.
31 Jul 2008: Cylons explain drawbacks of DRM
I need say no more.
posted on July 31, 2008 08:34 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
31 Jul 2008: No excuse, (or 'paw marketing', har har)
You know who has it easy? Who has no excuse for achieving anything less than 100% of his annual fundraising target? The marketing director of the Cat's Protection League. I mean, how can you say no to images of tiny, defenceless kittens, especially ones who look a bit hungry?
Which is why their logo angers me.
It angers me in the same way that Garfield angers me. Kittens are CUTE. Why make them look like bulbous, custardy blobs? Honestly, give me the marketing director's job for a week and I'll sort them out. Will accept kittens for payment.
posted on July 31, 2008 05:24 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
31 Jul 2008: Just doing the accounts...
...and one invoice stands out. It's for £587.50 - not a small sum, indeed greater than my monthly salary - and it's for promotional support for a work of fiction published this summer. Promotional support, to the uninitiated, is the amount of money a publisher pays to a retailer to cover the costs of promoting a title. You and I both know that whilst it does cover some of the costs, it's a rather blunt instrument (it's a flat rate, so it's not like retailers calculate the actual costs each time). This particular invoice covers one week's front of store promotion in a chain retailer.
Having worked in retail for most of my adult life, I know that it's impossible to get all stores to do what you want them to do, at the right time. And for a promotion that lasts only a week, a retailer would have to be pretty world class to get all the stock in the right place, displayed correctly, stickered correctly and on sale. I bet that only half the stores were running the promotion on Day 1. I bet that 30% of stores never had the stock out at all.
What am I saying? I don't really know. I'm not ever going to stop supporting retailers - they make our business viable - they are our cherished customers. And having worked in most retail functions, including stores, I have every sympathy with the challenges they face. I guess all I'm saying is that £587.50 is a lot of money, but I don't think we'll necessarily have got what we paid for. Remember my story about Xmas 2006, where we experienced 19% promotional compliance? (i.e. stock was only visible in 19% of the places it should have been.) Our business can flourish on the trading terms we have down on paper. It's just real life that gets in the way sometimes.
posted on July 31, 2008 11:29 AM | link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
31 Jul 2008: Sue in the Sheffield Telegraph
There's a lovely, and interesting piece, on Sue Hepworth today in the Sheffield Telegraph. Have a gander.
posted on July 31, 2008 09:11 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
30 Jul 2008: Hmmm. Thinks.
Many of you will know what's wrong with the Far Side cartoon in the thumbnail. I mean beyond Penguins not having speech or names and Polar Bears not making or using disguises. Yes, it's the fact that Penguins and Polar Bears live twelve thousand miles apart with no prospect of making the crossing through the equatorial tropics. Without help that is. I mean, Polar Bears are going to go extinct soon because there'll be no ice at the North Pole in the Summer. What do you suppose would happen if they were relocated to the South Pole? Be a shock for the Penguins I'm sure. But it might keep the bears alive at least until we run out of things to burn and the temperature comes down again.
posted on July 30, 2008 05:50 PM | link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
30 Jul 2008: Bellywatch: week 31
Not content with forcing images of my swollen feet on you, the viewing public: click below the cut to see my belly at 31 weeks (fully clothed, you'll be grateful and relieved to know). Funny - it feels bigger than it looks.
Continue reading "Bellywatch: week 31" »
posted on July 30, 2008 03:43 PM | link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
29 Jul 2008: These are not my feet.
To the casual observer - me - it looks like I have recently, and badly, sprained both my ankles. Click below to see the damage (below the cut to avoid exposing innocent browsers to graphic medical images).
I say again - Summer, please go away now. Autumn and Winter, form an orderly queue.
