Tobias S. Buckell's Blog, page 32

Site relaunch sale, just use the code ‘siterelaunch’

Since relaunching the website last week I’ve been pretty happy with the faster loading times, cleaner layout, and an easier-to-navigate ‘buy my books‘ section.

I’ve updated how you can buy books directly from the website as well. Instead of using a shopping cart system, I’ve moved all the eBooks over to Gumroad. Gumroad is a nifty 3rd party site that accepts credit cards, delivers the files, and basically makes it painless and worry-free for me to offer direct sales of the eBooks.

Books with th...

Clarkesworld: Year 6 is out, and features stories by me and David Klecha

Clarkesworld Magazine is putting out Year Six, and it includes two stories written by David Klecha and me:

The Found Girl by David Klecha and Tobias S. Buckell

A Militant Peace by David Klecha and Tobias S. Buckell

A lot of other fantastic writers are included as well!

Amazon: it’s not being a detractor to point out a pattern of repeated behaviour

Damien G. Walter cuts to the heart of it:

“The battle between Hachette and Amazon, and the wider conflict between publishers and Amazon, is a conflict between sellers and the marketplace. Neither side is good or evil. They are business entities, which do what business entities do, which is to act selfishly in their own interests at all times and in all things. The competition between publishers and Amazon is actually very good for writers – it is raising advances and adding new income sources...

Why the Amazon buy buttons disappeared on my website today

This week, Amazon has been playing hardball with authors:

“I haven’t been online all that much (and shouldn’t be right now, either–I have books to finish) but apparently Amazon has stepped up its pressure on Hachette by yanking buy links for all their books. Beyond that, they’re also screwing with search results, messing with book categorizations, and pushing readers who want to buy Hachette books toward Hachette’s competitors. And the reason they can do this is you.

Now, if your response to al...

States in which Tesla is allowed to sell cars

In what states can Tesla sell its electric car, and in what states is it blocked from selling them?

Help Fund My Robot Army anthology by John Joseph Adams to feature my story “Help Fund Taphagnosis Industries”

John Joseph Adams lets me know that I can announce that my story “Help Fund Taphagnosis Industries” will be a part of the anthology put together by his successful Kickstarted anthology Help Fund My Robot Army, a collection of Kickstarter inspired science fiction and fantasy stories.

It was a bit more challenging than I’d initially expected to fit a story into the structure, but I enjoyed the process. Like writing a poem with a formal structure, you find yourself having fun with the limits.

I’ve...

Website relaunch

Well, the website is all shiny and new again. I last overhauled it in March 2013, as I felt it had been getting creaky. However, the new template that I used required me to set up a lot of plugins to make it work. A whole layer on top of everything else. And it was very dodgy.

Eventually I got tired of things breaking due to wordpress upgrading and decided to revamp.

Additionally, since the last revamp, people had pointed out that the background and tiny font had been making it hard to read.

For...

Hurricane Fever just got a *starred* review from Kirkus!

Kirkus is one of the big review magazines out there. I’ve just received my first star ever from them, and it’s for Hurricane Fever, and it says things like:

A stormy, aptly named thriller set in the Caribbean of the near future.

and

Buckell has written a smart and well-constructed tale that’s filled with excitement and the flavor of the Caribbean isles.

and

So don’t wait for a dark and stormy night to read this novel; you’ll have plenty of fun.

It’s always exciting to get a starred review.

You can p...

Watercolor by keyboard

Waiting for me by my keyboard this morning, one of Calli’s watercolors from last night.

One of them also did a quite credible UFO under a gray rainbow.

Persistence of belief in non-true things

Well, that’s a bit depressing:

“Strong partisanship affected how a story about climate change was processed, even if the story was apolitical in nature, such as an article about possible health ramifications from a disease like the West Nile Virus, a potential side effect of change. If information doesn’t square with someone’s prior beliefs, he discards the beliefs if they’re weak and discards the information if the beliefs are strong.”

(Via Why Do People Persist in Believing Things That Just A...