It’s the end of the blogging week for me, and it’s been a varied one. Rainstorms, new leaks to investigate and plug, some online Christmas shopping, some more local, the bar finally closing after 40 or so years, extending the house rental contract for a year, cutting back the vine, and now, the Panormitis Festival starting tomorrow. We also have Harry coming for lunch today, which means catching up on news and admiring his first car. (Which, in time, should result in free pickups from Rhodes Airport and generally having someone to run us around when over there. I mean, apart from the obvious duties, there’s got to be a point to being a godfather, hasn’t there?)
While all that has been going on, I’ve desperately been trying to sell books, but run into problems with social media, in that Facebook no longer allows you to put up more than two external links a month. This means I can’t point people to my latest books or a promotion in which they are shown. I can only link into Facebook, which is why those who use it can still see notifications about my blog posts, but let’s not get into that. We’re now also competing against the thousands of AI-written ‘novels’ coming online every day, drenching the market with stuff that reads like wallpaper paste. And that’s while batting off more than ten spam emails from book promoters per day. I just counted, and I had 14 overnight. All deleted after being marked as spam. Among them was one for the Symi Dream calendar, so they’ve got their little computer programmes scouring for calendars now too: Dear Neil, I noticed your Symi Dream Calendar 2027 and appreciate the work behind…
Meanwhile, in another inbox: “I came across your book and wanted to reach out with a quick idea.” That’s a common opening gambit. I ignore anything with ‘reach out’ used in this way. “Our network reaches more than 400,000 book lovers…” As a mate from Keighley used to say, ‘Does it ’ell as like.’ Here’s a good one: “Mi nombre es DulceM digital y me pongo en contacto…” No idea, love, sorry. Something about a digital pongo? What’s that then? Here’s my favourite of the week, and it’s 100% true. It started with: Hello Marigold, which had me laughing but not hooked. It then went on: i came across Deadly Library Late Fees and the tagline caught me before I even reached the plot. Didn’t even reach the title, did you? Assuming this was to make me reply with indignation, I marked it as spam and deleted it.
Anyway, I didn’t come here for that, but to wish you a good weekend ahead. Enjoy the festival if you are here for it, and watch out for Symi TV videos (YouTube and elsewhere) if you’re not; I am sure there will be many.