Continue reading "These are not my feet. " »
posted on July 29, 2008 06:52 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
29 Jul 2008: Hearty congratulations
to our pals at Tindal Street Press for getting another book on the Booker shortlist! It's Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold. I am so chuffed for them. Go small presses!
posted on July 29, 2008 03:39 PM | link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
29 Jul 2008: Burn Up
Am just trying out the BBC's iPlayer service. I'm about halfway through the two-part drama broadcast on BBC Two last week: Burn Up. It's about man-made climate change and the grubby power politics that slow our response to the problem. It's neatly written and capably acted, with a very solid cast. Despite unhurried pacing, it's good meaty stuff with occasional high points that hold the attention (well, mine at any rate). It's the sort of drama I wish there were a lot more of (even if we set aside its worthy intentions). What's extremely depressing is the audience viewing figures for the second instalment:
Celebrity MasterChef 4.89m viewers
A Touch of Frost 4.3m viewers
Big Brother 3.65m viewers
Burn Up Part II 1.56m (down from 2.4m for Part I)
posted on July 29, 2008 09:10 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
28 Jul 2008: Seasonal adjustments
Call me selfish perhaps, but I have a me-centric idea for a solution to Em's (and my) weather dilemma. Hot weather is nice, but I can't stand more than a few days of it before I want a break. Not unreasonable if you think about it. The same is true of many other things too, so why should the weather be allowed to get stuck in a monotonous rut? I mean you wouldn't want even your favourite food for every meal (unless it was ice cream, of course). My solution? Wobble the Earth on its axis so that instead of 365 days, a year takes a week, or maybe two. We might also have to lay the Earth over on its side a little more to accentuate the seasons, because otherwise they might not kick in quickly enough. But the upshot should be a couple of days of scorching sunshine followed by a nice, refreshing snowfall. The precessing of the Earth's axis might have to be rather abrupt because you want that snow to kick in quickly, like a cold drink after a hot afternoon, so there is some risk of shaking the Earth to pieces, but if we're not planning to fix the whole man-made climate change thing, then what have we got to lose?
posted on July 28, 2008 05:56 PM | link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
28 Jul 2008: OK summer, you've had your fun
Now go away. It is totally too hot. My hands are scary and veiny, and my feet are vast and, get this, bruised from being too big.
And I can't think.
Hot hot hot hot hot.
posted on July 28, 2008 03:58 PM | link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
28 Jul 2008: Cardigan
Sorry I've freaked out so many people by saying last week was traumatic - you are sweet to get in touch. Don't worry, it's not life-threatening, and I'll tell you all about it once it's resolved. But it did mean that I spent Sunday furiously knitting as I couldn't really focus on anything else. Result: another cardigan for Rowan The Forthcoming Baby:
It's done in moss stitch, and I am particularly impressed that I could fathom sufficient meaning from Debbie Bliss' incomprehensible pattern to make the collar. What would I do without YouTube and its instructional movies?
posted on July 28, 2008 02:23 PM | link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
25 Jul 2008: Internet archaeology
I have had a completely traumatic week, because of a personal something that I'm not at liberty to discuss on the blog, but for which it would be very useful if I could find a webpage from March 2008 - now deleted - that proves a certain thing. So I've been researching caching, archiving and recovery of old web pages, and in my travels I've come across The Wayback Machine - and oh my god, it's awesome.
Run by archive.org - the Internet Archive - the Wayback machine (named in reference to the famous Mr. Peabody's WABAC (pronounced way-back) machine from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon show) is a service that allows people to visit archived versions of Web sites. Sadly it couldn't find me my bit of evidence, but hoo boy, did it make up for it in other ways.
Continue reading "Internet archaeology" »
posted on July 25, 2008 09:30 PM | link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
24 Jul 2008: Sub editors
Don't get me wrong - I'm grateful whenever publications give us coverage. But since Rob and I have been on the receiving end of weird sub-editing more often than not - sub-editing that strips out all the jokes, changes the meaning of the writing and makes me look stupid - I did appreciate this email written by food critic Giles Cohen to his subs at The Times. Warning: contains plenty rudewords.
posted on July 24, 2008 09:13 AM | link | Comments (14) | Leave a comment
22 Jul 2008: Manned Cloud
Yes. I like airships. I'm glad people out there are still designing them. This one looks very nice.
posted on July 22, 2008 08:07 PM | link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
22 Jul 2008: Thrip-blight
Before I moved to the countryside, and lived beside open wheat fields, I'd never heard of thrips. They're tiny little black insects, like a barely noticeable snip of black thread, but around this time of year they exit the wheat fields in their billions and make a nuisance of themselves. They wiggle their way into LCD displays (I have a couple with permanent black dots inside them), into picture frames and land on your skin, moving around just enough to make you itch. They're easy enough to pick off but there are so many of them. And the outsides of my windows at this moment contain hundreds of them, queued up and waiting to get in. Hopefully if I stay indoors, under a blanket, I'll be OK. See you again once it starts getting frosty.
