The Life and Times of a Navy Husband

This article at the Guardian details the woes of all us first-timers. I agree with Robertson Davies:

There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die.

Ever wonder about publishing statistics in the UK?

· Around 70,000 titles are published a year in Britain, of which 6,000 are novels

· Any large UK publisher will receive 2,000 unsolicited novel manuscripts in a year

· The average sale of a hardback book by a first-time writer is 400 copies

· Many publishers use this rule of thumb to work out advances: they pay 50 per cent of the royalty earnings expected from the first print run

· According to the latest edition of Private Eye, first novel The Thirteenth Tale by ex-teacher Diane Setterfield (author’s advance £800,000) has sold 13,487 copies to date. Only 516,129 to go and the book’s paid for itself…