Updating the Ebooks

The publishing industry does not stand still. The indie ebook industry moves at the speed of light.

It is just two years since I stopped researching the pros and cons and took the plunge. Despite the enthusiasm of others, particularly in the USA, I wasn't expecting great things. I've been pleasantly surprised and, on occasions, not a little humbled by the reaction of readers.

During those two years the changes have been phenomenal. On Amazon, ebooks now outsell both hardback and paperback books as the world embraces digital reading. The new generation of ereaders are available in colour, and the screen quality and size of Smartphones mean that a dedicated ereader isn't even needed.

Throughout, I've maintained a professionalism in the editing and formatting of my words. Despite acknowledging the limitations of delivery, I take it as a personal slight to my integrity when a conversion goes awry, and do all I can to ensure that my fiction arrives before my readers the way it was intended. This has stood me in good stead.

Now I am updating my ebook covers to the same level of professionalism. Yes, I enjoy making a cover, but I don't have a natural flair for the artform and I don't have time to learn how to get the most from the software. I need the expertise of someone who looks upon her work as I do upon mine.

Dead Men's Fingers is the first ebook to get its new look from Karri Klawiter. Call back. You'll be seeing more of her work here shortly.

Rain, Rain go away...

Looking back, it seems that the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in London last week got off light. According to the weathermen, summer as we remember it is coming no time soon.

As we sit here in our jumpers, with the central heating kicking in occasionally, and the lights on because we can't read in today's version of daylight, my husband wistfully remarks that in twelve days time we pass the equinox and the nights will begin to draw in for winter.

He can be such a joy.

Random Acts of Kindness

Last Friday I gave a talk to Bridlington Library Writers. They were an appreciative group and I hope I left them enthused to study their own writing, and the writing of others, from a slightly different angle.

During the tea break a gentleman quietly pushed a tome towards me. He'd been present at a previous talk I'd given and knew of my interest in Native American historical life-styles. The book was trade paperback size, a good 1.5 inches thick, and sported a beige rough cardboard cover with a rather crude depiction of an “Indian” in a canoe in white-water. Handbook of Indians of Canada. The print, in two columns, is arranged on 57 lines per page, which will give an idea of the print size – it looks like 8pt or 9pt tops. As can be imagined, it hardly seems as if it has been opened. I accepted it with what I hope was good grace.

Yesterday I opened it, magnifying glass in hand. It’s not a handbook, it’s an encyclopaedia. The edition might date back to only 1971, but the information it contains is part of a work started in …1873… and only completed in 1910. The map attached to the back cover mentions Treaties dating from 1850. A random opening of pages shows mention of meetings at Montreal in 1778, mention of the Kiowa, Dakota, Sauk & Fox, which rather blurs the distinction of …Indians of Canada.

Where the gentleman got it from, he didn’t say, but I now need to hunt him down to thank him properly. What can I say? Wow! What a resource.

Happy Birthday... ZX Spectrum!

It's not often I get all nostalgic, but today is the 30th birthday of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

For those among us who have Smartphones carrying enough oomph to control a moon landing, the ZX Spectrum was the first affordable, family-friendly computer system available in the UK. It was about the size of a paperback book and had rubber keys. We didn't buy the first but got the second edition in all its glory - with 48kb memory no less. Yes, that is no mistype.

However, computer system as a description could be viewed as a bit rich. It was, basically, the keyboard. To make the thing work you needed a television as a monitor and a tapedeck, that's audio tapedeck, so as to upload the games. And word processing software.

Yes, we might have been purchasing it as a Christmas gift for our primary age son, but as soon as I saw it in action I knew I could write a novel on it, rubber keys and all. And I did. Hostage of the Heart took its first tentative steps via the ZX Spectrum.

Games? The one I truly remember was Harrier Attack where you had to get a Sea Harrier off the deck of an aircraft carrier, take it on bombing mission, under fire, to an island and get back safely before the plane's fuel ran out. We won't go into how many times I totalled the aircraft on the carrier's conning tower as I lifted off. Let's just say it was easier to write novels.

Ah, happy days...