A.C. Flory's Blog, page 94

WordPress – Advert. update – it’s GONE!

[image error]I’m not sure how it happened, but that advert I was complaining about has disappeared, and I have my sidebar back. -dance-

When you run a free blog, you have to accept some advertising.

After all, the company that runs the platform that makes that free blog possible have to recoup their costs somewhere.

Until very recently, that ‘somewhere’ was just after my blog posts.

Now, I have this:

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Right at the top of the page, taking up PRIME realestate in my no.1 sidebar. That’s the spot where I put all my important widgets, the ones I want visitors to see, even if they don’t see anything else. That is my critical spot. Now it has a great big advert. in it.

But that’s not all. The same advert. also appears at the bottom of the post, along with a second one for some other company so visitors to my blog are hit with three adverts, coming at them from all sides. Nothing discreet about this!

I was furious and clicked the ‘Report this ad’ button’ which is why it now has just a placeholder. But is this enough? Or will this disgusting placement simply return tomorrow or the day after?

What the hell were you thinking, Workpress?

Fair use is one thing. Blatant exploitation of my blog, to the detriment of my blog, is another. This is a step too far.

Soooooo not happy WordPress.

More play time for writers :)

[image error]My thanks to Dancingpalmtrees for introducing me to this fun app:

https://www.plot-generator.org.uk/m1bt/curse-of-surreal-pipe.html

The example you see there was created by Dancingpalmtrees, and she kindly gave me permission to use it to show you what the app does.

The Bone Curse – out on March 27th, 2018

Do you believe in Voodoo? I don’t, and yet I had no trouble suspending disbelief as I read Carrie Rubin’s The Bone Curse.

For the record, I won a pre-review copy from the author.

The story begins in Paris where Ben Oris receives a small wound from an ancient bone. Ben’s best friend, Laurette, fears that some sort of evil has entered his his body through the wound, but Vodou is no part of Ben’s world and he dismisses her fears, even as people close to him begin to sicken with a mysterious illness.

To add some context, Voodoo is Hollywood, Vodou is the belief system of Haiti. It has good and evil spirits, just as most Western religions have angels and demons. More importantly, it has practitioners who actively believe. That counts for a great deal when Ben’s ordered, logical world turns upside down. First his ex-lover gets sick, then an ex-girlfriend, and finally the woman who birthed him.

Nevertheless, it’s not until Ben becomes a father and fears for the life of his newborn son that he begins to wonder if there’s more to Vodou than he wants to believe. What follows is a fast paced race against time as he tries desperately to save those he loves.

I wasn’t sure if I liked Ben Oris at the start, but as the story progressed, I found myself empathizing with him more and more. Not just because he was a Doubting Thomas like me, but because he slowly evolved into someone capable of putting others’ lives ahead of his own. As he began to care, so did I.

I can’t say any more for fear of spoiling the whole story, but I devoured The Bone Curse in under two days and I strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a fast paced, medical/psychological thriller that makes you think.

The book will not be published until March 27, but you can put it on pre-order here:

Most definitely 5 stars.:)

cheers

Meeks

 

I write like H.G.Wells?

[image error]I’m normally a skeptic when it comes to apps that purport to analyse this, that or the other but…this tool is spot on. It’s spooky how accurate it is…

Okay so ‘what’ is it?

‘It’ is an online app that analyses your writing based on a sample that you cut and paste onto the webiste. This is the sample I used from the Prologue of Vokhtah [and yes, I rewrote it some time ago to make it less drawn-out-prologue and more succinct intro.].

‘Tohoh was always a desperate time of year. The shimmering heat of the dry season tested every living thing on the planet, but with the red sun drawing ever closer, the winnowing of the weakest was accelerating.

Out on the plains, the scorched grass trembled in the heat haze, and the heavy seed heads hung limp on brittle stalks. Nothing moved, not even the herds of hungry akaht. They, like all the other beasts, knew when to shelter from the suns’ ill-temper.

