What an eye opener!

Well, to cut a long story short, I went to a car boot sale on Sunday and had an epiphany. There I was walking along one of the fifty five isles of cars with their boot open, counting the used foot spa’s people were offering for sale, when I spotted it.
There is was, amongst the vegetarian cook books and street maps of the Wirral: One of Susan Hill’s books. It could have been any author but it was Susan Hill. My heart sank.
I have been a devoted follows of Susan Hill’s blog for a while now. I have partaken in the forum page and added my comments to the blog faithfully. Along with many other ‘unpublished writers’ I have followed the fortunes of this published author through the trials and tribulations of flame wars and writing workshops. I practically took notes when Susan told us that writing was a job, as opposed to art or a craft. Many forum folks bolstered this by decrying the merits of art for arts sake. In particular, my comments regarding my being open to critique because I wasn’t looking for validation were thoroughly bemoaned and mostly condemned as zen claptrap (not very PC but writers know no bounds when fired up).
Of course, I have been to many car boot sales and seen countless hundreds of boxes of books strewn around, 20p a copy. Naturally, I have recognised the names of the published authors. Until now it had never struck home: there is an even lower tier to the market for books than the three-for-ones! A realm where no publisher or agent can control, where published authors lie side by side in a bed of OS maps and gardening volumes.
I saw a woman reach for the Susan Hill book. She turned to me, book in hand, fleece tucked into her tracksuit bottoms, and smiled a toothless grin. I smiled back.
“Ooooh, I like her. I got one of her books from Oxfam the other day!” she cried excitedly. I paused, short of breath. Perhaps this black market for published authors books was larger than I thought? Oxfam, the car boot sale, jumble sales, charity shops, second hand markets. The options were practically limitless.
Oh, for the day that I see one of my books stacked between ‘Practical Crochet’ and ‘Candlemaking Made Simple’.
Anyway I’m just off to analyse the odds on how many people will read one purchased copy of a novel.
Or should I just buy a lottery ticket and cut out the middle man?