Yesterday, I saw something small, but significant for me. A printed copy of Forgotten Soldiers was bought in Australia. Another one found its way to Canada.

It’s a strange feeling.

Every time I notice a sale from somewhere far away, Europe, the USA, Chile, Australia, I pause for a moment. Not because it changes anything financially. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t. Writing books is not a fast track to riches.

But it does something else. It reminds me that somewhere, someone, out of the millions of books available on Amazon, chose mine.

Think about that for a second. A person sitting in a completely different part of the world, with no connection to me, no shared context, no Echo Parabat group, no South African background, scrolls past thousands of titles, and then stops. Clicks. Reads the description. And decides, “I’ll give this one a go.”

That’s not something I take lightly.

Books have always travelled, long before the internet, long before Kindle, long before print-on-demand. Stories crossed oceans in crates, backpacks, and memory. But now, it happens instantly. Quietly. Almost invisibly.

A story written in South Africa can land on a bedside table in Sydney. Or a Kindle in Toronto. Or a quiet corner somewhere in Europe. And I’ll never know who that reader is. I won’t see their reaction. I won’t hear what they thought. I won’t know if they finished the book or put it down halfway through.

But I do know this. For a brief moment, our worlds overlap. And that, to me, is the real reward. Not the sale. Not the ranking. Not even the review. (Thank you Rod from Australia, for your honest review on Amazon.com :-))

Just the simple fact that a story I wrote managed to travel and find someone.

So, to whoever you are, in Australia, Canada, or anywhere else in the world, thank you.

You had millions of choices. And you chose mine.