Five on Friday: A Chip off the Old Block

Here’s your required reading for the week.

on whether indies really do have a chip on their shoulder.

Neil Gaiman gives a truly stirring speech for the University of the Arts 2012 class.

GalleyCat provides a list of sites where you can promote your work.

Techdirt on the news that the court has ruled the Author’s Guild has standing to bring a class action lawsuit against Google.

Support indie authors!

Okay, time for a new fantasy author to shine – Ben Hale, with a new book called Elseerian. Only available on Smashwords as far as I can see, but the premise looks interesting and the writing looks like quality stuff.

Cover? – good illustration, but waaaay too dark. The title needs work to make it pop.
Blurb? – standard mythic fantasy. If that’s your kind of thing, it’ll hook you immediately.
Social media? – nowhere to be found, unfortunately.
Web design? – a free blog, so it was never going to be great, but pretty choppy overall. Needs a little work.

Plenty of room for improvement here. Everyone have a good weekend!