Jo Robinson's Blog, page 122

Hell In The Kitchen by Ian Little

Why recommend a book that I’m not finished reading, you ask? Well. Firstly because the part of it that I’ve read so far is really brilliant, and the author is giving it away for free today and tomorrow also. Secondly because I’m really slow. And thirdly because the next up for review in my pile is Mulligans Reach by Jennie Orbell. I’m not quite finished reading that one either and I wouldn’t want to steal its well deserved thunder.

Mulligan's Reach

The Bad Old Days

A few months ago we had a glut of radishes from the garden. Not being fond of waste, I peeled a pile and pickled them. This morning, after realising that I had run out of gherkin slices for my cheese pancake, I added several of these instead. I tell you this only to let you know that the pickling of radishes should never be contemplated, and if you are ever confronted with such a thing, don’t eat it. The problem is that they really are very nice. The larger problem is that they appear to be dangerous. I don’t think I’ve ever had a worse bellyache. These radishes have got me thinking though.



When Zimbabwe’s economy totally melted down a couple of years ago, the country got to the point where nothing was available to buy. People starved. We were a lot more fortunate than most. I’ve spoken about how horrible this was before, but this morning’s pickle peccadillo had me remembering how inventive we all got. Zimbabweans are an especially canny nation. They’re known not only for their friendliness, but also for their ability to generally make a plan. When we first realised that it was actually happening – we were living in the middle of an absolute economic collapse, we all dithered a little, and for quite a while went without most things that we generally now take for granted. Towards the end of the hard years, a group of us used to shop online from a South African supermarket, and everything would be trucked up once a month. Before that we had “runners”. These beloved intrepids would hop on board some fairly hazardous buses and taxis, zoom over the border to neighbouring South Africa, sleep on benches in parks, buy your groceries, pop them on top of more terrifying buses and taxis and deliver them right to your door. I remember my runner very fondly. We’re still firm friends, and she now has a thriving business from her personal shopping days. This didn’t work so well with things that had to be kept cold though. After several months without essentials such as cheese and bacon, experimentation begun in earnest. Life without cheese is no life at all.







Living in a farming community, milk and meat were a lot easier for us to get hold of than for those poor souls living in the bleak cities. Panir or soft cheese, made by stirring lemon juice into simmering milk and then straining, was learned first. Inserting a tablespoon of pepper and a triangle of processed cheese (if you could lay your hands on one) into the middle of it, then leaving it in the fridge to mature for a week produced a rather lovely result. Thinly sliced belly pork sprinkled with salt, brown sugar, allspice and cloves left to soak for a few days produces something that quite a few people still make, even though you can buy pretty much anything you like here now. My favourite fish shop has cheese and seafood flown in from all over the world every week, so I don’t often think about those crazy food experiments. A couple of people became totally self-sufficient, making everything themselves apart from loo rolls, and still pretty much are that way. We are so used to living with solar power and generators that we probably wouldn’t suffer too much if the zombie apocalypse really did happen. The zombies wouldn’t get to eat anyone here either before some clever Zimbo discovered the joy of undead pie, or something to that effect. I learnt a lot from those days though. I never waste anything if I can help it. Apart maybe from radishes from now on. I’ve learnt that people are much more resilient than they think they are. And also that amazing friends can be found in very unexpected places.



Tomorrow Zimbabweans vote for their new constitution, and I really hope that all goes well from there. It would be a fine thing indeed if this country could forget all about the terrible hardships they’ve endured, and move forward to happiness and health. They deserve it. One thing that stands out for me is that no matter how bad things got, I never came across many people here who lost their smiles. Thinking of those hungry days also got me thinking of how people banded together then. We helped each other in all sorts of ways, we got to know each other in ways that we never would have in times of plenty, and I for one, fell further in love with the people of this great continent. Here’s hoping for peace and prosperity for Zimbabwe from now on.

