*Drum roll, please*
My thriller is now available on Amazon as well as Smashwords at 99c. Here are the links:
Amazon
Amazon UK
Amazon DE
Smashwords
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
An Award - pour moi!
I'm staggered, flabbergasted, and almost speechless. Dierdra Eden-Coppel over here has given me an award. How could such a thing have happened? Thanks Dierdra. If it was some sort of ghastly mistake, I'm not giving it back!
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Writing and Cooking
Many writers have been cooks. Didn't Hemingway dabble in the kitchen? And Len Deighton - or was that just Harry Palmer? I believe Derek Haines, the well-known Swiss-Aussie writer, cooks. I'm no cook, but I do know how to boil an egg. Or at least I thought I did until yesterday.
I put two eggs in a saucepan to boil and went back to my computer to make a couple of small adjustments to my manuscript. The explosion was quite loud. Who'd have thought a couple of eggs would make such a noise?
About a week ago, I opened a small carton of soup. Tomato and basil, it was, one of my favourites. There was enough in there for two, so I extracted half the soup and put it on to boil. The other half I put in the fridge. Then I went back to my computer to tweak something or other, or was it Twitter that I needed to check?
Anyway, it took a good fifteen minutes of hard work to rescue that saucepan, and, for lunch, I had the second half of the soup.
No, I've decided, writing and cooking don't mix.
I put two eggs in a saucepan to boil and went back to my computer to make a couple of small adjustments to my manuscript. The explosion was quite loud. Who'd have thought a couple of eggs would make such a noise?
About a week ago, I opened a small carton of soup. Tomato and basil, it was, one of my favourites. There was enough in there for two, so I extracted half the soup and put it on to boil. The other half I put in the fridge. Then I went back to my computer to tweak something or other, or was it Twitter that I needed to check?
Anyway, it took a good fifteen minutes of hard work to rescue that saucepan, and, for lunch, I had the second half of the soup.
No, I've decided, writing and cooking don't mix.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Preview
I'd like to offer a free preview copy of my new eBook to anyone following my blog. The eBook is up on Smashwords, although I won't be launching it on Amazon until Sept 1.
If you'd like a free copy, send me your email address BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11 (my email is in the about/contact tab above) and I'll send on a Smashwords coupon.
If you'd like a free copy, send me your email address BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11 (my email is in the about/contact tab above) and I'll send on a Smashwords coupon.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Calibre and Kindle
I love Calibre. When it comes to converting my text from crude html to a fully-functioning, card-carrying member of the eBook community, it does the business. And I have nothing but admiration for my Kindle, and her close cousin, Kindle-for-PC (KPC). But, they make miserable dancing partners.
A whole afternoon and half the evening I've spent rebuilding my latest eBook in Calibre for the Kindle. First, I changed the cover. Not a huge change, but I needed to replace the book cover file with a new version. I tried changing just the cover and re-saving the whole shebang onto the disk. No luck. I started from scratch, removing the book from Calibre's database ("library") and rebuilding from my html file. That didn't work either - KPC was still picking up the original cover. I deleted the four Calibre-generated files from my disk and started from scratch in Calibre again. That worked. KPC picked up the new cover design.
Idly paging through the book, I found a typo. Not a big one, just a pronoun that needed to be replaced by a noun; what I had written was ambiguous. I went back to square one, deleted the Calibre-Kindle files from the disk, removed the book from Calibre's library and recreated the book again.
Into KPC I scurried, with my fingers crossed. Imagine my surprise when that pronoun appeared, bold as brass on my screen. How could this be? I had changed it, scrubbed everything, started from scratch. But still, KPC was somehow picking up the old version of the book, a version which I had deleted from the disk. After my obligatory apoplectic fit, I reasoned that, far from dancing to Calibre's tune, KPC was merrily displaying its own cached data, trying to be smart, to reduce the time to load.
I rebooted. And KPC picked up the new version of the book from the disk. So I suppose when I changed the cover all those hours ago, all I had to do was clear KPC's cache by rebooting, and I wouldn't have had to rebuild the book from scratch.
