Jo Robinson's Blog, page 85

The Importance Of Having An Editor

Originally posted on Kev's Blog:

Since Miedois finally finished and the promotion has gone so well,  I set my editor to begin working on the second novella I had published, The Wizard, The Girl and The Unicorn’s Horn. I haven’t really promoted this work due to learning of some errors within it. It’s not too bad, but still, errors are, well, errors! As a published author I like to take pride in my publications and therefore want them to be perfect or as close to perfect as I can get them.

While I have my editor slaving away   ;) working on, The Wizard, The Girl and The Unicorn’s Horn I am in the beginnings of writing, Miedo 2 which brings me to the point of this article.

Publishing my first two novellas was a real learning curve for me. I was proud, even a little arrogant because I have a M.Ed…

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2014 Smashwords Survey Reveals New Opportunities for Indie Authors

Originally posted on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog..... An Author Promotions Enterprise!:

I found this article and thought it might be interesting to Authors with, or considering, Smashwords as an alternative publishing outlet – TSRA

Welcome to the 2014 Smashwords Survey, our third annual survey that reveals new opportunities for indie ebook authors to sell more books.

As in prior surveys (view the 2013 Smashwords Survey here and 2012 Smashwords Survey here), we examined aggregated retail and library sales data of Smashwords books and then crunched the numbers based on various quantifiable characteristics of the book.

For this year’s survey, we examined over $25 million in customer purchases aggregated across Smashwords retailers including Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, the Smashwords.com store, Sony (now closed), Diesel (closed), Oyster, Scribd, Kobo, public libraries and others.

This year, we break new ground with more data, including survey questions that explore preorders and series, two categories of inquiry that weren’t possible in prior years. These latter two…

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Virtual Friends – What do you mean they are not real?

Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:

I have seen quite a bit recently about the ethereal nature of connections formed on social media that are called ‘friendships’.  Some say that they cannot be classified as friendships because you have never met, you don’t know if the person you are communicating with is really who they say they are, and that it can prevent you from forming healthier, real bonds with people offline.

My feeling is that our definition of friendship changes as we get older. As an adult, I too would  be concerned that a child or young adult relies solely on Facebook or other social media sites to develop long term friendships.  Certainly in Japan there are real concerns that young men are forming cyber relationships instead of human interactions.  The population is now top heavy with the elderly with very much fewer babies being born.  Young men are relying on their computer for all…

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The Sunday Show – ‘Egokiller’ a band committed to 52 singles in a year for charity.

jorobinson176:

On Sally’s Sunday Show today is an amazing thing to be doing for charity. Egokiller rocks!

Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:

This week my guests are a band who have put their music on the line to increase awareness of the growing homelessness on our streets in addition to many of the social issues that impact many of us at some point in our lives.

Some people mutter about charity overwhelm and complain about big charities who are run more as businesses with high salaries and reduced commitment to those they were set up to help. I believe there is still some great work being done every day on our streets and behind the scenes. There are also hundreds of thousands of caring individuals who do what they can to help people, animals, environmental causes and equally importantly their own families who might be struggling.

It is clear from reading some of the interviews that the band have done that there is a strong sense of family between the three key…

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Arson – C S Boyack – NEW RELEASE

Originally posted on Feed My Reads South Africa:

I was born in a town called Elko, Nevada. I like to tell everyone I was born in a small town in the 1940s. I’m not quite that old, but Elko has always been a little behind the times. This gives me a unique perspective of earlier times, and other ways of getting by. Some of this bleeds through into my fiction.

I moved to Idaho right after the turn of the century, and never looked back. My writing career was born here, with access to other writers and critique groups I jumped in with both feet.

I like to write about things that have something unusual. My works are in the realm of science fiction, paranormal, and fantasy. The goal is to entertain you for a few hours. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Arson

Perry Wolfe is an elite space firefighter. He loves his job, his life, and…

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The Book of Forgiving – Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu – NEW RELEASE

Originally posted on Feed My Reads South Africa:

Desmond Mpilo Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and was only the second black person ever to receive it. In 1986 he was elected archbishop of Cape Town, the highest position in the Anglican Church in South Africa. In 1994, after the end of apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela, Tutu was appointed as chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate apartheid-era crimes. His policy of forgiveness and reconciliation has become an international example of conflict resolution, and a trusted method of postconflict reconstruction. He is currently the chair of The Elders, where he gives vocal defense of human rights and campaigns for the oppressed.

The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chair of The Elders, and Chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, along with his daughter, the Reverend…

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Reblog Saturday – A celebration of words and images posted by exceptional bloggers.

Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:

Well, here we all are again – the week has certainly gone quickly despite a couple of hiccups along the way.  I lost a couple of days but have caught up again and thankfully had alreadyt despatched some projects down the corridor to the editor in chief for publication and they are on schedule.

As usual I have enjoyed my meander through the posts created and served up beautifully by my fellow bloggers.  I hope you enjoy this week’s selection as much as I have.

I would also like to thank you so much for the continued support, comments likes and reblogs that serve to encourage and motivate me daily.

Those of you new to the blog here are this week’s posts and the directories have been updated too.

