The Word Cloud

If you've been following the thread in the forum, you'll know that the Writers' Workshop Festival of Writing 2012 book is now out! Although there's a section for the professionals at the end, as well as an Ask the Agent section, the bulk of the book is made up of articles, anecdotes, writing tips picked up in workshops and on courses, poems and reminiscences written by the Festival delegates.

The whole intention of the book was to showcase the writing of some of the many talented writers who attend the Festival. Every one of the people featured in the book now has a publishing credit that they can use in pitches to agents and publishers for their other writing. Among these people who can now describe themselves as 'published' are the following regular Cloudies:

Susanne (Suzanne Davie), Chrissiebee (Chrissie Bradshaw), Skylark (Mandy Berriman), Flickimp (Imran Siddiq), sirtanicmills (Ian Andrews), MarkR (Mark Rutterford), Tenacityflux (Sophie Jonas-Hill), Rugby Anthony (Anthony Madigan), Peacock (Natalie Peacock), Neil Evans, John Taylor, Athelstone (William Angelo), Squidge (Katherine Hetzel), Barb Ettridge, Vanessa Wester and Old Fat Prop - who wasn't even at the Festival but wrote a brilliant parody. There are even more people who feature in the 99 Shades of York section or who are mentioned in the Congratulations to ... pages.

In fact, there are many more contributors and it may be that some are Cloudies but I hadn't cottoned on to that, so if you can't see your name here, it doesn't necessarily mean you're not in the book. If you click the Amazon link, you can see the full list of contributors using the 'look inside' function. Or, better still, download the book.

What goes around comes around. All these people have earned their place in the book but, in order for the word to spread as far as possible, everyone needs to take their part in promoting it far and wide. If you're on Facebook or Twitter, the easiest thing would be to share this blog post. It's hoped that the book will appeal to anyone who has an interest in  writing and getting published, not just those who were at York.

At present, only the e-version is available but it can be downloaded to other devices, like a PC, as well as to a Kindle. WW will be letting us know if they intend to go ahead and produce a print version.

We're also determined to celebrate the publication of the book. Secret hush-hush plans are afoot but, meanwhile, our celebrations will have to be virtual. So I'm here, unpacking the chocolate fountain, folding napkins and cooling the champagne. I'm making some gorgeous nibbles - and I don't mean I'm opening a family bag of crisps. Like all of you, this virtual party is going to have class.

Come on, Cloudies. Writers are notorious for knowing how to party. Let's make this one to remember!

A barkingly brilliant marketing idea from Amazon to sell used e-books and take a cut from every transaction. 
Thing is, a used e-book is no different to a new e-book. No dog-ears, no pages missing, no worrying stains.  The only advantage to a new e-book, is that you can read it first.
So if you've already purchased an e-book and read it, you can transfer the rights to it to anyone else via Amazon's Marketplace or similar.

And the author and publisher get nothing at all from this second transaction.
It's just like purchasing a used paper book, except for the perfect condition.

And so the only party to benefit, is, er, Amazon. Are they getting too big for their books?

How long before there's only ever one copy of every book sold? Which is then sold on and on.

WTF?

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/used-ebooks-is-a-ridiculous-idea-that-could-ruin-authors-publishers 

I should add that I was originally alerted to this by a tweet from Jane Judd.

Hi all!

I wanted to do something special for this Christmas season, as a present for all the wonderful people I have met online this year. After much thinking, I decided that the best present I could offer is a free e-book. I’ve collected my favourite Christmassy stories, some of which have entertained me since I was a child.

It is a printer-friendly pdf (for the anti-kindle type [like me]), but it should read well on screen too.

Have a merry one!

This is for those who have asked me to let them know; it's also for those who might be interested; it's even for those for whom a monkey's cuss is rather more than they would like to give (they might change their minds):

My novel, Blow Your Kiss Hello, the one I promise I'll stop shamelessly pimping very soon (at least on here), will be available to purchase on Amazon this Wednesday.  For your e-reader devices, anyhow. For those of you who prefer paper versions, you'll just have to wait a little longer. And for those of you who like your books in T-shirt form. if you stick around for a bit you'll be accomodated eventually too.

You can still read the opening chapter or so here: http://writing-community.writersworkshop.co.uk/magazine/read/blow-your-kiss-hello-free-sample_5923.html

That's the end of the ad break. As you were. 

No one reads short stories any more. Well, not if we're to believe the mainstream publishers, they don't.  Single Author collections are rare indeed. Yet people still love writing them.

