Guy Portman's Blog, page 45

Christmas Book Stampede

With approximately 14% of the year’s total book sales being made in the final four weeks of the year, the Christmas period is crucial for the publishing industry.

Today’s blog post looks at some of the titles expected to compete with my humorous tale of the unexpected, Charles Middleworth, for centre stage this festive period. Here in the UK, the bookies anticipate that the following three books will be found jammed into stockings and underneath Christmas trees in greater numbers than any othe...

Amazon Drones

Question: What flies through the sky delivering presents the night before Christmas?

Answer: An Amazon Drone.

This is not the case quite yet, but may well be in the not too distant future, as most of you have probably heard by now. Amazon chief executive and robot fanatic, Jeff Bezos, plans to have a squadron of unmanned ‘octocopters’ deployed in the next five years, capable of delivering packages of up to about 2.3 kilos (86% of Amazon sales are comprised of small goods).

(Courtesy ifbusiness2c...

Bizarre Author Deaths III

This, the third instalment of my latest series about authors, is dedicated to two more bizarre author deaths. I chose this rather macabre subject matter, in part, because death is one of the themes in my second novel,Necropolis, a humorous work of dark fiction, due for release early next year (date to be confirmed shortly).

Dante Alighieri

(May/June c. 1265 – September 9th 1321)

Notable works: The Divine Comedy, Convivio, The Vita Nuova.

Florence born Dante’s defining work, The Divine Comedy, is...

Bizarre Author III

This, the third instalment of my latest series about authors, is dedicated to two more bizarre author deaths. I chose this rather macabre subject matter, in part, because death is one of the themes in my second novel,Necropolis, a humorous work of dark fiction, due for release early next year (date to be confirmed shortly).

Dante Alighieri

(May/June c. 1265 – September 9th 1321)

Notable works: The Divine Comedy, Convivio, The Vita Nuova.

Florence born Dante’s defining work, The Divine Comedy, is...

Amazon’s Robotic Workforce

This week we take a hiatus from the Bizarre Author Deaths series to evaluate developments at surging retail behemoth, Amazon. As many of you know I have previously written a number of posts on Amazon related matters, including their increasing dominance, Asian expansion and their so-called war against publishing. Today’s post is about Amazon’s workforce.

As with most large corporations, Amazon’s workplace practices have on occasion been lambasted. Only this week the company received negative p...

Bizarre Author Deaths II

Following on from last week, here is the second instalment of my series dedicated to bizarre author deaths.

Aeschylus

(525/524 BC – 456/455 BC)

Notable works: The Persians, Prometheus Bound, The Supplicants.

Often described as the father of tragedy, Aeschylus, along with Sophocles and Euripides, are the only Greek tragedians, whose plays are still performed and read today. Aeschylus wrote an estimated seventy to ninety plays, only seven of which have survived.

The tragedian’s innovations included...

Bizarre Author Deaths I

This, the first instalment of my latest series about authors, is dedicated to two bizarre author deaths. I chose this rather macabre subject matter as death is one of the themes in my second novel,Necropolis, a humorous work of dark fiction, due for release early next year (date to be confirmed soon).

Virginia Woolf

(January 25th 1882 – March 28th 1941)

Notable works: To The Lighthouse, Mrs Dalloway, Orlando: A Biography, A Room of One’s Own.

Novelist, essayist, publisher and critic Virginia Wool...

Bizarre Author Deaths

This, the first instalment of my latest series about authors, is dedicated to two bizarre author deaths. I chose this rather macabre subject matter as death is one of the themes in my second novel,Necropolis, a humorous work of dark fiction, due for release early next year (date to be confirmed soon).

Virginia Woolf

(January 25th 1882 – March 28th 1941)

Notable works: To The Lighthouse, Mrs Dalloway, Orlando: A Biography, A Room of One’s Own.

Novelist, essayist, publisher and critic Virginia Wool...

Amazon Versus Publishing

The ongoing battle for dominance of the publishing industry saw Amazon emerge victorious from the ‘Ebook Wars’, its heavily armed Kindles decimating Barnes and Nobles’s woefully under-equipped Nooks. The ‘Pricing Wars’, which included an ambitious offensive by vigilante book retailer Overstock, who implemented an aggressive bestselling titles discount campaign, is now little more than a skirmish after Overstock made a predictable tactical retreat thereby avoiding being annihilated by Amazon.

A...

Alcoholic Authors IV

Here is part four of my Alcoholic Authors series.

Truman Capote

(September 30th 1924 – August 25th 1984)

Notable works: In Cold Blood, Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Born Truman Streckfus Persons, Capote went on to become a prolific writer of short stories, novels, plays and nonfiction, whose accomplishments include at least twenty films and television dramas having been produced from his works.

Capote, who had a turbulent upbringing marred by divorce, long absences from his mother and periods of poor he...