Roaming through my website I came across the following warnings for authors. I’m not sure if I originally wrote them, or found them elsewhere. Whatever… I think they are relevant.

   1.  Never write ‘too close to home’ or family and friends
may be upset, disown or sue.
2.  Keep your author photo within 5 years of your real face and shape.

3.  Murphy’s Lore- the cost of Bank exchange fees to convert from foreign  sales may exceed your income from obscure currencies with lots of zeros.

4.  Readers often assume fiction is autobiography, especially the sexual parts.

5.  Ex-lovers consider their love life private.

6.  Use different signatures for autograph and credit cards to avoid being  scammed.

7.  A ‘thesis’ does not a book make.

8.  Beware of pirates, of the on-line intellectual property kind. IP can also  mean International Piracy.

9.   ‘Prolific’ is a put-down. If you use a pseudonym, remember it.

10. Back up! Your computer will crash on deadline and the technician
will earn more in 15 minutes than your entire royalty period.

11. Be wary of flattery! What have you written? Anything I might have read?
Are you famous? Or – I loved your book. I got it for 10 cents from the  op-shop.

Despite these warnings, the creative health of most authors is enriched by the  imaginative satisfaction of their work. Retirement is only an option when your brain goes’funny. Or you are dead!