In his introduction to Alice Monro's superb collection 'Runaway', Jonathan Franzen speaks up for the Cinderella of fiction, saying...I like stories because they leave the writer no place to hide.
He  names literary giants like John Updike and William Trevor, fine novelists, but 'who seem to me most at home, most undilutedly themselves in their shorter work.'

I would agree, and I think this is because the short form allows writers freedom to explore. We don't have to worry about categories or target readership. We write what we must, and who knows where the stuff comes from or where it's going to.

As someone who has had a few novels traditionally published, you may wonder why I'm plugging my own little collection here. Fact is, while I've been lucky enough to see many of my stories published individually, it's long been a dream to see some of them nestled together between the covers of a single volume. Yes, I know. Dream on! Then I got a Kindle for Christmas and thought...hmm...why not?

So here it is - My Life in a Nutshell - six (quite long) short stories, a good rainy weekend read and all for the price of a cup of tea! If you enjoy shorts you might fancy hitting the link below, and checking out the blurb.

Forgive the shameless self-promotion by the way. It doesn't come easy. But seeing as it's Friday, I'm hoping you might all be in a good mood!




http://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Life-Nutshell-ebook/dp/B007R4WJQK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1334926033&sr=1-1

In a top secret bunker cunningly hidden on The Cloud beyond the wit of man or woman (it’s that wispy bit just to the left) OFP,Veek and myself have been beavering away on a classified project. (I told them beavering was illegal in this country, but would they listen...?)

We are now ready to reveal this project, mainly ‘cos we need your help. We are going to write an e-book of poetry, short stories and flash fiction in aid of SSAFA (Soldiers, Sailors, Airman and Families Association)  http://www.ssafa.org.uk/.

They are the country’s oldest armed forces charity and provide help to people who are serving or have ever served, even for one day.

The working title of this project is ‘Warrior Poets’ and we would like you to help by submitting work and/or using your editing skills. We already have the Writer’s Workshop on board as our support team (apart from editing, that would be cheating anyway.)

Submissions

To submit work you need to have an armed forces link, which actually will be most of you. I don’t care if your Great Uncle 6 times removed was third assistant bottle washer at the Battle of Trafalgar, if you’ve got a good story please submit it.

We want poems, short stories (max 3000 words) and flash fiction. This includes life writing, ie true stories, diary extracts etc.

What I definitely do not want is anything political, racist or abusive.

Please submit on Warrior Poets group page.

Deadline will be 1 September (subject to change) in order to edit book for Crimbo.

Other ways to help.

You can also help by offering to critique or edit work. Either in a buddy-buddy system with another Cloudite or on the Warrior Poets Group page.

I hope the book will also contain work from serving personnel, their families, other, maybe older, veterans, the odd classic poem and maybe the odd celeb. (most of them are...odd that is)

That’s it really, although I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. A publication date hasn’t been decided with SSAFA yet, but they are on board (we can even use their logo!)

They had the Christmas No1 record last year, let’s give them a best selling book as well!

You've no doubt had someone say to you, 'you should write a book.' Several people said that to me over the last ten years. Flattered, well yes! The only problem was what to write about? I hated English classes at school - hated school generally to be honest. I'd probably forgotten more than I ever knew about grammar, tense and punctuation. I could do verbs, nouns and adjectives I thought, but a participle? That only provided an degree of mirth; my dad's name being Percy Tipple. I rarely read anything other than car maintenance manuals, or electronics magazines or articles connected with work.

So what happened? Why do I want to write now? For starters, I've read lots of books over the last twenty years and enjoyed them. The more I read, the more I wanted to read. I knew which authors left me cold and those who worked for me, eager to read their latest. When I retired three years ago, we spent a lot of time in Thailand, especially over the winters. I began to write short articles about living here mainly for the benefit of those back home: perhaps to reassure them that we were alright living in Asia. Those early scrawlings were loaded with errors; all the things I'd forgotten about. But I enjoyed doing them.

This month I self-published them as a short e-book on Smashwords and Amazon, under the title of My Thai Eye, a wry look at things Thai. And they're selling, not in vast numbers - I didn't expect they would - but selling. I  did this for a number of reasons;

• It would raise some money for Thai flood relief: I have chosen a book library for children's charity. Seemed fitting as many were destroyed,
• It would help to get my name 'out there',
• I would gain experience at placing my own work in e-book stores and to learn how it all worked.

But My Thai Eye is done with now, apart from the marketing - which I think I'll enjoy - and checking from time to time to see how sales are going, which I might not. As part of my marketing, I designed my own website - and the cover for My Thai Eye - so gradually I'm learning quite a lot about more than writing.