UPDATE: It's a couple of days later and today, I changed the source file to include an ISBN for the Amazon Kindle version distinct from the Smashwords version. Just 3 digits. I edited the source file, saved it deleted all the files previously created by Calibre and recreated the .MOBI file using Calibre. At this stage, it's almost 11 pm and I've gone through the process 10 or 15 times without success. I tried rebooting, I tried deleting all my cookies. I've tried sacrificing a cockrel to the god Baal. Nothing works.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Thanks to Kovid Goyal, the developer of Calibre, who emailed me directly with the solution, everything is as it should be again. The fault, it seems, was with KFPC, not with Calibre at all. What Kovid advised me to do was to open KFPC and remove the book file from the device. Then go into Calibre and save the book files to disk again (placing them in a folder other than My Kindle Content).
I then double-clicked on that saved .MOBI file and KFPC picked it up and it's correct.
A thousand apologies, Kovid, for accusing Calibre of having a bug (perish the thought). And thanks for coming to my aid. I owe you a pint. Expect the PayPal equivalent this evening.
I now officially hate Kindle-for-PC, and will go find Kindle Previewer as you suggested.
A whole afternoon and half the evening I've spent rebuilding my latest eBook in Calibre for the Kindle. First, I changed the cover. Not a huge change, but I needed to replace the book cover file with a new version. I tried changing just the cover and re-saving the whole shebang onto the disk. No luck. I started from scratch, removing the book from Calibre's database ("library") and rebuilding from my html file. That didn't work either - KPC was still picking up the original cover. I deleted the four Calibre-generated files from my disk and started from scratch in Calibre again. That worked. KPC picked up the new cover design.
Idly paging through the book, I found a typo. Not a big one, just a pronoun that needed to be replaced by a noun; what I had written was ambiguous. I went back to square one, deleted the Calibre-Kindle files from the disk, removed the book from Calibre's library and recreated the book again.
Into KPC I scurried, with my fingers crossed. Imagine my surprise when that pronoun appeared, bold as brass on my screen. How could this be? I had changed it, scrubbed everything, started from scratch. But still, KPC was somehow picking up the old version of the book, a version which I had deleted from the disk. After my obligatory apoplectic fit, I reasoned that, far from dancing to Calibre's tune, KPC was merrily displaying its own cached data, trying to be smart, to reduce the time to load.
I rebooted. And KPC picked up the new version of the book from the disk. So I suppose when I changed the cover all those hours ago, all I had to do was clear KPC's cache by rebooting, and I wouldn't have had to rebuild the book from scratch.
UPDATE: It's a couple of days later and today, I changed the source file to include an ISBN for the Amazon Kindle version distinct from the Smashwords version. Just 3 digits. I edited the source file, saved it deleted all the files previously created by Calibre and recreated the .MOBI file using Calibre. At this stage, it's almost 11 pm and I've gone through the process 10 or 15 times without success. I tried rebooting, I tried deleting all my cookies. I've tried sacrificing a cockrel to the god Baal. Nothing works.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Thanks to Kovid Goyal, the developer of Calibre, who emailed me directly with the solution, everything is as it should be again. The fault, it seems, was with KFPC, not with Calibre at all. What Kovid advised me to do was to open KFPC and remove the book file from the device. Then go into Calibre and save the book files to disk again (placing them in a folder other than My Kindle Content).
I then double-clicked on that saved .MOBI file and KFPC picked it up and it's correct.
A thousand apologies, Kovid, for accusing Calibre of having a bug (perish the thought). And thanks for coming to my aid. I owe you a pint. Expect the PayPal equivalent this evening.
I now officially hate Kindle-for-PC, and will go find Kindle Previewer as you suggested.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
On Cover Designs
It seems to me a miracle that any workable cover designs ever get produced. I've poured over the covers of all those best selling thrillers for ideas, but most of them have nothing to offer: The figure of a man in silhouette on a foggy day, car headlights in a serious smog, a half-open door in (you guessed it) a fog. So you go to your cover design graphic artist dude/dudess and this is the sort of conversation that ensues:
Writer: I need a cover for my new thriller.
Artist: Leave it with me.
Writer: Don’t you want to read the book?
Artist: You must be joking. No, all I need is a rough idea to get the creative juices flowing.
Writer: It’s a thriller—
Artist: Right, give me a week and I’ll come up with a few ideas.
