Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 47
May 3, 2022
GOOD NEWS; BAD NEWS_IWSG Post
BOOK SALES UP; READERSHIP DOWN
Both publishers and booksellers celebrated the news that print book sales were up 9.1 percent last year.
A huge increase in fiction units sold led the way, with young adult fiction sales jumping 30.7 percent,
adult fiction up 25.5 percent, and children’s fiction up 9.6 percent, respectively.
All told, print book sales have risen more than 18 percent since the start of the pandemic in early 2020.
NOW THE BAD NEWS
The statistics on female readership are specifically troubling.
For decades, women read nearly twice as many books as men, but the gap has narrowed significantly.
The average American woman read 15.7 books last year compared to 19.3 books five years ago.
While male readership declined only slightly over the same time period, going from 10.4 books in 2016 to 9.5 in 2021,
This decrease in the number of books women read will particularly impact fiction sales, given that women account for 80 percent of all fiction sales in the U.S., U.K., and Canada.
https://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Fae/dp/B00DQ9YBNY/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=My bi-sexual fae still is one of my best selling books and audio books ... so female fae readers are still interested in this book at least ...
in which I answer the question ... when two lesbians tango who leads?
Why the most dangerous one, of course. If both disagree on who that is?
Well. it makes for an ... interesting tango!
MIDNIGHT WISDOM NUGGET #1
The overall decline in readership is likely due to increased interest in other at-home leisure activities, particularly digital streaming services.
LIKE ARCANE
Just six percent claimed reading to be their favorite way to spend an evening,
far below spending time with family (33%) or watching television or movies (23%).
Gallup notes that this is only the second time since 1960
that's less than 10 percent of Americans
didn’t select reading as their top favorite evening activity.
Unsettling, right?
Paper Shortages Continue to Delay Book Publication
Even though some mills might have closed, more likely than not they’re not making book papers anymore.
SO WHAT TO DO?
DEPENDS
DO YOU WANT TO CREATE ART?
WANT TO SELL BOOKS?
Follow Elmore Leonard best rule:
Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them.
Write what interests and amuses you ... someone else might have similar tastes.
If not, you will have spent time in a world that absorbs you.
May 1, 2022
IN A WORLD WHERE NANCY PELOSI IS 3RD IN LINE FOR PRESIDENT ...
I AM.
HOW ABOUT YOU?
April 20, 2022
WE ARE LIVING IN A MEL BROOKS MOVIE
We are the laughing stock of the world ... even Australia is gett ing into the act.
And Saudi Arabia ...
Sadly, I think we are all riding
the bomb.
But no one may be alive to laugh
at the ending.
What about you?
April 19, 2022
April 16, 2022
PEACE IN A WORLD WITHOUT IT_EASTER 2022 Post
-Elu
"Nothing can bring you peace of mind but yourself."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder."
- St. Augustine
As I sat down at my laptop tonight, mulling over what to write for tomorrow's post,
Anything I could write seemed trivial against a backdrop of
death, hate, and the madness resulting from the Ukrainian horrors.
watching a standing president's mind unravel before us,
seeing the Democratic leaders become the 3 Monkeys ignoring evil.
I heard one word murmur within my mind: "Peace."
I wasn't thinking of inner peace.
I was thinking of what my writing friends might be interested in.
Perhaps the Great Mystery answered my question for me.
Don't expect any great wisdom here though.
I am not the Great Mystery. I don't have the job qualifications.
But I know that, like happiness, you cannot find peace by looking for it.
Like happiness, peace of mind is a by-product of living, not its goal.
Be true to you:
When we practice congruency, we behave similarly to the way we feel and think.
When the way we see ourselves and the way the world sees us is the same, we are practicing congruency.
Problems arise when we see ourselves one way
(for example, as a loving mother)
but behave in ways that are at odds with how we would like to see ourselves
(for example, neglect our children because we are too busy).
Finding ways to keep our inner ideals and the way we behave similar is one of the keys to peace of mind.
Peace on the battlefield:
It is easier to be at peace when we listen to beautiful music, play with our pets,
walk through undisturbed nature, and step away from the world.
But Life is a harsh mistress.
She draws you back into the chaos of conflicts with bosses, spouses, children, bills, ill health ...
the number of enemy troops you face sometimes appear endless.
Each battlefield we find ourselves on contains a lesson that will keep us from worse ones
if we but learn it correctly.
Look for that lesson.
Perhaps it is only to take ourselves not so seriously, to learn to laugh at ourselves
(we will never run out of material!),
to learn that some battles are not worth the collateral damage,
or to find we should not fail to plan unless we plan to fail.
Failure has negative connotations, but actually, everyone fails.
How can you improve or learn anything if you never fail?
A healthy attitude towards failure encourages bravery.
It’s not you that is the failure, instead it is what you tried that failed. There is a big difference.
Listen to the Wake-Up Call of Loss
To lose something we had taken blithely for granted is jarring.
