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A belated acknowledgement
I suppose it's not the cheeriest of subjects, but then neither is the need to look both ways before crossing the road - both are nevertheless important. I'm just reading The Coming First World Debt Crisis by Ann Pettifor. It was published in October 2006. You can guess the sorts of things it says: like, here are all the reasons why this is going to blow up in our faces any minute now even though things look fine to some people and those in charge tell us that all is rosy. You'll recall I was saying something a bit similar, but since I didn't actually know what I was talking about it, I'm not sure that counts. But Ann Pettifor gives every indication of knowing what she's talking about. If the world ever starts giving out Cassandra Awards, Ms. Pettifor deserves one. They should be televised, with highlights on the evening news. Guessing shouldn't count, but recognition should go to careful reasoned explanations that accurately predict the next disaster. Anyone who wins more than a couple should probably get the odd phone call from No. 10 Downing Street or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Ms. Pettifor's blog is here.
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The ghost of Christmas present
Rob's explained below about the ghost of Christmas past: here's one from the present day.
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In between the serious posts
I'm about to post another serious post to complement Rob's, so I thought I'd slip in some light relief by way of some dolphins playing with air rings. Clever and calming.
OK, you're calm now. Ready for the next post...
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Crimbophobia
Em and I are currently poring over the Snowbooks accounts, looking for clues, tips and dire warnings about what's worked for us in the past, with a view to deciding what might work in the future. One thing that stands out is the untold story of a certain Christmas from years gone by. That story can now be partially told - partially, because we don't want to alienate further the retailer who nearly bankrupted us. Those not of faint heart, read on...
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Spamalot
Oops
Oh dear - I've just found quite a few actual emails in amongst my junk mail - a couple of which are from people I've previously marked as 'safe'. Peculiar. If you've emailed me since Christmas and I've not replied, please try again and I'll review my junk mail thoroughly over the next few days. Sorry, sorry.
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Mothernight review
A lovely and thoughtful review of Mothernight from that blogger of bloggers, Random Jottings. Thanks, Elaine!
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And here's an award we didn't win...
... but I thought it might be fun to share our entry. Download the PDF for our e-publishing entry for the IPA. On re-reading it, it's a bit frivolous and content-free so I can totally see why we didn't get shortlisted!
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Spring
If your first thought upon visiting the blog today wasn't 'Green!', hit f5 or whatever the Mac equivalent is. After a preposterously nice spring day walk I thought I'd seasonalise the blog. Tell me if you can't bear it.
I've also spruced up our home page with something seasonal, and added a few more bits and bobs to the author pages of our authors who've sent in extras. A particularly fine browse can be had at Thomas Emson's pages - see sections of the original handwritten manuscript of Maneater! I love looking at them - fascinating. If you haven't already seen it, you can read the 'missing' chapter of Sarah's Needle in the Blood, too. Go to the author pages and have a poke around.
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Last gasp reagonomics
Here's a little U.S. politics/economics. Look away if you don't like that stuff. A tax refund is being planned to stimulate the listing American economy. To help, it needs to be spent by the recipients, not saved. One can make sure it's spent by giving it to people who can't afford to save - the ones who are really struggling at the moment. The chart to the left shows what percentage of the rebate will go to each of the five U.S. income bands (click to make the picture bigger). Giving an equal rebate to each band would be bad enough, because America's wealthiest aren't going to spend that money, but giving the richest fifth four times what the poorest fifth get is ridiculous. Yet more free handouts for the rich will do nothing to stave off a U.S. depression. (Paul Krugman's thoughts are here. tricky stats are here)
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Out of concern...
...that snowblog readers aren't reading enough XKCD cartoons, see below.
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Naturey
A picture of a buzzard being lazy (see left). Plus one of a buzzard actually bothering to flap its wings (see behind the cut).
In other news from nature, I keep worrying that the single frosty week we had in December doesn't really count as Winter. My garden is full of two-week old blossoms (granted some of them are snowdrops, but still...). Isn't it all going to die when we have the rest of Winter? (See below for a picture)
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Animals
poorly motivated
and a bit scraggly
One or two thoughts about animals, now that I live among them in The Sticks.
