UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion

Yep, September is coming, and after the very rough seas of the past couple of years, things are finally calming down. I'm on holidays right now, but I'm positively looking forward to the months to come, and I really feel the need to do stuff. So here's what I'm planning:

- Get deeper into that writing business. That said, it's for my own enjoyment right now. I'm not proficient enough to even aim for big stuff, and writing is very much a learning thing for me, both in terms of writing itself and the whole world of books. So while I'll be serious about it, I'm not going to be serious about it. Purple Wish: A Valentine Fairy Tale has a big sister in the works, and it needs to see the light of day.

- Get translating. Got to translate my own stories so my grandma can read them and finally stop bugging me :) This is pretty scary stuff for me. Literary translation is totally different to what I've been doing so far.

- Get crafty. Right now, I have half a zillion things to try. First step, soap making, and sorting out all my photos and improving my Photoshopping skills. Got to get a blog going, and stick to it this time :)

- Get reading. I miss reading. And learning from reading. I need to tackle my TBR BIG time.

I guess this thread will be my update thread, Facebook is too untidy for me to keep track :)

Well, I've caught up with my reviews on here and did decide on a reading challenge of 30 books this year. Will see how it goes. I have a few more to add as I review them so might have about 16-17 left to read. Going to tackle the oldest books I loaded onto the kindle :)

Gooduck Lorraine. Soap making sounds cool

Soap making sounds bonkers.

Do you make them in different shapes and stuff?

I can so see Lorraine out in the back yard, boiling soap. ;)

Good luck with your challenge, lovely girl!

Thanks Desley and Patti :)

Michael, I haven't made any attempts yet. I'm just looking into making something for personal use that doesn't have all the nasties that shop soaps have. When I master the basics, I will see how it goes :)

You're gonna need a big pot to boil the pig in, Lorraine.

I recall a film where they were making soap from human fat, stealing amputated body parts from a hospital.

"Fight Club" ? Possibly…

Not going down that avenue are you, Lorraine?

Pig? Human fat? Nope, none of that. Just cruelty-free ingredients.

Mind you... amputations... ooooh, the temptation...

It'd only go to waste otherwise.

It was "Fight Club". "With enough soap, we could blow up just about anything."

I think I got bored watching that movie... I don't remember watching the end :(

Lorraine wrote: "I think I got bored watching that movie... I don't remember watching the end :("

I loved fight club, despite it not being what I normally watch.

I might try again if I come across it, I don't really watch the screen much, who knows ? :)

The end is a big reveal, and the part where much of the film makes sense.

Ok David, will bear that in mind next time :)

Had a busy week after coming back from my holiday, but my blog is up :)

http://tidlidim.wordpress.com/

Anothe busy week, but it's all good :)

I've updated my blod with a piece of writing and some great news, I'm going to be published!

Yay Lorraine!

Congrats!

Oh sorry, I missed your post Patti, thank you <3

Anyway, things are slowly taking shape. I've started populating my blog, and I've joined Wordpress's Blogging101 course just as a source of inspiration for more posts. But outside that, Lately, I've been blogging about dewdrops, World War II, crab-observing, and been ranting a little. But I'm actually rather enjoying blogging :)

And today, I took some time to transfer my next fairy tale to the computer. I'm SO not happy with the beginning, so I guess I'll have to plan time for rewrites lol... All in due time :)

Well, late last night, after some serious thoughts, I dared to write a more serious blog post. I went to bed worrying it would attract troll central like ants. I was extremely delighted to see, upon waking up, that it received a handful of very positive comments, from people who think the same as I do, and today, I feel a bit better about humanity :)

On another note, I'm only 3 books behind in my reading challenge!

Edited to add: Oh, and after my grandma sent me on a very BIG guilt trip yesterday, saying, in her words, "I'll die before I get to read your story", I've started translating Ravenous. She's especially looking forward to this one because the characters carry the names of family members, I'm adding personal bits in it, the setting is in a village near where she lives, and the dog featured in my story was based on hers, Victor. I've only met Victor once, and he was a wonderful puppy full of crazy and love. Sadly, a couple of days before I finished my story, he got run over by someone who was driving too fast. I just hope my story will make her proud.

