Jo Robinson's Blog, page 89
June 24, 2014
What to Do on Your Day Off
I’m back to work now and catching up with comments, posts, and awards, so pardon me if I get spammy today. I have to tell you something important first though, that you might not have known. On a blue misty moon, nestling in the blessed shadow of the great planet Pish, which itself is bathed in the gentle light of Alnitak, that is considered by locals to be the most beautiful jewel in that legendary belt that shines so brightly from within all the other stars of Orion, a species of somewhat large and testy feathered fish – also called Pish – hold dominion. They are the stern (but officially designated) timekeepers of the universe – bet you didn’t know that – and all who would disagree with what they say the o’clock is are doomed to meet with a sad, soggy, salmon scented end. They just haven’t noticed us yet, but when they do we’ll feel their wrath for being so ahead of ourselves. There right now it is Monday, and two weeks ago…. So there it is. According to the great fish in the sky, I’m not late at all. No? Ok then – I’m late. I will catch up with everything though, and hopefully be up to speed quickly, but I’m still sorry, and thank you for being patient with me.
I’ve been a bit wary of saying that I’m better this past week, because the last couple of times I thought this was so, some new strange and not exciting symptom kept appearing, and you just look like an idiot popping up and disappearing again every few days. But now I’m pretty sure that I am. A couple of days away from my computer hasn’t been as awful as I thought it would be, although I’m not keen on leaving it again anytime soon – I’ve had enough distractions to last me at least a year.
What I did on my proper day off. I messed around the garden for a couple of hours.
Closely followed around and about by this nosy Hadeda. Odd guy – kept peering at me like I was really interesting.
I had to venture forth to the land of shops, which for me is normally a zoomy thing, heading out at eight am and usually back home by nine thirty. Seeing as how I had a couple of sickie days I decided to slow down and focus a bit on things. I took furtive pics of strangers all over the place. Apparently you’re allowed to take photies of anyone you like unless they’re in a place where they should be assured privacy. I reckon quite a few of them thought I was nuts, but that’s alright.
I found the most amazing second hand shop, and spent ages lurking around old books and things, and also taking photies of old typewriters and stuff. The shop owner was lovely, and allowed this. He was actually really nice, probably correctly assuming that I don’t get out much.
Then I got home to find Jelly missing his entire tail.
It’s a mystery. Button still has his tail, so I’m guessing that it wasn’t a weaver barnie.
Jelly’s fine though – it will grow back, and right now he’s not too unhappy with his temporary cute ducktail bum. I’ve had more than enough of the great outdoors, so back to scribbling for me.
June 23, 2014
Globular Van der Graff’s Goblin Tales for Adults – Jack Eason – Currently on Free Promotion
Originally posted on Feed My Reads South Africa:
Jack Eason lived in New Zealand for forty-two years until 2000 when he returned to his birthplace in England. As far as he is concerned he will always consider himself to be a Kiwi. After military service in the 1960′s, he travelled the world, visiting exotic lands and making many friends. Now in his mid-sixties he is content to write and travel via the Internet. Besides writing novels and short stories, he contributes to his own blog “Have We Had Help?” Some of his short stories and numerous articles appear in the No: 1 online E-zine “Angie’s DIARY”. His literary interests include science fiction, history, both ancient and modern, and humorous tales like those written by his fellow writer Derek Haines, such as “HAL”. He lives in semi-retirement in his home town surrounded by his favourite books, ranging from historical fact to science fiction. His literary icons are J.R.R Tolkien…
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Time to Let Go – Christoph Fischer – Currently on Free Promotion
Originally posted on Feed My Reads South Africa:
Christoph Fischer was born in Germany as the son of a Sudeten-German father and a Bavarian mother. Not a full local in the eyes and ears of his peers he developed an ambiguous sense of belonging and home in Bavaria. He moved to Hamburg in pursuit of his studies and to lead a life of literary indulgence. After a few years he moved on to the UK where he is still resident today. ‘The Luck of The Weissensteiners’ is his first published work. “Sebastian” has been released in May 2013. He has written several other novels which are in the later stages of editing and finalisation.
Time to Let Go is a contemporary family drama set in Britain.
Following a traumatic incident at work Stewardess Hanna Korhonen decides to take time off work and leaves her home in London to spend quality time with her elderly…
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June 19, 2014
Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes…
Cool truth. :)
Originally posted on Don Charisma:
«Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.»
