Ros Clarke's Blog, page 32

Making Monday

I've been away and busy so I haven't done a Making Monday post for a couple of weeks, but never fear, you will get it all in one huge bumper post today.

Colouring:

I had a small stash of canvases which used to be covered with fabric to brighten up a dull flat I lived in. I removed the fabric and experimented with colouring in. If you use a permanent marker for the outline and ordinary felt tips for the colouring, it works brilliantly. It's a wonderful, cheap way of creating art for your walls. After I made these for myself, I also drew some for my godson's family and the kids have really enjoyed colouring them in.

Sewing:

Barbie's had a couple of new outfits:



This was the 'Clothes off her back' challenge. The top is refashioned from Barbie's own dress.



I love this dress and am very jealous of Barbie.

Knitting:

I HAVE FINISHED THE SOCKS OF DOOM.



The picture shows how far I got before realising I had made two left socks instead of one left and one right. I have reknitted so that there is now a proper pair. That completes my 2011 knitting commitments. Which is good, because Sock Madness will be starting up again soon.

Maximising income

I am not an economist. Please don't blame the recession on me.

But in the dim and distant past, I did study economics for a couple of years at school. One of the few things I remember is the supply and demand diagrams (they have a name, don't they?). It seems to me that this basic method of determining how to maximise profit has been forgotten by many people. Let me give you two, wholly unrelated examples.

The M6 Toll Road

Most roads in the UK are not subject to tolls. A few bridges/tunnels and other odd bits of road do charge for use. There is one part of the major M6 motorway near me which is notoriously busy and a few years ago, an alternative road was constructed which does charge tolls for use. I've used it a few times and it is always empty, or nearly empty. I try not to use it because it is expensive (£5.50 for cars, each way), but I travel that route a lot and often I'm a bit tired or running a bit late. The last time I drove down the M6, I noticed that they were announcing increases to the toll charge. Again. I'm not at all surprised that they want to increase their income from the road, since there's so little traffic on it. I just think they're going the wrong way about it. I think that if they were to drop the charge to, say £3.50, they would find that they doubled the amount of traffic and thus increased their income.



Publishing

Okay, this is a lot harder to pin down, since it is a huge and complex industry with lots of different sectors. But the issue I want to focus on is one which affects the whole industry: piracy. Since the introduction of digital books, which have the potential to be copied and distributed electronically, publishers have been panicking about how to prevent pirates from doing this. Piracy is both wrong and illegal and readers ought not to download pirated copies of books.

However, I still think that publishers ought to concentrate more on maximising their profits (and thus authors' royalties) than preventing piracy. It's true that there is a relationship between piracy and loss of profits. A person who downloads a pirated copy of a book which they otherwise would have bought is taking away from publishers' profits. The issue for publishers is whether to prevent this by spending money on expensive (and so far wholly ineffective) methods for preventing piracy OR to minimise it by making their books cheaper/more accessible/geographically unrestricted.

You see, I don't think that it is in the publishers' (or authors) best interests to make it their goal never to have a single book pirated. I actually think that will not maximise their income. It will require a lot of money to be spent on security and it's already actively turning customers away. I think it is in the publishers' (and authors) best interests to maximise their income. Like the toll road, this may be counter-intuitive, but it's not rocket science. More customers can mean more income, even at a lower price. Don't price yourselves out of the game.

But even if they're not prepared to compromise on price, publishers can ensure they get more customers simply buy making it easier for readers to buy their books legally. Get rid of DRM* and geographical restrictions. Give your customers confidence that when they buy one of your books, they'll always be able to read it. More customers = more purchases = higher income.

Sure, tackle piracy when you see it. Issue DMCA notices. Fine people who misuse their purchased content. But concentrate your efforts on the business you are in. There is HUGE potential for the ebook market to spiral beyond your wildest dreams. Why would you want to do everything in your power to prevent that?

*There's another point about DRM which I really don't get. As far as I understand it, publishers are the ones insisting on DRM. But surely it's the booksellers (especially Amazon) who benefit most from it? If I've bought a Kindle, I have to buy Kindle format books. Which, by and large, means I do my shopping at Amazon. Without DRM, I could buy books elsewhere, even if I had to use a tool like Calibre to convert the format. In fact, I could even buy books direct from publishers, cutting out the middle man altogether. I used to do this a lot with Harlequin/M&B before I got the Kindle. But now I have to wait for a month, get the Kindle version, and give Amazon some of the profit which could have gone to the publishers and authors. How is this a good idea?

