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Archives for October, 2014
Reader Perspectives
Following on from my review of Rayne Hall's book about ways to increase your book sales I thought I might spend a few minutes reflecting on how I, as a reader, find new books to read. What do I read? You can see the details over on my Goodreads shelf, my 2014 Challenge was to read 50 books this year (numerically slightly down on last year, but 12 parts of John Scalzi's Human Division counted as 12 on goodreads when it was really just a single serialised novel (and I really enjoyed it). So my reading is divided into three broad categories, I read easy fiction for escape and enjoyment, histories for a better understanding of why and how we got here, and course related material for the Open University degree that I am doing. Typically the heavier the degree module…
Book Review – Why Does My Book Not Sell? 20 Simple Fixes by Rayne Hall
Why Does My Book Not Sell? 20 Simple Fixes by Rayne Hall My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book is full of useful tips, and more importantly a broad framework for approaching improving your work as what works is continually evolving. Once enough people find a new technique for improving their book's visibility and sales it becomes less useful. However there are definitely a set of things that will always remain useful. I'm not going to tell you the list, Rayne deserves to profit from her hard work and she's not charging the earth for the book. I got it on pre-order for £, about 99 cents US. That could of course just have been a ploy on her part to catapult it up the sales rankings. However even if it costs you a little more it may still…
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Book Review – Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Grimm's Fairy Stories by Jacob Grimm My rating: 3 of 5 stars Interesting to see the originals that Disney worked their magic on. There's a similarity across some of the stories where you can see that perhaps they are mutated versions of the same original that have morphed as they were told. Also there are a number of fairy stories that I hadn't heard before, them not having quite entered popular consciousness where I grew up. Possibly some of these would be the kernel of some good stories, Grimm's style is very much tell and no show. That suits the sort of morality tales these are, intended for someone to simply recount them at bedtime or round the fire or dinner table. They've come from an oral tradition, and anything taking longer to tell than 10 to 20 minutes would…
Read Around the World
A few months ago I responded to a Google+ post by Andrew Buckley, he had an idea for people around the world reading a story on camera and was looking for volunteers. The story in question is his novel 'Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish' by Andrew Buckley. You can read more on Andrew's website. The experiment started yesterday and will carry on until Christmas. So here is the link to my entry in the Read Around the World experiment! If you'd like to sign up and join in the fun just head to for more information. This is part 2, and you might want to watch Part 1 of Read Around the World first for continuity reasons. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the story as it happens. ;feature= Not my best video because I needed to read…
Book Review – Resurrection by Arwen Elys Dayton
Resurrection by Arwen Elys Dayton My rating: 4 of 5 stars I really enjoyed this story, it was a mix of classic science fiction, ancient history and a modern thriller. I'm not an expert on the Egyptology, but what there was worked very well for me as a story and was plausible. It managed to avoid being too Erich von Däniken in its approach, and the way that the locals never grasped the technology was completely believable. Another aspect that I liked was the interplay between the metal poor and biotech rich Kinley (humans from a planet 8 light years away) and their enemies who used cloned Kinley to spy on them. This provided some of the science fiction backdrop for a modern day thriller, with the two racing to recover the lost secret of faster than light travel (the…