Till next time friends. xxx

Indie Waffle

My Facebook cut-back is slowly working out. I still have a pile of things to catch up on, but it’s getting smaller now, and not always growing like it used to. My internet signal is still pretty rubbish but at least now I know my regular catch ups will be doable, and at this rate I should have at least one foot on the ground in a few weeks. My excessive reading lately, of things related to SEO and the best ways to market books as an indie author has also led to me reading other related things.

Random House has changed in the royalty payment department, making it appear to be much more author friendly and, for some, make the decision to go indie a little harder. Facebook has been shutting down pages where giveaways are happening, and Amazon now appears to have removed the “Like” button on books. I think that you can “Like” a book if you buy it legitimately though. I’m sensing winds of change coming. Some indie authors who have been working their little backsides off are saying that they’ve had enough of it all. They’re tired. I’ve seen one or two get off the merry go round in the last few weeks, and been very sad to watch them go.

I’ve read articles with opinions on self-publishing that are polar opposites. Some say that reviews are key, and to be obtained at all costs. Others say that reviews have to be honest and freely given – never asked for. Some say that free promotion days are key, and the more books you give away, the more you’ll grow your readership base. Others say that the free days are killing the industry, and that if you wait long enough, you can get any indie book you like for free anyway, so why pay for it in the first place? Some say that books downloaded on free days don’t count as “sales” and should never be taken into account when talking bestseller status. Other’s say a sale is a sale even if the price is $0.00. I’m nowhere near finished my research into all of this, but I’m slowly starting to form opinions. I try never to say never, so they might – probably will – change. I haven’t yet implemented these opinions yet. I’ll wait a little till I’ve read through my whole pile.

With the Amazon search engine, your tagging when you load your book is important. It’s a good idea to have keywords in your product description, and if you can, also your title. This will put your book ahead when anyone searches for a genre or name. Don’t use the names of other already famous authors though – Amazon doesn’t look fondly on this. Or on any other obvious ploys to get good tag words into your title. You need to be clever about the whole thing. Indies are, so you’ll figure it out I’m sure.

My opinion on reviews isn’t properly formed yet. I haven’t actually asked for reviews yet, but I’m thinking that I will, as long as they’re honest. On that subject, and while I’m here, if anyone would like to review Shadow People, please give me a shout, and I’ll happily and speedily send you a copy. jorobinson176@gmail.com Still on the subject, if you spot a typo it’s nicer to tell the author rather than announce it to the world. Typos can be fixed in a jiffy, and a heads up in that department is always appreciated. Even the big guys have gremlins in their e-books – I’ve spotted them in quite a few. Unless a book is absolutely riddled with these little devils, I always focus on the story when I do reviews.

As far as free days are concerned, I do believe that they are very important for indie writers to get their scribbles out to the public. I don’t believe that you should make all your books free though. Short stories are brilliant as freebies, to give readers an idea of whether or not they’d like to read more of what you write, and maybe have one novel, or first book in a series, that you regularly give away for free. There’s not much point in putting in the amount of work that it takes to write, edit, and publish books, if you’re going to give them all away for free.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Facebook shouldn’t be used for hard marketing of anything, including books. Being a writer in a writer’s world, I will share my author friends books and freebies on occasion, but personally, I’m going to use it for what it was created for – socialising. Groups are good for writing talk, but mainly I’ll stick to the friendly waffle on my newsfeed, and use my pages for book related posting.

Twitter so far for me, is the best marketing tool a writer can have. I’ve found friends and readers there, and picked up on a lot of information that I would never had come across anywhere else, or even thought of looking for. I love the 140 letter allocation too – it makes for lots of funnies, and keeps most chats light and easy.

I’m just sticking my toe into LinkdIn groups, and PinInterest and the other social sites are still on my To Do list, so no opinions there yet.

