If only I had a penny for every.......

Yes, if only I got a penny for every [fill in your own choice here] I have spent, saved, seen or in my case, had visits to my on line book.  I received a letter today from MyBook.com triumphantly announcing and congratulating me on my 70,000th visit to my little book.

I sat here pondering this minor moment  of “celebration” in the rather bland looking email that simply states just a few words :-

Your myebook An Uneventful Soldier - Revision2 has been read 70000 times. Thanks for choosing myebook.com

“Seventy thousand” I say to myself, is this seventy thousand people, one person reading it seventy thousand times, do they read it or simply glance at the fist page and clear off?  So many unknowns to ponder about who it is that stumbles up the work of art.  Some are forced to go there by my constant prompting, reminding and cajoling.  Others clearly find it via a visit to my Blog which is also by accident.  But still I do wonder what it could have earned me in royalties!

Well, only £700 if I were to rely on only a penny a visit but if it had been a published paperback I could have SOLD seventy thousand copies by now!! Like heck I could.  To be honest no one wants to read about a bunch of “cold war warriors” prancing about in the army with very little action. No major wars, no real dangers in that era.  I should have done my soldiering a couple of years earlier and been to Aden or Borneo to write a “proper" book!

No, these days people only want to read “true life” war stories.  Andy McNab, Chris Ryan, Tim Collins, Sgt Dan Mills and Chris Hunter to name but a few.  No, “action” in the bars and clubs of 1960’s Cyprus and Germany do not attract sales.  Perhaps I need to fictionalise my book, give it some blood and guts, add  a bit of a conspiracy to it and change the names to protect the innocent. 

Better still, find a better subject to write about.  I tried this with my short story “A Summer Affair” which has had 23,460 visits so far. No blood and guts just a funny little story about…… sorry, you will have to read for yourself.

Now, my next book, let me think.