Netflix for Books
Over the past few days Amazon has once again shaken up the world of ebook publishing by announcing its Kindle Unlimited (KU) program, a subscription service which allows members (currently in the US only) access to a more or less unlimited number of ebooks and audiobooks for the payment of a $9.99 monthly fee. This is being touted as a Netflix for Ebooks in some corners and it has caused controversy and much fevered discussion among indie authors. Lots of people have expressed opinions about the upsides, downsides and possible strategies for indie authors. For what it’s worth these are Read more…
Second Kormak Saga Omnibus Released
The second Kormak omnibus has been released. It’s a three-for-the-price-of-two bargain available at all the major e-book retailers right now. Here’s the blurb. THE SECOND KORMAK SAGA OMNIBUS From the rat-infested streets of nightmare-haunted Vermstadt, to the ruins of the greatest of all Dwarvish nations and beyond, Kormak must battle demons and monsters and the worst evil of all, that which lies within the human heart. The Kormak Omnibus compiles three of Kormak’s greatest adventures into one massive volume packed with action, adventure and magic. CITY OF STRIFE A sinister conspiracy brings the great city-state of Vermstadt to the edge Read more…
Starting A Mailing List
Every writer should have a mailing list. That’s one of those of those bits of advice that you will get sooner or later if you hang around writers’ boards on the internet long enough. It also happens to be true although it took me a long time to realise it. I started my mailing list a few years back. To be honest, for the first year or so, I made no effort to attract folk to my mailing list whatsoever. And, oddly enough, it never seemed very useful. Then I read Your First Thousand Copies which made a pretty convincing Read more…
A False Start
I am on holiday in the very lovely Cesky Raj and I am looking for an easy subject for a blog post. Fortunately one is close at hand. Last week I announced the release of the second Kormak short story, A Cold and Lonely Place, and this provoked some interesting discussions in the comments and emails I received. Among the things that came up was my habit of writing first scenes of short stories that I don’t or can’t finish. The reasons for this are alluded to in the comments of the last post. What I thought I would do Read more…
Throwing Away a Book
I’ve been on a voluntary simplicity kick recently. You know the sort of thing – throwing out old stuff I no longer require or use (of which there is a surprising amount), resisting buying new stuff no matter how big the temptation and so on. It gives life a bit of discipline and one of the major effects is that it makes me think twice about buying something new just because I feel the sudden urge to spend and I see something shiny. After all, what is the point of acquiring it if I know there is a good chance Read more…
Taking Notes with Pen and Screen
A couple of months back I read this article by David Hewson about using an Asus Vivotab Note 8 to replace paper printouts while editing. I liked the idea of being able to carry a whole stack of manuscript pages in my pocket and work on them whenever the notion took me and I am a sucker for a new gadget so I bought one myself. The Note is small and light tablet with a decent 8 inch screen and a Wacom digitiser pen. It uses the latest generation Atom processors and it gets about 8–9 hours of battery life. Read more…
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