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Ida's Line

Out of Mind

2023 Diary of a self-published writer

January

Plan book launches and events for Out of Mind. Feel hopeful, feel rising panic about boxes of unsold books, feel hopeful when stockists request a top-up, panic less, try to write but cannot.

February

Watershed retreat with my wonderful writing group at the Grail Centre. Swim in the river, start writing a childhood memoir which bubbles up in a workshop session. Have found my voice. Launch Out of Mind to my friends. Great support and sales. Peace. Less panic, more planning.

Delighted to be invited to speak at Blown Away by Books by my mentor and dear friend, Maire Fisher. Huge, supportive audience. Great sales. Floating on Cloud 9.

March – April

Klein Karoo book tour of Barrydale, Swellendam and Montagu. Wide sky scenery slipping by, meeting old friends and making new ones, heat, and a dusty old world venue with faded velvet curtains. Few book sales but not defeated. Plan and strategise. Write. Memoir flowing.

Launch at Cape Medical Museum. Great Interview by Steven Sack. Lots of audience participation. Sales improve. Other orders come in. Hope springs eternal.

Greyton launch. Ruth Versfeld, dear friend and colleague of many years interviews me. Incisive and thought-provoking. Very hot afternoon. Some people sleep. Some ask questions. More people buy. Late orders come in. Boxes at the door are emptying. Yay!

Write, get good reviews on Good Book Appreciation Society and Goodreads; a young Durban journalist describes me as successful but it is too soon to use that word.

May – July

Write, holiday in UK, do online writing workshops, plan next launches

Kleinmond launch at Central Café. Great interview by Trisa Hugo. She writes a review for Litnet. Good sales. Relieved. Plan next launches.

August – September

Major surgery and recovery. Write.

Cape Provincial libraries order18 copies of Out of Mind. Delighted.

Open Book Festival with 2 other self-published authors. Sunday morning. Raging wind and rain. Beryl Eichenberger, our panellist, is warm and supportive. Asks the most important questions. Sell only 2 books. Feel buoyed up by the support of other authors, and Beryl.

October – November

Write memoir, attend online workshops, words flow, plan, re-supply stockists ahead of festive season.

Great zoom interview by Tracy Going at Boekbedonnerd Festival. Am awarded first prize for best self-published author at festival. Feels surreal and astonishing.

Two big orders from stockists. Thrilled.

Resurgence of interest in Ida’s Line. Sales increase. Cape Provincial Libraries order last 17 copies. Yay!

Debate small reprint of Ida’s Line – panic, hope, am I mad conversations with self. Go ahead anyhow. Discover only 65 copies of Out of Mind remain…

Find a list of book festivals for 2024. Feel hopeful. Start planning.

Write. Tidy study. Find a box of childhood photos and letters. Overjoyed. Create a memoir door…

It is exactly four years since the start of my journey with my 2 novels. Both manuscripts existed in a rough form but it took the Covid 19 lockdown in 2020 to make me sit down and do what was required, and to make the decision to self-publish. Not that I believe there is any such thing because all along the way, friends, family and writers I had not met before, supported, advised and urged me on. In 2020, Ida’s Line was published and Out of Mind followed in 2022. October 2023 saw the reprint of Ida’s Line.

There are 4 more book discussions before this particular journey is over:

April 16^th – Oudtshoorn Public Library at 10.30am

April 17^th – George Public Library at 11.00am

April 23^rd – Restion Guesthouse in Napier at 11.00am

April 25^th – Caledon Public Library

Now it is time for the book stockists to work their magic and for me to write my memoir…

Some Book Launch Photos

Launch Memories and Musings

21st March Autumn Equinox

” As the seasons turn, so my season of launches nears the end, for the time being. One last remains, close to home, at Fiore Garden Centre, in the beautiful village of Greyton. Postponed to Saturday 25th March to avoid the unusually heavy rain predicted for the day on which we originally planned to have it. A stark reminder to this amateur book marketer that the best laid launch plans can go awry. You have to laugh at your idea that you are in control!

It is not the first time. An upsurge in Covid cases in late 2020 put paid to two launches of my previous book, Ida’s Line; a venue that I didn’t check thoroughly enough was in a part of town my potential readers didn’t frequent; an expected crowd in the town where my first novel is based didn’t materialise (7 came, 4 of whom I had personally invited) despite intensive advertising through various local societies and the press; in a country town with avid readers, my well-advertised afternoon launch coincided with a heat wave of 40 degree temperatures and I wondered ,when a handful of people showed up, whether I would have ventured out to a book launch in the searing heat. I might have headed to the river for a swim.

