New living area, new publishing deal: time to find a new accountant. How do I do that? Maybe the way I picked the solicitors: Googling those in walking distance and selecting on architectural / pink-painted appeal.

But the names of the accountancy firms springing up on the map suggest further filtering is needed. I’m looking at companies called TaxAssist (too on the nose), Advanta (did two letters fall off their signboard?), Breeze (it won’t be, for an arithmophobic author), and Savoir Faire (oh bog off). Decided to be a normal person for a moment and call them about fees. I got a lot of piece-of-string answers, including one from an accountant who charges by the hour but had a very unfortunate stutter.

Eventually I spoke to a gem at a company with a flat fee, Victorian stucco, and generous free advice on the phone.

Talking to an accountant about the publication of my novel in April 2018, my pre-publication presumptuousness reached a whole new level. But here’s my tax tip for the signed author waiting to be published: did you know that expenses for your pre-published writing can be set against non-writing earnings for the same year? Maybe I’m the last to know. But yup, the cost of notebooks, a book about childhood in the 1950s, a ticket for a paddle steamer etc. etc. will be reducing tax for my science research and piano teaching work. Crazy but cracking news. Talk to an accountant!