Thank you so much Elaine, likewise good luck with your own.

Dear Nicole how right you are. I think for most authors writing is the joy and marketing the harder task. Certainly it has been for me, however some of the marketing brings its own rewards. I was in India before Christmas speaking at the Times of India Lit Festival. Everyone I met was charming and welcoming, however I did wonder if speaking 4000 miles away was entirely necessary. In retrospect I believe it has to be. We need to get ourselves known in the wider market. Unless you are one of the very lucky few the ground work has to be done. That instant glorious success is a very rare commodity.

Bob what a marvellous comment thank you. I have only just seen this.

Thanks too for the important reminders about marketing. The dream is for the work to find its own audience, but often its only hard work that makes dreams come true.

Sometimes, I try to look at the Facebook/twitter/pinterest/blog pages as creating the social world of the book, and its underlying themes, the visual world, what it looks like. Sometimes I forget to actually market the book.

The more I do the less terrifying it becomes. You just have to remind yourself that 99 percent of the people who come to hear you talk do so because they want to hear what you have to say, not to see you fail.

PS time goes so quickly, it may be a different form of social media by the time they are old enough to enjoy it.