John Baker is a UK-based author. He’s been blogging since 2002, which makes him a chap with uncommon staying power. He has published nine novels, the latest of these being Winged with Death (Flambard), a story set in modern-day York and Montevideo of the early 1970s.
First off, this article by science fiction author Cory Doctorow1 in the Guardian shouldn’t be called ‘Authors have lost the plot in Amazon Kindle battle’. Pressure is coming from the Authors’ Guild and from publishers. Both might claim to represent authors, but whether they do or not is debatable. Now, I happen to disagree with [...]
Simon Baron-Cohen, a prominent autism researcher, writes in the New Scientist about his research being misrepresented by a newspaper: So how did The Guardian get it so wrong? First, because the headline writers went beyond the data to create a simple, bite-size but inaccurate message. Second, because they fused two issues that should have been [...]
Via @BubbleCow, here is publisher Michael Hyatt’s take on the role of an author in the publication process: This is why I believe would-be authors would do well to focus on those aspects of the publishing process they can control. That begins with writing the best manuscript possible. If the author doesn’t do that, then [...]
For the past month, my chores, commutes – and those sleepy minutes before nightly unconsciousness – have been filled by the voice of Simon Prebble reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, a novel published in spoken form by Audible. It is 32 hours in length, unabridged, and costs £521. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is [...]
At the recent South by South-West conference, bloggers Merlin Mann and John Gruber gave their thoughts on the difference between good blogs and bad ones. It has been released as a 43Folders podcast. Plenty of swearing and Merlin Mann-style humour.
Aliya Whiteley on whether a writer needs to be there or just look it up on Google Earth: I know that place. Two of my relatives have held wedding receptions in that hotel. The beach is indeed stunning, and very often empty. Although the names have been changed, every detail is exact. And I suppose [...]
Via Daring Fireball, I see that it’s the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. For those who don’t know, the book is a rock-solid primer on grammar, style and punctuation. (American English, of course, but 90% is applicable to those writing in International English.) I recommend it to my [...]
As some of you might know, m’friend Roger Morris has joined that Web 2.0 band of authors what serialise their novels via Twitter. It’s true, getting a sentence or a fragment every hour – that’s how I am now scheduling my tweets – is not like sitting down and reading an extended section of the [...]
[Marlowe was] the kind of man who would knock out a thug with ease and then start musing about why the guy turned crooked and whether he had a wife and kids. And he was even known to refuse sex: “It’s great stuff, like chocolate sundaes. But there comes a time when you would rather [...]