Ebooks and Stuff!
Good news potentially, from the Frankfurt Book Fair. Apparently agents are warning of a reckoning to come, because of the low royalties paid to authors. If you want to read more, go and look at The Bookseller for the full article here: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/agents-warn-e-book-reckoning.html Many people have asked me in the last few months why so … Continue reading
RIP Steve Jobs
OK. Steve Jobs. Now, I have never met the man, and yes, I admire him. He took a pretty screwy idea, and set up a small company in his parents’ home. He created the Apple computers. I had some experience of them. The old Apple IIe used to grace a table in my parent’s home, … Continue reading
This really is the death knell for publishers
My apologies. This is a blog from an astonishingly angry author. Why? Today the Bookseller announced that Amazon is having a great new sales campaign. In an October Kindle promotion, they will be aiming to sell vast numbers of books. This is brilliant news, isn’t it? Amazon will do what they do best, push huge … Continue reading
Writing – Tools and materials.
Time was, you’d write a book by buying a pencil and a lot of paper. Not everyone, of course, would do it that way. Some folks went to steel nibbed pens and ink with their paper. That was a little new-fangled, of course. Then you got the modern habit of buying gizmos. People learned of … Continue reading
Inspirations
I cannot read books while writing. It really is impossible. The way a writer writes gets into the rhythms of my mind, and his cadences and use of language, all influence what I try to write for myself. It’s bad enough having to read quite so many historical books with each novel (by way of … Continue reading
What is it about social media?
Right, I know I’m not the most reliable blogger or tweeter in the world, but there are times when you just have to get on with the day job, and writing a 1,000 word commentary doesn’t always fit in with it. Today, for example, I am immersed in the middle of an almost two month … Continue reading
American tours.
When I started out, seventeen years and thirty two books ago, it seemed to me that the idea of being a writer was simply brilliant. I never expected to be a multi-millionaire, but to be fair, in those days, it was pretty easy to earn a fair living. Price protection on books meant that authors … Continue reading
Language
Ach, it’s a tough one, but I got three comments about anachronisms in my language this week, so got to make a comment, I guess. This is a hard one to comment on, because no matter what I say, I will be wrong in the eyes of some. Some years ago, I was contacted by … Continue reading
Naughty Nuns and Provocative Priests
I confess, there are few topic that are more likely to upset a certain group, than allegations of misbehaviour in Holy Orders. OK, I know it’s a cliche nowadays. I accept that. Since it appears that scarcely a month goes past without a story about another bad boy in the vicarage in Ireland, or America, … Continue reading
Ten Deadly Sins of Entering Competitions
This week, the competition run by Simon & Schuster for a Michael Jecks Detection Collection pen from Conway Stewart as been won, by Michael Chidley. Congratulations to Michael, and sorry to all those who didn’t win the pen. You’ll just have to save your pennies! Thinking of competitions, I was reminded of the old CWA … Continue reading
writerlywitterings 