In a rash moment yesterday, I decided to tidy up some paperwork in my study. Were you to walk in right now, you probably couldn’t tell that it looked much better (though it does!) I have slimmed down the in-trays, so there is a lot less of the ‘that will come in useful sometime’ stuff. I’ve even managed to put aside 4 books for the charity shop. (It hurts to get rid of them, even if two of them are my daughter’s…)
Some of the remaining paperwork is old print-outs of my books. Somehow I don’t feel I can get rid of all my editing until the book is officially for sale… (and even then…?) You will spot I am a hoarder – not as bad as some, and certainly kept in check by having moved so often in the early years of our marriage. However we’ve now lived here for six years and the rubbish is accumulating.
One of the things I found were my first attempts at designing a book cover for In the Shade of the Mulberry Tree. This was before I discovered designforwriters.com, who have produced the covers for both my books and are professionals and are fantastic.
I am not a fantastic book cover designer. See.
Would those books have sold? Would you have looked twice at them (other than to laugh)? This is why you should leave cover design to the professionals.
On a more cheery note, I also found this picture.
Old ladies laughing while they work. Beautiful, and captures so much of Zambia for me. (Photo copyright, if you exclude my amateur snap of the poor print on paper, is Gareth Bentley – for more, see garethbentley.com)
Beware the Falling Avocados available as paperback and ebook from 18 June 2016.