Because I haven't put dollars into this business of marketing books, I have some comfort that at least I haven't pulled money from one need to feed another. But emotional blood, sweat, and tears, there's been plenty of that. And there have been dollars involved even if indirectly.
For instance this week-end, I finally thought I had the right weather to get a photo of a home that would fit one my heroine owned in the book I am redoing. I had put together most of a trailer for it but wanted her home, as it's an important part of the story and figures prominently in several key scenes.
Getting that photo required driving around 80 miles to the Portland area. The photo (yes, I found one) didn't come for free given gasoline prices-- but we often like to go for drives. This was an area Farm Boss had been a lot as a young person; so it was kind of fun on that level.
This drive was also a step back in time for me. The house I had written about was based on one an uncle had rented between having sold one home and having a better home built. His mother, three kids, and he (he was a widower) spent a summer at that house on the banks of the Tualatin River. I loved when I came to spend a few nights. You could swim off a dock that was right below the house. The home was kind of sprawling, old and not in great shape, but I had had my heroine buy it that way and do the remodeling before the book begins.
Although I didn't get the photo of that house (it has since been nicely remodeled and was not accessible from the public road), we did find a very nice, public trail and park that they have put along the Tualatin. We walked about half a mile down it and got some photos through the brush of homes on the other side. One of which will work nicely for what I needed. I'd hate to try and figure out what that one photo cost though-- so I won't.
The two photos above are not the house. The second one was on the lane leading to the house I once stayed in.
