Books

Books
Books written by Ray Sullivan

Monday 30 April 2012

eBook Data Day

Many of you will be familiar with Smashwords - the indie publishing site that allows books like mine to be fed into channels such as Apple, WH Smith, Kobo, Sony and so on.  If it wasn't for Smashwords self publishing would be much more difficult and Amazon would have an even bigger slice of the market.  And let's be fair, they are getting close to being a monopoly as it is.

Smashwords CEO, Mark Coker, decided to start Smashwords up a few years ago when he hit the brick wall many writers hit after writing something they think is readable and saleable.  I had a similar idea a few years back after putting out tentative feelers to get an agent - getting a book deal was so far down the list I never seriously got that far.  Mark, unlike me and I guess other authors, didn't take no for an answer and started Smashwords.  It's now a bona fide business employing a small number of dedicated staff, putting food on their tables and providing indie authors with a channel for their written work.

Reading Mark's latest blog - click here to access it - rounds up the results of some stats he's collated over recent months about which books sell and at what price point.  There's a Powerpoint-ish presentation on his blog that's relatively self explanatory, if a little difficult to read.  But for your benefit, here's the bits that I've taken from his research.

First off, most of us ain't going to get rich selling eBooks.  I kind of worked that bit out a while back, and I guess most of my author contemporaries will have realised it too, but it's kind of helpful to know that it's not just me and that it isn't personal.  Of course there are going to be some who make a living out of their writing and good luck to them all - I'd love to join their ranks, but I'm going to keep my feet on the ground in the meantime.  Of course, this does beg the question about the migration of sales from the traditional arena to the eBook area - if traditional booksellers are losing sales, who is picking them up?  Well, we all are, I guess.  The sales I've made to date have been at the expense of someone else's traditional sales.  There's just a lot of us picking up odd sales here and there.

The next bit is also sort of predictable, but not entirely.  The cost of a book appears to have a deep correlation to its sales potential.  First the flaming obvious - free books seem to do well.  We all love a bargain and something for nothing is a good price by any measure.  Add to the mix that eBook readers seem less bothered by cost than time - in other words, we as a group may not be too concerned about price, but for God's sake, don't inflict bad plotlines, lack-lustre endings, poor grammar and illiterate spellings on us.

But if the book is free, well, eBook readers are prepared to sacrifice some of their time if the fiscal impact is zero, apparently.  Now giving a book away for free may result in lots of sales, generating zilch royalties, but it seems they act as a catalyst for encouraging readers to try the paid for options, so that's fair enough.  I've taken this piece on board and have set The Last Simple at $0.00 on Smashwords today.  It may take a few days to filter through to Apple, Kobo etc, but it will soon.  it's $0.99 on Amazon because I don't see a way to list it for free, however their price matching principle may kick in when they realise Smashwords, Apple, Kobo etc are giving it away.  If they know it's there, that is.

However, that's hardly an over generous loss leader, given that the book is available on this blog for free anyway, just a little harder to read and, of course, not as convenient for your eReading device.  I may place one of the other books on free for short periods of time, to see if that generates any interest in the other books - more out of curiosity, based on the next revelation from Mark's research.

Apart from giving books away, setting them at certain price points generates more sales than other price points.  $0.99 is one of the most popular price points, but then again so is anything over $2.  For some inexplicable reason the $1.00 - $1.99 price range doesn't sell well at all, but go to the $2.00 - $2.99 price range and books sell better than the $0.99 price range.  Higher prices return proportionately smaller returns, however you have to get above $6.00 before you find yourself in the$1.00 - $1.99 performance range.

