David Gaughran's Blog, page 23
October 2, 2011
The Guayaquil Conference
The South American wars of independence are barely known outside its borders: a bloody, twelve year conflict – spanning the entire continent. The might of the Spanish Empire was on one side and a group of poorly armed rebels, mercenaries, and escaped slaves on the other.
Simón Bolívar led the insurrection in the North, liberating what is now Venezuela, Columbia, and Ecuador while dealing with a few ambushes, jungle crossings, man-eating swamps, and civil wars along the way.
The lesser...
Welcome to South Americana
Well, hello there. Some of you may be familiar with my other blog Let's Get Digital, some may not. It's all good; this place is going to be very different as it's an outlet for an altogether different obsession: South America.
It's hard to imagine what I thought of South America before I visited there, but I'm sure it was the standard stereotypes of violent druglords, corrupt regimes, and hedonistic locals.
While those things hold true – to a very limited extent – there is also so much more to ...
October 1, 2011
The Haunting Eyes of Dom Robado Vivaldo
Brazil is a fascinating country. In geographic, demographic, and, in recent years, economic terms it dominates South America; but it's a world apart: a distinct culture, history, gastronomy, and language.
In fact, it's the only Portuguese-speaking country in all of the Americas.
Most Portuguese colonies were further west: Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. This is no accident of history.
When Columbus first discovered America for white people, he thought he had reached Asia, opening up a...
September 28, 2011
Amazon Throw Down The Gauntlet: Four New Devices, Basic Kindle $79, Tablet $199
In a very slick presentation in New York this morning, Amazon announced details of four new devices, surprising everyone with their aggressive pricing.
The basic Kindle (now without a keyboard) will retail for $79 (with Special Offers, $30 extra without). It's a new model, faster page-turns, slightly smaller (same screen), black and white e-ink, wifi, one month-long battery life, and is 30% lighter than the Kindle 3, weighing a remarkable 6 ounces (that's 170g for my metric peeps). It will...
September 27, 2011
Amazon's New Tablet – Kindle Fire – Takes Aim At Barnes & Noble, Not Apple
(Mockup via TechCrunch)
TechCrunch (again) had the scoop last night. Amazon's much touted announcement tomorrow will be the launch of their new tablet, dubbed Kindle Fire.
Aside from ad copy that writes itself (Kindle Fire Sale, anyone?), the details are surprisingly underwhelming.
This is not a device to take an Apple's all-conquering iPad, but a closer look indicates that Amazon may have a different target.
The big disappointment, leaked earlier in the month, is that there is no e-ink, and...
September 21, 2011
Building A Sustainable Writing Career: How To Develop Multiple Income Streams
Let's admit it: we are all very reliant on Amazon. Now, this isn't a dig; there are lots of valid reasons why Amazon tends to be favored by indies.
Aside from having the most intuitive, powerful digital self-publishing platform and the majority of the market, Amazon is considered the most "indie friendly" of the retailers.
I don't mean Amazon necessarily goes out of its way to do us favors, but at least they don't actively sabotage our visibility like Barnes & Noble and Apple.
When you add all o...
September 19, 2011
Share The Wealth: A Radical Solution To Translation Costs
The opening of Amazon Spain on Wednesday and a planned Kindle Store for later this year, as well as widely rumored expansions into France, Italy, and India, has many writers thinking about international markets.
In my blog post on Friday, I discussed the opportunities that present themselves in Spain for self-publishers who aren't hamstrung by territorial restrictions and whose competition will be high-priced books from local publishers, which Amazon are legally prevented from discounting by m...
September 18, 2011
Exclusive: Chapter 3 of A Storm Hits Valparaíso
The best piece of writing advice I ever received was write the book you want to read.
The kind of books I love have a huge cast of characters, often starting in completely separate, exotic locations, whose narrative strands gradually interweave.
I think readers – of any genre – like some kind of puzzle in the story. They like figuring out where things are going to go next. One of the writer's jobs is to give them enough information here and there, and then pull the rug out from under their...
September 16, 2011
Amazon Launches In Spain, Kindle Store By Year End
Amazon made the first move in its latest wave of international expansion by finally throwing open the doors of its long-mooted Spanish site Amazon.es.
Amazon's eighth store outside the US (following Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and China), will stock the usual assortment of books, games, DVDs, appliances, and electronics, but neither the Kindle nor e-books, for which Spanish customers will continue to be re-directed to Amazon.com.
Respected Spanish daily El Pais has a source ...
September 15, 2011
AAP Figures for June Show Dramatic Print Slump, Continuing Ebook Explosion
The American Association of Publishers (AAP) figures for June were finally released last week (about a month late), and the news is not good for fans of print books.
Like the figures for May, all major print categories are down, while e-books continue to surge. But the headline figure this month is that trade paperback sales, which are usually reasonably robust, have just collapsed.
The figures in the table below are in millions of dollars. You should note that this month there are just 78...
