Monthly Archives: October 2014

You Would Be Barking Mad To Miss It

For anyone interested in the work of The Guide Dogs For The Blind Association, this event may be of interest. The below text is extracted from an e-mail sent to me by GDBA:

 

“Celebrate Christmas with Guide Dogs

 

London Guide Dogs’ Training School warmly invites you to our Christmas

Market on Saturday, 8th November 2014, 12midday to 4pm at Guide Dogs

Training School, 7 Manor Road, Woodford Green, Essex, IG8 8ER.

 

There will be craft stalls, kennel tours, dog demos, Christmas cards,

refreshments and you can even visit Santa Paws Grotto!

Admission is free.

 

If you have any questions regarding this event please call on

08453727421 or email

Redbridge@guidedogs.org.uk.”.

 

 

How Much Do Authors Really Earn?

ebooksinternational's avatarSavvy Writers & e-Books online

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Million-Dollar-Question

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“It doesn’t help authors to say that 70% of the book market is in print if only a small fraction of that money ends up in authors’ pockets.  What we want to see is the combined effect of royalty rate, sales volume, and sale price.  These three factors combine to give us a true picture of comparative earnings, as shown in our pie charts” says Hugh Howey, founder of Author Earnings.
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A Fantastic Report About Author Earnings
He explains: “Sports stars, musicians, actors— their salaries are often discussed.  This is less true for authors, and it creates unrealistic expectations for those who pursue writing as a career.  Now with every writer needing to choose between self-publishing and submitting to traditional publishers, the decision gets even more difficult. Online Book Retailers, such as Barnes&Noble or Amazon don’t share their e-book sales figures.”
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Website for Authors, by…

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Print Books?

Thus far I have published 4 collections of short stories and 1 longer work. All my books are available solely in ebook format.

For some time now I have been considering producing print versions of my books using the Print On Demand (POD) services of Createspace (https://www.createspace.com/). My reasons for considering POD are:

  1. Not everyone likes ebooks and the availability of my stories in exclusively electronic format means they are not reaching people who might otherwise read them.
  2. Even among ebook readers there exist many book lovers who also purchase traditional (print) titles. The availability of my stories in both formats enhances the choices of such readers.
  3. There is something attractive about the feeling of permanence of print books which, to me at least is lacking in the new kid on the block, ebooks. I, personally like having books on shelves and I am far from being alone in this desire to be surrounded by physical works of fiction and non-fiction.

Having said all that,I hesitate to embrace POD as my longest story, Samantha runs to 29 pages and I am not sure whether people will pay for print books of that length. I could get around this issue by producing an anthology of my writing. However this would, I understand mean that I would lose all my Amazon reviews as these pertain to the individual titles, while an anthology is a different beast and would be reviewed as such.

In short I need to give this matter much more thought rather than jumping in feet first. Any advice from authors who have both ebook and print versions of their works available would be most welcome as would comments from readers of both formats.

 

I Am Sailing

As those of you who follow this blog will know, my name is Kevin. Yesterday I received the following text from a friend who was, at that time on his way to France via cross channel ferry,

“Just leaving Harbour. Where told the captain’s name is Kevin. Should I be worried?”

My friend’s text made me smile as, being blind there is no way in which I could hold down the job of captain. However, giving the matter a little more thought I arrived at the following brilliant solution to how a blind man might captain a ship. My guide dog, Trigger is trained to avoid obstacles so why not teach him the following additional commands:

  1. Bark once for rocks dead ahead.
  2. Bark twice for another vessel dead ahead and
  3. Let out a continuous howl when the boat strikes submerged rocks or an iceberg.

Does anyone have the contact details for shipping companies please? I’m taking time out from my writing to apply for the position of ship’s captain. God save me and anyone else who sails with me!

 

Kevin

Author Interviews – A Great Way For Authors To Promote Their Work And Readers To Learn About New Writers

Kev Cooper (no relation to yours truly) offers a great (free) author promotion service. Kev’s Author Interviews allows authors to promote themselves and their work by answering questions supplied by Kev. The interviews also act as a great way for readers to learn about new authors. For further information please visit http://kevs-domain.net/author-interviews-and-contact-information/

For The Good Of Humanity (satire)

For the good of humanity we must sacrifice the paltry joys of the here and now for the ultimate bliss of tomorrow.

For the good of humanity we must abandon the selfish goal of individual fulfilment for the common good.

For the good of humankind we must place freedom on the backburner for we are building an earthly paradise where “the people” shall rule.

Yet Eden remains, floating, somewhere forever out of reach while “the people” shrug their shoulders, and smile or weep.

 

Written after reading an article on North Korea).

 

Abandoned

Rain sodden corpse, in a churchyard. Abandoned, unclaimed, slowly decay setting in.

Once you wowed audiences. Your music had couples dancing, romancing. Many a love was born as you filled the air with melodies sweet.

Now your heart is still. No more tunes will eminate from your once mighty chest.

An old piano, your notes immovable, choked with rain water, you stand by the church, sadly waiting to be taken away.

 

(On Thursday 2 October my mum, her partner and I came across an abandoned piano, in the church close to my home. When first discovered it still worked. However due to heavy rain the piano’s notes are now immovable. How the instrument came to be in the churchyard I have no idea but, at time of writing it remains there).

How Newspapers / Magazines Deceive Readers

Nielsen report that ebook sales constituted only 22 percent of book sales in the first half of the year with both paperback and hardbacks outselling electronic publications. As the author of this post says 22 percent appears to be a somewhat questionable statistic. I would be interested to hear your comments. Are ebook sales only around 22 percent of book sales in your opinion?

ebooksinternational's avatarSavvy Writers & e-Books online

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A Joke? Statistics about the numbers of e-Books versus print books – taken from companies that sell only print books? Yes, that’s right – or have you ever purchased an e-book at WalMart, Costco, Sam’s Club, Target or K-Mart?
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BookStore

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Flawed Survey, Sloppy Research, No Fact-Checking…
“Print Books Still Outselling e-Books” or “Print Books Outsold Ebooks In First Half Of 2014” are the big headlines these days at newspapers and magazines, from PublishersWeekly to GoodeReader and Huffington Post.
“According to Nielsen’s survey, e-books constituted only 23 percent of unit sales for the first six months of the year, while hardcovers made up 25 percent and paperback 42 percent of sales.”

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What’s NOT Included in these Articles:

  • The fact that NielsenScan covers a maximum of 75% of the US and UK book market
  • From which book retailers and which publishers – trade and / or independent publishers?

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Notice

Yesterday evening my friend, Brian told me about the following sign he had come across in the disabled toilet of a well known coffee chain. It read,

“On pulling the red cord staff will enter the toilet immediately”.

The above conjures up images of a trap door flying open to admit the intrepid rescuers who, with great courage and selflessness parachute in landing in …!

I think, perhaps there should be some form of punctuation in the above mentioned sign!

‘To Autumn’ by John Keats

One of my favourite poems and highly appropriate for the time of year. I am lucky enough to live next to a park where I can appreciate the seasons as they come and go. The poem is followed by an insightful commentary on it’s meaning. Enjoy!

emilyardagh's avatarA poem for every day

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head…

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