Take Off Your Running Shoes

How , oh how, does anybody manage to sell books?

Depressing news from that home of depressing news, otherwise known as my publishers' Simon and Schuster:

Dina

I so, so wish I had better news on your book. The book itself is a success, of course. It wouldn’t have been Paperback of the Week in the Observer a few weeks back if it wasn’t so eloquent, sharp and entertaining. And everyone I know who has read it really has given it the thumbs-up. Unfortunately, it’s currently registering at position 1010 on Nielsen Booktrack, with 145 copies sold last week, and a total of 1093 through the tills. It’s so very difficult to ascertain why this hasn’t flown higher. With the great coverage that yourself and Grainne instigated, we would have hoped for better sales. It’s so tough on you, especially as the book is so enjoyable and it has that nice package and everything.

All I can say is that we are keeping a close eye on it, and we will continue to push for promotions.
Warmest regards,

Kerri

And, apparently, she says in a later email, supermarkets have all turned it down. How could they????!!! Waterstone's, according to Agent Tracy, is "our friendliest buyer". So that's a gold star to Waterstone's and little skull-and-crossbone stickers to all the supermarkets. To think I nearly went to a supermarket today to get some of that nice long broccoli, instead of my local fruit shop which only has the old-style round headed green stuff...

Chemo brain...

...described here. (Thanks, Kasia.)

Even the delays...

...are wonderful on trains. I remember the countless times being stuck on a plane circling round Heathrow; now this train has come to stop for some reason, but it's a delight, I can see the wildflowers up close outside the window, and - I promise this is true - a rabbit has just poked its head out of a hole. This is idyllic, but I will shut up now, stretch out on my four empty seats and go to sleep now.

Heading back

On the train back from Edinburgh, and this kind of travelling is so enjoyable - the sea out of the window, yellow gorse bushes on rolling green hills, just passed through a place called Berwick-on-Tweed which looks mysterious, ancient and deeply attractive, and room to stretch your legs...I love trains!!

Speech was fine, but 190 nurses in the room and not one of them had a question afterwards, which is the first time I have spoken and that has happened.

The conference opened with a big room full of drugs companies and their giveaways: they all give USB keys and mobile phone charger bits (I didn't take any on principal, but the mobile phone thingys looked incredibly useful), along with the pens and notebooks, and sticky notes etc which seem standard issue. So with all those tables and drugs company representatives manning the tables, really not at all sure why I couldn't have a table to sell my book....

There were a lot of very useful information leaflets there, none of which I'd ever seen as a patient, and one of the Breast Cancer Care staff said that was one of their dilemmas - how to get the leaflets into patients' hands. Ummm, put them in the waiting rooms? I said. We all spend enough time in hospital waiting rooms.

BCC subsidises this conference, only asking the nurses for £40 for the weekend. It costs them about £170 per person, one of the staff said. What really surprised me was how everybody at the conference was white and apparently English or Scottish - all these nurses. The numerous times I've spent in hospitals round London now, and I don't think I've ever been treated by Anglo-Saxons; it's always Africans, or Eastern Europeans or Indian staff. The BCC people said, when I mentioned it, yes, that it was surprising, looking round the room, and maybe it was because we were up North.

I really, really am a blogger today

I'm practically a blogger emeritus now, I reckon; I'm also the Justgiving blogger today.

Normblog profile

Always wanted to answer one of these until Norm asked me to, and I realised I actually have no opinions, but, hey, I'm the Normblog profile this week! I am a real blogger now...

Spooky blog occurrence

This is wierd; the post just below this, "would I have aborted myself?", refused to be published, even though I've already done a couple of others on this train ride...I had to republish it four times until it showed up on the site. Slightly spooky given its content.

Would I have aborted myself?

Two couples are screening for the breast cancer gene, BRCA1, according to this report.

Is life with breast cancer worth living? Yes. And I think all my children would agree with that too, however angry they might be, at times, at what we all live with.

Trains v. planes

No competition actually - did you know they have free wireless on the train? Did you know they are wireless at all? And nifty little sockets into which to plug your mobile phone and/or laptop? I had no idea. I love trains and hate planes anyhow, but this just trumps all. Sitting on the GNER up to Edinburgh, arrive at station fifteen minutes before train leaves, time to get fruit salad at M&S Simply Food, stroll onto train - it's full but you can move your legs, and stretch out, not jammed into spaces sardines would find a squeeze...how do airplane companies stay in business?

Off to Edinburgh

Heading from most fashionable city - see this story - to area of second least fashionable city (same story, shock horror, it's Aberdeen). So that's eight suitcases less to carry for this 20 hour trip...if no internet up there in unfashionable land, I'll report back when I get home on all the doctors and nurses at the Breast Cancer Care conference - and what they wore of course.