Good news, bad news.

If we believe the tv news, then sales figures suggest the UK was stockpiling novels last week as people prepared for a spell in isolation.

Unhappily, chains like Waterstones are deemed non-essential and have closed too but it does mean that those who sell e-format books may do well. Sales of fiction rose by a third, children's education went up an astonishing 234% - a record figure. Puzzle books, handicrafts and true crime also rose. 

Nielsen Book are keeping track: "We've seen significant jumps in sales of puzzle books, adult colouring titles, home-learning titles for children, study guides, and we have seen been a big increase in sales of paperback novels."

Waterstones may be closed, but supermarkets are still open, and they sell paperbacks. So do Amazon. Physical book sales may now plummet as readers turn online. Waterstones online sales have risen 400% week on week.

It reported a "significant uplift" for classic titles like Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, Toni Morrison's Beloved, F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.

"Our bestseller is Hilary Mantel – there is plenty of time now to read those 900 pages of The Mirror and the Light. It's doing really well," said Waterstones fiction buyer Bea Carvalho.

E-book claims

The Publishing Association show that sales of consumer ebooks have dropped by 17%, while sales of physical books are up 8%. Consumer spending on books was up £89m across the board last year, compared with 2015. 

Paula Cocozza wrote a fairly long article about this back in April 2017 asking So why is the physical book winning through? I read it with interest and then found this statement:

The figures from the Publishing Association should be treated with some caution. They exclude self-published books, a sizable market for ebooks. And, according to Dan Franklin, a digital publishing specialist, more than 50% of genre sales are on ebook. Digital book sales overall are up 6%.

I looked back at th earlier figure: ebooks have dropped by 17%  and wondered how to match the two statements in my mind.

“It’s not about the death of ebooks,” Daunt says. (James Daunt of Waterstone) “It’s about ebooks finding their natural level. Even in the years when ebook sales were rising greatly – and clearly cannibalising physical book sales – it was always very clear that we would have a correction and reach an equilibrium.” The UK, he says, has “adopted” ebooks and they will remain a substantial market (while in France, for instance, ebooks are only 3% of the overall market). The last thing he – or any seller or publisher of physical books – wants is the death of the ebook. “We want people to read. We don’t mind how they read,” he stresses. He knows that people who read, sooner or later, will buy books.

If you want to read the whole thing, here's the link: 
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/27/how-ebooks-lost-their-shine-kindles-look-clunky-unhip-

Perhaps you'll be able to explain to me how those two claims match together.

Spring at last

I promised lambs and daffodils to celebrate Spring, so here are the lambs...carefully marched away from us by anxious mum.

We attended our first BBQ last night. Invitation arrived in brilliant sunshine at 2pm. By 3.30pm the skies darkened and the rain slashed down and we gave up all hope. By 8.00 it was fine and bright again, so off we went, and stood under huge umbrellas when it rained again. It could only happen in England - but it was a fun evening.

Now that I'm re-working the old story that was once published by Triskelion, I find it is growing and changing out of all recognition and I shall gave it a new title. I hope that is legal. The story side of it is fine, but I cannot shake off the formatting imposed by Trisk, so I've decided to start again in a whole new blank document, which is just as well as so much of it is changing.
I've also been trying to make Document Map work for me after someone sang its praises but I think the instructions I have must be for a later version of Word than I have, for I didn't achieve anything helpful.

After a day of exasperation and wasted time, we sneaked off for a day out on Friday and walked at Wallington. The magnolias are coming into bloom in the walled garden, and the blossom on the wild cherry and rhododendrons was a welcome sight. Makes me feel good on the inside.

I checked today and saw that Far After Gold is listed by both Gardners and Bertrams, major book distribution centres in the UK, which means that Waterstones and other bookshops can order it as a stock line for their shelves. Perhaps it is time I introduced myself to the local bookshops....and if anyone has been disappointed that they couldn't find it anywhere but Amazon, take hope. One day you might find my books sitting on your local Wasterstones' shelf. And if you ask, they should certainly get it for you.