posted on July 22, 2008 03:26 PM | link | Comments (5) | Leave a comment
22 Jul 2008: Disposable books
(somewhat) eco-packaged headphones
I'm starting to notice reviewers of various high-tech goods also giving opinions on the packaging of the gadget in question. Too much? Too wasteful? Or in the case of the all-cardboard packaging in which Sennheiser ships some of its headphones: singled out for praise. And you'll be aware of how far ahead of the UK countries like Switzerland or Germany are when it comes to rules about recycling. Presumably their lead will exert some influence on us to follow. Which brings me to a point I made a while back: how long before someone's eye alights on a paperback bestseller and it dawns on them that this is just cheap, disposable packaging for text that could be delivered in other ways? Some people are already talking about CDs that way: pointing out that pressing millions of shiny disks, putting them in cases, driving them around the country just so that someone can end up with a few extra strings of digits on their iPod is rather wasteful.
Continue reading "Disposable books" »
posted on July 22, 2008 08:52 AM | link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
21 Jul 2008: Fascinating
Look at what horror writer extraordinaire Thomas Emson has sent in - his writing schedule for his new horror novel Skarlet, which Snowbooks is delighted to be publishing next year. Such discipline.
Continue reading "Fascinating" »
posted on July 21, 2008 09:56 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
21 Jul 2008: I know
your tolerance for house-moving updates will be as low as my tolerance for house-moving, by now. But you'll be reassured to hear that it's all done and dusted. Literally.
posted on July 21, 2008 08:19 AM | link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
19 Jul 2008: Phones
Lady Ada
I've already sent this link to the one person I could think might get a kick from it, but still, I want to register my approval. And give you budding nerds a chance to feast your enquiring minds on something exotic but highly palatable. Lady Ada (who I've posted about) has produced a video with one of the guys from MAKE: Magazine (which I've posted about). It's about how the SIM card in your mobile phone works and how to make a device that will read it - and possibly clone it if the security isn't too up-to-date. Then Lady Ada takes a secondhand New York payphone, converts it work on Skype, demand a quarter before it will work, after which she modifies it so that it will work with the first generation of phone hacking tools which date back to the days when there were no hackers, only Phone Phreaks. The link is here. (Warning: I found the volume levels a bit erratic, with 'background' music sometimes drowning out the foreground, but that might just be me.)
posted on July 19, 2008 01:10 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
19 Jul 2008: My Hobby
Friday's XKCD cartoon heartily amused me (partly because it chimed with my prejudices). Click on the thumbnail to see the full cartoon. Or click here to go to the site.
posted on July 19, 2008 09:10 AM | link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
17 Jul 2008: Friday...
...is yet another house moving day for us. This time we're having Men come round to take all our old junk from the London house, which we're about to put on the market (and if you make a comment on what a great time it is to be doing that I'll block you from this blog), to the recycling place, then we're having More Men come over to take our remaining stuff to the countryside. And then that will be all the moving house a couple can do in one year.
So if you need me, erm, sorry. It'll have to be Monday. Have a lovely weekend!
posted on July 17, 2008 06:07 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
17 Jul 2008: Excuses
A little while ago I talked about how the weather can lower your retail sales, but never raise them. That's retail; in other industries, different scapegoats are required. Here are a few. If a server or website goes down, the first thought is never in-house incompetence or poor preparation; it's bound to be hackers or viruses. And music, movie and games manufacturers don't lose money because they've put out an unpopular product; it's piracy and illegal downloads that are to blame. Airlines weren't in serious trouble as far back as the late Nineties; their woes started with 911. (Likewise, Coalition soldiers don't get attacked by Iraqis; it's Al Qaeda who do the damage.) Banks didn't make crazy high-risk bets this decade; they were caught out by an unforeseen credit crunch. Western oil companies may make more money than any previous human endeavour but the fault lies with OPEC. Which is also why the American auto industry is dying; not because they make engineering dinosaurs that would be wasteful even if this were still the Sixties. Trains are delayed by late-running predecessors; they are never the original cause. Any more?
