Category: Books

  • Pricing ebooks: dollars and sense

    As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m about to put my novel online in various ebook formats, and part of the process is working out how much to charge. It’s a controversial topic, so it was nice to see this post by John Rickards (which came to me via the superb Loud blog). As Rickards points out,…

  • Coming to a Kindle near you very soon

    The book isn’t ready yet but I thought Ronnie Brown’s cover design was too good to keep under wraps. More soon.

  • Kurt Vonnegut story grids

    This is wonderful. I was at a Kurt Vonnegut talk in New York a few years ago. Talking about writing, life, and everything. He explained why people have such a need for drama in their life. He said, “People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be…

  • “It is now clear to me that the folks who miss the satire may be a tremendous source of income”

    A superb post by Famous Monster in a thread about self-publishing: One of these days I will get around to writing just the absolute most loathsome right-wing Clancy-esque military scifi I can possibly muster. I mean somewhere between John Norman and John Ringo and maybe Terry Goodkind. Like all about a guy who is the best…

  • i (the newspaper), reading on the iPad and a few words about Kindles

    Before getting my iPad, I promised to dump my expensive newspaper habit. It didn’t really work, because I missed the serendipity of a printed newspaper. So I came up with a compromise. I’d get a daily paper again, but instead of the full-fat Guardian I’d get i, the abridged Independent. From tomorrow, I’m back to…

  • An iPad app to captivate children and make their parents cry

    If you’re a parent you’ll know Oliver Jeffers: he’s the writer and artist who created the sublime Lost And Found. And now, one of his books is an iPad app. Narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, the iPad version is a digital delight. And as it’s about death, it *will* make you cry. The app is…

  • Why self publishing sucks (for me)

    We’ve been talking about publishing (or rather, not getting published), and G24 points out: You don’t need a publisher these days any more than you need pulped up trees to print on. I agree entirely, but I don’t think self publishing is the right road for me. There are lots of reasons for that, but…

  • Ready, fire, aim! Something to check before you write a novel

    Remember that book I was writing? I thought I’d post an update. After a lot of work, eight drafts and two printers I’ve sent it out to some people, and I’ve had loads of feedback about it from agents and other publishing insiders. The dialogue is great. It’s really atmospheric. The characters are fun. The…

  • A good book you can have for free

    My friend Chris Mitchell runs Spike, a most excellent books-and-interesting-things site on the Internet. And now, he’s put together a most excellent ebook version with some of the best bits from Spike’s last 15 years. And a few things I’ve written too. It’s a lovely thing to look at and and to read, and it’s…

  • The problem with books: they’re too quiet

    Books are rubbish. They just sit there with their words and their plots and their characterisation and their background detail. Where’s the fun in that? What books need is… 3D audio clips! From the press release: Pan Macmillan Marketing Director Becky Ikin said: ‘We wanted to celebrate the phenomenal global publication of Ken Follett’s Fall…