Along with the extensive planning and checking there is a certain amount of anticipation and blind hope that people will come to a launch. In some instances, numbers beyond my wildest dreams turned up. I am grateful to those who did, some more than once, to listen and participate in the interviews and to buy a copy, sometimes two or more, of my books. In all instances the interviewers were amazing, getting to the heart of the matter and giving me space to say why in my seventies I embarked on publishing and launching two novels.

Why indeed! Apart from reasons I have given elsewhere, it was a simple challenge to myself on my 70th birthday to see if despite Covid 19, despite the expense of self-publishing and mindful of the rigours of promoting my books at launches (22 now for the 2 books), I could achieve some of what I set out to do: get my books out into the world without incurring any debt. In terms of the first book, Ida’s Line, I have achieved that, and Out of Mind is getting there slowly but surely.

I have loved the launches, the exhilaration and energy. Three years, almost to the day, I think I have met my challenge. There are still books poised to go out into the world but the rigours of planning launches and being centre stage have caught up with me. So, now it will be by more retiring means – word of mouth, social media, reviews, and via my stockists. But if an extraordinary opportunity that I don’t need to plan should come my way, I will be there like a shot! “

Last day of February 2023

” The unknown quantity of book launches can be unnerving for a self-published author…

Will the venue you have paid for but haven’t seen, be suitable? How well will the pre-publicity work? Will the people that you and your local contact invited come? Will the interviewer you haven’t met be engaging? What will you wear? Will the silver earrings be too much?

Thursday morning, a day before leaving on a book jaunt to the Klein Karoo, these questions swirling in my early morning head were interrupted by the sound of the refuse truck. The bin, mustn’t forget to put out the bin and a nano-second before I reached for my left shoe, something long, thin and slightly silver, emerged from it. I yelled, and in the blink of an eye, feisty kitty who had been in a deep purring sort of reverie on my computer, leapt to my rescue and dispatched what turned out to be not the kind that rears up and spits, or the kind that puffs up its body, but a poor little brown house snake. Benign, but the voice of reason said it could have been otherwise.

Was it an omen, I wondered, a warning to look more carefully before you step out into the world? Or was it a message that the unknown (I’m still thinking of book launches) looks scary but may actually be benign? Or simply a message from the long line of athletes in my family, of which I am definitely not one, to always put on the right shoe first? Whatever the sighting of the snake in my shoe meant, and I take such sightings seriously, I decided that it wasn’t worth cancelling a book jaunt to the Karoo. So, Mark and I set off early the following day. Mark, my right hand at launches, and in my life. My mainstay.

It was a whirlwind day and a half journey with 3 book launches. The first, at Barrydales’s Karoo Art Hotel in a gracious, old, wooden-floored venue with chandeliers. And I imagined for a moment, that it may have been the ball room in days gone by, heard the swirling skirts of ladies in long backless dance gowns, but this past Friday night there was to be a Beatles revival concert… And before that, in the dimly lit venue, the Barrydale poets and readers came to my launch. It was inspiring to be in the company of such a warm-hearted responsive audience and interviewer.

And so on to Swellendam , to Bokmakiri Books where the generous, incredibly book savvy owner, Eduan Swanepoel , who is the cultural hub of the town, had gathered together a group of people interested in history and self-publishing. Once again, I had an insightful interviewer who led the way to engaging discussions over excellent wine and snacks.

Lastly, and by no means least, to Montagu Books in the town of that name where we met up with old friends and made new ones in the easy informal atmosphere created by the welcoming owner , Anne Reed. On a more leisurely trip I hope to return to her bookshop with its comfortable arm chairs and reading nooks.

So, the unfamiliar and the faint dread of the unknown have become familiar and benign. The people came, the interviewers were great and I shall wear the silver earrings at the next launch.”

The first launch of Out of Mind

The first launch of Out of Mind in the historic Botriver Kerk en Zaal was a wonderful celebration! My family and Botriver friends and neighbours of many years, as well as friends and my beloved niece who came from far, were a great audience – engaged and supportive, asking questions and chatting over tea, What more could anyone hope for?
At Hermanus, my friend and writer of beautiful poetry, Christina Coates, was an insightful, engaging interviewer and we had some lovely discussions with our small audience and the friendly library staff.

The most memorable launch at the end of 2022 was the one at Infanta, organised by my childhood friend Annette van Niekerk (nee Retief) On an unusually misty summer afternoon we gathered at Laslappie, their family holiday cottage, and Annette asked me about my book. Outside, a fine rain fell and we could hear the high spring tide pounding on the rocks. Inside, I sat in the warmth of familiar voices and faces and when we had finished our interview, the wine was opened and the talk turned to my father to whom my book is dedicated, and who was a legend at Infanta as a storyteller on his stoep in the evenings. I think he would have been proud of me