It should alert us to look for all the other blessings in our lives that really are so precious.
Forgive:
Those who hurt us have taken enough of our time. Why invite them along in your thoughts for the rest of the day?
They have to live in the world they make for themselves with their thoughtless natures.
Forgive them, release them from the obligation they owe you, and you will find you have released yourself.
Hate is like drinking rat poison, hoping the rat will die of it.
Think Outside of Yourself
Each person you pass or meet is fighting a battle no one knows anything about.
Be kinder than you might be inclined to be for that reason.
Learn the Power of a Smile
Whenever you are laughing or smiling, something interesting happens.
Not only does something happen on a chemical level to make you feel better,
but it also stops all stress and negativity from entering your psyche.
A simple smile can make such a difference.
‘Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.’
~Victor Frankl
April 9, 2022
April 5, 2022
WHAT WILL BE YOUR SWAN SONG? IWSG Post
https://www.amazon.com/CassaDark-Alex-J-Cavanaugh/dp/1939844843/
Alex Cavanaugh has said the above book will be his Swan Song.
As Dua Lipa wrote:
"This is not a Swan Song but a Swan Dive. It's a New Life."
I hope not. His blog presence has been a light to me in dark times.
What is a Swan Song anyway?
A swan song is the final performance of an actor, singer, composer, poet, or the like. According to folklore, swans sing most beautifully before they die,
and hence this phrase came to be used to describe someone who was leaving in style.
Leonardo da Vinci's Fable:
THE SWAN
The swan arched his supple neck towards the water and gazed at his reflection for a long time.
He understood the reason for his weariness
and for the cold that gripped his body, making him tremble as though it were winter.
With absolute certainty, he knew that his hour had come and that he must prepare for death.
His feathers were still as white as they had been on the first day of his life. Seasons and years had passed without a blemish appearing on his snowy plumage.
He could go now, and his life would end in beauty.
Straightening his beautiful neck, he swam slowly and majestically beneath a willow,
where he had been accustomed to rest in the hot weather.
It was already evening, and the sunset was touching the water of the lake with crimson and violet.
And in the great silence that was falling all around, the swan began to sing.
Never before had he found notes so full of love for all of nature, for the beauty of the heavens, the water and the earth.
His sweet song r ang through the air, scarcely tinged with melancholy, until, softly, softly, it faded with the last traces of light on the horizon.
"It is the swan," said the fishes, the birds, and all of the beasts of the woodland and meadow.
Touched to the heart, they said:
"The swan is dying."
Each of us will have our own Swan Song.
Some of us will choose the time.
Often that time will be chosen for us.
What sunset will be our last to see?
What bird in flight will be the last to thrill us?
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What book, short story, sentencewill unknowingly be our last?
Found on the poet’s desk after his death,
“Finale” is Pablo Neruda’s final poem, and a love letter to his wife, Matilde.
“It was beautiful to live/when you lived!”
Be sure to buy Alex's new book.
I've already bought mine.
And be sure to craft each new book of yours with care.
It could be your own Swan Song.
"I love you as certain dark things are loved, secretly, between the shadow and the soul."
- Pablo Neruda
April 3, 2022
Could a solar storm destroy modern civilization?
Friday, my co-workers and I were discussing how the world would fare
if something even stronger than the Carrington Event hit our planet.
With a new strain of Covid appearing, rocket inflation being ignored by our leaders (you know King Cognitive Decline and Princess Giggles),
and Putin threatening the nations with economic chaos and WWIII, we talk about speculative end-of-the- world things like the Carrington Event.
March 28, 2022
KISS OF THE ASSASSIN, ECHOES OF AN ALL TOO REAL TODAY
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https://www.amazon.com/Kiss-Assassin-Joylene-Nowell-Butler-ebook/dp/B09P7T1ZRS
JOYLENE NOWELL BUTLER HAS WRITTEN
A FULL THROTTLE THRILLER!
Marina Antonovna, a Soviet spy. Mateo Arcusa, an American homicide lieutenant.
Their love, flitting off and on through the years, as tangible and tragic as a modern Greek tragedy ...
yet though born of Soviet espionage and the madness of the Vietnam War, it holds echoes of today's political maelstrom.
Those echoes reverberate in this romance veined with international, social, and ethical intrigue.
Joylene Nowell Butler's prose is crisp, her suspense taunt, her plot pulsing with a life of its own.
We never quite escape our childhood traumas, never quite give up hoping someone's love will heal us.
But the love which heals us can also doom us as Marina and Mateo discover.
Join them in this romantic thriller to see if happiness is destined to be forever denied them.
You won't regret this passage into danger.
https://www.amazon.com/Joylene-Nowell-Butler/e/B0064P8N90/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1
March 22, 2022
DO YOU TRUST OUR CONGRESS?
I know these congressional members sleep well at night.
And none go to bed hungry.
