Waiting for a train

Waiting for a late train on the Inverness line, and a snell wind flicks rain in my ear and rustles the winter sedge on the other side of the tracks. The silver birches are nearly the same colour, but other trees stand dark against them. A trio of ducks rise, clattering, flapping away. A small mound sits green amongst the sedge, sprinkled with snowdrops, and beyond it two young roe deer tip and dart amongst taller trees. A pheasant creaks. An elderly Labrador waddles across to check my ticket, submits to having his back scratched with a luxurious tilt of his head, then disappears indoors to rest his tired old legs. Finally a light flickers through the trees, the tracks hum, and the train arrives.

We're into readers now for Death of an Officer's Lady, and wonder of wonders, I've commissioned a graphic artist to design the cover! It feels like a bit of a cop-out: after all, I'm indie, shouldn't I be knitting all the yoghurt myself? But at the same time it's exciting to see what she'll come up with. Waiting for her next slot means that I'm back to a launch date around June, whereas I had thought of bringing it forward, but that's probably not a bad thing. In the mean time I'm going to launch a boxed set (in an e-box, that is) of the first three Murray books as an experiment.

I've put the books all up on Kobo recently and I'm toying with the idea of adding I-Books, Nook and Tolino to the list - the only problem is it means buying more ISBNs, but perhaps it will be worth it. I've recently been reading the Indie Power-Pack, a boxed set of three books on indie publishing, and realising all the things I've been doing wrong! I hope some of my corrections aren't too late. I feel incredibly lucky at all the sales I've had given my complete ineptitude - thanks, everyone!