Writer: It’s about a detective called Ben Jordan. A protected witness gets shot—
Artist: What’s it called?
Writer: St Patrick’s Day Special.
Artist: It’s a thriller, right?
Writer: Yes, it’s set in Dublin in 2004.
Artist: Right, leave it with me. I’ll come up with a few ideas and get back to you.
Writer: But—
Artist: I’ll call you.
By all that’s holy, how can any cover designer work with so little information? Imagine the analogous situation in the construction industry.
Architect: I’d like you to erect a building for me.
Builder: Right, leave it with me.
Architect: I have the plans here—
Builder: Oh, don’t confuse me with plans. What sort of building is it?
Architect: It’s a hospital.
Builder: Right, wards and stuff. Got it. Leave it with me. I’ll build something and get back to you.
My thriller is finished. It’s been written, rewritten a dozen times, polished primped and preened. And it’s been professionally edited. The next step is to publish. All I need is a knockout cover. Being less than happy with what my cover designer dudess came up with, I spent the last two weeks working with her and this is what we came up with.
What do you think?
Writer: I need a cover for my new thriller.
Artist: Leave it with me.
Writer: Don’t you want to read the book?
Artist: You must be joking. No, all I need is a rough idea to get the creative juices flowing.
Writer: It’s a thriller—
Artist: Right, give me a week and I’ll come up with a few ideas.
Writer: It’s about a detective called Ben Jordan. A protected witness gets shot—
Artist: What’s it called?
Writer: St Patrick’s Day Special.
Artist: It’s a thriller, right?
Writer: Yes, it’s set in Dublin in 2004.
Artist: Right, leave it with me. I’ll come up with a few ideas and get back to you.
Writer: But—
Artist: I’ll call you.
By all that’s holy, how can any cover designer work with so little information? Imagine the analogous situation in the construction industry.
Architect: I’d like you to erect a building for me.
Builder: Right, leave it with me.
Architect: I have the plans here—
Builder: Oh, don’t confuse me with plans. What sort of building is it?
Architect: It’s a hospital.
Builder: Right, wards and stuff. Got it. Leave it with me. I’ll build something and get back to you.
My thriller is finished. It’s been written, rewritten a dozen times, polished primped and preened. And it’s been professionally edited. The next step is to publish. All I need is a knockout cover. Being less than happy with what my cover designer dudess came up with, I spent the last two weeks working with her and this is what we came up with.
What do you think?
Monday, August 8, 2011
St Patrick's Day Special
Here's the blurb for my new book, St Patrick's Day Special, scheduled for launch September 1.
Okay this is Ireland, but shouldn’t the cops be trying to put the criminals behind bars and not the other way around?
2004 Ireland is Tiger country.
Aloysius Lafferty is one of Dublin’s biggest crime lords, specialising in armoured car heists, raids on post offices and “tiger” kidnappings.
DI Ben Jordan of Dublin’s Organised Crime Unit has spent three years on Lafferty's case when a lucky break uncovers the handgun used to kill one of Lafferty’s rivals. The trail leads Jordan to the low-life who pulled the trigger. To save his own skin, the shooter agrees to give evidence against Lafferty, and Jordan and his team hide him away in a country hotel.
But before the trial can start the witness and his minder are shot, the case against Lafferty collapses completely.
Lafferty goes on the offensive, and Jordan finds himself in the long grass, but who’s the hunter and who’s the tiger?
Okay this is Ireland, but shouldn’t the cops be trying to put the criminals behind bars and not the other way around?
2004 Ireland is Tiger country.
Aloysius Lafferty is one of Dublin’s biggest crime lords, specialising in armoured car heists, raids on post offices and “tiger” kidnappings.
DI Ben Jordan of Dublin’s Organised Crime Unit has spent three years on Lafferty's case when a lucky break uncovers the handgun used to kill one of Lafferty’s rivals. The trail leads Jordan to the low-life who pulled the trigger. To save his own skin, the shooter agrees to give evidence against Lafferty, and Jordan and his team hide him away in a country hotel.
But before the trial can start the witness and his minder are shot, the case against Lafferty collapses completely.
Lafferty goes on the offensive, and Jordan finds himself in the long grass, but who’s the hunter and who’s the tiger?
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