Google right now is a lovely, friendly place to be, and even though there is book marketing going on, it’s not encroaching on our happy chats and posts. The +1’s there are working towards getting our book and blog links out there in the public stream, which is something Facebook can’t do, so that is indeed a bonus. I enjoy socialising on Google, and I love the friends I have there. What we have done is create a community that is all about readers getting to have one on one chats with authors and bloggers if they want to, or even just hang around in the background and watch our antics. Watching writers in their natural environment must be fascinating for “normal” people. Free days and promotions there can only be good, because books and writing in all its forms is what that community is all about. I have a feeling though that us indie authors should be wary of flooding Google, or any other site for that matter, with only book link plugs. Interaction is the key and I believe we’ll get where we’re going there.

https://plus.google.com/communities/115573021758683598908

So. Tagging and patience seem to be the way to go for right now. Tag the crap out of everything you put out there, and be patient. Some books will never be successful and make millions of dollars. Very few have overnight success. Not many authors hit star status, but quite a lot live very comfortably from the sales of their books. What you put into your marketing campaign is your personal choice. I know that some people set out to write something particular, in a specific genre, specifically to make lots of money, and not necessarily for the love of story telling. And they do make lots of money. You can pay for marketing, you can buy reviews – good ones – and I’m very sorry to say, bad ones too. I read lately that this method of nobbling the competition is not at all uncommon. Most uncool! You can even arrange for thousands of books to be “bought” to lift you up in the rankings – only to be returned shortly afterwards. Again – this is not right. With Amazon and other places apparently trying to level the playing field, I’m sure that new ways of getting readers and sales will be found.

Personally, for now, while doing everything I can to become visible to first time readers of my scribbles, and carrying on with my big digs into how to sell e-books in general, I’m taking the patient route. I want people to want to read my next book, buy it, and with a bit of luck review it. All I’ve picked up from the madness so far, is that apart from doing all you can with the technicalities of search engine optimisation with tags on Amazon, Google, blog and Twitter posts, and being active on Goodreads and related readers sites, the things most beneficial to indie authors are genuine and friendly interactions with your readers, and patience. I’m thinking that slow and steady wins this particular race. Oh – and have more than one book out there, so you can keep some to actually sell, and only one or two for the free. That’s my opinion anyway. Now to get to doing all of these things myself.

Till next time friends. xxx

Part 2 - Author Beware of Scams !!!

Reblogged from Savvy Writers & e-Books online:

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In a blog article from last fall we wrote: 10 Signs, Showing You Vanity Publishing TRAPS

We stated: "Reputable trade and independent publishers don’t ask the author for money, ever". Random House's imprint ALIBI doesn't do this. However, what they do is to take away all the worldwide rights to the book in any form from the author. And: they will deduct all their book production and business costs including possible legal fees, from whatever royalty the author can expect in the future.

Read more… 949 more words

I'll stick to being an indie writer I think. Amazing too that until the 1920's authors mainly self-published.

Handsome Is As Handsome Does

I don’t watch a lot of television. Not because I don’t want to. There’s far too much to do parked in front of my computer. When I do have a TV fest it’s generally in the form of an omnibus or pre-recorded programmes in a series that I can watch in a bunch. The last lot was Come Dine With Me. I’m not sure when these particular episodes actually aired, but my lateness for everything is not a secret, so I’m not particularly worried about that.

The one that really got my attention came from Worcester in the UK – I think. The two guys on this one included Tony James AKA Blobbie Williams, of the group Take Fat (think Robbie Williams of Take That) and some other fellow whose actual name I don’t remember, because of the awful vision of him coming down the stairs wearing a Roman soldier’s outfit, and intoning, “I am Spartacus.” The real Spartacus must have been doing cartwheels in his lonely corner of some foreign field somewhere. With apologies to the real one, that’s the only name I remember. So. Spartacus introduced himself as a fitness fiend. Fair enough. Pan to shots of him on the treadmill and lifting weights.

Blobbie Williams on the other hand doesn’t have it in his best interests to be doing that sort of thing. He cultivates the cuddly. Again. Fair enough. He’s cute enough, and I certainly wouldn’t be indisposed to heading off for a nice night out with him if I wasn’t already spoken for. He’s a nice guy. And he has a gorgeous voice. There’s another thing. People with gorgeous voices generally don’t spend their evenings crying into microwave macaroni. If Stephen Tyler didn’t have such a heavenly voice, I’m not so sure how well he’d score. Then again, he too is a nice guy, so I’m thinking he’d do alright also. But you get my point, I’m sure. Anyway.