posted on July 17, 2008 05:14 PM | link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
17 Jul 2008: Mars Twitter
There are various pieces of Earth machinery on Mars. Some of it is still functioning. The most active is the recently arrived Mars Phoenix. It has a Twitter feed (what's that?) here. The conceit is that it's really able to answer questions and write grammatical sentences. But undeniably many of the facts in the updates are genuinely originating with Phoenix itself. Sample updates: "I can see Jupiter from here! Saturn's also in view (from Earth too) so I can wave to my buddy @CassiniSaturn (a Twitter newbie)" and "Whoohoo! Was keeping my eye on some chunks of bright stuff & they disappeared! Sublimated! So it can't be salt, it's ice: link"
posted on July 17, 2008 04:41 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
17 Jul 2008: George on Steampunk
Here is a piece about Steampunk that George Mann, author of The Affinity Bridge, has written for Matrix, the British SF Association website. Read and enjoy!
posted on July 17, 2008 07:57 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
16 Jul 2008: Milestones
There are some strange ways of marking time.
Continue reading "Milestones" »
posted on July 16, 2008 08:10 PM | link | Comments (4) | Leave a comment
16 Jul 2008: Victorian Rodenta
The Steampunk Workshop blogpost covering this project is entitled 'Truly Awesome Steampunk Mouse'. I'd agree with that. Shown in the thumbnail there is the USB plug. Click on it to see the mouse itself. Or click here.
posted on July 16, 2008 03:04 PM | link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
16 Jul 2008: You know, we could actually buy it.
The only thing worth buying in the whole world, that is. The Typewriter. *The* Typewriter.
Douglas Adams' typewriter is up for sale - astonishingly enough, from a vendor called NV Books who apparantly are based in Great Wolford, Warwickshire. Rob lives about 3/4 mile from there in the next village along, called Little Wolford. He could walk to pick it up - save all that costly shipping.
It's on sale for $25,257.94. And I have that much money in our bank account. Sure, it *should* be spent on printer bills and retailer promotional invoices and, oh, whatever other fripperies a publisher spends money on. But we could ignore those bills and buy this instead.
I think we should do it. The printers are decent chaps - they won't mind.
posted on July 16, 2008 01:03 PM | link | Comments (5) | Leave a comment
16 Jul 2008: Two things
A speech and a sad demise.
Continue reading "Two things" »
posted on July 16, 2008 11:05 AM | link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
16 Jul 2008: Garbled
I understand that forms with my address on will contain mistakes. Despite the fact that most companies just ask for a postcode and a house number or name, and then look the rest up, there always seems to be a human element. But why would anyone design a computer system where you had to type in the names of the counties rather than select them from a list? And should I worry that I entrust my healthcare to people who think I live in 'Worikshire'?
posted on July 16, 2008 10:26 AM | link | Comments (6) | Leave a comment
16 Jul 2008: A more positive approach to returns
It's all very well me going on about how awful returns are. But so far I haven't offered a solution. Here is what I would do if I ran a bookshop chain.
(Warning - I haven't written the post yet but it's bound to be long.)
(I've written it now - it is.)
Continue reading "A more positive approach to returns" »
posted on July 16, 2008 08:51 AM | link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
15 Jul 2008: I *told* you it was important
Bibliographic data, that is. I've just been browsing Amazon.com because I have to fill out a stupid form for my US distributors about our forthcoming titles (they don't accept ONIX messages, and you know what happens when people don't accept my ONIX messages. Bad things, that's what) and the form includes a field to note down comparable titles. So, not wanting to actually have to think about it, I go to Amazon and browse the Action and Adventure category. And what's there in the top ten? What Was Lost by Catherine Flynn, and Life of Pi by Yann Martel. And my favourite: the audio book of Life with My Sister Madonna by Christopher Ciccone.
