|
Not so much "owing" perhaps, but authors--an insecure bunch in my experience--do enjoy appreciative feedback direct from readers.
One of my books is a non-fiction, true-crime book about a serial killer in the Australian outback. It was a very unusual case because detective writer Arthur Upfield, then a beginning author and an itinterant boundary rider, devised a scheme around a campfire to destroy a dead body using only the tools and equipment available on outback stations. This was the centre of his novel The Sands of Windee. However, by the time the novel was published in 1931, one of the men around that campfire had put the scheme in practice in real life. Three men vanished without trace (well, almost without trace). The killer was caught and eventually hanged.
Years after my book was published, I was contacted by a grandchild of one of the victims, who had been a New Zealander. The disappearance of the grandfather had been a deep dark secret in the family, and now at last she knew the full story. All she knew before that was that her mother had been an orphan. I was able to send a good photo of the grandfather--the family had no picture of him. I was also then contacted by descendants of another victim. They, too, had no idea what had happened to him, and were grateful to know at last.
It does make you feel good.
Mind you, getting feedback pointing out conspicuous errors in a non-fiction book can be embarrassing!
|