Well, I have to say, my experience is in agreement with this.  I launched my books at $0.99 and had some reasonable sales.  Then, a few months ago, when I was looking at publishing on Createspace, I decided to try a different price point.  My rationale was simple - apart from making a decision on how little profit to take from any paperbacks I may or may not sell, most of the costs are predetermined due to the cost of manufacture and Amazon's cut.  I knew that my cheapest book would be The Last Simple due to it being a novella and that was coming in at $6.00 retail while Skin, my longest book, was looking like $10.00 retail.  To be selling the eBook versions at $0.99 seemed a little odd, even for a campaigner for lower eBook prices.  So I pitched the whole range at - I guess you're ahead of me here - $1.99.  And although I know from my Smashwords data there's been a lot of interest in these eBooks in the last couple of months, sales have been pretty flat.

So I've decided to reprice again - I've done the $0.99 price and know how that sells, so I've decided to see if the Smashwords theory holds water.  Mark's analysis shows that books priced at 3.5 cents per thousand words tends to sell the best, so that was my starting point.  Given that I've set The Last Simple as free (or $0.99 if you're looking on Amazon Kindle store), I applied the 3.5 cent theory to the remaining four books.  Adjusting to keep to normal sales techniques this translates Skin to $3.99, The Journeymen  and Parallel Lives to $2.99 and Digital Life Form to $2.49.  However, having gone to the effort of raising the prices to these ludicrous levels I realised that for three of the books I was now in the 70% royalty area with Amazon - anything under $2.99 attracts just 35%. The way I look at it, I may as well be not getting 70% royalties rather than not getting 35%!  Being within striking distance of the 70% option for Digital Life Form convinced me that DLF should be pitched at that price, so I upped that as well for now.

The above may seem a little hypocritical, given all I've written about eBook pricing but look, it's the prices that the buying public seem to be buying their eBooks at.  Don't worry, if I can persuade the market to pay less for their eBooks I'll be a happy man, but for now it seems an uphill struggle.

The other stats Mark generated was about optimuim word counts, and it seems that 100,000 words or more is the more popular book length.  Now, a book is as long as it is.  Sure, anyone can pad a story out, but my view is that the author's writing style coupled with the actual yarn will determine the length of the book and readers will be wary of books artificially bloated.  For those who like completeness in these things, and for the record, The Last Simple is 33 thousand words long, DLF is a tad over 70K, Parallel Lives 82K, the Journeymen 89K and Skin is 111 thousand words long, so I'm not hitting the magic number with four out of five, however they are all cracking reads if I may say so myself.

There are exceptions to the 100,000 word rule, of course.  In the Romance and Erotica genres it is normal for the books to be shorter, with the shortest genre being erotica - I could pop in a tasteless gag here, but I'll leave it for another blog.  The long and short of it all is that ebook readers generally like a long read, not a short story.  Interestingly, Amazon doesn't give a clear indication of the word count of a book - just the file size - so Kindle readers may be less sensitive to word count.  Or may be more susceptible to buying shorter stories inadvertently.  My advice, even if you will always buy direct from Amazon to take advantage of the superlative Whispersync facility, check out smashwords first - if the book's listed there you'll know how long it is.

So,please take a look at Mark's blog - there's other data in there that I've glossed over.  Whether you're a reader or a writer, the data should prove interesting.

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I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

To find out more about my ancestors visit my sister’s website http://sullivanfamilyhistory.angelfire.com/

Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony, WH Smith, Kobo and many other good ebookstores.

Digital Life Form is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $8 (or for £5 plus P&P in the UK for UK readers - contact me on raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com for details)
The Last Simple is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $6.

The Journeymen is available for $9

Skin is available for $10

For quick access to the various Kindle, Kobo, WH Smith and Smashword links please use the table below to view my books.
To View My books In....