Nice categorisation job there, folks. I would definitely have gone to the Action and Adventure category to find those books. Oh, hang on, no I wouldn't.
posted on July 15, 2008 09:18 AM | link | Comments (4) | Leave a comment
15 Jul 2008: Sliding Doors
à propos of nothing at all, I was mulling plot ideas the other day and wondered about this one for a TV series(s): the pilot sets up the various goings-on of a group of people culminating in a Sliding Doors event - that's to say some development that has a major impact on the future storyline, but we follow not only that narrative, but a parallel one in which the event didn't happen. The twist here is that from one pilot there are two TV series, shown on different nights of the week, starring roughly the same group of people - one for each parallel world. In one Danny is revealed to be Frank's murderer but in the other world Frank's widow seems to be getting romantically attached to him. Will she guess the truth? When Devon learns who the father of Michelle's baby is he leaves her, but in the parallel world his drinking is making him increasingly violent; how will he react when the secret finally comes out. Little Jimmy's dog Binky ran away in one world: will that affect ad revenue from pet food companies on Tuesday nights but not Thursdays?
posted on July 15, 2008 08:45 AM | link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
14 Jul 2008: This is a hedgehog.
He pootles around most evenings, whiffling his nose, about a foot from the back door. He is a poppet. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what life in the countryside is like.
posted on July 14, 2008 06:33 PM | link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
14 Jul 2008: Good for him
The chap who runs Anova has revealed that they had really high returns last year. Good for him - the more of us that are open about returns, the greater the chance of the industry doing something about it.
posted on July 14, 2008 05:26 PM | link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
14 Jul 2008: I hate to admit it
but it's just possible - just, fractionally, within the bounds of possibility - that I may be slightly hormonal at the moment.
Continue reading "I hate to admit it" »
posted on July 14, 2008 10:19 AM | link | Comments (5) | Leave a comment
12 Jul 2008: Running to stand still
Em thoughtfully ponders the subject of returns
Over the last couple of weeks I've done a lot of Snowangels work - the branch of the business that offers cover design, consultancy, that sort of thing. It's both enjoyable for me, and a good way to boost the Snowcoffers, although it does mean that I have to work quite hard. However, I've just checked our weekly sales, which get updated on a Saturday. We've had returns that come to pretty much the same value as the consultancy work, give or take a tenner or two.
It's rather - sobering? upsetting? frustrating? - to know that instead of working 13 hour days for two weeks managing both Snowbooks and Snowangels, I could have sat staring at the wall and had the same net financial result.
Continue reading "Running to stand still" »
posted on July 12, 2008 09:20 AM | link | Comments (6) | Leave a comment
11 Jul 2008: Bifurcations
Though it happened last year, I've only just noticed that SF author, Neal Stephenson, came to London and gave a talk about genre publishing. He spoke for 40 mins and the video is here. He's a slightly monotonous speaker which means it takes a while to warm to him, but after a bit his flatness starts to seem like a comic device and actually makes his little witticisms funnier. Sadly, the presentation flags a bit in the final ten minutes, but before that there are lots of good, chunky insights and (to the best of my knowledge) some completely original dissections of what's been going on with the genres of storytelling in the last half-century. To whet your appetite: one of his early theories is that previous genres have to some extent disappeared outside the world of books because the romantic genre has suffused the whole world of movie-making while the crime/mystery genre has been incorporated into most television.
posted on July 11, 2008 06:07 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
10 Jul 2008: Tomorrow [updated]
I am 'on holiday', as I think the kids call it nowadays, tomorrow. Not exactly resting, but packing all my London possessions into boxes, ready to be moved to the sticks, before I get too fat or preoccupied with a baby to do this rather onerous chore. So apologies if you try to reach me, but I'll be buried under a large number of boxes filled with books and clothes that don't fit me any more.
Continue reading "Tomorrow [updated]" »
posted on July 10, 2008 02:42 PM | link | Comments (5) | Leave a comment
10 Jul 2008: Midwifery
The front page of the Guardian today is all about the state of maternity care in the NHS at the moment, which I have something of a vested interest in. Summary: it's not pretty.