Throughout the programme, this Spartacus guy not only insulted everyone’s food, but focused quite intently on young Blobbie’s lack of a sixpack. He rudely brought up the subject of weight right the way through. This culminated in him putting a sign around Blobbie’s neck that said “Chubbers”, and giving him a pig mask to put on. What?! Really? At the same time Spartacus donned a zebra mask and made disturbing horse-like noises while standing there and proving that all the exercise in the world can’t make you sexy – or give you a sixpack for that matter. Keep your clothes on dude! When he whipped out a paper stencil of a dormouse so that he could carve chicken breasts into these shapes for his starters I realised that all was probably not well in the universe of Spartacus. But still, that’s no excuse for being that mean. What a pity that we can’t gather all the nasty people up on an island somewhere so that they can all get their jollies being crap to each other.

It all ended well in this case, because the two lovely ladies on the programme each scored our gorgeous Blobbie perfect tens, and the Spartacus tool came last. Blobbie is a confident guy. Even if he did feel a twinge of hurt at this pathetic guy’s attempts at humour, I’m not thinking that he lost any sleep at all. He also behaved like a perfect gentleman, proving that he was indeed the best man in the room. I only hope that he never forgave that fool and made friends with him after all that.

The problem for me here is that Spartacus is swanning around in the real world now being nasty to others, who might not be strong enough to deal with being so bullied, and end up heading too far south into pain. Clearly he has issues. I’m guessing that whenever that episode aired there would probably have been a little shouting from viewers, so hopefully he’s gone into therapy and figured out why it is that he believes that being mean to others would make him look so hot. Implants might help in the sixpack department, but that kind of viciousness is not going to win friends and influence people. Not the kind of people I’d want to hang out with anyway.

Other people’s personal appearance is not your business. You may not like their looks, whether they were born that way, cultivate it, or are thin or not so thin. Regardless. If your opinion is negative or horrible, keep it to yourself. Spartacus could only be cute if he was nice. Really beautiful people have no need to make sure that everyone in the room is made aware of the fact that anyone else there is less gorgeous. Their beauty stands for itself, and hopefully not only on the outside.

Till next time friends. xxx

China's Illegal Bear Bile Trade

Reblogged from News For Animal Welfare:

When it comes to the trade of illegal animal products, China is notorious for the use of local and exotic ingredients within traditional medicine. Perhaps one of the most well known ingredients is bear bile, used for it's supposed medicinal properties for thousands of years. Used in traditional medicine, bear bile is believed to contain a range of therapeutic properties that aim to decrease inflammation and improve liver function.

Read more… 426 more words

Rules Is Rules

I lost my blog nerve, and wasted hours and hours. So far today I’ve written three posts. The first came across as stilted and boring because I was trying to follow lately read instructions. The second I published, then quickly deleted because it seemed callous and offensive. The third little gem, which was a tiny little story called The Reviewer, where a crazed author tracks down a reviewer, and… Well. It occurred to me that with that one I might come across as a nutter if I published it. Then it occurred to me that I might actually be a nutter, and just not realise it. Nutters probably don’t. Do they? This has all been most stressful indeed, and all because I’ve come across and read a few things in between my reading up of all things book marketing, Google, and SEO.

I found a couple of articles telling you how to blog. They were particularly particular. I never knew there were rules before, so I’ve just shared what I felt like sharing. I’ve shared things that I believe in, things that I’m doing, things that I’ve seen, am cross about, or generally just find fascinating. Apparently this is completely wrong. These instructions say that the only way to go about things is to cart a notebook around and actually look for interesting things to blog about, then list them down, do some research and Bob’s your uncle. But. You have to make sure that they’re not too short or too long, not a silly waste of time, and most important of all, don’t contain anything that might upset or offend anyone. So, that was the end of that. I took myself off to see if I could paint a dragon eyeball. I couldn’t. After wandering back to my computer, I found to my horror that I couldn’t even think of anything to say in reply to a friend’s message. Those instructions had turned me into some sort of cowardly zombie.