Sunday 29 April 2012

Project: Evil - The Final Double Cross Meeting part 1

Brian shuffled nervously outside the grand shop window, jostling with the assembled shoppers as they stood trying to calculate the number of armadillo gonads. One of the shoppers turned to Brian excitedly, his collar turned up against the chill winter wind, a trilby managing to stay firmly on his head despite the efforts of the weather.
‘One hundred pounds, just for guessing how many gonads are in there,’ he said, shaking his head.  ‘It’s got to be better odds than entering the national lottery,’ he added.  Brian shrugged, there didn’t seem to be anything difficult in choosing six numbers from an infinite amount plucked from the real and complex planes; it was just the logistics of filling in the Lotto gameplay ticket since CERN had taken over the running that provided any challenge. The last time he’d played the ticket had run to seventeen volumes, but at least they’d stuck with the tried and tested method of letting the punter tick their choices with a pencil.  Scientific notation was so difficult to write accurately, in Brian’s experience.
‘So, have you made a guess?’ he asked, not really interested. The excited shopper wasn’t finished with his muse, though.
‘Apparently they were harvested to provide a cure for cancer or the common cold or something like that, but then someone hit on this idea,’ he said, pointing at the huge jar.  Brian looked again and realised for the first time since he’d agreed to let Bund provide a way for him to steal the gonads that fifty thousand was an awfully large amount of testicles, even at armadillo sizes.  His plan had been to park outside the store, walk in, pick up the jar and take it out.  Now it looked like he’d need a forklift truck to remove the jar.  As he only had one O’Feld printed blue invalid pass he couldn’t manage two vehicles.
‘We were as good as our word,’ said a familiar voice alongside Brian.  He looked at the man he’d been talking to again.  The man raised his trilby, which Brian now realised was attached to the false collar which also raised, revealing a black dinner jacket and bow tie.
‘Bund!’ he exclaimed, marvelling at the disguise.  As Bund lowered the hat back into position Brian realised that he could have spoken with the man all day long and not work out which secret agent he was, the disguise was that good.
‘The very same,’ confirmed Bund, rattling his walking stick.  ‘I notice you managed to park outside the store,’ he said, nodding at Brian’s car.  ‘Another blue badge?’ he asked, not waiting for an answer before adding, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any more?’
‘What the hell are you doing with all of them?’ asked Brian, outraged, ‘are you selling them on?’ Bund flushed.  ‘And where did you get that from?  I thought the flushable trousers were my idea, did you nick that as well?’ he asked.  Bund shook his head.
‘I think you’ll find the trousers are self flushing.  Kew has patented the whole concept, by the way, so we will expect O’Feld to pay a royalty on every pair you use.’  It was Brian’s turn to flush; since Daw had taken up his offer, everyone on the management team had ordered a pair.  The fees were likely to be astronomical and this expense payment was likely to be life threatening.  Bund continued.  ‘Of course I’m selling the blue passes; we haven’t had a pay increase in the public sector since 2007.  I’ll cut you in on the proceeds if you can supply ten a day.’
‘Never mind that, how do we get them gonads out of there?’ asked Brian, pointing at the window.  Bund peered at the glass jar as if he’d never seen it before.
‘Ask them how much they want for the jar,’ he said.  Brian looked at the man as if he was mad; it was a shame this was Bund’s retirement case, someone as obviously unhinged could have a bright future at O’Feld Industries.
‘You think they will just sell me a jar of gonads placed in the window as a charity item?  What sort of crooks do you think they are?’ he exclaimed.
‘Who said they were crooks?  This is Knightsbridge; everything is for sale, for a price.  Just make sure you offer enough.’
‘So that I don’t insult them?’ asked Brian, wondering how he could judge this one.
‘That’s pretty much impossible,’ mused Bund, ‘we’re talking about upmarket sales-persons here. They’re the retail equivalent of investment bankers.  Elephants have thinner skins.  No, your problem is the couple who were stood the other side of me – once they realised that this was a unique collection that couldn’t ever be repeated they decided they just had to have it,’ he said as a sales assistant appeared at the window and looked back to an unseen couple, the words ‘this one?’ mouthed silently through the glass.

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The characters, companies and places referred to in Project: Evil are fictitious and any resemblance to people, companies, businesses or places is entirely coincidental

If you've enjoyed this chapter of Project: Evil then check out the blog every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday as the story unfolds and, if you haven't done so already, why not follow the blog.

If you know someone who has a warped sense of humour please pass them the link to my blog so that they can enjoy 'Project: Evil'.