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Spread the Word
Don't forget to vote! We only have two days left! Voting closes at noon on Friday! Remember: it says "vote for the title that you think will really spark discussion in your book club or amongst friends". Don't make me use another exclamation mark...Vote! Vote now!
Vote for NEEDLE IN THE BLOOD here
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OK, own up
The Happiness Factory
a.k.a. a call centre
Who's sold my phone number to one of those lists? Today I've had cold calls for:
- someone wanting to send me information on their recruitment agency (Me: "Sorry, we're not really right for you as we don't do recruitment." Them: "but how do you recruit your staff?" Me: *sigh*)
- someone wondering if I have sufficient photocopiers (we scan things if we need to. That didn't go down at all well with the caller. Them: "What, you scan everything? What happens if you need to photocopy something?" Me: *sigh*)
- a ticket for a fair for auditors at Excel (can you imagine)
- someone very keen to reduce my phone bill (I'd rather it if they reduced the number of phone calls. By one.)
- someone very keen to sell me envelopes (I have enough envelopes)
- someone wanting to know the name of our HR manager (That'll be me)
- someone wanting to know the name of our FD (Me again)
- someone wanting to know if we need any new water coolers for our office. (I have a very effective tap)
Continue reading "OK, own up" »
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Occasional sanity at the N.Y.T.
Paul Krugman of the New York Times deserves a medal for being right almost every time he opens his mouth. Sadly by the time he is proved right, most people are too busy insisting that no one could have seen the current situation coming to notice him. Bob Herbert also makes a reasonable amount of sense, from time to time, and here's some of it now in case anyone is wondering whether President Bush's idea of rescuing his bankrupt nation by cutting taxes is the solution.
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Unacceptable.
A member of the Torchwood writing staff
Do I dare trust myself to write a post about BBC flagship-show Torchwood? Probably not. Let's hide it behind the cut just in case mention of its name discombobulates my brain and crazy talk ensues.
Continue reading "Unacceptable." »
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"Work isn't a place you go, it's something you do."
I've been getting on very well with working from home because I am both a morning and night person, and less of an early afternoon person. It means I can get up early(ish) and get straight to work, without wasting my productive hours on a commute (although I do think an early morning cycle is a great way to wake up). Then I can get a bit lazy around lunchtime, make some food, perhaps, as has happened a few times since Andy gave me the complete Buffy DVD set (all 7 series. Yes, I am married to the perfect man) even watch an episode of Buffy whilst having my soup, or go for a walk or meet Rob for lunch in Chipping Norton. Then I can do easy tasks until I take advantage of the fact that my brain kicks back into gear around seven in the evening, and have another blast at the important stuff until bedtime. All of which is why this post was particularly interesting - about companies who are realising that giving people the freedom to work in the way that suits them best is a sensible idea. Have a read. I bet your company doesn't work like that. Maybe you should forward it to your boss.
(Via Seth Godin, of course, the god.)
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More prizes!
We are accredited by the BIC people who gave us this nice logo. One more for the trophy cabinet...
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Innovation of the year entry.
A couple of people have asked what our entry was for the IPA innovation of the year prize that we're shortlisted for. I can't see the harm in sharing the entry with you. It's a bit self-congratulatory, as these things tend to be, so forgive me for being all ooh, aren't we great, but hopefully it's interesting. Er, if you like XSL.
View the pdf of our entry (137kb).
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Fizzy
mmmm, prizes
Hooray! We're nominated for some prizes! Hoo-hrayyyy!
I'm not really allowed to enter prizes. See, sometimes I phone Rob up and say 'I'm *soooo* busy, too busy to even have this conversation actually.' And he'll say 'Why, Em? What have you got to do?' And then I'll reel off all sorts of things that I've taken on that I don't really have to do, like rewrite our entire website from scratch, or offer to do some work for another company, or, my favourite, enter a load of prizes. I create a rod for my own back, I do.
Still, I only do it because I love this company to bits, and why wouldn't I want it to do as well as it possibly can? And how lovely it is when it comes good. So... long preamble over. We've been nominated for two (wheee!) awards at the IPG awards. More info below!
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Are robots stupid?