Good blog

Thanks Jim :)

Well, I'm not going to be published anymore. But it's much better that way. Explaining everything here: http://tidlidim.wordpress.com/2014/10...

Edit: On the upside, it's spurred me on to learn editing :)

Well said

I don't know whether we're seeing a continuation of a trend.
First we all became Indie authors.
Now everybody's becoming an indie publisher, and frankly the more I know about the costs involved publishing, the less likely I would be to go into it!

Yes, I've been thinking that too, Jim. It's not always a bad thing, some small presses out there don't become big, but they have good intentions at heart. But others are purely self-orientated, at the detriment of the writers. The writing world can be a real jungle!

Some small presses appear to be run along the same lines as some 'book awards.'
Their sole aim is as a money making exercise, and the easiest person to get money off is the author :-(

Yeah, guess it's our responsibility to make sure we don't get caught up in all that. In my other circle (well, that of my partner mainly) there are also concerns about publishers asking for lifetime copyrights for your story. Authors definitely have to tread carefully :(

A friend of mine want's to drop in and ask the publisher 'Whose lifetime?'

Apparently, lifetime means your lifetime + 70 years afterwards. I'm really not clued up in that kind of legal, contractual stuff. But to me that sounds like double the lifetime lol!

From memory the 70 years is the new EU length of time that copyright lasts, so effectively they want it forever.
effectively 71 years after your death, anybody can publish your book.

Yes, I've just been looking at copyright for a related matter, the graphic services my partner provided as part of the project, and in the UK it's definitely 70 years. Two lifetimes, then. Wonder why they thought of that particular duration and not another? 70 or 200 years, what difference does it really make?

I remember seeing an article about it somewhere.
Basically we initially had a shorter period, (from memory US and UK) but then the EU wanted to standardise it for the whole EU.
So of course they took the German one which was 70 years.
So there have been cases of work coming out of copyright, of being used, and then suddenly going back in copyright again.
But I think that there is a change for longer being driven by Disney (from memory)
Their problem is that a lot of their copyrights on characters light Mickey Mouse will expire 70 years after the death of Walt in 1966 and, again from memory, they're trying to extend the length of copyright to extend the length of the business.

Oh blimey. Well, I guess Walt Disney has the money to get that kind of change in the law. We haven't to try and counteract it.

I could have mis-remembered or the guy might have been wrong but it does sort of hang together

I'm baaaack! Just returned from my wonderful trip to Dublin where I met the lovely Gingerlily :) Getting back into the mood slowly (so glad I did the housework just before leaving, it was well worth scrubbing the floors at 1am just to enjoy the feeling of going back to a clean house). Been procrastinating a bit so after dinner I'm going back to editing my translation, which I finished a couple of weeks ago by the way (and it was pretty hard work!).
Then I signed up to NaNoWriMo to finish my next fairy tale.
Fingers crossed I manage to do all that by the end of the month!

Good luck!

Thanks Desley!

Spent most of this week on finishing the translation and the little touches here and there. Looks like my day is going to be spent on Amazon and Smashwords. 5.30PM and I've just done the English version of Ravenous. Now off to give Affamés one last read before sending it to ebookland!

I think I'm going to do a blog post about translating, it's proving much more hard work than writing!

Oh, and my NaNoWriMo is on standby. Just as I was bracing myself for it (wanted to get Ravenous out of the way first) I got called for a translation that's going to keep me busy until the end of the year. Guess I'll do mine in January then!

Well, Affamés is in Amazon's hands, and Ravenous is live!



AmazonUK: http://amzn.to/1soEO1h
AmazonCOM: http://amzn.to/1zdiixW
Smashwords: http://bit.ly/1uda3Se

Read and reviewed. Well done Lorraine

Yes, I saw Pat, and sent you a message on Facebook :) Thank you so much!