Only on the very fringes of the grassland, where rock met soil, was there any movement. There, the black shapes of iVokh foragers trudged slowly through the waist-high grass, their long, leathery wings tucked into their sides as they harvested the seeds the akaht had missed.

As the day wore on, and the heat intensified, the eyes of the Foragers lingered ever longer on the patches of deep shade. They longed for the day to end so they could return to the cool of the Settlement, but the approach of true dark brought its own dangers, for that was when the to’pak awoke, and they were always hungry.’

In less that half a second, the app. came back with this:

‘About H. G. Wells

Herbert George “H.G.” Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was a British author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games. Together with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback, Wells has been referred to as “The Father of Science Fiction”.

Wells’s earliest specialized training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context. He was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often (but not always, as the beginning of the First World War) sympathizing with pacifist views.‘

Whilst I did read H.G.Wells in my late teens, I swear on a stack of bibles that I knew nothing about his background, especially the bits highlighted in blue. More importantly, I’ve never seen him as a major influence in my work. Ursula K. LeGuin, yes. Frank Herbert, yes. H.G.Wells? Um…

I have absolutely no idea how the app. does what it does but I’m about to try it on Miira. And then, just for giggles, I’ll try it on one of the How-to books.

If you’re a writer and you want to see what your own writing style is like, go here:

https://iwl.me/s/a85d5606

cheers

Meeks

 

Guest author: Deborah Jay – #Writers, be true to yourself

This is writing advice I can and do endorse!

Sue Vincent's Daily Echo

Image: Pixabay

Rather a grand headline, I know, but you’ll understand where I’m coming from as you read further.

Amongst other things, I am a writer. Those ‘other things’ include caring for an elderly parent (two, until recently), and running a full-time business that involves a lot of travelling. I class myself as a professional part-time writer, as I’ve earned part of my living from my writing for decades now, first writing for magazines, then two traditionally published non-fiction books, and more recently, from my self-published fiction.

I want to share with you how I’ve learned to accept the limitations my lifestyle puts on my desire to produce books at the speed of other authors – something I’m never going to be able to do because, well, I happen to love my other business and would never want to give it up.

We live in a world where everybody has…

View original post 2,491 more words

At last…a ‘real’ hologram, except it’s not a hologram!

If you remember how Princess Leia appeared as a ‘hologram’ in the original Star Wars movie, you’ll find this new technology incredibly exciting. Why? Because for the very first time, we have the ability to project an image into space…in real 3D:

I cannot stress the importance of this technology enough. VR is exciting and impressive, but AR – Augmented Reality – will become a part of our lives much, much faster. Why? Because the uses are almost unlimited. Imagine walking down the street and having a full-colour, 3D advertisement step out from the wall and ‘talk’ just to you.

Okay, adverts you can’t escape are probably a terrible example, but what about crafts? Instead of looking up a youtube video clip, you could snap your fingers and have a 3D presentation appear in your workshop, loungeroom, kitchen, whatever. You could look at that presentation from the back, front, side, top or even from the bottom for those tiny details that aren’t normally visible in 2D.

Well, this new volumetric display technology could well be the innovation that allows us to do all that and so much more.

-mumble- Those scientists might want to change the name though. VD just does not have the right ring to it.

Please join me on Myths of the Mirror today!

D. Wallace Peach is a sci-fi/fantasy writer that I have followed for quite a while now, usually by lurking around her blog – Myths of the Mirror. But she caught me and did me the great honour of reading Miira. And she liked it.

Ursula K. LeGuin, 1929 – 2018

To say that Ursula K. LeGuin has been an influence in my writing life would be a woeful understatement. Her Hugo award winning novel ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’ opened my eyes to what could be done. By women. With courage.

The world has changed a great deal since LeGuin finally found a publisher for Left Hand of Darkness, but the book still stands as a beacon to all writers: stay true to yourself, be brave, sometimes merit is recognized.

This is a screenshot of LeGuin’s author page on Amazon:

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Such wonderful books, and now there’ll never be another.

