Eight rubbish things which happen to authors

1. Amazon decides your book, due to be published in two weeks, is actually on a 4-6 week order! What are they doing? (Apart from putting off people from pre-ordering). Thanks Amazon, love you too.
2. You get an e-mail from an editor apologizing for the low fees on offer for some short fiction, but she hopes you will ‘write for the love of it’. No.
3. You get a rubbish review.
4. You are so busy with the rest of your life (i.e. the stuff that brings in the bacon) that you literally have no time to write.
5. People ask you how the ‘book’s going?’ and you get to say, ‘well, to be honest I have no idea. I guess it’s sold a few copies, you know.’
6. You get e-mails from people you don’t know who want you to help them get published. Thanks, but really I can’t help except to say read this.
7. People assume you make money from writing and are about to retire to some JK-Rowling-style mansion. No. Take what you think I might make on a novel and divide it by 17.
8. People assume you are some kind of literary intellectual who understands what they are talking about when they start on about modern European literature. No, but if we pitch it a little earlier I might have something to say. Last year I much enjoyed Lermontov’s Hero of Our Time and Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz, and I’ve still to meet someone with whom I can share my affection for Dekker & Middleton’s Roaring Girl.