julesjones

Alex Woolfson, the guy behind my current favourite webcomic The Young Protectors, has written an article about creating a Kickstarter project to fund a print edition of the comic. This is a really good article about the nuts and bolts of putting together a proposal for crowd-sourcing the funding for your project -- and the information he lays out is more generally applicable than Kickstarter. I think a lot of what he has to say about building interest and a fanbase could also be usefully read by people who want to go through a more traditional route to publication. The article is here: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/06/10/how-to-succeed-at-kickstarter/

The Kickstarter itself is worth chipping into, if a gay superhero comic with a touch of romance sounds like your sort of thing. The lowest pledge level, $10, gets you digital copies of all the stuff that's been created for the stretch goals, in addition to the digital version of the book, which has extra content that won't be appearing on the comic's website. "All the stuff" is currently around 20 trading cards and half a dozen art prints, some with options to have the boys (and girls) with their bits on display. :-> If that sounds interesting, you have 8 days to put your pledge in.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alexwoolfson/the-young-protectors-vol-1-0

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Iain Banks died earlier today. He was only 59. I don't have the words for this. We all knew it was coming, that it would be soon -- but not this soon. Two months to get used to the idea, but it's not enough. Nothing would have been enough.

I'm sitting here typing through tears, and I didn't even know the man. But I know his books, both with and without the M. Angry, humane, a mirror held up to ourselves, with a message engraved therein that we can and should do better. They are part of my life, have been for over twenty years, and always will be.

The world is a better place because he was in it.

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Another item from Kickstarter that might be of interest -- and it has only a few hours to run. Studio Foglio is running a Kickstarter to fund the print run of the next volume of webcomic Girl Genius, and has a number of interesting rewards, including one of interest to those who've never read it. There's a special pdf-only pledge at $10 that gets you the pdf edition of the new volume -- *and* of all the digital goodies unlocked as stretch goals. Which at this point includes omnibus pdf editions of all the previous volumes. While the comic is free online, this is a very cheap way to pick up a set of pdf compilations. I've been meaning to get around to reading it, and never have, so this was a good opportunity for me to get into it.

(If you're already into Girl Genius, you probably know about the Kickstarter already, but there's a shedload of other stuff available in the unlocked stretch awards, besides the chance to pick up the print edition of Volume 12.)

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Doing some tidying up, both physical and virtual, and came across the email conversation with my editor discussing the recently submitted draft of Lord and Master 2, and my plans for the third Lord and Master book. *Detailed* plans, and whether what I had in mind would fit in with Loose Id. But with a comment that if a job resulted from one of the interviews that week, it would take a while to write.

That conversation was five years ago this week.

It wasn't just the new job that resulted from one of those interviews, although that basically chewed up six months of all of my time and energy. A lot of it was one medical issue after another over the last four years, starting with the vicious viral infection that started a couple of weeks before Redemption 2009 and wouldn't go away.

At least now I'm back to being able to write reasonably consistently for stretches of several weeks at time, and did actually manage to complete the first draft of a short novel over the last 7 months, in spite of a couple of interruptions. That doesn't mean L&M3 is going to get worked on any time soon -- it's a complex story that needs to be very carefully managed and will take some time to write even if I'm fully fit and can give it my undivided attention. Realistically, I'm better off doing another one-off short novel I'd outlined last year, and getting Nice Tie up to submission standard. Any serious work on it is at least a year off, I suspect. Bit I do still intend to write it some day.

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I wrote this review for the Amazon product page, but given how many of you lot would find it useful, I'm putting it here as well. I should note that the UK distributor contacted me through Amazon after I'd bought it, and asked if I'd be willing to write a review, as there weren't many on the UK Amazon site. However, I'd already intended to write a review for exactly that reason -- I'd had to go to the US site to find enough information to see if the product would suit me. It just got written rather sooner than it might have been without the request.

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I'm a daylight-sensitive insomniac who is tired of waking up with the dawn when I'm sleeping in an east-facing room. The sort of masks handed out by airlines help for the odd night, but they're not good enough for regular use. I bought the Sleep Master on spec, and while it's not perfect, it's a lot better than any other mask I've tried. For me it was well worth the 22 pounds I paid for it. I bought mine for insomnia, but I think it's also worth trying for light-sensitive migraine.

It's a wrap-around padded blindfold held on with a velcro fastener, and has no straps or elastic involved in keeping it on your head. There are padded areas over the ears to muffle sound, and it comes with two sets of earplugs if you want heavy-duty sound blocking.

