E-book sales dry up in the summer sun

Now I don't want to be a wet blanket or anything. I know it's great that the sun is finally beating down from a clear blue sky and I don't believe in doing the usual British thing of moaning that the weather's too cold and then moaning that it's too hot.

It's just that two annoying phenomena have struck me today caused by the scorching weather: firstly I went to get my hair cut only to find both barbers I tried had closed early, presumably because they thought all their clientele would be slow roasting themselves in the back garden with too many lagers inside them to be bothered about their coiffure.

And secondly and perhaps more significantly, my Kindle e-book sales have dried up in the heat, as surely as a puddle on the patio. Now I can understand if people are too busy getting pink and drunk in the garden to bother with hair-cuts on a Saturday afternoon, but is the summer sun any excuse for not going on Amazon and downloading reasonably priced e-books (such as mine) for one's Kindle?

After all, not having a back-lit screen, the Kindle is perfectly easy to read in bright sunshine and one would have thought, would be the perfect accessory for garden sun-bathing in addition, of course, to the inevitable can of lager.

But my sales have simply vanished without so much as a puff of smoke. I was selling on average two e-books a day of my children's adventure novel Smugglers at Whistling Sands while it was reasonably chilly here in Britain. Then the sun comes out and for the last few days I've not had so much as a single customer!

I wouldn't say this bitter experience is making me pray for rain or anything, but let's just say that when the cold and wet finally returns, I may well be reflecting philosophically that every cloud has a silver lining.