A Q&A Post
First up, I have been kindly featured in W3 Sidecar, in a Q&A post. My thanks go out to Marissa Bell Toffoli for the opportunity!
Blog Browser Day
Yesterday’s post about the new Blog Browser Day has been greeted with phenomenal success! I already have several blog recommendations lined up for this coming Saturday (3rd August). I would like to thank everybody who has made recommendations and/or given their support to the idea. It is always a delight when such feedback is received so quickly!
A Little Disappointed
Having read about the success other authors have enjoyed by releasing their books as paperbacks, usually using Print on Demand (POD), I took the plunge, as you may know. It is rather disappointing, then, that I have, to date, had not one sale of even one of my paperbacks. While I love having my own copies as paperbacks, I have to seriously consider whether the effort involved in getting there is worthwhile. Perhaps I was mistaken in not using Amazon’s Createspace as the POD service, but after receiving not one response from them to a couple of simple questions, I decided to find a more responsive service. I am very reluctant to now turn my back on skoobebooks, who put so much work and help into the books.
If there’s anybody out there with more experience of POD, I’d love to hear from you! You can either comment here or use the blog’s contact form (which is private).
Life, Art and Possible Misbehaviour
My good friend Seumas Gallacher raises this sticky issue in his blog. We all know that Life imitates Art, and vice versa, but when does this become an issue for real concern? What happens, for instance, when Art imitates Art? What is provable when, for example, you see a film that so closely resemble something you wrote that you feel convinced there’s theft involved? If you’re a hugely successful author, then maybe the problem isn’t so big. You probably have the power to go into battle. What is the situation, though, for a new author, especially a self-published Indie, in the same position? Do we really have any choice other than to just ‘suck it up’? I know, for sure, that there’s no way that I could afford to charge into court and demand the rectification of the situation. It’s a sobering thought. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about with piracy of our books by more mundane means!
And with that, I’ll close today’s miscellanea!
~ Steve