Never being forgotten,

Meeks

 

 

For all the crafters out there

I’ve been doing a lot of mowing and weeding and hard physical labour out in the garden and I feel so much better for it. But the best part is that I’ve just read that there are genuine, physiological and mental reasons why balancing the cerebral with the physical is good for you.

“Against a rising tide of automation and increasing digital complexity, we are becoming further divorced from the very thing that defines us: we are makers, crafters of things,” writes British archaeologist and television personality Alexander Langlands…’

That quote is take from an excellent article on the subject by Quartz:

https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/4734485/posts/1744144496

Perhaps it’s time we all stopped and smelled the humus.

Tips & Tricks for CreateSpace

The following tips can all be found on Twitter, but I thought people might want to see them all in one place. A few are for Aussie authors only and are shown in green.

PRINTING Tips 4 Absolute Beginners

Print-On-Demand is new tech that allows books to be printed one at a time instead of in hundreds.
Print-On-Demand means authors don’t have to buy 100’s of their own print books.
3 biggest Print-On-Demand printers are CreateSpace [Amazon], Lulu and IngramSpark.
Print-On-Demand works with standard trim sizes only. For table of trim sizes see : https://www.createspace.com/Special/Pop/book_trimsizes-pagecount.html
Trim size = physical size of book after pages glued inside cover & trimmed.
Page size templates for all trim sizes can be found on CreateSpace forums: https://forums.createspace.com/en/community/docs/DOC-1323
Convert Word A4 pages to trim size pages via the Word Page Setup dialog box.
ISBN = 13 digit no. that identifies your book worldwide.
Buy your own ISBN or accept the free one offered by CreateSpace.
In Oz you can buy ISBN from Thorpe-Bowker or accept free one from CreateSpace.
As a rule of thumb, print, ebook & audiobooks all need their own ISBN unless you publish via Amazon.
Books printed via CreateSpace are listed on Amazon automatically.
To publish Kindle ebooks go to: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/
Amazon supplies ebooks with ASIN identifiers so ISBN not strictly necessary.
If you want to ‘go wide’ & sell with other retailers as well as Amazon, your own ISBN is a must.
CreateSpace will not accept Word documents. It accepts only PDF files.
File/Export completed Word doc. to PDF. Then upload that PDF to CreateSpace. 
With CreateSpace, royalty = List Price – Print costs.
With CreateSpace, Print costs= Sales Channel % Fixed Charges Per Page Charge.
With CreateSpace, Standard sales channel % = 40% of List Price, Expanded sales channel % = 60%. 
Spine of cover = trim size & no. of pages. See: https://www.createspace.com/Help/Book/Artwork.do 
Total page no. of book = pages AFTER conversion to chosen trim size [not A4 Word pages].
Amazon deducts 30% withholding tax from each sale. Aussies can claim exemption to reduce tax to 5%.
Withholding tax exemption: US TIN = Australian Tax File No.
Aussie authors must deposit 1 copy of each published book with the National Library of Australia: https://www.nla.gov.au/legal-deposit


Aussie authors must also deposit 1 copy of each published book with their state library: https://www.nla.gov.au/legal-deposit/australia-wide
For Legal Deposit FAQ see:https://www.nla.gov.au/legal-deposit-faq

I hope these tips provide some quick help if you’re stuck, or still trying to make sense of all the information out there on printing with CreateSpace.

And now for the obligatory book promotion:

If you want to print a ‘simple’ novel and need step-by-step help, you can buy my book – ‘How to Print Your Novel with CreateSpace’ – on Amazon. The book comes in an expensive, full-colour paperback OR in a very inexpensive, full-colour ebook:

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Clicking the image will take you to my Amazon Author Central page as the Look Inside feature isn’t working.

The only Another problem with the ebook version is that it will only work on the Kindle Fire tablets or via the Kindle app [on other tablets and pcs].

After all the feedback I received on the colour screenshots vs the grayscale screenshots, I made the decision to stick with colour. But only the Fires have colour so…Sorry.