A special mention Olga Nunez Miret for being a wonderful guest on last week’s Sunday Show – if you have not…

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Leaving Zimbabwe

Leaving Zimbabe

Next month it will be a year since we left Zimbabwe to come back home to South Africa. Although living up there for almost two decades it was also home to me, and I wouldn’t exchange the memories of it, both good and bad, for anything in the world. Apart from the fires – those were terrible, and were mostly started on purpose.

For all of those years we lived in rural areas far away from any sort of town, which is why I used to go on my epic once a month shopping trips and stock up on everything needed till the next month. A couple of hours drive each way to Harare, being stopped by endless roadblocks along the way, being fined US$20 for having dirty tyres (truth).

And being nearly squished several times by ancient, overloaded, but still very zoomy buses and taxis. It was all a massive adventure though, and I remember all these things now with a smile.

After the farm invasions started and the economy collapsed there were several really lean years – years of fear too, because there was no rule of law. Large groups of youths went around beating people both black and white, and very often killing them. The currency was worth nothing, not that you could buy anything with it if it wasn’t though. Shops closed. The end. People in rural areas died of starvation and disease – hospitals had nothing. Power went off for days, sometimes weeks. No more water on tap in the capital, and sewage pipes left broken with effluent in the streets causing cholera, and more death.

I’ve never seen a people with more heart than the people of Zimbabwe though. Apart from those who had the power to harm whoever they felt like harming and did, the vast majority of Zimbabweans are a wonderful and very canny lot. Plans were made. There was a mass exodus of white people at that time, and not only farmers. Some got out in time to hang on to any cash they had, but when the economy collapsed those left behind lost everything including pensions, and any investments people had been building for their entire lives crumbled to dust before their eyes. So many were fearfully stuck there with no money to get out, but there were also quite a few of us who stayed because that’s what we decided to do. We knew that it was dangerous, especially out in the rural areas on farms, but I guess guardian angels were working overtime those days, so even though I had the daylights scared out of me quite a few times, nobody ever managed to physically harm me. Apart from all the hurting though, Zimbabwe is a beautiful country, and there was also lots of laughter and joy, even from those hurting. Regardless of whether or not you’d be munching on an old potato for lunch, or if you had “made a plan” and would be having something a bit more filling, the houses up there were always gorgeous. I do miss a couple of things. I miss my freshly picked veggies, and also seeing all the wildlife and birds that crept around the garden – although not so much the black mambas and the baboons lurking behind bushes waiting to scare the pants off innocent me. And I really miss looking out of my window and seeing shining tranquil water. Our front lawn meandered down a couple of terraces to a gorgeous dam.

If you fancied a swim, in you popped. Not that I ever ventured out too far because there was the meanest monitor lizard in the world who used to hang around on the wobbly old jetty that would hiss and leap at you without any provocation at all.

Still, it was a lovely place to watch the sun go down behind the fields of tea on the other side of the water.

I miss the palm trees loaded down with nesting weaver birds every year – especially the one right outside my office window.

Would I ever go back to live there? No – I don’t think so. There was so much hope a couple of years back. After seeing the misery and the hunger on the faces of those people who I came to love and respect so much for their strength and humility in the face of appalling abuses by their own, I actually used to grin like an idiot and shed a tear or two when I saw them happy, well fed, and hopeful again. Now things are going so badly again – I couldn’t bear to see that again.

For now I’m very happy in my sleepy little rainbow nation town. I certainly don’t miss that constant small feeling of not being safe, but I’ll always treasure my years in Zimbabwe, and strangely, the fact that the very hell that everyone went through brought us all so much closer, and I got to know and love so many people of that country in ways that wouldn’t have been possible anywhere or anywhen else.

A Peek at Bathsheba by Uvi Poznansky – FREE 11th and 12th July

Originally posted on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog..... An Author Promotions Enterprise!:

Against the backdrop of wars, raging within the land and without, David is growing into the mantle of leadership. Between his anointment as a tribal king and his anointment as the king of all of Israel, he uses wisdom, cunning, and his own understanding of the forces of history, aiming for high ideals: stopping the bloodshed, uniting the nation, and bringing about healing and peace.

But then, having reached his peak, David falters. He makes a serious error that threatens to undo his political success, and cost him not only the adoration of his people–but also the sense of being sustained by a divine power. That error is the most torrid tale of passion ever told: his deliciously forbidden love for Bathsheba, followed by his attempt to cover up the ensuing scandal by sending her husband–who serves him faithfully in his army–to his death.

This is volume II of the…

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Waking up in London and going to bed in Malaga

Originally posted on gillswriting:

Good Day My Friends,

How is your world treating you? As well as mine, which is fantastic, I hope.

Every day this week I have awoken in my bed in Moshi, Tanzania, East Africa, I have got up and spent a couple of  hours writing or researching class material then I have washed and dressed. Here is the problem, getting dressed. Because I go to work in England and I come home in Spain!

The reality of the weather now is that I leave the house on a typical February day in London, (grey, chilly, cloudy and a high chance of rain) and I return mid-afternoon on a June day in Malaga with the sun bathing me in all her beauty and temperatures of around mid to late twenties. It is the weirdest thing ever, but on a technical note it does make the “what to wear decision” a complex one…

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