I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

To find out more about my ancestors visit my sister’s website http://sullivanfamilyhistory.angelfire.com/

Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony, WH Smith, Kobo and many other good ebookstores.

Digital Life Form is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $8 (or for £5 plus P&P in the UK for UK readers - contact me on raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com for details)
The Last Simple is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $6.

The Journeymen is available for $9


For quick access to the various Kindle, Kobo, WH Smith and Smashword links please use the table below to view my books



Saturday 28 April 2012

Caveat Emptor Amazon

The Amazon eBook market and the paperback market as supported by Createspace, an Amazon subsiduary, is coming under fire for its lack of vetting of books.

Take a stroll through any of Amazon's book categories in its Kindle Store and look for books that you may consider to be classics and you'll find free versions of many of these books are available.  That's fair enough, many of these are well out of copyright and have been converted to eBooks by the likes of the Gutenberg project as a public service.  But you'll almost certainly find alternative versions of these books at dollar prices as well, which seems a little strange.  I'm no expert, but I suspect that in many cases the alternatives are being published by people whose input is almost irrelevant and imperceptible.

I may be old fashioned, but I find it objectionable that people feel it right to get something for nothing as a right.  Don't get me going on investment bankers and fuel speculators!  For those people who gave up their free time to convert the classics on behalf of Project Gutenberg it must be galling to see others trying to turn a profit out of their efforts.

It seems it's more widespread, though, and not limited to out-of-copyright books.  Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords spoke out at in interview with CNN Money.  He states that his company, Smashwords, frequently has blatant copies of books submitted, copies his team spot and reject.  Yet he sees the same books appearing on Amazon's Kindle site.

There are variations, too.  Last year I spotted a scam where someone was self publishing a dieting book under the name of Ray Sullivan - I initially assumed that there was another Ray Sullivan on the planet - hard to believe with such an uncommon surname, I know - but a little digging revealed a swathe of books with very similar titles, all the same file size (small, BTW) and all apparently by authors who had other, completely dissimilar books listed on Amazon.  I never peeked inside the book, let alone downloaded a copy, but I guess the advice for weight control was probably limited to 'eat less, exercise more' - look out for my own four word diet manual appearing soon for free.  Anyway, I reported it to Amazon who spent more effort denying it looked suspicious than looking, although the books were eventually delisted.

Now the current trend is for spoof titles to be pushed out.  Books such as 'I Am The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' and 'Twilight New Moon' are listed, clearly ripping off popular titles with apparently mediocre content, presumably with the intent of misleading buyers.  Now I can hear at least one of my two readers shouting foul while pointing at 'Da Dan Brown Code', now published as 'The Last Simple'.  Yes, it might look like I'm being a little hypocritical here, however I did signpost that book clearly as a parody and never tried to pass it off as a Dan Brown book.

And if you search the Kindle Store for 'Dan Brown' you will find books with his name on that clearly aren't his - I'm still unsure if they are a rip off or a coincidence.

The point is, Amazon appear to be really lax about what they allow to be uploaded, not just on the Kindle Store but also on Createspace.  It's a dodgy way to do business, leaving the rat smelling to your own customers.  Sure, you'll always have poorly written books, badly formatted text and illogical plotlines in eBooks - and I may or may not have left Dan Brown behind at this point - but blatent rip offs and unflagged parodies are going to hack off a buying public and tar a fragile self publishing movement unecessarily, and that's a shame.  Amazon are a big company, they need to act like one.

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I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me


To find out more about my ancestors visit my sister’s website http://sullivanfamilyhistory.angelfire.com/


Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony, WH Smith, Kobo and many other good ebookstores.

Digital Life Form is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $8 (or for £5 plus P&P in the UK for UK readers - contact me on raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com for details)

The Last Simple is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $6.

The Journeymen is available for $9

Skin is available for $10


For quick access to the various Kindle, Kobo, WH Smith and Smashword links please use the table below to view my books.


To View My books In....

