Library Genesis

 https://www.theatlantic.com/.../search-libgen.../682094/...

Every author should check this link to search for their books.  The Atlantic  (an American Journal?) has a searchable database listing over 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers.

 The database is called Library Genesis or LibGen. Four of mine are there. So are many others, including those of Dorothy Dunnett. It is anyone's guess how much or how little of it has been used to "teach" Meta's AI systems to write books. 

You should read Jessica Redland's thoughts on the matter: https://www.jessicaredlandauthor.com

"The billionaires, the pirates , and the great book heist."

Stuffing your Kindle

Rainstorm over Ullapool

 As an experiment I put my most recent book on Free for three days at the beginning of the month. I haven't done this for some time and I wondered if it still worked as a method of get ting a book into the hands of readers. Well, it seemed it did. Quite a few went out in those three days on Amazon Kindle.

But guess what?

Here we are three weeks later and not one page has been read. How disappointing is that?

I can only hope that in the next few weeks I may see some KENP reports creeping in.

Luckily I have diaries

 I have been adding one photograph per day to Facebook, utilising the old paper pics I have in my collection.  Most are fine though all I've done is take a photo in good light of the old pic with my mobile phone, then uploaded it to my pc.

It is surprising how hard it is to remember where the places are.

Some have a scrawled name - Domme - but many are blank.

Luckily I have diaries (week to view) going back to 2002 and they tell me we took the ferry on 29th July and stayed in the Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud, from where we visited Chinon and Azay-le-Rideau, then Angers, Saumer and then on to Tulle,  Figeac amd Maurs where we stayed at La Chatelleraie before we drove on to Cahors. Back to Perigeaux, west to Saintes, then north to Nantes across the pont de Chevire and to Saint Malo and Portsmouth. 

Quite a journey to try and fit all those photographs into! But at least it is a guide. And the memories are so good.

Podcasts

Call me slow if you like but I have just discovered the world of podcasts.

The only trouble with them is I tend to fall asleep - which is great if its late at night and sleeping is what I really should be doing, but not so good if it is midday and I am supposed to be working.

I hear them all day long as my other half listens to political/news podcasts,. I hear them but I don't listen. Well, sometimes I do when it's Rory and Alistair. But it gave me the idea that it would help save my eyesight if I listened to things instead of reading them all. So I began looking for podcasts in my area and found  loads of creative writers do them.

Many are American. We are usually a decade behind American trends, though maybe the delay is not so long now as it used to be thanks to social media and television. I've begun with Urban Fantasy author Lindsay Buroker since I enjoyed her Death Before Dragons series. She is a six figure author so she must be doing something the readers like. 

Will I do a podcast? I think the world is safe as haven't a clue how to do it technically. 

 

I saw these 10 reasons why an e-book isn't selling on a screen that flashed by me today. Maybe it applies to only one person, or maybe it applies to all e-book authors. It makes you realise what hard work it takes to be a successful author and actually make money these days. 

At first it all seemed really good for authors but Amazon realised they were being too generous and made some changes. Now they are making money but I doubt most authors are. Maybe it's time to give up?

1. 1)    You’re up against millions
2. 2)    You’re not considering the direct competition
3. 3)    You haven’t thought about the audience at all
4. 4)    You’re trying to draw from an empty well
5. 5)    You haven’t built your personal platform
6. 6)    Your book cover is not good enough
7. 7)    Your pricing strategy is incorrect
8. 8)    You have unrealistic expectations
9. 9)    You’re not marketing yourself
10. 10)  Negative reviews

Where did TikTok go?

 

TikTok’s parent company, the Chinese-owned ByteDance, was directed to sell the app to a non-Chinese owner by January 19 or be banned in the U.S. After ByteDance failed to meet the deadline, TikTok vanished for Americans.

After his inauguration on Monday, Trump gave TikTok 75 days to seek a new solution. The app remains operational in the U.S. for the time being, but if TikTok can disappear so quickly, what’s to stop it from happening again?

No one knows what’s next for any platform. The best advice is Diversify. Start a YouTube channel they say, Invest in Instagram Reels. Launch a Substack newsletter. 

Seems a self-pubbed author needs to be or hire a PR expert these days . Also required is an intuitive knowledge of how to use the new programs. I find it difficult to use the few platforms I do know and wish they were all as simple as Facebook.

Dictatorial forms

 It has been a while since I posted, mostly because I was tied up with Amazon. They had been sending me notices to refresh my Tax information, which I duly did, received a verification in the shape of a big green tick and sent it back to them. A few days later the request appeared again, so I went through the same steps and returned it. This happened four or five times and then I needed to fill in a different form. This one requested my Unique Tax Reference Number (UK) and I didn't have one. 

Ah! The steps I went through! It took days and much pulling of hair and then to crown all  after I received said Tax Number, they said I could use my National Insurance Number. Duh! I could have used that the first time. 

Dealing with online forms is difficult. Put a letter where a number should be, or where there should be a space and the equivalence of red ink springs up all over the screen. Invalid information! It repeats the same information endlessly until by lucky chance you hit the correct format/information. If they really want AI to work, then the red ink should have politely informed me I had  allowed a space in the answer I gave and they didn't want the space but a number. Perhaps one day, all forms will be helpful instead of dictatorial!

The pic is of York. Evidently the town is considering charging a Tax on Tourists who stay overnight.