Then I got cross. No matter what you say, there is going to be someone somewhere who is not going to like it. I bet you there’s someone out there who would find Anna Karenina silly, Shakespeare boring, and Barney the purple dinosaur offensive. Well. I’m not too sure about Barney myself to be honest. Anyway. I find it worrying that some happy blogger somewhere will come across these very precise instructions and be put off entirely from sharing something magical, funny, silly, over the top, or offensive. I like reading these things. They make me smile, laugh, shed a tear, or want to storm across oceans and poke someone in the eyeball. I don’t want to read some contrived crap written by someone trotting around with a notepad and pencil trying desperately to find something to talk about. Within reason, write and share whatever you feel like sharing. There are certain things which really are universally offensive, and if you’re crass enough to share that sort of thing you should hear about it fairly quickly, and hopefully never do it again. Bugger those rules I say, and bring on the photos, scribbles, paintings, poems, rants, advice, and whatever else you think we’ll enjoy. Some of us most certainly will. Those who don’t won’t. And there’s not much you can do about that. But that’s what blogging’s all about in my book anyway.

Till next time friends. xxx

Onward And Google

I’ve made an amazing discovery. Coming back this time after a big internet break, I looked at everything that was “waiting” for me to catch up with, and my heart sank to my feet. Even if I stayed up twenty four hours for a couple of days there was no way I could look at everything that had come in, and I didn’t have a hope of doing everything that had been asked of me. Looking at the little pile of things that I really want to do for myself, and have been putting off in favour of these manic internet catch-ups, it occurred to me that I was missing the point entirely. By taking on too much I wasn’t doing anyone any favours, least of all myself. So I made a very large decision. Something big had to go. I’ll never give up my lovely Twitter, and most certainly not my blog addiction, so it was cut back pretty much all the way either on Facebook or Google+. With Google surging ahead in popularity, and having all the pros with its search engine, new communities and hangouts, Facebook lost the toss up fairly quickly. I nervously set about reversing from the many things I’ve been active with on that site, expecting anger or irritation because I was “letting people down”. Across the board, all I got was not only support and kindness, but also total agreement. Facebook is not working out as the best platform for indie writers to sell books.

We’re all zooming around sharing our work with each other there. We have formed amazing friendships and bonds with other writers. We’ve supported each other, cheered each other on, and read each others books, which is lovely, and we’ll hopefully stay friends forever. But if this particular form of marketing is selling thousands of books for some I haven’t seen it. What I have experienced myself is a manic feeling that I “must” join everything, post everywhere, and do everything on Facebook, and somewhere along the way I stopped chatting to friends on my wall, catching up on their news, and seeing the pictures and photos that mark their journeys. I missed this. In fact there are always so many notifications to deal with that I haven’t cruised down my newsfeed for months. Even so I still wasn’t able to keep up, and I kept finding posts on my pages or elsewhere from friends put there weeks ago that I missed, and I cringed at the thought of how thoughtless and rude I must appear. Not being answered can be very hurtful, and I certainly wouldn’t want to hurt my friends. So now the deed is done, and I’m exploring different ways of uniting my stories with readers who want to read them. I believe there are better ways than only posting links to books on purely social sites, and that’s what I’ll be working on for the next few days. My first day without hundreds of Facebook notifications to attend to has been fantastic so far, and I do believe that I’ll be much more productive in general from now on, never fail to notice another comment from a friend again, and in the end, do more of what I set out to do in the first place. Write books.

