Sweet sixteen

It is coming up to sixteen years since I received my first offer of publication (a book that has recently gone into a second edition). Since then I’ve had a number of other books published, put out work of my own (yes, folks, self-publishing), and published other people. Yet it still surprises me, on a daily basis, that people other than my mum buy my books. Complete strangers log on to online book retailers or go into bricks and mortar bookshops and hand over cash for things I’ve written. At the risk of giving voice to a clichéd response: “How cool is that?”