Yesterday there were several hundred spam comments on this blog and zero real ones. That can't be right, can it? While I'm sure Em and I accept that the great internetting public have better and more productive things to do with their day than add their words to this particular lexical compost heap, I do take exception to evil spam robots bombarding the blog with their rather prurient solicitations. Time to see just how smart these robot fiends are, I thought. So I've added a little plugin (courtesy of this site) to the blog which requires you to answer a question before it will accept your comment. Currently the question is: 'What colour is nice, new snow?'. I'll be interested to see whether the tin swines can work that out or whether it will stump them.
And do let me know if it stops humans from posting, because that's not my plan at all.
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Prreeeeettyy
Old Well-established friend John A-W notified me yesterday that Apple had released a sliver of a laptop calculated to make people like me say 'I want one' just before enquiring 'what is it exactly?'. But the 'what' is easy enough. It's a laptop where everything but the keyboard and screen have been made invisibly small and the whole thing has been worked over with Apple's Magic Aesthetifying Snake Oil until it gleams with techno-desirability. I remember a few year's back, friends of friends who were usually too cool to speak to me coming up asking, 'You know about this stuff; do I need an iPod?'. The fun for me was realising that they didn't know the function of the device in question, only how powerfully needful it was. So, aware that I don't have any spare money or need any more computers, I nipped over to Apple to see how much this new marvel (called the MacBook Air) costs.
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A winning strategy
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Swaps
A fair price for a book?
How will authors make a living in the future? Will they have to go door to door offering to tell people stories? As you all know, I often think about the battle between copyright holders and pirates - and as time goes on, I side less and less with the former and more with the latter. In fact (just to go off on a tangent for a minute) Em and I have a new thing where she comes over to visit me mid-week and we go for a walk, then watch a film and gorge ourselves. I rent movies from Amazon, which is a great idea except for one problem: they all turn up scratched. Maybe 50% of them don't play properly. One solution (take note here) is to wash them and then apply a coat of car wax (something which I should occasionally do to my car too). Another, for the techier contingent, is to make a copy of the disc. It will still be missing data where the scratches were, but on the copy they'll be simple gaps and not tantalising blurs which the player tries over and over and over again to read, thus halting the movie. On the copy they'll be glitches that pass and are instantly forgotten. But copying the disc makes me a pirate. The irony? The disc I've had to copy this week is Pirates of the Caribbean III. In it the pirates are the good guys, but that's not quite how Disney see things in real life.
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Glowing with coldness
I dunno; maybe I should have a running theme: things that glow a pretty blue (see previous post). Here's another blue glowing thing. Save this picture to show your kids. It's called an iceberg. Click on the picture to go to the site it came from.
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The physics of beautiful contradictions
You probably learned in school that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Or given that many of you are probably Eng. Lit. fans who snoozed through science maybe you learned no such thing. In fact, being arts graduates you probably heard it stated as a law but assumed you could get out of it if you had a good excuse. Well, it turns out you were right - and what better excuse than aesthetics? That picture is the pretty glow you get when you force charged particles to travel faster than the speed of light. Isn't that great? Science being contravened in the name of art. Except of course science is still in effect. The trick is that the speed of light is lower inside things - like water - and the rule about how fast you can go only applies to the speed that light reaches in empty space (where it's travelling flat out). Why am I showing you this? Because it's nice looking.
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Foolish
I foolishly clicked on Rob's post below and have just passed a pleasant 10 minutes browsing XKCD. This one caught my eye (warning: probably not safe for work, and contains rude words. Probably best if you don't click, mum.)
OK, back to work.
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SnowHomework.
Read this. Discuss.
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Naughty 2mhost
"Maintenance"
Just fixing a couple of bugs after our hosting company did some maintenance* over the weekend and maybe spilled some of our data on the carpet as they were carrying it across. You might have seen weirdness with the blog this morning. Plus our e-mail got stuck in one of the series of tubes that make up the internet. I have given it all a couple of whacks with my slipper and am (fairly) confident that the server wheels are all going round now.
