A story for young adults and adults based on the weird concept of Honour Killing (Blood feuds) in contemporary Albania.

I have just finished reading this dark and very dense tale of what happens to a family recently arrived in a small Albanian town when one of them inadvertently kills the son of their neighbour.

Here is how it is described in Smashwords:

Long listed for the Dylan Thomas/Sony Reader Award 2010, Dead Dogs is a darkly humorous tale from award-winning author [UK Authors Prize 2010] Chris Barraclough.

Mikael’s relocation to Albania becomes a life imprisonment, after his cousin kills a neighbouring boy. Victim of a Blood Feud, Mikael finds himself hunted by the enraged family who are desperate for revenge.

You probably do not know much about this curious law in Albania, called Gjakmarrja (Yes, I have no idea how you pronounce it either), which basically says, that if someone kills one of your family, for whatever reason, you have a legal right to merrily kill all male members of the killer’s family, except when they are in their own land or house. In other words, if they leave their property, you have an absolute right to shoot them dead, and the law can do nothing to you. And as I said, this “sentence”  extends to all male members of the family of the killer, including any male children, whatever their ages.

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As ebooks steadily take over the book market, the question of whether it is better for an author to self-publish or go through the traditional route of working with an established publisher becomes more and more relevant.

Until about a year ago, all self-publishing really fell into the category of “vanity publishing”, by which I mean people publishing their own books at their own cost in very small quantities, most of which would be given away to friends and family, and then sink into the oblivion that most of them richly deserved.

Then came ereaders….

However, with the advent of ereaders and the massive uptake of these handy devices, this situation has changed, and more and more serious and talented writers are beginning to go on the self-publishing route.  This is now amazingly simple, and if you are too poor or too mean to spend any money on your ebook, it is free as well.   Just format it correctly for Amazon, or Smashwords, and post it and then sit back and hope that the money will flow in as people buy your masterpiece.

But not only talented writers……….

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The whole ebook world is in an uproar just now owing to Paypal’s decision to cancel agreements with any online ebook seller who offers ebooks dealing with incest, rape, bestiality or sex with underage children as a main plot feature.

A slippery slope to total censorship?

Not surprisingly many commentators have leapt to arms over this decision on PayPal’s part, claiming that this represents an unacceptable form of censorship, and that it is no part of such a corporation’s work to decide what we may and may not read, and others have equally forcefully stated that a company such as PayPal has every right to decide what sort of transactions it will be part of.

So confusion reigns supreme.

For those of you who have somehow managed to miss the excitement over the last few days, this action on PayPal’s part has been chiefly aimed at Smashwords, a well known indie website where independent authors may place and sell their ebooks. But it has become known that it is in fact not only aimed at Smashwords, but at a number of other online ebook sellers who carry erotica, including ebooks that deal with the forbidden topics mentioned above.  And further, it isn’t only PayPal who are enforcing this decision, but a number of other online payment companies are following their lead in this.

Why now?

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Everything you ever wanted to know about computer cases, but were too embarrassed to ask, is now to be found in this superb ebook.

Tweak Town (a well known site about all manner of highly technical matters to do with computers and other digital things) have just produced an amazing ebook guide about computer cases for anyone thinking of building their own computer.  A definite Must Read.

This ebook has about 250 pages of highly specific advice and information on every aspect of computer cases – what they should include, all the various different types (according to which motherboard you want to bung into it) and all manner of other points you need to consider when deciding which case to buy to build your dream computer into.

What does it cover?

The list of chapters gives one an idea of the range of information to be found in this ebook:

Factors to consider when choosing a PC case

• Form Factor and Motherboard Compatibility
• Materials and Construction
• Coating
• Aluminum
• Plastic
• Steel
• Weight, Durability and Look

Cooling

• CFM and Noise
• Static Pressure
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Don’t give up, justfight the good fight to  get your ebook published.

Alana cash, a successful filmmaker has written a long article for (http://www.insearchofdesign.com/) in which she describes the considerable problems she has experienced as she attempted to get her book TOM’S WIFE published as an ebook, and she has agreed to let me share some of her experiences with you guys, in a spirit of “I fell into the holes in the road, here are some warning signposts to help you avoid doing the same”.

When she decided to publish her ebook herself, she had a look at the various online outfits who offer what is called Publish on Demand (POD), such as Smashwords, Lightening and CreateSpace (the last being the outfit who distribute her films for her) and that is when her problems began.

Contract….  Oh yeah?

The first problem she ran into was one that has probably not really occurred to most of you hopeful authors out there, and that is the form of contracts that these POD’s offer authors who publish via them.

Basically when she looked a these contracts it quickly became obvious to her that they are actually in no way really contracts, or as she puts it:

In a standard publishing situation, once a book has been accepted for publication, the publisher and author negotiate a contract setting out the percentage of sales the author will receive as royalties, which rights (movie rights, international rights, paperback rights, etc.) the author transfers and which are retained by the author to be negotiated later and other matters.

OK, this all makes perfect sense, and is a real agreement between two parties, and is real protection for both of them, but in the world of POD things are not like that:

In the world of self-publishing/print-on-demand (POD), there are only implied agreements.  By going through the process of uploading a PDF to the POD company site, the author is agreeing to have the book printed and marketed by that company.  Meaning, an author can’t claim later any sort of infringement of copyright because they’ve implied an agreement to print the book, but the author retains all rights to the material. Read full story »

In a recent post on his wonderfully digressive Blog (an American Editor), Rich Adin ponders what the After life will be like for addicted readers of ebooks.

When I read his contemplation of how ebooks have changed his reading habits, and his worry that Heaven (I love the way he assumes that he is heading to that place) won’t provide him with enough ebooks and a comfortable reading chair in which to pass eternity in pleasant comfort, I felt I had to share it with you all.

So here are his thoughts on this enormously important point:-

Will there be ebooks in the afterlife?

Every once in a while we need to exercise our minds and imagine what our future will be like. We all know that at some point we need to say goodbye to our current existence and move on. I don’t know whether or not there is an afterlife, but for the sake of this article, I’m willing to assume that there is one.

I know that for me it will be a miserable afterlife if I haven’t got a La-Z-Boy rocking-recliner (I need a comfortable place to both read and to take naps) and a never-ending library of books to read. So the question isn’t so much will there be a library of books — I’m sure that in my afterlife I’ll have the basics for an eternal good time, including no politicians – but will there be a comfortable chair and ebooks?

I’m pondering this because with the passing of each day, I am increasingly disinclined to pick up a pbook to read. Just about everything to do with pleasure reading is a better experience on my Sony 950 Reader than it is picking up a print book. Well, except, of course, for that book smell that one gets from a pbook (and I can easily do without the musty smell that often accompanies a pbook that has started to succumb to mold and mildew!) but which has yet to be duplicated by an ebook. Read full story »