Continue reading "Midwifery" »
posted on July 10, 2008 10:02 AM | link | Comments (5) | Leave a comment
09 Jul 2008: A non-hypothetical genre bell at last?
This week, I have a head full of quirky electronics (I'm referring to ideas, of course; to the best of my knowledge, my brain itself is still 100% organic). Here's a foolish gadget, designed in the run-up to last Christmas. It rings a little handbell every time someone visits your website. How cute! I'm wondering if I could adapt it to create a device which until this point has been purely conceptual: the Snowbooks Genre Bell. Not sure who invented it, but I'll guess Em. We mock our own lack of an editorial policy in that the bell is supposedly rung every time we publish a book in a genre that's new to us. And for a while that was pretty much every new title, such was our profligate multi-variedness. I reckon I could knock up some code that scans our outgoing Onix files and, if it sees a genre it hasn't noticed before, gives the bell a bit of a ding. The only question is whether to put it (perhaps even hide it) in Em's office or not. On the one hand, it might be fun. On the other hand, the last time I scared Em she thought she was being attacked by an adder, and that's not a nice thing to do to your best pal and business partner, particularly when she's busy being so pregnant (not to mention the very real threat of reprisals). Maybe I'll fall back on my old favourite spooky trick of making the printer start up and print a message - usually a ghostly 'Boo!' - when Em's the only one working late at night, but this time make it a 'ding'. Less chance of finding an adder in my morning mail that way.
posted on July 9, 2008 02:52 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
09 Jul 2008: Small spruce
A very minor sprucing of the site has occured today, including a spit and polish of the index page, a couple of bug fixes and a bringing up to date of a few pages that needed it. Just keeping you informed, ma'am or sir.
posted on July 9, 2008 01:44 PM | link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
08 Jul 2008: Feedback #2
This is more like it - some lovely comments about our Affinity Bridge cover!
posted on July 8, 2008 09:40 PM | link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
08 Jul 2008: Feedback
Now normally I respond very badly to negative feedback. Very badly indeed. I beat myself up, as it were; I become convinced that the person telling me that I / my company/ my books are crap is right and I am wrong; I obsess, worry, apologise and generally feel very miserable about the whole thing. But today I received a letter through the post with this in it, which made me, well, laugh my head off:
posted on July 8, 2008 06:22 PM | link | Comments (18) | Leave a comment
08 Jul 2008: Cat volume
Fortunately I understand science and thus can read articles like this one, describing how to measure the cubic volume of a cat, and understand it. Some of you may find its complexity confusing, though. See how you do.
posted on July 8, 2008 04:37 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
08 Jul 2008: Off to London
To see the queen. Well, not really the queen. Just Tottenham Court Road and environs, really. But this is the third to last time that I'm planning to be in London until I pop in September / October. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a source of great joy to me.
It's quite all right, actually, going to London for a day trip. I can poddle to the station in 10 minutes; the train takes under an hour, and then, well, you're in London, aren't you. Muay conveniento. I will take The Vesuvius Club to read which Andy was chortling over last night. I want a go.
I have also been thinking about all the ways I am completely inherently disorganised, too, and have been feeling a bit guilty about going on about how organised I appear to be in my desk post below. My desk is one thing; the confused chaos rattling around in my head most days is quite another. You should have seen my computer desktop last week before I reorganised it - there were so many files on it the icons couldn't all fit on my (28") screen. I think that's why people like me try to maintain some sort of system to keep everything in order - because if we didn't it would get very ugly, very quickly. Anyway, I didn't want you to think I was doing that trumpet thing again.
[Feeble parp]
Right. To the trains!
posted on July 8, 2008 08:12 AM | link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
07 Jul 2008: The Mystery of the Empty Desk
I was surprised at the comments a couple of posts back about my empty desk. I don't really notice it - but since you've mentioned it, here's why.
Continue reading "The Mystery of the Empty Desk" »
posted on July 7, 2008 07:51 AM | link | Comments (3) | Leave a comment
07 Jul 2008: Weekend round up
Two lovely things to share with you on this most glorious of damp summer mornings - which I heartily approve of as heat + pregnancy = big feet, which no-one wants.
First, a big interview with Steve Aylett in the latest issue of IncorporatingWriting mag (their 'PULP' issue)
Secondly, a completely awesome piece in the Kent news with Thomas Emson, author of Maneater.