I think that my point would be that quantity can never beat quality. Do fewer things for fewer people, but do them well. Spreading yourself too thin isn’t only bad for you, but for all those around you too. Running yourself ragged is not the way to go at all. It’s also good for you and those around you to also do what you want to do. I’m not saying that you should only ever do what you want to do. We all have to do things that we don’t really want to. That’s what life’s all about. But there is not much point to a life lived purely doing what others want, or what you think others want. I certainly got that wrong. Nobody expects too much of you at all, and most people are a lot nicer than we give them credit for. They mostly wish only the best for you too. Well. There are maybe one or two pucker nasty people, but not many, and certainly not one of those beauties are worth wasting any seconds on. In celebration of this new found freedom, I’m off to read Guy Kawasaki’s, What The Plus!, and have pea soup with a poached egg floater for breakfast. Why not?

Come and join us at my favourite Google+ community, and the place where I’ll be hanging out the most. Everyone’s welcome. We’re a friendly bunch.

https://plus.google.com/communities/115573021758683598908

Till next time friends. xxx

Life On Head

I’ve been catching up on back episodes of Ancient Aliens and Through The Wormhole while I’ve been banished from the WWW. Purely for research purposes of course. Well truthfully, I do like to keep up to date on the current life status of the thing that resides on top of Giorgio A. Tsoukalos’ head.



In the latest series, it’s changed colour and morphed into new and vibrant shiny black. It seems to have had some sort of deep rejuvenation because it’s moving around, and undulating a lot more than usual. I wonder if he knows where it came from. Or even if it’s there. Alive. On his head.



I found the bit on the churches of Lalibela (Ethiopia) especially interesting. I always find any news on the ancient civilizations of Africa particularly interesting, because in good old colonial times they were never mentioned. It’s a bit hard to promote the myth that it’s necessary and indeed most cool to stomp on people because they’re savages, when you have to explain that their ancestors seemed to be quite a bit further up the civilisation ladder than yours at the time. These churches were carved literally out of the bedrock under ground around 300AD. And apparently King Lalibela was assisted by angels doing the night shifts with the building of it. Who’d have thought? I wonder what today’s construction workers would have to say if handed a mallet and pick – and a bucket I would imagine – and told to just be getting on with that sort of thing.



This church in Aksum (also Ethiopia) is also most impressive. Apparently it houses the actual Ark Of The Covenant. Nobody’s ever allowed to see it though, except the priests. What is it with people saying who can and can’t see things? As a fully paid up occupant of this round, space travelling rock, I hereby assert my right to see anything at all. Everything there is to be seen in fact. I take full responsibility if I conk out after eyeballing little green men, or jazzed up little flying saucers, or of course, any sort of legendary relic. When did we get so lumped into a pen of obedient little sheep. Revolt I say! Anyway.



Now. The ruins of Baalbek are in a different league altogether. How would we cut, lift, and perfectly position a 1 500 ton rock today? With some very big boy and state of the art equipment I’m thinking. And then not a walk in the park either. Rewind to 2500 BCE and the mind boggles a bit. How on earth did they do it with their hand carved spears and home woven rope? Even if we could get past the how, the why’s a bit odd too. Before the Romans came along later and plonked one of their own pretty awesome buildings right on top of it, as you do, it was just a humungous flat construction. Giorgio reckons spaceship landing site – I think that could just be the head creature talking though. Then again…



Just for fun, wonder for a moment how the savages of the day utilised this incredibly beautifully constructed pool at Mohenjo-Daro. I’m not seeing hooks anywhere for them to hang their loincloths though. I really do wonder what it would have been like in the day. We really have no clue how advanced those people were, because writers of history are so adamant that up until very, very recently we were all using the club on the ear method of dating, and sitting under trees looking for fleas in each others head creatures. It will be cool when serious science starts seriously looking at these things, and admitting that they haven’t got a clue either, instead of saying things like – in between looking for insects, a million of our ancestors gently pulled each massive rock a few inches, for seventy five generations until they were done, then left the awesome constructs to crumble away, and headed off with their clubs to find some nookie. Really guys!



Finally, I unfortunately cast my eyeball upon this very odd thing. It floated up onto a beach one day, and is fondly known as the Montauk Monster. I don’t have an opinion on it really, I just thought that it might liven up Thursday for anyone who’s having a particularly tedious one.

Till next time friends. xxx