Radio Archives

I got into pulp in my teens by way of Sword and Sorcery and the great Weird Tales authors; Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and H. P. Lovecraft. This was back in the early 70’s when there was very definitely a pulp renaissance under way. I am not entirely sure why that was. I suspect that there was probably a generation of people working in publishing who were as nostalgic for the comfort reading of their youths as I now am for the comfort reading of mine. It probably didn’t do any harm that there were vast stocks of Read more…

Indie Publishing a Print Book

So, how much does it cost to independently produce the print version of a book these days? Well, Stealer of Flesh (currently available from Amazon, the Book Depository and any bookstore where you care to place an order ISBN: 978-1483969541) cost me somewhere under $125. To those of you who, like me, grew up in the world of Quark Xpress, offset printing and warehouse distribution, that number is probably jaw-dropping. Welcome to the new world of Print On Demand (POD) publishing. Let’s take a look out how the figures break down. I used CreateSpace, Amazon’s print on demand subsidiary for the Read more…

Howard Andrew Jones on Sword And Sorcery

 I first encountered Howard Andrew Jones over seven years ago when he was editing the old Flashing Swords website. Howard bought my first Kormak story, The Guardian of the Dawn, which naturally disposed me to think he was a man of considerable good taste. Over the years we’ve engaged in a good deal of correspondence on the subject of Sword and Sorcery, a type of fiction close to both our hearts. We shared many of the same influences, from Robert E Howard to Fritz Leiber to Michael Moorcock. It turned out Howard was, in particular, an expert on one of Read more…

E-Books: The Content Wars Begin

When I signed into my KDP account today there was a new banner right beside the logo announcing KDP Select and showing a link to the details of the new program. (For those of you who do not know the acronym, it stands for Kindle Direct Publishing and it’s the arm of Amazon that lets me distribute those ebooks you see in the right hand column of this blog.) The basic information is interesting. In return for going exclusive with Amazon for 90 days you get access to some bonus features. You can make your book free for 5 days Read more…