Are Readers Becoming Distracted?

Since my novel 'Maz and Me' was published on Amazon, I have been trying to generate interest in it.  I was told that the price, at £2.83 was 'too high by today's standards'.  I lowered the price to £1.98 and still there were very little sales.  

I am beginning to wonder if many people, with all the distractions of technology and social networking, have very little time for reading even a short novel?  Others tell me that they download 'loads of books' when they are on 'free offers.'  This makes life very difficult for a writer like me who, after writing a novel for three years, cannot be rewarded for the effort of providing for the reading public, what is described by a critic as a 'quietly and cleverly amusing' story. 

As a happy user of technology myself, it is interesting that I remember a time when I would sit and read a print novel after work in the evenings for hours.  Now, when I am reading using any kind of technological device, there is a temptation to stop for a few minutes and skip to an 'app' to see what is happening in the outside world, therefore becoming easily distracted from the story.  It concerns me that our children may no longer have time for lengthy deep reading and contemplation, which is so important.

When I was a child, we would sit together as a family (sometimes in front of an open fire) and quietly read.  There were no other real interruptions, except to perhaps glance into the flames and imagine the images you could see there.

'The Catcher in the Rye' and childhood influences on writing

Since reading 'The Catcher in the Rye' as a teenager, then later as an adult and remembering reading it to my own teenage children, I have been fascinated by the protagonist, Holden Caulfield.

A little of my own childhood was spent 'living-in' in a school for emotionally disturbed boys where my father taught and, where as a small girl I was schooled, by the boys, to swear in rhyme.

These childhood influences, I am sure, come to bear when you write your own novel.  Hence, my  protagonist 'Tony Goodbody' in the novel 'Maz and Me' was created, a complex character aged thirty, with affinities to Holden Caulfield.  He begins his journey battling his sarcastic impulses and lack of direction. His observations are humorous and graphic, but with the guidance of an older woman (to whom he is attracted), he reaches some maturation. 

Holden Caulfield wanted to be a 'catcher in the rye', to protect children from the less than good side of adults and, in the book, he explains this idea to his little sister Phoebe.  It intrigues me, and I wonder how Holden Caulfield would have matured and what kind of adult he would have become.........