Friday 27 April 2012

Project: Evil - the Stakeholder Meeting part 2

‘Brass Digit came up with a competing idea; one involving Governments using up all of their reserves to bail out the banks who had gambled away most of their own customers’ cash on improbably unbelievable bets and paid the rest as bonuses to themselves. Then the Governments spent money they didn’t have by borrowing from the banks at ridiculously high interest rates, the banks they had just bailed out, so that they could continue to bail them out. Effectively the Governments bankrupted themselves in the process, except there wasn’t a bank that could afford to let the Government debts slide while still paying themselves ludicrous bonuses. I didn’t stand a chance that year.
‘Then,’ he said, scattering his pens across the desk in frustration, ‘Brass Digit goes and suggests the bloody Coalition, winning the Daft Idea of the Year Award for two years running as well.’
‘It wasn’t worth entering the competition until you come up with this idea,’ said Daw, holding the project plan up.  ‘So, what about these gonads?’ he asked.  Brian could feel his pulse start to race; he’d had the message from the Youth Opportunity Worker for a couple of days, in fact the expense receipt for the tip the boy had insisted on was in the pile that O’Feld had been waving around a few minutes earlier.
‘Well, it seems we have had a bit of luck,’ said Brian, holding up the document marked “Top Secret.”  ‘It seems we’re not the only organisation needing large amounts of armadillo gonads; the RSPCA is running a fund raising competition to generate cash to protect endangered species.  They’ve accumulated pretty much all the armadillo gonads in the world in one giant glass jar.  You pay a pound to guess how many gonads there are and the closest guess gets a prize.’  O’Feld seemed quite interested in Bund’s implausible idea.
‘So, all we have to do is guess the right amount of gonads?’ he asked, hoping Brian had a photo of the jar – this was his favourite kind of game, apart from hangman.  He particularly liked getting the prisoners who were trying to guess the letters build their own gallows in his version.  He’d been thinking of inviting Slippy for a game.  The EVIL Officer had been sent an invitation already.
‘No, guessing how many are in the jar is the competition; that would win us £100.  What we need to do is steal the jar,’ answered Brian in frustration.
‘Well, how much is that a go?’ asked O’Feld, looking at the Finance Director to check they had the funds, who shrugged before surreptitiously pulling his underpants out to check the company top line. ‘How much would we win, and how many goes do we get?’
‘We don’t pay,’ exclaimed Brian, exasperated, ‘we just steal and we get just the one go.’
‘So why are they holding the competition?’ asked Daw, suspiciously, ‘you say it’s to protect endangered species?’
‘Apparently they’ve had a run of legless crocodiles to look after, dumped in an alley near here,’ answered Brian.  O’Feld stared at the Head of Catering.
‘You said they were in the Fisherman’s Pie,’ he accused the Catering lead, who shuffled nervously.
‘Chef didn’t know how to cook them, plus he hasn’t a pan large enough for a crocodile, let alone three.’
‘So, where is this jar?’ asked Daw.
‘Never mind the jar, what was in the Fisherman’s Pie?’ asked O’Feld, who’d had double helpings.
‘A couple of fishermen,’ replied the Head of Catering flatly.  O’Feld wiped his brow, looking relieved.
‘Thank God for that,’ he said.
‘The jar is in the window of a prestigious shop in Knightsbridge,’ said Brian, watching O’Feld quiver as he realised which shop Brian was talking about.
‘This is a tough one,’ he said at length.  Brian thought he understood. 
‘Public location, busy street, no parking,’ he said.
‘Parking’s not a problem,’ said O’Feld, pulling his blue invalid parking pass and waving it before laying it on the table.  ‘It’s the store, the expense.  Every crook I know feels ripped off after going in there; it’s like having a master-class in daylight robbery rubbed in your face,’ he said.
‘I’ve got a plan,’ said Brian, ‘that means I can walk out of there with the jar in broad daylight,’ he said, scanning the room nervously, waiting for the challenge.  Any challenge would be bad, but the one that started with ‘OK, let’s hear this plan...’ would be fatal, as a minimum.
‘Is it legal?’ asked O’Feld.  Brian swallowed hard.
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ he answered, banking on O’Feld not wanting to know the details of a legal plan.  As he hoped, O’Feld, Daw and the rest of the stakeholders half turned away from him.
‘If that’s what it takes, then do it,’ said O’Feld, adding, ‘just don’t let anyone know who you work for,’ he said.  ‘Now leave the room and don’t come back unless you have a jar of armadillo gonads,’ he said, dismissing Brian.
As Brian closed the door behind him he heard O’Feld move on to the next item on the agenda.  Then he heard the question from the room that caused him to start running.
‘Where the hell is that blue pass I had a minute ago?’ erupted O’Feld as Brian legged it down the corridor.


