Oddly it also says she "swapped" her one bedroomed flat in Surrey for the house in Devon....

I have two guesses.

1) The writer of the article has simply got it wrong, and she's made 10,000 pounds in proceeds from the sale of the book so far, and that's what she's using.

2) The book was bought by a major publisher after being self-published, and the writer of the article either failed to ask what house it was, failed to understand that it was a different house that gave her the advance, or wasn't allowed to write about which house it was for some reason.

Either way, that's one hell of a wig.

She was on local radio last Friday. Actually, it sounded as though she had the house already and was planning to use the money from the book to house a couple of friends. But the interview wasn't that long.

The book's only been out since July, so, a) She won't have received a royalty cheque yet, and b) she's already sold her flat and bought the house, which usually takes 3 months.

Seems to me she must have used some of the profits from the sale of the flat to publish the book.

Or its a fantastic PR stunt to get publicity for her self-published book, which given the coverage might now go on to sell lots.

M

This morning I read a piece on the BBC blog which contained a brief note from Lorna Page, and her daughter in law, Cate someone or other: apparently Cate "published" with AuthorHouse, and paid to do so, as AuthorHouse is a vanity press; Cate then found a novel Lorna had written, and suggested Lorna also "publish" through AuthorHouse. Lorna did NOT recieve any advance from AuthorHouse: in fact, she paid to publish with them.

The house deal is completely separate, and both that, and the supposed advance, are both results of misreporting.

I've got a small blog post coming up tomorrow (Friday) which explains this a little more clearly, and provides links to much of the discussion that's been going on about this non-existent advance.