*indistinguishable in many ways from sabotage
Continue behind the cut only if a) you are fairly confident you know your SQL and b) you like funniness
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Parrots are creative too
I try to restrain myself from simply posting most of the links that BoingBoing turn up, but every few days I like to let my creative standards slip and do just that. Here is a link to a video announcing the newly minted commemorative U.S. coins and the 'glorious' deeds they recall. If you - like me - are a fan of hearty satire with a stylish retro feel to it, you will enjoy many mirthful chuckles at this beautifully crafted presentation. (And then feel a bit sad afterwards.)
Warning: work safe, but not suitable for Republicans
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Dunk
For reasons I can't precisely recall, on Tuesday I decided to drop my phone into a river. It lay at the bottom for about a minute, its screen blazing white as all its little pixels lit up. Then, for various other reasons having to do with balance and slipperiness, I lay on the bottom of the river for rather less than a minute. But what's more than a little surprising to me is that two days later I'm using the phone without any problems. Yes, there's still some water under the touch-sensitive screen. And immersing it caused it to forget the date and time - but apart from that it's just the same as before (only slightly cleaner). If you don't believe me, try it for yourself.*
*Snowbooks does not advocate the immersion of any telecommunications device and will not accept liability for loss, damage or ridicule arising from such behaviour.
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The daftness of publishers
I have just had an insight into publisher brands, and it wasn't pretty.
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Sarah Bower goes international
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Creative Commons licensed XSL code for you
If you watched and enjoyed the video about making an XML-based catalogue in InDesign, you'll like this. We're licensing the XSL to you under one of the most liberal Creative Commons licenses. Download the XSL file. This license lets you tweak, and build upon our work even for commercial reasons, as long as you credit us and license your new creations under identical terms.
Use the XSL as shown in the video to transform your raw ONIX message into cut down XML that contains only the content required for the catalogue, in the right order.
If you get stuck, or would like us to tweak the code for your own purposes, we'd be happy to help - for a modest fee. Get in touch.
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
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Helpful?
If this strikes anyone as useful, then please steal it. Click on the pic to see a bigger version which would be easier to save and print.
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Li'l sci fi, l'il politics
I should probably put my usual political-rant caveat on this post. If you're not a left-wing leftie lefterson, parts of this might rub you up the wrong way.
So anyway, I was recently kicking around the notion that sci-fi is getting more difficult to write because fact is stranger than fiction a lot of the time. Annalee at the newly-launched io9 has a different perspective and has said that sci-fi is so pervasive that it is de facto a mainstream genre. I suppose so many traditional sci-fi staples are now a reality (gadgets galore and a looming dystopian future) that not being interested in sci-fi is like not being interested in life. I was going to say 'like not being interested in current affairs', but that's actually pretty common - and sort of what I wanted to talk about. I think sci-fi has got more difficult because everyday reality has actually become less believable.
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Small publishers need your help
And for once I'm not talking about Snowbooks.
Dedalus and Arcadia are having their Arts Council England funding cut this spring, unless they can persuade the Arts Council that they should continue to be supported. You can sign the Dedalus petition here (the Arcadia one appears to be email only, so I hope they don't mind if I provide this email address so you can add your name to the signatories.)
Needless to say, I think it's a crying shame and that I hope ACE can be persuaded to change their minds. I do understand that there are limited finances, though, and they can't create money out of thin air. But my heart goes out to Dedalus and Arcadia. It's a tricky thing, making money out of publishing - sometimes, I think it's impossible, which is one of the reasons why we try to generate our own alternative revenue streams. Having to rely on external sources of income - whether that's fickle investors or public money - means that you cede control, and that's a risky position to be in, as these two independents are finding. Do support them by signing their petitions - but most importantly, by buying their books. It's solid commercial success we all need, so we don't have to magic up money from nowhere.
//update: blimey - a development and a half...//
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The paperless everything
Just to pick up on Em's recommendation, and follow up on of the big points Seth G makes (and has made in the past - and which I make too) consider this riddle: Music is to books as concert tickets are to...?
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I absolutely love this man
Just go read Seth Godin's latest blog. If we balls our industry up over the coming years, he can't say he didn't try to help.
Really - that man is a marvel. Funny how I don't own any of his books.