– Steve Jobs
Charisma quotes are sponsored by
DonCharisma.com
– you dream it we built it … because – “anything is possible with Charisma”
Media Training the Manual – Get that product, service or book out there.
Free advertising – sounds great to me!
Originally posted on Smorgasbord - Variety is the spice of life:
Media Training the Manual – Get that product, service or book out there..
via Media Training the Manual – Get that product, service or book out there..
June 18, 2014
Traditional Versus Indie Publishing
It’s amazing how much spam builds up here when you’re not around for a bit. What the heck are raspberry ketones, and why so keen to spam me up with them? Anyway. Day two of my four day holiday, and my plan is to make a vat of chilli sauce and prune my petunias. I’m having way too much free time to ponder though, so I might just get back to work instead. I’ve been pondering my need to do everything myself all the time. I definitely have control issues. I don’t like being in any situation where someone other than me gets to decide what happens in my life these days. Sometimes these things are unavoidable, but I still don’t like them. That’s probably why I’m an Indie writer, and proud of it. I’ve never sent out a query letter, I never will send out a query letter, and I’ve never been tempted by the couple of offers I’ve had from small print publishers. Unless you get offered a fantastic deal, it doesn’t make sense to me to hand over any control at all.
I know that there are lots of authors around who are very happy to hand over the reins, and satisfied with the portion of revenue from the sales of their books that they get, but I’ve also read loads of horror stories, not only about authors not being paid their royalties at all, but also tales of books being priced so high that they have no sales at all, and editing disasters or books published with awful covers that the author has no ability to fix. Sometimes these authors fight for years, and sometimes they walk away from the book they worked so hard on, that only someone else has the power to edit, price, and sell. They don’t even know how much, if anything, that book has made in sales unless their publisher lets them know.
I remember when I first started writing, I was pretty green when it came to the internet, and I still believed in the fairy dust that would be me sending my manuscript to a top five publisher, getting accepted, being paid millions, and soon to be looking down my nose on red carpets at Kardashians everywhere. As I lurked around the peripheries of the scribbler’s world, I slowly came to realise that that was as likely to happen as J K Rowling popping over for tea and biscuits. I figured that apart from a couple of huge success stories for certain authors, the way publishing has always been is that the vast majority of books printed by publishers large and small never make it to the bestseller lists, languish in bookstores for a while, and then get forgotten. I also figured that the most successful authors – the ones that we know and love, like the oft mentioned Stephen King – did not send their first manuscript to a major publisher, get accepted, make piles of dosh, and – the end. No. They worked for years, and years, writing stories long and short, they accumulated piles of rejections, and then they worked and worked some more, before they made it to where they are today.
With the world of Indie publishing wide open for all to play in, I decided on a different game plan, one where I call all the shots. Obviously it makes no sense to expect your very first published book to be an instant success. In the old days you would have submitted it all over the place with your query letters, and very probably had it rejected all over the place too. Just because you can now publish it on Amazon and around and about without needing anyone’s approval still doesn’t mean that readers are going to love it. A lot of what’s published on Amazon is lurking in the self publishing equivalent of a traditional publishers slush pile, whether they are literary gems that just haven’t found the eyes of adoring fans yet, or whether they really are no good at all. They might lurk there forever, but then again they might not. It’s well known that agents and publishers have squizzes at self-published books, and as an Indie author you get to decide what to do with your book at any time. Self-publishing your book now doesn’t mean that you can’t sell it to a traditional publisher in the future, and the fact that you already have a readership could well be instrumental in you getting a good deal in times to come.
Amazon Indie publishing is the best way for me right now though. It’s huge – it’s the future. In fact on a couple of occasions when hunting down books I really wanted, I’ve not bought them because they weren’t available as ebooks on Amazon. Could that be because the author doesn’t want them there, or because their publishers don’t want them there? The way I see Amazon now is as a place where you get to build your backlist under your own steam. You get to earn your author stripes with every book you publish. Those who want to be gatekeepers for what should be allowed to published there are not likely to win. Amazon is what it is, and I for one love it. You’re allowed to make mistakes, and you will, and then you are allowed to fix them. People will buy your books, and read them, and they will be the equivalent of those readers who work for the traditional publishers, and send you form letters telling you that your book has been rejected. Only they’re so much better, because they didn’t receive it unsolicited in the mail – they bought it, they have no reason to accept or reject it other than whether they liked it or not.