Pinter

Do you know about Pinterest? I genuinely thought it was a site for Harold Pinter fans when I first heard about it. Turns out, it's actually a site for pinning things you're interested in. It's invite or waiting list at the moment, but the waiting list is short – only a day or two.

I've been having lots of fun putting together a mood board for Table for One. Lots of drool-worthy food and the ever-delectable Paul Bettany. Have a look over here.

Table For One

Coming very soon.

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When food critic Claudia Thomas gets dumped on Valentine's Day, she finds herself occupying a table for one at London's hottest new restaurant. If her job wasn't on the line, she'd skip the whole affair, but her editor's waiting for a review—and with luck, an interview with sexy chef Ward Nicholls.

Ward, intrigued by the single woman in a restaurant full of couples, sets out to tease her palate. Claudia has never tasted anything so luscious as the special meal Ward prepares for her, but when the seduction moves from the restaurant to his bedroom, Claudia discovers the only thing more tempting than his food is the chef himself.

Their connection is instantaneous, sizzling, and spicy—until Claudia comes clean about her job, reopening a wound Ward had thought long-healed. Could one accidental lie of omission end a delicious relationship before it even has a chance to start?

There are some more hints here.

Making Monday

I was away most of last week so my making has been a bit restricted. I did finish my dad's Christmas socks while I was away:

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And, of course, I made another dress for Barbie. This week's challenge was an outfit for Miss Piggy, so I felt free to be as outrageous as I liked:

Making Monday

Last week I made an opera dress for Barbie:

And some inspirational art:

What did you make?

The seventh sexiest man in London

The hero of my Valentine's Day story is the seventh sexiest man in London according to a magazine poll I made up. I thought it might be fun to check out the real sexiest men in London but oddly no one seems to have done that research for me. Cue sighing and complaints about what the media is coming to.

So, I've taken Glamour's list of the sexiest men on the planet in 2011 and picked out the UK ones in order. Will that do?

1. Robert Pattinson (Do Not Get It)

2. David Beckham (Fine, until he starts talking)

3. Prince Harry (Every girl wants a prince, right?)

4. James McAvoy (Ah, now we're talking!)

5. Henry Cavill (Oh, yes)

6. Orlando Bloom (Hmm)

7. Michael Fassbender (Seventh? Really?! Are these women crazy? Surely he should be top of the list?)

So, I think we can all agree that the seventh sexiest man in London is pretty damn sexy. Oh, yes.

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Making Monday

I haven't done one of these for a while but I'd like to get back into the habit.

Project Project Runway has started up again and began with the Dollar Store Challenge. I bought some cleaning cloths, some pot pourri and some Christmas decorations and made this for Barbie:

I don't love the way the bodice turned out. I do like the skirt- it has a ruched bustle at the back which looks fab on Barbie. I think I scraped through and I'm enjoying the opera challenge this week.

On Sunday I spent the afternoon making a Thing. I began with two old pinboards that were a bit battered around the edges and a salvaged picture frame which I had previously primed and painted. Also scraps of ribbon, various bits of fabric, some pretty drawing pins and some ordinary ones. This is what I ended up with:

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I will freely admit that I measured nothing. I might redo the screws to line the noticeboard bit up better. I need to get some more nails for storing more cotton reels and hanging other stuff (scissors mostly) from the other bit. I am quite pleased with the overall effect.

ETA: This is the de-wonkified version:

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MORE news!

Entangled have accepted another short story! I've just sent the first round of edits back on this one. It's a Valentine's Day story so we're looking at another quick turnaround, though not quite as mad as for the Christmas one. Here's a little hint of what it's about:

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Mmmmm.

Faithfulness Matters

People make promises when they get married (and indeed if they make a civil partnership). Those promises are important but also difficult. There is temptation all over the place to break them.

That does not, in my opinion, make it okay for people to profit from offering additional temptation. I was horrified to find out about websites like maritalaffair.co.uk which are specifically designed to tempt married men to have adulterous affairs. It's illegal to profit from crime in this country. I feel like it ought to be illegal to profit from broken marriage vows, too.

So I've signed this and emailed my MP about it.