Steve’s Comments (group member since Sep 26, 2010)

Steve’s comments from the Q&A with Steve Morris group.

Hiya Nicolle,
Great to hear that you like Maths and Physics as they are becoming unpopular at A-level and university, neither hardly a "soft-option". Some university physics departments have had to close recently due to lack of numbers.

This is concerning when we consider the need to nurture maths and scientific talent in the UK. Instead people choose trendy easy subjects and still unsurprisingly can't find employment after graduating.
Stay with the sciences, especially if you enjoy them and have a flair for them!

It is also interesting that you like poetry. Many high-ability science and maths students I meet find the English GCSE poetry difficult. I did too!

But poetry is to be enjoyed...
I love the melancholy beauty of Thomas Hardy's poetry.

As regards books (and stories), fingers-crossed, there should be a brand new story in an anthology called "Taj Mahal Review" at Xmas.
I spoke to the editor of "JT" this week about the future and said that I would like to see how the book book goes before making a decision.
I would like to present a novel next of which I've got some really different ideas even down to the book covers, but after production,it takes so much legwork to promote them and it is a huge commitment with a lot of travelling to students studying for exams at the moment.
In these economic times, we should always value our day jobs highly! I wouldn't like to neglect any students.
But hopefully if JT takes off, the publisher will agree and the novel will follow!

There is an interview an feature about "Jumble Tales" on "Written in Blood", Katie Salidas' book blogspot:

http://myimmortalstories.blogspot.com/

Jumble Tales

A couple of magazines and three newspapers have promised to feature "Jumble Tales".

The latest of which will be a newspaper, the book editor of which contacted me at 10:30PM last night. It is amazing what hours people work these days.
I was up marking exams alas.....and later the dog still wanted another walk! No rest...

As the reviews appear, I shall post them to:
http://www.facebook.com/SteveMorrisst...
and
http://www.s-morris.co.uk
unless they are very scathing!

I question the agenda was of that lady on Amazon.co.uk? Jeffrey Archer indeed!

Yes good bargains. It certainly pays to shop around and it also shows the mark-up that some stores try to cash in when a major release first comes out.

"The Curious Incident" is a good book. I heard it first read on OneWord radio. Then a colleague and I had a read when we worked with two autistic boys who couldn't cope with school life.
We need more awareness and understanding of Autistic Spectrum Disorders and I truly believe that the condition is far more common than is diagnosed.

Shopping online gets the best prices for books but I worry about all the independent high-street bookshops who won't be able to compete. Those dusty old shops were treasure troves as were libraries when I was a boy!

I think that paperback book prices are too expensive for what they are at the moment. I think that the "going rate" of 7 to 10 GBP for a new paperback is prohibitive, especially in these economic times.

I thought about the price of "Probability" and as whether people could afford to speculate 8 GBP on an unknown book. That was around the minimum price that the publisher could set due to the production costs and the discounts demanded by online retailers.
I think that this may have held it back slightly.
None of us are willing to gamble 10 GBP on a CD from an new unknown singer who we just happen to see in a music store.

When "Jumble Tales" was being put together, I asked the publisher that the minimum price possible could be set for this book in light of the current economy.

Incidentally, I recently bought an unread leather finely-bound gilt tooled maths text book for 20 gbp and also saw a brand new very-recent celebrity hardback in a charity shop for sale for 99 pence. It's a funny world.
I left that one there.....

Well, 1050 people entered the Goodreads Giveaway for copies of "Jumble Tales". I hope that is a good sign.

That's great to hear. Yes, "Ships that pass" (kind of) ends happily and also "February" ends on a high note. We never know what's around the corner!

Thanks so much for letting me know what you think.

Yes, I'm sure that's right. They certainly are obsessed with quoting everyone's age.
Also the amount of private information that can be "Googled" is quite scary. Perhaps George Orwell was right all along!

Well this guy sat opposite me on a table for thirty odd minutes. Don't you think that the Press are obsessed with age? Most stories in most newspapers always include "Joe Bloggs [comma] [Age] did so and so...". I wonder why they think it is so essential.
You're right about the family aspect. Disapproval from family would give them another angle.
This reporter freelances for a few regional newspapers and was a really nice guy.

The first newspaper interview about "Jumble Tales" was last night. Fine. But why do journalists always ask your age and what your family think about your book?

"Jumble Tales", my second book of stories will be available from tomorrow, 28th October. Is it nearly the end of October already?

As for the covers, I love them. Thay are really striking. I'm not very artistic so that was why I had to use help from Vivian's team.
She asked me for some ideas.

Incidentally, some of my students are genuinely really talented at art and if you are short of ideas, I would recommend them!

I know you have worked with Ami Blackwelder, who has a talent for putting together the art and videos for books.

Robert, Good afternoon to the USA!
Thanks for popping along.

This very thing has happened recently. The UK has an unhealthy obsession with celebrity status. Everybody wants to be famous without putting in the graft. Reality TV, music, art and writing are popular "career" aspirations. One student I spoke to last week will head off for three years at university at huge parental expense to study "creative writing" with aims of a career as a novelist. Many others opt for "Media Studies" or "Film studies" etc.
Then, when I need a joiner, electician, mechanic and not mentioning builders, I find they are all fully-booked with work and then charge me a fortune for their work.
My advice to youngsters is that they learn something useful, get a good useful career, enjoy their art in their free time (lots of that at uni) and if they are talented, then they will shine through.
How many classic successful authors had previous careers ?

Also I must thank another American friend author Robert Wacaster for sending me a wad of bookmarks for his new books. Robert Wacaster

How are they also offering a "used" copy, considering that it isn't released until the 28th?

Definitely. We should move with the times. Ami Blackwelder, (another multi-talented American) made this great trailer video for "In All Probability" which really suited it.
I know you have done some recordings of your work and also public readings. Interestingly that was a tactic of Charles Dickens!
I'd love to get one of the stories onto radio somehow

Quite a party there in Boston! You're right, however, about the need to somehow standardise (ize?) English now that we are rapidly joining into one transatlantic digital literary language.

Interestingly I think that slightly more copies of "Probability" went abroad than were sold in the UK. I never considered this beforehand so in terms of language, it is something that we all need to be aware of. Perhaps we should aim for an International standard for books or an "International Edition" from now on.
Incidentally I understand that the term "exported" for books often meant shipping overseas unsold crates of print runs to the British colonies!

Yes, I'm sure they will. If we look how email is replacing talking on the phone, and how the internet is taking over from reading newspapers, I think that gadgets will encourage more reading of this type for people who wouldn't normally buy physical books.
What do you think?

Yes. They look really good so I'll make sure they are given away.
I've just received some along with two American books I've bought on a horror theme. Their artwork is really good and makes the books more collectible.