So instead of rushing around yelling “Oy, buy my book!”, my plan has always been simply to write the stories that I write, and publish the stories that I write, zoom around the book worlds of the interweb, and know that as I grow as a writer, and as more eyeballs read my scribbles without hating them, I’m on the right track. It’s all about the love of writing, and the enjoyment or not of readers in the end, no matter whether you’re an Indie control freak like me, or whether you get published by someone else. They will either like your books and want to read more, or they won’t. Time and patience are what you need. Time to learn, grow, and publish more books, and patience to wait for the days when readers seek you out without you needing to hunt them down. I reckon, weave the tales that you like to read, and so will others when the time is right, and if they don’t, then weave another or two, and forget the stress and angst.
The What You’re Allowed to Read Police
I’m not going to be doing much until Monday, then I’ll catch up with all the posts I have due. I’ve decided to give myself four days off, just to properly give my old bod a bit of a treat after the hammering it’s taken the last couple of weeks. I suspect that I won’t actually clock out right now, but I seriously don’t have the energy to do much more than read some blogs and hit a like button or two. I’m reasoning that now I’m starting to feel a bit human again, I’ll be munching a bit more than I have been lately, and so should be ready to resume the zooming in a couple of days. My usual guilt at not being around much lately tried to kick in, but this time I whacked it on the noodle. Sometimes you just have to slow right down, or you’ll end up falling properly on your bum, and those hard falls can be hard to get up from. So. Holiday mode day one of four.
I have been reading blogs around and about, even though I really don’t have the energy to do much else, and I’ve noticed a lot of fuss about adults reading YA books, as in Read whatever you want. But you should be embarrassed when what you’re reading was written for children.. Pardon? Since when should anyone be embarrassed about what they choose to read? I’ll read whatever the hell I want to, thank you very much.
It seems rather pathetic to me to try and fit what you read into such specific sizes. That’s all very well for clothes or shoes – you will most certainly look like a tool wearing a giant babygro in your twenties, so yes, wear adult clothing, but the thought of someone saying that now that you’ve hit a certain age, you must read literary books written specifically for adults makes me cross. What you read, and when you read it, is entirely your business, and also dependant on how alert your parents are. I had read Valley of the Dolls, all of Jilly Cooper’s books, and quite of lot of REALLY adult books by the time I was thirteen, and now that I couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a pucker adult, I not only enjoy reading YA books now and then, but I still revisit Beatrix Potter, and other childhood books too.
What you read is entirely your personal decision, and you should never be embarrassed about it EVER. What next? You will ONLY wear red undies on Mondays, because pink is NOT for grownups. Naah. Down with all these Must Do police popping up all over the place.
Stop Press: ’25 Stories…” Is Free (Today and Tomorrow only)
Originally posted on margaret lynette sharp:
Stop press!
My first title, ’25 Stories of Life and Love in Australia’ (Kindle edition) will be free for today and tomorrow only.
If you, or someone you know, likes to sample Short Stories of a romantic or human interest nature, then here’s a chance.
What have you got to lose?
Better still, what have you got to gain… a book full of charm and enjoyment. :)
25 Stories of Life and Love in Australia
June 15, 2014
Monday Funnies – Morecombe & Wise
Originally posted on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog..... An Author Promotions Enterprise!:
What else but the BANANA BOAT SONG with NINA from Nina & Frederik!
McKinley by Chris Graham
Originally posted on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog..... An Author Promotions Enterprise!:
McKinley was the best in the business.
Preparation, patience and knowing all that there was to know about the target’s routine were the secrets to his success.
That’s why he was already in position hours before anyone else arrived, all set up and the sighting scope zeroed in to where the target was guaranteed to be at 06:17AM exactly, just as he always had been for the past three weeks that McKinley had had him under surveillance.
The advance guards arrived, quickly and efficiently checked the area and took up their positions by 05:48AM, keeping continual watch all around the immediate area, but McKinley was well clear of them and well concealed.
Finally at 06:17AM, as expected, the Big Guy himself arrived.
Using the scope, McKinley tracked him to the usual spot, waited until the target was in perfect position, made one final minor adjustment for range and slowly squeezed…
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