My little Norfolk Dialect book came out a few weeks ago – I somehow failed to announce it here, being mired in a Sargasso Sea of work, family stuff and … well, mainly work. I’ve been subcontracting for Routledge, working for agencies in Europe and keeping up with academic and private clients – well, let’s just say I haven’t always achieved my requisite seven hours of sleep a night. I’ve really enjoyed having all the work, of course, and I’m not moaning about it, but it’s in the nature of freelancing that there will always be fat times and lean times. I’ve just come through a fat time.

And in the middle of all that, Norfolk snuck out. I did mark it with friends and family (I said “yay” a few times and sent copies to my folks), but didn’t really have the energy to do more than that. While I wasn’t looking, though, the book has started to make its own quiet way; it was spotted front and centre in a bookshop in central Norwich (with thanks to @longjohnhill for the heads up), and then I received this image from my Dad this morning:

And there I am, on (almost) the same bestseller list as such luminaries as F Scott Fitzgerald, John le Carre, Hilary Mantel and Dan Brown. (Mainly the first three, to be honest.) The image shows a cutting from the Eastern Daily Press weekend edition from a couple of weeks ago, and Jarrold is a local printer/publisher/bookseller. Local number one bestseller? I thank you.

In my career as an author, I think it can pretty much only go downhill from here, to be honest…