A fellow writer and friend, Russell Kirkpatrick, once recommended a book of mine (The Aware) to a bookseller over where he lives in Hamilton, New Zealand (pop.130,000 – or so the town website tells me). The bookseller read it and loved it, then started to recommend it – and subsequent books of mine – to readers coming into her (independent) store. The nice thing is that they kept coming back for more…

Result: she has sold 20 copies of each title. Wow. Geez, that’s one book per every 2,160 people. I don’t know your name, Ms Bookseller from Hamilton, but I think you rock! Bless you.

Now if only Whitcoulls, the New Zealand bookchain with 80 stores, would stock my books with that sort of enthusiasm…