What it's very, very good at is blocking out the light. It's very wide, the padding ensures that almost no light gets through the blindfold itself, and the cut out around the nose is a good shape that ensures a good light seal in that area.

Comfort-wise, it's very good once you get used to it. It's made from a soft, silky material that feels comfortable against my skin. I was concerned that it might get too sweaty, but so far haven't had any problems. The padding makes it quite thick, which makes it feel a bit odd to lie on at first, but after a few days I didn't notice it. The main problem I noticed was that it rests directly against the eyelids, which means that if you're prone to opening your eyes when sleeping, you won't be able to and it's going to disturb your sleep.

It's held on by a long velcro strip which provides plenty of size adjustment, and which does a good job of holding it securely closed without it loosening during the night, as elastic is prone to do. It's also a lot more comfortable than elastic. The one drawback is that I found that it doesn't reliably stay on during the night, although that may because I'm a fairly restless sleeper. It's easy enough to slip back on if it does come off.

The blindfold by itself does muffle sound a little, and could be enough to mask low levels of irritating sound. The flip side of this is that it adds sounds of its own -- the rustling of satin cloth against skin right next to your ear. This could be helpful, if you find it soothing white noise that masks other sounds, or it could be annoying in its own right. I haven't tried the earplugs it came with, but one pair is the type I used to wear in a high decibel industrial environment as hearing protection, so I know that it's capable of blocking very high sound levels.

Washing directions are hand wash in cold water and drip dry. So far it seems to have survived the experience, and I didn't get any colour bleeding. I suspect that you could get away with occasional mashine washing on the wool cycle if you put it in a delicates bag, which matters if you're like me and have hand problems, but I'm not going to try it unless I need to.

In summary: excellent product which should suit most people.

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An additional bit of review for the blog only -- yes, I'm sure it will be very useful for Other Purposes as well. :-)

I'm probably going to bring this along with me to cons, since so many hotel rooms don't have adequate blackout curtains. If anyone wants to have a look at it with a view to purchasing one of their own, feel free to ask.

Revolutionary, Patented SLEEP MASTER (tm) Sleep Mask. Worlds most effective light and noise reduction package. Helps with snoring partners , insomnia , shift work , jet lag for truly restful sleep. Prevents disturbed rest ensures peaceful slumber

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Good news for Inspector Singh fans -- the sixth one *will* be published, and it's due out in September. Yes, I did check with the author that this is not a figment of Amazon's imagination. :-) Details at Amazon UK: Inspector Singh Investigates: A Calamitous Chinese Killing: Number 6 in series

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I am at that stage of "Oh god I need to clean up this office" where I have to face the fact that I have Too Many Books. No, really, I have completely run out of room in the downstairs bookcases again, so if I want to put away the teetering piles of "have read it but not yet logged it", something's got to leave. Which means I have to decide what's going to Oxfam.

And once again I am wishing that the Big 6/5... publishers would quit with the DRM nonsense. I have here a box full of books I bought on remainder where I would be only too happy to give the publisher the full cover price in order to buy an electronic copy the next time I want to read it. But I want to *buy* it, not rent it. If it's locked to a specific device, or specific credit card, or a specific cloud account, it ain't mine.

One of the reasons this matters to me is that I've hit the age where I do not have endless vistas of reading time ahead of me. I went out for dinner last night, and found that my current pair of handbag reading glasses can no longer cope with restaurant menus in restaurant lighting. And at current reading rates, I have around ten years worth of books in this house, and that's just the fiction. I have a lot of books where I liked them enough that I might want to read them again, but may not get to them for a re-read in the next few years. I'm accumulating more of them. The reality is that "a few years" may take it past my personal reading event horizon. And many of these books are ones where I don't have much attachment to the physical object. I'd be perfectly happy to shift the physical object out of the door as long as I'm reasonably sure I can get hold of the text again if I *do* feel the urge to re-read. I have a lot more where I know I will want to re-read them but ditto on the physical object.

I think it's time to give in, install Calibre and learn how to use naughty plug-ins. It will make it a lot easier to put that treeware book in the Oxfam box.

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Busy trying to catch up with the sorely neglected book log. Here are my brief notes on January's books. I know I read more than these, but I didn't jot down notes at the time and have lost track.