In other news: life is different in the countryside. I just looked out the window and saw a white horse in the next field along staring at me. It's a crop field, so I don't know what a horse is doing in it. Unnerving. I wonder if it's still... [glances] Yep. It's still looking at me.
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Q: Does the world need more computers? (A: probably)
Because I get my news in strange ways, I never know if a story has been covered or not. I'm always surprised to find that no one has heard about something that seems big to me, whereas I suspect I know much less about the McCanns than most Brits.
So has there been a segment on t'telly about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, with its Give One, Get One sales approach for getting special 'XO' laptops into the hands of both Western and Third World kids? It's pretty interesting stuff. And it has a slightly Victorian social reform feel to it, in that lots of engineers have got together to Improve The World.
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Creating a catalogue - in about a minute and a half
Here it is - the sock-knocking-off video. I have to admit I nicked the sock idea from the authors of my favourite book of the moment, A Designer's Guide to Adobe InDesign and XML whose writing style had me hooting. They recommended moving to a warmer climate, like Florida, where you don't need to wear socks as yours will be flying off the whole time in astonishment at how cool using XML in Indesign can be. I heartily concur. Definitely worth buying if you have anything to do with publishing.
Continue reading "Creating a catalogue - in about a minute and a half" »
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How to resize images
I told you I was addicted to this video making software. Here's one that shows you how to resize images (recorded pre-coffee so sorry about the rather slow delivery).
Yeah, yeah, whatever, it's saved me a couple of hours. BUT JUST WAIT TILL I SHOW YOU THE NEXT ONE! Your socks will fly straight off.
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The fall and rise of Fox TV
This post won't mean anything unless you're a fan of Serenity and Firefly, and you know the behind-the-scenes story. If I'm lucky, that's somewhere between zero and one reader of this blog.
Continue reading "The fall and rise of Fox TV" »
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Hey, we won something
And I only discovered it by reading on Clare's blog that she had won something too. Hey! We're all winners!
How Very Interesting has won the Best Humour Book award at the NotBBC awards! Woohoo! Congrats to Paul and Dan and the chaps. One of the commenters writes:
"I think it may be the best volume ever to be released into the crowded market for Cook books. Between this and Harry Thompson, you've got all of the essential information on PC and plenty of inessential but entertaining information too." Isn't that super? We publish good books by good people.
What, you haven't read it yet? Buy it now.
(I have to say - so far, 2008 is going awfully well.)
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The death of Sci Fi... sort of
Wow, sci fi get's a bad press. As I think I've observed before, it's so unpopular that good sci fi ceases to even be sci fi. It gets honorarily promoted out of the category. It gets rescued by mainstream literature. It gets discovered, like a diner waitress being selected for a Vogue cover. Worse still, to paraphrase and sort of read between the lines, luminaries like William Gibson seem to think that sci fi is dead. Well, not dead exactly, but quite possibly no longer practical.
Continue reading "The death of Sci Fi... sort of" »
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A note on value (buried in a lot of geekery)
I threatened to enthuse about the book I'm reading, and given the surprising number of thank you notes in response to my last post I'm afraid I'm going to go ahead and wallow in my geekness for a while longer. Below the cut is a book review of sorts - but don't expect it to be the sort of book you'll want to rush out and buy. At least, you won't unless your day job includes running a publishing company.
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"Talented Novelist" Matthew De Abaitua in the Indie
In Will Self's column, no less, where in a piece on Psychogeography he writes:
"Lewes, Sussex, where this column began all those horned moons ago. As I walk from the station under another horned moon I spy, standing outside a cosy looking pub, the cuddly dolmen of Matthew De Abaitua. Thirteen years ago, Matthew – who is now a talented novelist in his own right – spent a six-month sojourn as my live-in amanuensis and secretary. It was a thankless task: so far as I can remember I was completely spark-a-loco. We were living in a tiny cottage in Suffolk, and I was given to harvesting opium from the poppies that grew wild in the field margins, then driving my Citroë* deux-chevaux across the same fields, solely by the light of a horned moon, Matthew placidly crammed into the passenger seat."
And it goes on but I'd better not copy any more for fear of violating fair use. So go and take a gander now.