I haven't acheived this alone and want to thank all of the Clouders at The Writers' Workshop - the best on-line community for new writers - and their editors who nicely but firmly pointed me in the right direction. Plus David Gaughran - you should visit his site Let's Get Digital if you want to e-pub, he's a real enthusiast.

So, what now? What to write about next? Two years ago I had no idea. Then one balmy evening, I had that eureka moment. I knew what my first novel would be about.

Edwin Tipple edwintipple.com

January 2555 (2012)

http://www.edwintipple.com/blog5.html

The Idea
I am proposing to put together a collection of short stories, with contributions from different authors. I will firstly explain what I aim to achieve, then the benefits and then further details on how to get involved.

The Aim

The overall aim is to produce a self-published e-book that will be available for download on Amazon for free. This book will contain short stories by a number of different authors. The target is to break into the top 100 books available for free download.

I will be doing all the reviewing and editing on the submitted stories and will also be doing the compiling, formatting and publication work for the book, as well as getting involved in the marketing afterwards. So the admin side of things is taken care of, all you have to do is write a publishable short story.

All authors will retain the copyright for their respective stories and this will be stated within the book itself.

If this is successful I would like to make it a regular thing and build up a reputation for showcasing some of the best new emerging talent in fiction writing, that might otherwise have remained undiscovered.

All contributing authors will be able to submit their own bio to go along with their story and will receive a final draft copy to review before I upload it as a published book.

The Benefits

1) You get your work published in a book for free.

2) Even if your work is not selected to for the final book, all authors will receive some feedback on their work.

3) All stories will be preceded by an author bio. This is free advertising of you as an author and is also a place to advertise any other publications you may have.

4) There will be an opportunity for you to include contact details so that agents and/or publishers can contact you directly if they like your work.

5) Instead of just one author trying to market their book, there will be an entire team of us marketing the same book.

There are other benefits and experience that I can provide:

I teach classes on academic writing and have also been involved with the editing of publications, as well as having my own book chapter published within book.

I have expertise within the field of the psychology of marketing and sales. I will use this knowledge to help promote this book and give tips in general on the marketing side of things.

If you do not yet have your own author website then I can set one up for you and simply email you the password to access it, which you can then change and be the proud new owner of your own website complete with blog.

I have an excellent network for marketing the book, as well as friends who can provide high quality photos for the front cover.

The Details

1) The deadline for submission is 15th January 2012

2) Short stories must be between 2000 and 5000 words in length

3) Stories can be from any genre, but must be high quality fiction

4) Only 1 short story per author

5) Author bio must be one paragraph. Suggested inclusions are your name, location, other publications, a few facts about yourself, writing interests/genres and any contact details or links to websites that you would like to include.

6) No pictures or illustrations

7) You keep full copyright and ownership of your work, but by submitting it to me then you agree to have your work published in this book

8) The work must not have been published, or part published, anywhere else before. It must be entirely original. Plagiarism checks will be carried out, as it is only fair to the other contributing authors.

9) Please submit your work as a Microsoft word document, with no page numbers

If you are interested then please send me a message and I will send you the email address to which you should send your work.

If you have any questions then please feel free to ask. This will hopefully be a fun way of helping a few of us get published :)

Further Details

For those of you who are interested, then some further details are as follows.

The title of the book will be ‘Mullins Collection of Best New Fiction’. Using my surname as the title of the collection ensures that there will be no copyright issues with other similarly named collections, as well as making it is distinctive enough for readers to find future collections.

The layout of each story will be as follows:

TITLE

Author Name

Author Bio

Short Story

I will be writing a short introduction for the book, as well as formatting page numbers and creating a contents page and author contact page for the back of the book.

Take care and happy writing,

Aaron

I've just stumbled across this. If poor spelling on a website has a detrimental effect on that site's sales, then I wonder if the same is true of sites selling e-books. It certainly would be for me, if I bought them. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14130854 

On the same day that the American Association of Publishers (AAP) announced a rebound for print in March, and that e-books had dropped back to third place (behind trade paperback and hardback), Amazon declared that they were now selling more e-books than print books.

Yesterday, I covered the limitations of the AAP figures, namely that they only include a small number of publishing houses, they ignore more e-focused small and independent presses, and they don’t include self-publishers.

Amazon gives us a different, if also incomplete, picture. They rarely release hard numbers, and prefer to talk in general terms.

In their press release on Thursday, they announced that, since April 1, they now sell 105 Kindle books for every 100 print books. Free Kindle books were excluded from these figures.

Full breakdown of the figures, analysis , and a sneak preview of my new e-book cover here:

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/amazon-e-books-outselling-all-print-ad-supported-kindle-is-top-seller/