Macro photography with the Ricoh GR V
The Ricoh GR V crams a great APS-C sensor and a sharp, fast(ish) f2.8 lens into a slim and stylish camera body that can be easily pocketed.
How to add HTML to your Kindle book description the easy way
If you’ve been using old versions of HTML tags on your Amazon book descriptions you need to change them now for the simple versions as Amazon are no longer recognising the old type of tag.
Is this is the Great American Dust Jacket?
What current best-selling novel features the blurb: “It is a magical, living book, blended of irony, romance, and mysticism”?
Damaged brings up best-selling double for H M Ward
H M Ward is one of the most prolific and successful authors self-publishing on Amazon and this week sees her with two books on the New York Times Bestseller List with Damaged at No 6 and The Arrangement 6 in 18th place. It might soon be a hat-trick for Holly Ward as the seventh instalment of The Arrangement has just been published and already has over 50 five-star reviews on Amazon within the first two days of publication.
Thank you to my many word processors
Reading the paperback of Michael Chabon’s latest brilliant novel Telegraph Avenue, I spotted at the back of the book under Acknowledgements: “This novel was written using Scrivener on Macintosh computers.”
The Viral Catalysts that push a book to the top of the sales charts
Viral Catalysts are the vital difference that can make a book a best seller and Smashwords founder Mark Coker has tried to pick out these catalysts in a major analysis of indie book sales data.
What does it take to be a self-publishing best seller?
Sales figures are the big secret of self-publishing with plenty of estimates but no solid basis for working out how many ebooks are being sold by Amazon and the rest.
Indies are the future of book publishing
The future of book publishing lies with the independents, according to journalist and ebook writer and publisher Robert Niles.
The return of Spare Rib
Legendary feminist magazine Spare Rib is set for a comeback as journalist Charlotte Raven looks to set up a website and a glossy magazine focusing on life rather than lifestyle.
The churning point
Are you being churned? The wholesale use of press releases being used unedited by newspapers and websites is being challenged by a new tool in the US called Churnalism from the SunLight Foundation which follows the introduction some while back of a similar website in the UK, www.churnalism.com.
All the world’s an infographic
Goodreads have come up with a great infographic to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday, giving some intriguing reading recommendations for the plays. You can find it at www.goodreads.com
Big names switch to self-publishing
Playwright David Mamet is the latest big-name writer to turn to self-publishing.
Tools to transcribe interviews
Transcribing hours of recorded interviews has always been a pain but galleycat points out that the free Transcribe for Chrome can be a big help and works offline so you don’t need to have an internet connection.
Journalist scores deals for football game fixing book and film
Journalist Brett Forrest has signed a deal to write a book about football match fixing around the world and has also optioned the film rights.
My WordPress feature in UK Press Gazette
I have just had an article about 10 years of WordPress and the growing importance of WP for journalists published in the digital edition of UK Press Gazette. You can read it at http://viewer.zmags.com
Why the Kindle could be the new newspaper
The recently released Amazon Send to Kindle application and plug-in for WordPress could open up massive new markets for journalists, bloggers and publishers.
