Ray Daley's Blog, page 40

Another sub sent out!

And another submission sent out into the ether.

Apparently someone’s doing a “gay vampire” anthology.

So I sent them “Dead Jealous”.

Always the case, isn’t it?

You think “No-one’ll want a story about gay vampires” so you self pub it.

Then the very next month someone wants it.

Such is life.

Lessons learned? Never pub anything in case someone wants that genre.

Google & DMCA requests

So I recently discovered some of my titles on Google Play.

I hadn’t put them there.

I checked them, the titles had been changed, as had the covers. The content was still untouched. My copyrighted content.

I read a sample of one. And then I worked out where it had been taken from.

It still had the Feedbooks metatags inside it. Thanks for making my job easier, thief!

So I embarked on getting them removed. Why was I doing this? For the following reasons.

1) I didn’t place these on Google Play myself.

2) The covers and titles were changed without my permission.

3) The books are distributed with DRM on them, something I personally don’t agree with.

Google Play aren’t charging for these titles. I just don’t like that someone took my books and put them on Google Play under different titles (and covers) but STILL under my name. I’m very proud of my covers, I make most of them myself. I’m also pretty proud of my titles, they take a while to come up with and generally reflect the content of the ebook.

I emailed Cory Doctorow, noted anti-DRM campaigner. He gave me this useful gem.

By law Google have to prominently display information about how to make a DMCA request throughout their site.

Thanks Cory, useful to know. Shall we see how easy it is to file a request?

On the book page, far underneath is this:- Report: Flag as inappropriate.

Clicking that link takes you to a 2nd page that offers you 5 different choices.

I want Trademark or copyright infringement.

You are then offered 2 more choices. I want the content removal form.

There are 5 more options. I want Submit A Legal Request.

Clicking that FINALLY gets me to the Removing Content From Google page.

So I’ve jumped through 5 different hoops for Google just to get STARTED on ONE DMCA request.

After clicking 4 more different things, you get to the ACTUAL take-down request.

9 hoops to leap through. Now I ask you, does that sound like it’s prominently displayed?

And I have to do that for each of the titles listed. Oh no, I can’t say “take down everything that’s got my name on it!”?

I have to tell them where it is on Google, where MY legal version of it is.

Then I have to listen to them threaten me with $100,000 fines for misfiling.

Read THIS:-

IMPORTANT: Misrepresentations made in your notice regarding whether material or activity is infringing may expose you to liability for damages (including costs and legal fees). Courts have found that you must consider copyright defences, limitations or exceptions before sending a notice. In one case involving online content, a company paid more than USD100,000 in costs and legal fees after targeting content protected by the US fair-use doctrine. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact a lawyer.

Yeah, that doesn’t sound REMOTELY intimidating, does it?

Good old “friendly” Google. And I bet you thought they were the nice guys, right?

I nearly broke my brain!

After almost three days of extremely hard slog, the “prison” story is finally finished!

4943 words. It took some mapping out, lots of writing stuff down so I knew who was in which cell.

Lots of headaches, head-scratching and me being totally confused about where the story was going.

It had a couple of possible endings, I went with my first idea in the end.

ALMOST every day

I’m not writing every day. Just nearly.

We’re 20 days into this year, I’ve finished 18 stories.

Not all brand new, from scratch. A couple were unfinished ideas from last year.

It’s a nice way to kick the year off though.

1735 words today.

Scribbling, ever scribbling

Another new story typed up.

1057 words, it wasn’t bad. I’ve written 13 now. 18 days in.

Another one done

Finished the “nightmare” story that started out as little more than 3 lines of text in a notepad.

Best part of a week has passed since I first had the idea.

Made 1428 words out of it, not a great ending but it was only a fragment.

There are still 3 ideas in the notepad and one in my head which I’m probably going to write later.

Possibly not, still debating that right now.

Another rejection

One back from On Spec Magazine this time.

They said no to “Ask For Slim”.

Never mind. There’s always another day.

That’s another story for me to find a home for though.

First rejection this yr

Got my answer back on the F&SF submission.

A no but it was a really good reason.

Thanks to CC Finlay for his super honest feedback, helps me work on my weak areas of writing.

All done writing for today, hopefully

The story I was writing is finished (3301 words) and is about magic. Or not.

Features James Randi in the role he plays best, himself.

I think I was going for a good 4 hrs in the end, over the whole day.

It was an old idea (at least 2 yrs old, that I recall) but had never written down any where, or at least not anywhere I can find it.

It’s done now though, decent end too, I thought.

Kindle stats, even more info!

As I did in 2013, I noted down when I was charging my K3 Kindle (keyboard, wifi only).

It’s now well over 3 years old and still going strong.

These are when I charged it, how long it was charged for & how long the charge lasted for.

2014

Jan 1st – Jan 20th, 20 days (6hrs)

Jan 21st – Feb 25th, 36 days (12hrs)

Feb 26th – Mar 21st, 24 days (12hrs)

Mar 22nd – Apr 21st, 31 days (No charge time stated, assuming 12 hrs?)

Apr 22nd – May 13th, 22 days (12hrs)

May 14th – Jun 24th, 42 days (9hrs)

Jun 25th – Jul 31st, 37 days (13hrs)

Aug 1st – Sep 4th, 35 days (12hrs)

Sep 5th – Oct 6th, 32 days (12hrs)

Oct 7th – Nov 21st, 46 days (No charge time stated, assuming 12 hrs?)

Nov 22nd – Still on going, currently 49 days [was 40 days at Dec 31st] (12hrs)

Last yrs record longest charge length was 10hrs 40 mins lasting 42 days.

That wasn’t the longest time it was charged for, it was just the longest any charge lasted.

I charged the Kindle 11 times in total over the year, it spent 124 hrs on charge, an average of 11hr 27mins.

Last yr it gave me an average of 33 days per charge.

Comparing that to last yr, A average of 24.5 days per charge. It’s an average charge of 8 hours each time.