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Mike McBride is not to be messed with
He is a formidable PR person, featuring as he does in this high-profile Abe Books feature on authors with tattoos.
Hey - have you bought his books yet? Author and Snowblog reader Richard Wright thinks they're "bloody brilliant" (and I love your new-look site, Richard! Can't beat Wordpress for style.)
Visit Mike's shiny new author page and buy his books! I made those Paypal buttons especially for you ... And if you don't, I'll post more boring posts on bibliographic data...
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Paragraph and character styles
Wow, I'm just the most interesting person on the whole internet, aren't I? First BIC codes, now formatting. Yaw-wn. Wait till I get on to enthusing about my new book that turned up today: A guide to Indesign and XML. Mmmm - knowledge...
Something that I feel strongly about is using paragraph and character styles. I feel strongly about it because when other people don't use them it makes my life more difficult. Snowbooks authors (because every last one of you don't use styles, except Rob): fear not, I'm not cross at you. I never understood these things until I was forced, by dint of being a publisher, to learn about them. But if you did happen to learn how to use paragraph and character styles, it would be fabby.
So I've done a short series of videos about styles. Here's the first one. It's a bit boring, so don't watch it whilst operating heavy machinery.
Continue reading "Paragraph and character styles" »
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Grrrr
I really hate BIC codes. They could be so helpful. They are not helpful.
Don't read on if you're not a publisher - it's too boring for words.
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Who?
So, Piers Wenger will be in charge of Doctor Who for season 5. I can't say I'm reassured. I haven't seen Housewife, 49 but I did see Ballet Shoes, his other recent project and I think it was flawed in exactly those areas where Doctor Who is currently having problems. If someone wanted to repeat the mistakes of recent episodes, it seems to me that Piers Wenger might be the man to do it.
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Cunning
How's this for a cunning idea? I quote a chunk of something Bruce Sterling said, and do so without permission, and when he gets in touch to yell at me, I can say 'hi' and see if he wants to hang out. Unless it's just his lawyers who call. Or he's really cross. Which I don't suppose he would be. Anyway, the following is excerpted from some remarks he was making about the shape of 2008, from his perspective:
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ONIX lists
I have got this new [free, of course, hat tip to the internets] software for capturing what goes on on my screen. And I am just the tiniest bit addicted to it. So here is my latest video. It's slightly boring, but if you need to make lists the whole time, it's very useful. Click here to get the XSL for free (rename it to .xsl - it's a text file at the moment to avoid download problems) if you want to do it yourself, or get in touch if you want me to set it up for you (er, not for free). I'm resisting the urge to post the one where my cat is yelling in the background and I can't stop laughing. Not professional - not professional at all.
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Bashing Amazon
As far as I'm concerned, several times a week Amazon do something foolish or disappointing. For instance when I'm browsing for DVDs they helpfully classify them into categories like Action & Adventure / Sci Fi / TV and so on - and then they put pretty much every DVD in every category making the classifications annoyingly useless. Life on Mars, the time-travel detective show appears in Documentaries. The World at War (WWII history series) is in Action & Adventure. And everything in Sci Fi is automatically considered Action & Adventure too - so why have two categories? (And heaven forbid any of it should ever have been shown on TV as well.) They're also great at recommending things I'll love - like football autobiographies (yuck) - or really need, like parenting manuals.
Here's today's recommendation (see pic). OK, I'm not entirely averse to the idea of a textbook on protein structure. But it's in German. And probably not the easy kind. Which I don't speak either.
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Anyone remember what I said six months ago?
Remember this post of mine? Probably not. But it's looking better than 50% accurate. I only mention it for when you're reading stories about the big credit crunch and you see quotes about this current situation being something no one expected. I couldn't get a pass in A-level Economics, but it seemed pretty inevitable to me. The next question I'm asking myself is whether the second part of my prediction - the part about cheap money shifting away from America and towards the Eurozone and elsewhere - will come true. If it does, I think a full-blown U.S. depression will happen. Wow, let's hope all the flaws in my analysis show themselves soon, right? (Although, on the other hand, it would force America to stop spending 50% of its GDP on weapons.)