1) Agatha Christie -- Five Little Pigs

A young woman approaches Poirot for help in solving an old murder -- that of her father by her mother. Amyas Crayle was a superb artist, and a womaniser who routinely slept with his models for inspiration. Caroline Crayle rowed with him about it, but tolerated it because she knew that they were passing infatuations -- until the one who wasn't. Amyas died of poison, and Caroline died in prison.

Carla Crayle is quite certain that her mother was innocent, and wishes to both clear her mother's name and unmask the real killer. Sixteen years after the killing, there is no evidence left save the memories and journals of the five people who might also have committed the murder. Hercule Poirot must use his deep understanding of psychology to weigh the different stories against each other, and hunt out the clues in the contradictions.

The plot itself is intriguing, but the highlight of this book is the distinct and individual voices Christie gives to each of the five little pigs in their narratives. Blustering, dishonest, self-serving, self-deceptive, or merely subject to the passage of time -- each memory, and how it is presented to Poirot, is different. And the very attempt to present the facts in the way the teller wants Poirot to hear them exposes each pig's inner secrets... Superbly constructed, and great fun to read.

2) Agatha Christie -- The Sittaford Mystery

A standalone without any of Christie's regular characters.

There's not a lot to do in the tiny village of Sittaford on a snowy afternoon, which is why a tea party amuses itself with a seance. The fun turns sour when a spirit announces that an absent friend of one of the party has just been murdered. Major Burnaby is sufficiently concerned that he sets out in what has become a blizzard to walk to his friend's house in the next village.

Captain Trevalyin was a wealthy man, and the obvious suspect is his nephew James Pearson, who was actually in the village at the time in search of a loan from his uncle. But young Pearson's fiancee refuses to accept that he is a murderer, and sets about tracking down the real killer.

Enjoyable mystery, with plenty of plausible red herrings, and a good lead character in the form of Emily Trefusis.

3) Robert Sheckley -- The Status Civilistation

Short novel from the master of satirical science fiction. Will Barrent awakes to find himself with no memory, and a one way ticket to a penal planet where the inhabitants are mindwiped and then left to do as they please. The society created over generations is one in which committing crime is a social good, and the only way of advancing in society -- or indeed, staying alive. Barrent has no memory of his crime, and no desire to commit further crimes; but to find out how and why he was sentenced to life and death on Omega, he will have to stay alive long enough to find a way back to Earth.

4) Rudyard Kipling -- The man who would be king

Kipling's novelette about two former non-com officers from the British Army in India, who decide to take a crate of rifles and ammo and set themselves up as kings of one of the upcountry statelets in Afghanistan. Beautifully written study of greed and politics, and an excellent adventure story.

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Much as I love my Cybook Gen3, it's elderly. So I had it in mind to get one of the Nooks that were being flogged off at £30, should I be able to find one. Of course, there were none to be had, but in my wanderings around the Arndale Centre on Friday night just to be certain, I noticed that WH Smith were having a one day only special on Kobos - £20 off all models. Which made the Kobo Mini £30...

So I now have a Kobo Mini, which I have not actually plugged in and set up yet and thus cannot report on. However, if any other UK resident is interested in getting a cheap Kobo, keep an eye on your local Smith's, since they seem to be running this as an occasional promotion. The purchase included a multi-use discount voucher for 20% off any accessories I buy between now and August.

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May royalty statement has just arrived from Loose Id. Items of interest:

-- First Footer's first quarter at ARe, 50 copies, first complete month at Amazon US 51 copies, nil to 3 everywhere else, including Loose Id's own website. It's a solo re-issue of something that was previously available for years in an anthology, so this pattern may not hold for a brand new title. (I'd expect higher numbers all round, for one thing.)

-- Buildup 2: Pulling Strings has finally reached 1000 copies sold since it was first released. *Exactly* 1000, copies, as it happens.

-- Almost all sales come from third party distributors these days. Whether that pattern would hold with a brand new release, I've no idea. The big ones are Amazon US, then ARe and B&N, but the cut varies from title to title and month to month. The other Amazons sell a steady trickle. It would appear that Sony readers are not into m/m erotic romance, or at least not *my* m/m erotic romance. And RIP Fictionwise.

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All of which prompted me to check the statistics on the short story I have up as a free download at Smashwords, Naked. That went up at the end of October last year, and has accumulated 454 downloads as of this morning, i.e. in seven months. It's running at around 1 download a day these days.

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