Week Twenty-Four: The Cash Flow

This was a "better than nothing" week . . . seeing profits of a pitiful $1. That brings the total to $750.49 for the year. I think things will do nothing but get worse from here. Summer is a hard time for book sales -- hard to get readings or signings, hard to draw people to events, hard -- in general -- to make that face-to-face sale. For D-list writers, that face-to-face sale is often the only kind of sale. If my profits have climbed past $800.00 by September 1st, I'll be surprised. I'll keep you posted.

In reading news, I did start a new book this week that seems perfect for summer. It's called Second Growth, by Wallace Stegner. It just feels so summery. It's about an East Coast village that gets invaded every summer by, well . . . summer people. Rich people come and vacation and make the town theirs for a few months of the year. It doesn't all come down to class conflict. Stegner's summer people are not all snobs. The villagers are not romanticized. Stegner is a really good writer. I like his characters, and I like the conflicts he develops for them. I always had Stegner vaguely on my radar, but while watching a dvd documentary of Ken Kesey, I learned that Kesey studied under Stegner while at Stanford. Kesey spoke so highly of Stegner that when I went down to my book shelves of endless books that I haven't read yet, Second Growth kind of jumped out at me. Might be worth checking out if you're looking for a summer read.