I am extremely pleased that one of my poems, Dalliance has been accepted for publication by Calamities Press. Dalliance first appeared on Newauthoronline in August 2014. It can be found on Calamities Press, in slightly amended form by following this link, http://calamitiespress.com/2014/09/21/dalliance-poetry-by-kevin-morris/.
Amazon are campaigning for the price of ebooks to be reduced, http://www.readersunited.com/. Much of what Amazon says makes sense. The cost of producing and distributing an ebook is negligible compared to traditional books and yet many electronic texts are only marginally less expensive than their venerable hard and paperback cousins, indeed some ebooks cost more than the tomes on sale in book stores which can not be justified.
As an author myself I want as many people as possible to buy my books. Reading is for everyone and yes, of course I want to make a little money!
Take a look at the above link and make up your own mind as to whether Amazon’s campaign is worthy of support.
I was surprised to discover that my site, newauthoronline.com shows up in the following RSS feed reader, http://newauthoronline4.rssing.com/chan-10990029/all_p15.html. I am pleased on the basis that any publicity is good publicity, however, from looking at the site it appears that site owners register their websites and can request the deletion of a site if this was not the case. I have no problem with my blog appearing, for the reasons given above. I am, however sure that I didn’t register my channel.
For fellow bloggers you may wish to check whether your site appears here. I haven’t contacted the website to register my channel as I can’t see the benefit of doing so but perhaps others can see an advantage which I am missing.
Amazon’s KDP Select programme, https://kdp.amazon.com/select, offers authors the ability to promote their books free for upto 5 days in any 90 day period. Free promotions do, in my experience work. As a consequence of the free promotion of my story Samantha it received a respectable number of downloads together with 4 4 star reviews. Encouraged by the success of Samantha I determined to try out Amazon’s recently launched Kindle Discount Deals which, as the name suggests allows authors to offer their work at a reduced price. I offered my collection of short stories, An Act Of Mercy And Other Stories at the reduced price of 99 cents on amazon.com from 18-24 December. However, to my disappointment not a single copy of An Act Of Mercy did I sell.
What lessons (if any) do I draw from the above? Readers are more likely to download books which are free than those which are discounted unless you happen to be a household name or your book has attracted a number of 4 or 5 star reviews. I will consider using Kindle Discount Deals again. I will, however enrol Samantha or Sting In The Tail as both have attracted 4 star reviews.
I don’t claim to be an expert on the workings of KDP Select and other authors will, I am sure have different stories to tell (no pun intended)! As regards Kindle Discount Deals and other aspects of the KDP Select programme. As always I would be interested to hear the experiences of others.
For my Amazon Author’s Page please visit http://www.amazon.co.uk/K.-Morris/e/B00CEECWHY/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
On 24 November I wrote about my inability to read a book on my Kindle due to text to speech not being enabled for the title, http://newauthoronline.com/2013/11/24/the-silence-is-deafening/. At that time I did not name the book as I wished to try to persuade the author and/or publisher to change their mind and enable text to speech thereby allowing me, as a blind person who is not able to read print, to access the book using my Kindle. Having received no answer from either the publisher or author I have, reluctantly decided to name the book, Free Will by Sam Harris, http://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Sam-Harris-ebook/dp/B006IDG2T6. The title is available as an MP3 download (a fact discovered after some considerable Googling)! However blind people should, so far as is humanly possible, have the same choice regarding how they access books as sighted readers do. Sighted people can purchase the book in hard copy, as a Kindle download or on MP3. In contrast blind readers have only one option, to purchase the MP3 download. This is, to me unfair as it artificially limits my ability to choose how I access the work. I am not arguing that the provision of the book in hard copy is discriminatory. Such an argument would be risible. I can not read print but that is not the fault of the author and/or the publisher. However the author/publisher do have control regarding the Kindle version of Free Will and they have chosen not to enable text to Speech rendering the Kindle version inaccessible to those who can not read print.
As previously stated, all of my books have text to speech enabled. I believe that everyone irrespective of their disability is entitled to access books. To enable text to speech is such a minor matter for authors and publishers but it makes such a huge difference to the ability of visually impaired people to access the wonderful world of literature.
It may be objected that authors are not charities so why should they provide their books with text to speech enabled, especially if the selling of audio versions will generate additional income? As writers we are not mere players in the free market. We are citizens with moral obligations to our fellow man. There is nothing wrong with turning a profit and I am always delighted when I hear of authors who have done well, however money is not the be all and end all. We exist in a community and we owe duties to others. One of those duties is not to discriminate (albeit, in many cases unintentionally by failing to provide accessible versions of our books). I am not suggesting that authors spend hard earned money on producing expensive braille editions so that blind people can access them. I am, however saying that all authors should enable text to speech as it costs us nothing and, in addition creates a great deal of good will among visually impaired people, their family and friends.
(As of 13 December 2013 text to speech was not enabled on Sam Harris’s Free Will).
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. The old saying seems particularly apt when discussing the issue of trolling and, more specifically it’s relationship to book reviews. For anyone unfamiliar with the term, a troll is an individual who makes comments in order to provoke conflict. Here we are not talking about a reader who provides a 1 or 2 star review and furnishes a reasoned explanation for his/her perspective on the work. Authors may not like such reviews (although one can learn from constructive criticism), however they can not be considered as constituting trolling. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and the taking of offence at the expression of opinions with which authors (or anyone else) may disagree is not a valid reason for labelling such expressions as trolling.
