Some advice on ebook promotion

An article I wrote for MacFormat has made its way to sister title MacLife, and while it’s been uploaded out of context — it’s one section of a longer article, so some people are mentioned without any explanation of why you should value their opinions  — it’s still full of useful tips from people who’ve sold a lot of books.

For the record, Allan Guthrie is part of the Blasted Heath publisher and has sold more than 50,000 of his own ebooks, and Mark Edwards, along with writing partner Louise Voss, is a Kindle publishing sensation whose chart-toppers have led to an enormous book deal with a traditional publisher.

There are multiple keys to success, Allan Guthrie says. “Getting the covers right, having an edited manuscript, having a properly formatted manuscript, getting the product info right, getting the price right, getting decent customer reviews, informing as many ebook readers as possible about the book – those are all key factors. Sadly, there’s no magic formula.”

“Gun hats? What a brilliant idea!”

Another week, another faintly frightening bit of proposed state surveillance. Me, on Techradar:

What’s happening here is a classic bit of political manoeuvring. What’s supposed to happen is this: the security services ask for the power to do anything they like, plus some satellites with giant lasers and hats that can be used as guns, because that’s what the security services are supposed to do.

The government then tells the security services to get stuffed because we can’t afford gun hats, and because privacy is a fundamental human right.

Like Labour before them, the Tories have forgotten to do their bit. Instead of saying “get stuffed, you power-crazed doom-mongers!” they’ve said “Gun hats? What a brilliant idea!”

“If a few drunken tweets merit prison but harassment doesn’t, something’s going wrong here”

I’ve been thinking about Twitter racists and other unpleasantness. Techradar:

I’m no friend of racists, but the sentencing of Liam Stacyworries me. Stacy, as I’m sure you know, trolled Twitter users over Fabrice Muamba, posting vile racist crap when they responded, and as a result he’s been sentenced to two months in prison.

I’m not suggesting for one moment that what he did was acceptable – but two months in prison? For tweeting?

The point of the piece isn’t to justify what Stacy posted – it was vile – but to ask whether we’re throwing the book at the right people.  As I’ve said in the comments:

It’s an interesting area of law: how do you protect free speech (even if you loathe that speech with every fibre of your being) while cracking down on the harassers and scum like the people who troll the recently bereaved?

I don’t know what the answers are. Fines? Community service among the communities being abused? Electronic ASBOs and cyber-curfews banning them from social media?

“I used to think that the answer to piracy was to jail all taxi drivers.”

Me, piracy, PC Plus:

When I was young, a truck full of chocolate bars lost its load a few streets from my house. By the time the police turned up – which was, annoyingly, long before I found out about it – the cargo had gone. People didn’t take the chocolate because they were forced to; they took it because, hey! Free chocolate! The rewards were so attractive and the risk of being caught was so remote that half the town went on a three-day Wispa binge.

Magic-powered joy machines

A wee column I wrote for PC Plus has made its way online:

Buying a PC online often feels like you’re playing the world’s worst text adventure. Do you want the new Argonomicon 15, or the Mongrolodian F2? Would you sacrifice a half-gig of RAM if it meant getting the F9321A processor instead of the F32321?

It’s all about specs.

Shouldn’t it be about sex?

I don’t mean sex in the horrible, local newspaper advert “SEX! AHAHAH MADE YOU LOOK! BUY A FRIDGE!” sense. I mean in the sense of possibility, of excitement, of the sheer joy of doing amazing things that make everyone think you’re amazing too.

Художник

I think you’ll find that I’m taking the piss

Me, taking the piss out of iPad 3 speculation that gets entire articles out of analysing an invitation:

If you look at the launch invitation the Calendar app icon is nice and clear and Retina-y, but just look at the Keynote icon to the right. It’s so blurry you can barely make it out.

It’s clear what Apple’s doing here: because its Retina display is so powerful and awesome and amazing, it probably uses quite a lot of battery power. Apple’s solution? Make the bits you aren’t looking at go blurry to save pixels. Thinking like this is why Android can never win.

In the comments:

so its not just out of focus, apple has invented a display that knows where you are looking?

Muppetry.

In which I suggest blacking out Wikipedia doesn’t really change much

Today’s the big protest against SOPA, the latest bit of dangerous anti-internet legislation. I’ve written a wee column suggesting that it won’t change much in the long term, because lobbyists are fighting a long war:

Copyright industries want the net regulated, and they’re willing to spend huge sums to make it happen: SOPA is a battle, but the lobbyists are waging a war.

You don’t fight that by turning sites black. You fight it by supporting the EFF, and the ACLU, and the ORG, and by lobbying your elected representatives, and you fight it it in the ballot box. In the last general election just 55% of 25-34 year olds voted, while turnout for the 18-24 age group was a pathetic 44%.

We need to do better, because the best way to fight bad laws is to stop clowns from getting into power in the first place.

According to somebody on Twitter, that’s akin to telling women of the 1960s to shut up and know their place. I’m a bit baffled by that.

In which I compare Internet Explorer to Sugababes

Oh yes.

On the face of it, Internet Explorer doesn’t have much in common with Sugababes: IE isn’t beautiful, doesn’t sing and isn’t likely to dress in a primary-coloured PVC dominatrix outfit to perform at G-A-Y.

However, they’re not as different as you might think.

Not Nokia-ing on Heaven’s door

Nokia’s keynote this morning wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. 

“Our ambition is to surprise you at every turn,” said Kevin Shields, a man whose job title – senior vice president of program and product management for the smart device – is longer than many people’s lives.

And then he started shouting.

“It looks AWESOME!” he bellowed, channelling his inner Ballmer and scaring the hell out of the first six rows. “It feels GREAT in your hand!” he added, frightening everybody again. “It SCREAMS premium!” he screamed.

Bye, Steve

Steve Jobs’ obituary on Techradar. I was getting a bit teary as I was writing the end of it. We’ve lost a giant.