Now wash your hands!

While the next episode of 'Claimant Commitment' (part 4) slowly takes shape, I've been continuing with marketing plans for 'Grand Union', the unlikely waterways-based thriller with Geordie lass Daphne Randall at the tiller in the company of Potteries hack Harry Biddulph.

Hopefully, I can come up with a plan for a boat-based book launch, as there is now a paperback in addition to the Kindle version - currently only available via CompletelyNovel,  but hopefully soon to be on general release.  In anticipation of this, I ordered a small batch of books last month, only to realise when they arrived that, while I had amended the manuscript for the printers to correct the last few typos (hopefully...) and iron out some page-numbering glitches, I had failed to upload these changes to CompletelyNovel's system, so the books came out with the errors still in.

Not wishing to hand out 'seconds' to people I hope to impress, and wary of inflicting yet more of my dodgy books on my long-suffering friends, I am disposing of a handful of these in a manner even their harshest critics might feel is a little too cruel: they are being abandoned in lavatories!

Actually, it's not quite as grim as it sounds, since the loos in question are actually the Canal and River Trust sanitary stations to be found alongside the canal network, many of which have an additional function as boaters' libraries.  Boaters drop off books they have finished reading, sometimes exchanging them for another that catches their eye. This isn't a book-borrowing arrangement likely to appeal to anyone who is a bit 'OCD' about hand-washing and hygiene, but appears to work well nonetheless and there is usually an interesting variety to chose from.  One copy of 'Grand Union' was exchanged for Jennifer Worth's fascinating Call the Midwife (on which the Sunday evening TV show was based), an extraordinary piece of compassionate but unsentimental social history that Mr H read from cover to cover in a couple of days and I have now prized away from him to read myself, so thanks to whoever left that at Gailey Wharf. 

I would be curious to know where the books end up and how they migrate about the system - I'm making a note in the front cover of where they are first left, and though it is possible that one or two might become permanent fixtures of a boater's bookshelf, I rather hope they'll roam about.  I've had a cheery message on Facebook from the finder of one volume, which was very thoughtful; I hope Daphne has made a new friend, but whether she has or not, there may be a copy for collection somewhere along the Shroppie in due course.  All being well, none of the books will actually end up being used in lieu of loo paper!

I've still got a couple to release - one at least should find a home somewhere on the BCN, and perhaps Fradley Junction for the last, as it lies along the route of Daphne's first adventure.  I've been doodling notes for more stories, so Daph will definitely be back one day - battling up the Wolverhampton 21 in a raging gale, perhaps, though with whom and to investigate what remains to be seen.


Kindle users can find the story here: www.amazon.co.uk/Grand-Union-Sarah-Honeysett-ebook/dp/B00T3CG5KU/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8