Genuine trolling is, however sadly alive and well on the internet. Take, for example the following review and the comments generated by it, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/499148682. The reviewer takes a positive delight in ripping the author’s work apart. It is, to the reviewer a source of considerable hilarity to point out grammatical errors (real or imagined). He appears to revel in making his followers laugh and laugh they do in response to the reviewer’s tearing apart of the author’s work. What should be a serious forum for discussing literature degenerates into an arena in which the reviewer and his/her followers rip their quarry apart. Blood sports are banned or curtailed in many countries but they remain alive and well on the internet.
As a libertarian (with a small l) I am wary of banning activities. There is a thin line between a person expressing their strong objection to a book and an individual deliberately looking to stir up conflict for the sake of so doing. However it strikes me that forums such as Goodreads need to look at whether they have strong enough measures in place to prevent, so far as is possible, unproductive and often vicious attacks on authors.
(Disclaimer: I have not read the book in question nor am I acquainted with it’s author).
On 24 November I wrote about my frustration at the failure of some authors and publishers to enable the text to speech facility on Kindle e-books thereby preventing blind people (and others who are not able to read print) from accessing them, (see http://newauthoronline.com/2013/11/24/the-silence-is-deafening/. I subsequently made contact with the author however, having heard nothing I have, today contacted the publishers to request that the text to speech facility is enabled. I will update you if/when I receive a response from either the author or publisher. Many thanks to all of you who commented or reblogged my post. Your support is very much appreciated.
One of the joys associated with e-books is the fact that most are accessible to people with a visual impairment. As a blind book lover who is not able to read print I relish my ability to read e-books either on my Kindle or using the Kindle app on my iPad, via the text to speech facility (on the Kindle) or by Apple’s in-built screen reader, Voiceover on my iPad.
I was disappointed to find that a book recommended to me by an acquaintance (and available in the Kindle store) does not have the text to speech facility enabled thereby rendering my purchase of the title in question pointless as I would be unable to read the work in question.
As an author I can understand the legitimate desire of writers to protect their work from copyright theft. All of my books are Digital Rights Management (DRM) protected rendering them virtually impossible to copy. However all of my books as with the majority of those available in the Kindle store have text to speech enabled thereby allowing visually impaired individuals to purchase them. I would never disable text to speech because, by so doing I would be locking out blind people from the possibility of reading my works independently.
I have sometimes heard it argued that authors disable text to speech because their book is also available as an audible download from companies such as audible.co.uk/audible.com. If the book is available as an audio download then what is the point (the argument goes) in providing a text to speech enabled version of the book on Amazon.
In answer to the above I would argue that visually impaired readers should have the same choice as to how they access books as their sighted friends and acquaintences. If a copy of a book which does not have tex to speech enabled is available from Amazon and, in addition as an audio download then the sighted reader has a choice of either purchasing the Kindle book or the audio download. In contrast the blind reader has only one choice, to download the audio version as the Kindle book is inaccessible to him or her. This is, to my mind grossly unfair as blind people should (as stated above) be afforded the same opportunity to access books as their sighted compatriots.
Certain works are only available as inaccessible (non text to speech) enabled Kindle downloads with there existing no audio alternative. Consequently blind people have their ability to access such books severely curtailed. They can request a sighted friend to read the book which negates their independence or request a charity such as the Royal National Institute of The Blind (RNIB) to record the work or transcribe it into braille. However the latter option can be time consuming and can leave the visually impaired person feeling like a second class citizen who must rely on others for his or her reading enjoyment.
I won’t name the book or the author as I hope to be able to make contact and persuade them to make their book available, on Amazon with text to speech enabled (there appears to be no audio alternative).
Most authors who sell their books on Amazon do make them available with text to speech enabled and I am, as a blind person grateful to the vast majority of writers who do the right thing. To those authors who don’t enable accessibility for visually impaired people, I am sure that most of you do not realise that the effect of your decision is to make the lives of blind readers difficult by reducing their choice of reading material. If you are one of those authors please look again and ensure that your books are accessible to all not just those who can read print.
In conclusion this post is not aimed at the vast majority of writers who make their works accessible by enabling text to speech (on the Kindle) or Voiceover (on Apple products), it is aimed at the minority of authors and publishers who do not do the right thing.
An extract from my friend’s unpublished novel can be found on his blog here http://besonian.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/excerpt-from-an-unpublished-novel-part-v/.
Sometimes I feel as though I am living in a virtual world. All of my books are available solely in e-book format (there is nothing concrete which my readers can grasp hold of not counting their reading devices of course)!
Other than close friends, family and a smattering of acquaintences who I actually (shock horror talk to face-to-face) all of the communication regarding my writing takes place in the virtual realm (either on this blog, Twitter and, occasionally via Facebook).
Blogging is wonderful and I enjoy communicating online with readers and, of course reading other people’s blogs. However I yearn for something concrete which I, and others can reach out and touch. With this in mind I am considering having business cards produced with the address of this blog together with my contact details printed on them. It will be nice to have something solid to hand out to people as their eyes glaze over while I regail them with information about my books! Seriously the internet is great but there is no substitute for actually talking to people face-to-face about your writing and that business card is, at the very least a useful object for the kids to crayon on if nothing else!
For my Amazon authors page please visit http://www.amazon.co.uk/K.-Morris/e/B00CEECWHY/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
K Morris - Poet 