Here I am at the edge

Money, money, money Three months ago, I paid for the annual subscription to the editing site  Grammarly , at the time I knew it was a huge risk though the site is worth the $140 fee, the $11.50 monthly co st is way more than I make   #writing .    When I took out the subscription I hoped buying a book cover would encourage enough sales to convince me to continue, and therefore cover the outlay - it didn't - this brings me to my second costly mistake, which will be my final act as a  #writer .  In the hope that a bought cover would encourage sales for my   #ebooks   www.draft2digital.com/book/235628 , I paid $70 for a cover. While the cover is worth the money, I doubt very much if I will make enough to cover my part of the outlay $20 (the rest of the cost came from donations).  I have enjoyed being a writer, but it never proved more than a very expensive project, even with the success of my   #ScienceFiction   series ...

What the buyer doesn't take into consideration I've said at each turn, that being an Indie writer I need to weigh outgoings against the possible income - that's why until last week I'd never bought a cover. My  luxury  item   I knew in my heart when I bought this cover that it would not pay for itself, but I wanted a nice cover in my stock.  You'd think with eleven sales platforms on  Draft2Digital   www.draft2digital.com/book/235628 , the various aspects of  Smashwords   www.smashwords.com/books/view/719595   and the mighty site at  Amazon   www.amazon.com/dp/B071CSVHFD   that selling a measly ten copies would be easy, but no book outside the  Forgestriker  series has sold even five copies in over a decade on Draft2Digital. Another aspect of my costs is that I sent hard copies, printed, of The Chronicles of Mark Johnson t o three sites in the USA.

If only others valued my work If you've read my blogs recently, you would get the impression I don't value my work. That is wrong, I do value my work greatly. The cause of my displeasure is that for the time I put in, I get little - if anything - in return. If you were getting $0.10c a day for hours of work, would care what you did?

I want to be alone The immortal quote from Greta Garbo exemplifies how I feel about my writing. I've been asked to write a semi-biographical piece on my time as a  writer . My hopes and dreams against the reality of seven years of struggle to make enough to pay for a cup of coffee a week.    Hope    I hoped that I'd  be able to make a little money from story telling, as I'd been told by many people that I am good at it.    Reality   You write for weeks, and if you see $1 a week, you ARE doing well. Oh, people will read blogs because they are  FREE . You soon learn blog readers do NOT mean sales.   Reality    I knew the time I put into writing the stories would never pay off. In the beginning I didn't mind as I thought people cared; now I know differently and I don't care about the standard of my work from now on, as my rep is worth $0.10c a day.

Twin disasters in European soccer  Munich  There is no denying the tragedy of the  Munich air disaster . So many young lives were lost that night in 1958, many saw the greatest English soccer team - if not the greatest team in Europe - died that night.  For many years, the pilot got blamed for not cancelling the take-off - he has since been cleared of blame. What commentators forget is they are viewing matters from now, not back in the late 1950's. In those days, teams couldn't afford to stay the next night in case the weather improved. Even for a team of this magnitude, an extra night in a hotel in the 50's could have caused bankruptcy. Transfers for players in those days didn't exceed £25,000 until Luis Suarez   was transferred from  Barcelona   to  Inter Milan   for the equivalent of £125,000. Who is to say that the day following the crash would bring better weather? And if the weather didn't improve, at some point a dec...