stock of the sales of the book and make contributions to the two charities as promised. The sales have been rather low, but then we have relied on emails and word of mouth. No great advertising and no help from a deep-pocketed publisher. So we have bought a goat for Goatsforlife and will be sending £25 to Wateraid. I hope that you will have a look at the goatsforlife website. There has been a lot of very good feedback about the novel, and believe me when I say that it’s always welcome! My thanks to all who have bought and read the novel. I hope that you enjoyed it!

We did manage to get a few copies onto the shelf of the bookshop of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, although they were hardly keen on the idea! I guess that competition to the mainline publishers is not particularly welcome. Of much more interest was an event run by the St Andrew’s and St George’s West Book Festival on August 17.Ian Gilmour interviewed me and Marianne Wheelaghan. Marianne has written a fine novel entitled The Blue Suitcase. The questions from both moderator and audience engendered meaningful conversation.I am more and more convinced that the “theological novel” is a useful way of bringing some penetrating questions and good dialogue to the surface. But I am also aware of the great sea of literature out there through which it has to swim, and much of that literature is flotsam and jetsam!