The name of the game is “marketing”, and everybody’s playing it when they have something they want to sell. I’m playing it too;. I want people to buy my book. It’s a good story – a bit of history, a bit of mystery, with interesting characters and a developing love story and even small doses of sex and violence . .

But there are limits to my patience when people offer me “bright ideas” like “Why don’t you take 20 copies of your book to the Arts and Crafts Fair/ the Produce Fair/ the Charity Fundraiser?”  Well, for starters, I don’t have 20 copies of my book. I have ONE, which the publishers generously sent me, for free. I would have to buy other copies (at the “author’s discount price”, sure) but I’d have to pay for postage and package of the order. I’m talking about something like $200 outlay for 20 books; and don’t forget there’s also the cost of renting a table at the Fair/ Fundraiser / whatever. Organisers don’t do free sales-space, so I’d need to add more dollars (or Euros or Pounds) to the price per book, just to break even… provided I sold the lot. (Unlikely.) Buyers would quickly calculate that they could buy a copy cheaper from their favourite internet bookseller.

“Book Fair?” suggested a well-intentioned friend, without knowing how Book Fairs work. Sales-space isn’t rented to writers but to publishers. They put books by their best-known authors on the shelves or counter. All their other authors are simply listed in a multi-page catalogue (provided the said authors pay for the privilege!) and if any major bookshop or wholesaler takes a shine to your title because of its 1-line summary, then you join the ranks of The Incredibly Lucky, like lottery winners.

So, I did a press release, I have a facebook page and an Author Website, which attracts a tiny percentage of nice, interested, intelligent people —  and far too many smart-asses who use my webpage to market their products. As I said, there’s a limit to my patience. . . I need buyers who’ll read, review and recommend my book to their friends, who’ll buy (not borrow) their own copy; and don’t talk to me about e-books, please. That’s a subject for another, different, very long blog… but not today.

This is a quote from a reader´s e-mail:  “In fact, you have two main characters. One is Eks but the other is the Highland Clearance itself.”  It never occurred to me that an event could be a character; but I see exactly what the reader means.

When Eks discovers a new facet of the Clearances, she discusses it with Danny, for example, and the Clearances are constantly referred to, constantly in the background; and then they become The New Clearances. . . the “character” who provides most of the conflict in the story.

The reader makes a point of being “not a Brit” and asks an oblique question: “Because the event is tragic, its history has a ´bad smell`, and it is not well known even to scholars, I presume.” He adds in brackets: (“Oh, no! How could the English do such a thing? Such nice, educated people?”) The point is made in the book: the Clearances were not made directly by “the English.” Many of the absentee landowners were Scots — clan chiefs, some of them, whose loyalty to the clan was destroyed in the brutal aftermath of Culloden. That, of course, seems to be a different event in history, but it`s not. If the clan system had still existed, the Clearances would not have happened.

Anyone who disagrees — I welcome debate! I still might write Eks´s book ´Shame on the Nation.¨

A reader asked me: “What are you going to write next?” My response was two of those funny little faces – you know the one that rolls its eyes and the one that clutches its head? Yes, like that. At the time, I couldn’t face another stint of the truly hard work required to get a book into print and out there for people to buy…I hope.

By the way, it’s now also available on amazon.co.uk where there’s a heartening 5-star review. Thank you for that. Readers like to read reviews.

Still, the reader’s question was serious and deserved a serious answer. The next book may be the one I thought of two years ago, but which turned out as The Dark Pool.

I’ve noticed that books have a tendency to take control at some point. They start writing themselves. It happened with Legs when the character Claudia wrote her own dialogue in my head, and took over from the shy girl I’d planned. Claudia was so strong-minded, I just sat back, typed, let her have her way… and eventually I gave her quite a different role in “my” story.

So, back to the point: What had I thought of writing, two years ago? I had the idea of revisiting The HIghland Clearances and started by reading some background books. Then I realised that John Prebble had written the definitive history, and Nigel Tranter had written his historical fiction The Flockmasters.

I didn’t have the brass neck to compete with writers of their caliber; and so I took a different track. . . fiction, with the central character a young woman historian, writing about The Clearances. My book became partly her story. It includes some of her research and references to what happened in the 18th and 19th centuries; and my heroine personally faced the threat of becoming a victim of Highland Clearances – 21st century style.

But while my fictitious heroine was doing her research… well, so was I; and I have notes on scraps of paper. (She had her notes on a disc. She’s much more organised than I’ll ever be.) She (well, I, actually) even gave it a title! Her book Shame on the Nation became a great success in my fiction. Could I now write Shame on the Nation – all of it? I gave it at least 10 chapters when I referred to it in The Dark Pool. Hmm. At least it would be an interesting summer project. What do you think?

Let me know. I’m on Facebook as well as e-mail.

Dear “Irate Scotsman” who sent me an e-mail: My Scottish grandmother used to say something like “Bairns and fools shouldn’t criticise half-done work.” I’ll change that to “half-read books” and hope that you have now finished the book and you’ll know why the romantic hero was Spanish instead of Scots. I thought this would make the story more interesting and cohesive. I could even say “It’s my book and that’s how I wanted it.” But I try to take questions seriously and of course I have nothing against Scotsmen and I agree that some are very good-looking. However, I have to explain that I don’t write books starting on page 1 and plodding through to the end. I start with the plot roughed-out, then I write the essential parts that can’t be changed without wrecking the plot.

Early in the  planning stages I wrote the episode that became Chapter 17, and then I had the idea of giving the villainous Aitor a brother who was a nice guy, as a contrast. Later still, I thought of making the brother the hero.

Yes, I then had to re-write scads of pages with all sorts of major and minor changes, but that’s what’s involved in writing a book. As Eks told Frank: “If you don’t believe me, try it some time.”

Next time I have a free half hour, I’ll try to answer another male reader – not at all jealous and “not even a Brit”, as he says – who expressed a very interesting idea about Characters in Books.

Watch this space as I will be writing soon again about my book, my writing and my life! Enjoy!