Support women in science & tech, and have fun whilst you’re at it!

September 11, 2012

Ada Lovelace Day, the international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering & maths that I launched in 2009, has gone from strength to strength in the last three years. I’ve been amazed at how much support it’s garnered and how much enthusiasm there is for it. This year, it has become really […]

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How would you run a self-publishing award?

August 23, 2012

I interviewed The Guardian’s Sam Jordison about the challenges of expanding the current Not The Booker literary prize to include self-published books for my Forbes blog, but didn’t really have room to consider how one might actually run a meaningful award for self-published authors. The Not The Booker awards currently works by allowing people to […]

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The story of an annoying sac of liquid

August 15, 2012

I’m back at my desk today for the first time since I had my grapefruit-sized ovarian cyst removed last Thursday. Although I’m not feeling particularly intelligent today, I am free from pain for the first time in months and I’m very happy with the speed of my recovery. I thought it might be worth just […]

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Out of Office

August 9, 2012

I’m off to hospital this morning to get my ovarian cyst removed. The last couple of months especially have been a bit miserable, and I’ll be glad once today is over. It’s a general anaesthetic, which I’ve never had before, but I should be in and out today and back home by tonight. And i […]

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Promoting your book on a budget: A response to BookBaby

July 6, 2012

BookBaby recently published a blog post entitled Promote Your Book on a Budget: 20 Thrifty Ways to Get Your Writing Out There. I was a bit annoyed by it, because some of the items were clearly not budget, and others aren’t promotional. Even more, some dodn’t seem relevant to self-published authors, whom I would imagine comprise […]

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Birth of a book

July 1, 2012

Just beautiful!  Birth of a book from Lamartis Publishing House on Vimeo.  

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Cyst news

June 26, 2012

As mentioned in passing in an earlier post, about a month ago I was diagnosed with a 10cm ovarian cyst. Symptoms started right at the beginning of the year and since then have progressively worsened. Initially it was diagnosed as a mild urinary infection, confirmed by tests, but when antibiotics didn’t actually clear things up […]

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What makes a book ‘Young Adult’?

June 15, 2012

I ask this question, what makes a book ‘Young Adult’?, not because I have an answer and want to ponder it at length for your edification, but because I am not sure I actually know. Out of the 14,000+ people who have either downloaded or bought Argleton, three have said that they think it’s really […]

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A nerdy post about book sale numbers

June 7, 2012

If you’ve been reading here a while, you’ll know that I have an unhealthy fascination with numbers, particularly the sales and download numbers for Argleton. Talking about  download/sales numbers on Twitter today, I realised that there are various different ways you can finagle numbers and wondered what the results might tell us. So I had a […]

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Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey

May 17, 2012

It’s been a while since I last blogged, so I thought I’d just update you on what’s been going on. The first thing is that after I realised that the Queen of the May Kickstarter project wasn’t going to work out, I did a bit of thinking about what it was I was trying to […]

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The law of unintended consequences: How barbed wire inadvertently fenced in the faeries

March 13, 2012

Until the end of the 19th Century, the faerie and human realms overlapped quite considerably. The soft places, where the skilled can walk two paths at once, were once common. Clearings in the woods, hilltop earthworks, faerie rings and even the bottoms of gardens hid gateways to the Summer Lands through which faeries came and […]

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Help on backing Kickstarter projects for non-USAians

March 13, 2012

This awesome video by Double Fine Adventures, who have just crossed the $3 million mark on their Kickstarter project with just 10 hours to go, provides some useful advice for anyone outside the US who doesn’t have a credit card but still wants to support a project. There are more details on their forum. Supporting […]

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Notes on paperbacking fabric using methyl cellulose

March 11, 2012

For ages now I’ve been meaning to try the methyl cellulose (wallpaper paste) method of gluing backing paper on to fabric to make it suitable for bookbinding. Most fabric can’t be used un-backed because it’s too slippery to work easily with, it frays, and the glue will almost certainly bleed through thinner fabrics and ruin […]

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Queen of the May Kickstater project launched – please help spread the word

March 10, 2012

At last, Queen of the May is up on Kickstarter and ready your support! We have 31 days to raise $10,000, and already have $1071 pledged. Even if you choose the lowest support level, which is $3, please do consider taking part as every little helps! You can also help immensely by telling your friends about […]

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Notebooks galore

March 2, 2012

I’ve been spending some time making notebooks recently and have finally got round to taking some photos of them.         I’ve been using Chiyogami paper, block-printed Japanese paper that is very high quality indeed. It’s not cheap, but it’s gorgeous to work with. Because the paper fibres are randomly distributed, not aligned […]

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