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The characters, companies and places referred to in Project: Evil are fictitious and any resemblance to people, companies, businesses or places is entirely coincidental

If you've enjoyed this chapter of Project: Evil then check out the blog every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday as the story unfolds and, if you haven't done so already, why not follow the blog.

If you know someone who has a warped sense of humour please pass them the link to my blog so that they can enjoy 'Project: Evil'.

I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

To find out more about my ancestors visit my sister’s website http://sullivanfamilyhistory.angelfire.com/

Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony, WH Smith, Kobo and many other good ebookstores.

Digital Life Form is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $8 (or for £5 plus P&P in the UK for UK readers - contact me on raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com for details)
The Last Simple is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $6.

The Journeymen is available for $9

For quick access to the various Kindle, Kobo, WH Smith and Smashword links please use the table below to view my books


Thursday 26 April 2012

Chinese Whispers

The Chinese economy has changed the face of the West, that's for sure.  The mass market manufacturing capability of the country has ensured that everything from flip-flops to iPads are available and affordable.  And there's no doubt about the manufacturing quality, either.  Sure, we've all experienced some item or the other made in China that offends our sensibilities due to being shoddily made, but that's becoming a rarity these days and was always down to price.

And there's no doubt that the Chinese Government has been instrumental in keeping the Western economies going over the last few years since the credit crunch.  There is an economic point of view that the Far Eastern economies helped to create the conditions for the crunch by providing cheap credit and stockpiling Western currencies, but let's not kid ourselves, there were many other contributing factors, with the greed of individuals and corporations in the West ranking pretty high on the list.

Whatever your view on China, whether it is negative based on their human rights record, or positive based on the way they've shown maturity in the maelstrom caused by the financial crisis, I doubt China is going to slip into obscurity any time soon.  Thay are a major player on the world stage and I guess they are going to be there for the remainder of my lifetime.

According to reports dating back to 2010, Chinese parents were pushing their kids to learn English.  In 2005 the then UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown forecast that by 2050 there would be more English speaking Chinese than all the other English speakers elsewhere in total.  Some reports insist that there are more English speaking Chinese than English speaking US Americans already.  However we have to take these statements with a bit of caution - there doesn't appear to be a consensus regarding the definition of English speaking, plus much of the data is drawn from different sources using different methods of measuring.

Regardless of how much caution you choose to apply, it does seem likely that the Chinese population will gravitate to speaking English, if only for the simple reason that we in the West are unlikely to start learning Chinese.

A recent radio programme on Radio four, a national UK radio station, has suggested that the next explosion in eBooks is going to be Chinese led, with a prediction that eBook authors are going to sell books by the million to the Chinese readers, such is the hunger for English language books.

To be fair, Radio Four seems obsessed with the notion of eBook writers making it big, to the extent that many people I know who listen to Radio 4 assume I'm already made and just playing poor to deflect attention.  My view is that no matter how many readers enter the market, in reality only a relatively small number of writers will turn a living out of their writing with a correspondingly minuscule amount making serious cash.  It's obvious that there's a lot of choice for eBooks out there, and the list is growing.  Not all of these books are worthy of commendation; not all are appropriately priced, in my opinion, either.

