US book seller Barnes & Noble are entering their rival Nook device into the UK market and it will be sold exclusively through chain store John Lewis Partnership. There isn’t much competition here at the moment in the ebook reader market. Amazon has the majority share and the Kobo, which sells exclusively through WHSmith, has not fared as well in the UK as it has done in North America. The Guardian suggests that Amazon Kindle sales represents a wapping 90% of the market share. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: August 2012
Where is Arc 1.3?
By my reckoning it is late.
Arc 1.1 was released on 15th Feb 2012.
Arc 1.2 was released on 24th May 2012.
It is a quarterly magazine so surely Arc 1.3 should be out by now? I have received no communication on this, there is nothing on the Arcfinity tumblr and I’ve not received a single update about upcoming content. The competition link is still on the tumblr page and that closed sometime in July.
There is also nothing on The Tomorrow Project website.
Anybody know anything?
Site redesign complete
So I decided to give it a week or so between changing the site name from “procrastin8or” to “sweat, tears and digital ink” so that non-regulars and the viewers from the web had time to adjust to the new name. I was always going to change the look of the blog but not until I was sure that there would be no more confusion.
I started off with Pilcrow and that standard header image of the row of books. The theme felt a little clunky for me despite that I used it for the best part of 18 months and tinkered with it ove rtime. Approximately four months ago I changed the theme to 2010. It was nice, easy on the eye and semi-professional looking but it still wasn’t what I wanted. I added my own bookshelf image to make it feel more like a bookworm and writer’s blog. Even back then I was starting to feel that I wanted to change the blog name. “Procrastin8or” aside from sounding like the villain in a sci fi spoof, just wasn’t appropriate any more. I’ve stopped procrastinating and I have a passion for writing back again and then some. I write something every day now and I wanted a title to reflect the new step forward. Continue reading
“Evil Begets Evil” finished editing
I flew through this one and it required only minimal editing. Overall I was happy with the way it was written. Some of the dialogue felt stilted and unnatural and it was to the conversations that I made the most amount of changes. A few stock phrases, a couple of clichés hacked out and I was happy with that.
I was very happy with the progress of the story and how well it flowed. The 5200 words approx feels about the right length, unlike the other stories so far which have ended up either 10% longer or 10% shorter than the original edit. I added some atmosphere to a particular scene that was a bit dry and lacked the tension required. Continue reading
Character Feature: Lyra Belacqua
Lyra riding on the back of Iorek Byrnison – promo shot from the 2007 film.
image: allmoviephotos.com
Appeared in: Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy and spin off book Lyra’s Oxford. New Line Cinema filmed a movie version of the first book Northern Lights under its US title The Golden Compass. Lyra portrayed by then debut actress Dakota Blue Richards. Continue reading
Amazon say Kindle sales outstripping those of physical books
They said it was coming but now, online retail giant Amazon have claimed that Kindle ebook sales have overtaken those of printed books. Combining all hardback and paperback sales, digital downloads for Kindle devices is winning the war. But is it? Is there more to this story than meets the eye?
I’d like to go all “2012 and all that” on this post (my secondary blog where I challenge publicly believed nonsense and misinformation) and try to explain my understanding of how this is panning out in real terms. My alarm bells started to ring when I read this excerpt:
Much to the consternation of the publishing industry, Amazon has refused to release audited figures for its digital book sales, something it does for printed books. It told The Guardian that the company would not discuss future policy on the matter.
Evil begets evil – next edit
Last night I started editing the next dusty old short story to go in my ebook. The one I have chosen is Evil Begets Evil. It is the story of a young nun whom is, shall we say, a little different. She doesn’t eat with the other women in the community citing medical illnesses that must adhere to a strict diet. She sleeps mostly during the day and only partakes in the nocturnal prayers with her sisters. This isolation has been noted and commented on by one of the senior nuns though it becomes apparent, the Mother Superior very much supports her in the community, much to the annoyance of her deputy.
I had a lot of fun writing this when I first wrote it (I think about eight years ago) and I really wanted to play around with the idea of conflicting interests, both for the young nun, the community and the two women involved (Mother Superior and her deputy). I also enjoyed formulating the moral clash at the end and the complete turnaround in viewpoints between the two senior women. Continue reading
Like a lead balloon
That’s the way my (web) hit rate has gone since I changed the address for my blog. Whereas before I was getting 40-50 hits per day, now it is fewer than 20. Kind of odd, because the same sort of posts that were getting a lot of hits from google are now getting next to nothing. I don’t think I’ve had a single hit from the web so far, they’ve all come from wordpress searches or my subscribers (now 101 of you, thank you!)
I have put a few of the most popular search terms into google to see if I can get the posts that they refer to but nothing is happening. I guess that was an incredibly stupid move. I guess I ought to start “like spamming” now 
Any hints or tips to get that traffic back would be appreciated.
Three rules for writing a novel
“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
So said W. Somerset Maugham! Today, while I was updating links and profile details on my Good Reads page, I happened as I occasionally do, to click on the quote of the day. I tend to do this when bored or when I have spotted a particularly interesting quote. I spotted this one after scrolling back a few days. What do we think? Are there no known rules for writing a novel? Are any we are offered merely opinions that will not necessarily apply to us? I’ve been thinking about this and here are my six. Continue reading
Changes
The more eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that the address for this blog has changed (I only did it about an hour ago). As I no longer procrastinate, the title of the blog as it was originally established is no longer valid. As of today, the new blog address is: Sweat, Tears and Digital Ink. I couldn’t quite figure out how to get the old address to automatically redirect to the new one so I ended up having to migrate it over to the new address and deleting procrastin8or. I’ll probably get zero hits from the web for the next few days then.
I feel this is a period of change for me in a lot of ways and my attempts to make it as a paid writer is part of those changes. I want to enter and win competitions. I want my work to be appreciated and most importantly, I want to write more. I may soon change the theme again but for now, everything stays the same except the title.
Keep on reading, there will be the same regular content as before!