Enjoy with your morning coffee as you plan your week. Mine is shaping up to be rather busy but full of progress.
posted on July 7, 2008 06:19 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
05 Jul 2008: Lady Ada
This week I seem to have been far too busy achieving nothing. In my quiet moments, I've been reading about, and experimenting with, various sorts of electronics. Perhaps it was reading the book about the Hacking of the Xbox that did it, but I've been following links to other links and tinkering with off-the-shelf kits for building all sorts of gizmos and spimes. This morning I happen to be exploring the website of one Lady Ada. Girl geniuses in the realm of complex electronics seem a little thinner on the ground than I might have hoped, but Lady Ada certainly qualifies. I was particularly tickled by her Masters Thesis from MIT. In her words "In contemporary Western society, electronic devices are becoming so prevalent that many people find themselves surrounded by technologies they find frustrating or annoying. I designed two counter-technologies to help people defend their personal space from unwanted electronic intrusion. The first is a pair of glasses that darken whenever a television is in view. The second is a low-power RF jammer capable of preventing cell phones or similarly intrusive wireless devices from operating within a user’s personal space." I have no interest in cutting myself off permanently from the Twenty-First Century, but it might be fun to occasionally take a holiday from it all and walk around in your own (admittedly illegal) offline bubble.
posted on July 5, 2008 09:28 AM | link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
03 Jul 2008: Pics
Here are some pics I took at the weekend of my new house. They don't really convey the lovely cottageyness of it all, so I might try again at the weekend. No curtains yet, you'll note, but who needs curtains. They only get covered with cat fur, anyway. Ooh, on that note, top tip from my lovely sister-in-law - don a pair of rubber gloves and run your hands over anything covered in cat fur. It totally gets it off, first time. Genius!
I have so far remained pretty much at zero tolerance of mess since moving in. Everywhere's stayed hoovered, folded, dusted, washed, clear, and in order, as appropriate. I've been doing the Flylady stuff. Try it - it works.
posted on July 3, 2008 04:39 PM | link | Comments (11) | Leave a comment
03 Jul 2008: Free book
A free copy of the book in question to the first person who correctly identifies, in the comments, the book whose artwork (or part thereof) features here on the new SnowBlog design.
(If it still looks blue, hit refresh now!)
posted on July 3, 2008 12:04 PM | link | Comments (2) | Leave a comment
03 Jul 2008: Look, it's probably just best if you don't.
Em enjoying a quiet moment of reflection
Write a bad review of any of our books or authors, that is. Or say anything remotely negative. Or give a prize that our books should have won to someone else. Or do anything to reduce the chances of our authors' success. It does something to my head which turns me into a rather primal, angry, unreasonable beast.
Probably best, all round, if you just stay quiet. Otherwise, there'll be the glaring, and the clipped responses, and the hours of plotting revenge, and the fact that I will not forget, ever, and one day, one day I will get you back.
I mean, I'm all for the basic human right of freedom of speech. Just not when it comes to our books.
posted on July 3, 2008 10:06 AM | link | Comments (5) | Leave a comment
03 Jul 2008: Blushes
A scene from the movie Bridget Jones
Another pregnancy side effect. This one's funny.
posted on July 3, 2008 09:42 AM | link | Comments (1) | Leave a comment
02 Jul 2008: Disappointing
Em on her lunch-break
At the other end of the 'good supplier' spectrum, I have today taken three phone calls, from the same chap, who does not own a computer. He would like to submit his novel - which he has typed on a typewriter - to Snowbooks. I have tried to explain that not only do we have staff based 4000 miles apart, which means email is our preferred means of communication, but that we would struggle to have a meaningful working relationship without his being online. He didn't know what 'online' meant, and although I tried he couldn't fathom why I wouldn't agree to accept his typewritten manuscript. 'Even if I hand deliver it to the office?' he asked. Even then. 'But it's 200,000 words!' All the more reason not to chop a tree down. 'And how long has the company been established?' I'm dreadfully sorry, I'm rather busy and all the information is on our website. 'Website, dear?'
Phone call number two was to clarify our postcode. 'N for nothing, one, nine, J for Jezebel, N for nothing?'
Phone call number three was to ask whether Staples was a good place to buy an email address. I suggested he go to his local library and ask for help there. I hope the concept of a library isn't too modern for him.
Yes, I am being tough on him - probably over-tough. But he has taken up a half-hour of my day because he scorns computers and 'all that email nonsense.' And I tell you what - if his book's the best book I've ever read; if it's sweeping in its scope and reduces me to impassioned tears, there's no way on earth we're publishing it. There's more to being an author than being able to write.
posted on July 2, 2008 02:53 PM | link | Comments (9) | Leave a comment
02 Jul 2008: Blog karma
Wow, the karma gods were quick, then. No sooner had I posted about how great some of our suppliers are (below), including Euroffice the office supplies people, when the doorbell rang with the Parcelforce man, delivering a desk fan I ordered at 4pm yesterday!