But if there is to be a mass Chinese market of eBooks, then should authors be looking to optimise their writing and marketing to the Chinese?  I guess the answer regarding the writing depends on what the Chinese want - in my experience, foreign nationals either learn English as a purely functional language, which to be fair is far better than I and the majority of my fellow indigineous English speakers achieve with foreign languages, or learn English so well it puts us locals to shame.

My guess is that the literary classics will fare well with these readers, even if the language used is unrepresentative of modern usage.  And apart from the chancers passing these classics off for cash, most of them are legitimately free to all.  If the Chinese want to learn English as it is spoken today then my guess is that the established authors will fare well as long as they price their books suitably.  Ultimately it will be US authors likely to fare the best from this, as American English is the sought after variety - at least outside of the UK and to a degree the US!

Now marketing might be a different kettle of fish (and using phrases like that might explain why foreign nationals gravitate to the plainer US way of writing!).  The Internet is the ultimate global tool and it only knows boundaries where they are artificially erected.  True, China does have a reputation for putting these barriers up when it suits it, but if I can believe my blog stats someone in China reads this blog.  For all I know quite a few people do - the stats are too  opaque to derive more information than that.  Of course it's probably ex-pats reading the blog over there, but who knows?

But no matter who in China is reading this blog, here's hoping that the Radio 4 opinion is correct.  There will be a general acceptance of this technology  sometime in the future - the adoption by significant swathes of the Chinese population can only accelerate that process.

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I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

To find out more about my ancestors visit my sister’s website http://sullivanfamilyhistory.angelfire.com/

Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony, WH Smith, Kobo and many other good ebookstores.

Digital Life Form is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $8 (or for £5 plus P&P in the UK for UK readers - contact me on raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com for details)

The Last Simple is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $6.

The Journeymen is available for $9

Skin is available for $10

For quick access to the various Kindle, Kobo, WH Smith and Smashword links please use the table below to view my books.

To View My books In....

Wednesday 25 April 2012

Skin is in Print

Just a little blogette - I noticed that Skin has been placed on Amazon's US site as a paperback less than twenty-four hours from my completing the digital proofing process.

The book, which ranges from an abortive Special Forces mission on the eve of the shock and awe phase of the second Gulf War to a point in time in the near future features action and horror intertwined in a story of revenge.

This is Bob Simms' review of Skin from last year:

In Skin, Ray creates a world of harsh brutality, complex deception and cynical politics. The book has echoes of Michael Crichton, with tales of science gone bad and those too short-sighted to see beyond their immediate desires.

Several threads and storylines run through this intelligent thriller, as Rory, ex-RAF veteran of the first Gulf war, earns a dubious living in the murky world of industrial espionage. The secret service want him to answer questions about his time in the gulf, others want him to remain silent about it. Meanwhile British politicians are making shady insider trading deals that complicate Rory's life. And all the while someone wants vengeance, on Rory, on Muslims, and on those he considers to blame for the deaths of his loved ones.

Told with an authenticity that betrays Ray's military background, it provides an explanation about Saddam's WMDs and the cause of the Gulf war that is so cynical it might even be true.


The book is, as always, available in eBook format through all the usual channels but also through the US arm of Amazon as a paperback, price $10.  I will be importing copies in the near future for sale to UK readers.



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I can be followed on Twitter too - @RayASullivan
or on Facebook - use raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com to find me

To find out more about my ancestors visit my sister’s website http://sullivanfamilyhistory.angelfire.com/

Visit my books on Amazon (for Kindle owners) and Smashwords (for access to all other formats and access to Apple iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Sony, WH Smith, Kobo and many other good ebookstores.

Digital Life Form is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $8 (or for £5 plus P&P in the UK for UK readers - contact me on raysullivan.novels@yahoo.com for details)

The Last Simple is available on Amazon.com in paperback for $6.

The Journeymen is available for $9

Skin is available for $10

For quick access to the various Kindle, Kobo, WH Smith and Smashword links please use the table below to view my books.

To View My books In....