Now *that* is efficient. And oh so very timely, since my room hasn't cooled down since yesterday. Thanks, Euroffice! Thanks, blog karma gods!
[revels in cooling breeze...]
posted on July 2, 2008 10:05 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
02 Jul 2008: Our suppliers
This news made me happy - Butler and Tanner are going to get a new lease of life from entrepreneur Felix Dennis (whose rather excellent book I read last year - even though I had to hide it on the bus since its title is How To Get Rich which is not the sort of thing you really want to be spotted with, no matter how genuine my desire to do exactly that). It made me reflect on the importance of suppliers to the publishing industry, and on our own suppliers in particular.
Continue reading "Our suppliers" »
posted on July 2, 2008 09:10 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
01 Jul 2008: Dilemma
This is a gross, pregnancy-based dilemma, so I'm hiding the far-too-much-information-for-a-publishers-blog bit behind the cut. Those uninterested in pregnancy side effects, move along.
posted on July 1, 2008 05:09 PM | link | Comments (7) | Leave a comment
01 Jul 2008: Rob warned me about this
I have an aching shoulder. This is because I have been concentrating very hard on a particular task for a few solid hours this morning, which I suppose has made me tense up a bit, and my shoulder seems to have seized up as a result. It could also be because I'm not using my RSI-avoiding padded wrist rest. Sadly, that item has been put to other uses, namely as a brilliant fly-swat. As Rob pointed out at the weekend, it is ironic that a device designed to lower the likelihood of RSI is being actively misused on a task that employs a wrist-flicking motion, repeated over and over again. He suggested adding in a slight right-left movement (he used a fancier word which I've forgotten) which apparently would really guarantee that I'd give myself repetitive strain injury (think of the perpetual small movements made in using a mouse). I seem to have managed quite well on my own, with my patent brand of concentrate-lean-forward-squint-at-too-small-font-whilst-tensing-back-and-shoulders working method. Bah.
Continue reading "Rob warned me about this" »
posted on July 1, 2008 02:05 PM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
01 Jul 2008: Meditate on this
Strikes me I haven't done much Amazon bashing lately. Let me correct that. Amazon have been doing more of their ham-fisted cross-selling again. In retail circles there are often innovative ideas about what we (ex)shopkeeping types call 'merchandising' and you call 'deciding which products go on which shelves'. The old chestnut is a supermarket display set out on a Friday night that contains cold beer next to nappies for all the supposed dads with young families stopping in on their way home. I think the logic is that the housewife they're married to asks them to pick up the nappies and their eye alights on the adjacent brewskis. But you can imagine that the success of this sort of thing is all down to the execution. You don't want to make it obvious you see your customers as either stereotypes or clichés. You don't want to lay out your store entirely based on cute cross-selling opportunities so that there's no Beer section of the store any more, only Buddies' Fishing Trip and Parents Out of Town departments. In Amazon's case they sent me an e-mail recommending one DVD based on my purchase of another. I bought the recent Sci-Fi Channel re-imagining of the Wizard of Oz story (which I found really laboured, badly structured and disappointing, despite a pretty solid cast). On the strength of that they recommended a DVD about reducing my stress levels through meditation, courtesy of a celebrity stress-doctor. Ahhh, how well they continue to not know me. Celebrity-endorsed lifestyle fads are among the last things I would ever take an interest in. And how did they get there from a Sci-Fi mini-series? Customised cross-selling is clever; Amazon's version of it is not. (Unless they knew the mini-series was rubbish and recommended the de-stressing DVD to help me not blame them for the fact.)
posted on July 1, 2008 11:08 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment
01 Jul 2008: "There is one award Sarah Bower will never ever win and that is the Bad Sex Award"
Here's a lovely interview with Sarah Bower, author of The Needle in the Blood and The Book of Love.
And click below to read a lovely piece by Sally Zigmond. Thanks to Sally for letting me reproduce it here:
posted on July 1, 2008 07:39 AM | link | Comments (0) | Leave a comment