In the face of recent eBook price fixing by Apple and five of the leading publishers, I have decided to temporarily offer my novella "Lye Street" for free to anyone who wants to read it. I'm doing this to promote my other books and to bring readers to my new Facebook page.
"Lye Street" is a stand-alone novella which acts as a prequel to the Deepgate books.
The kindle version is currently selling on Amazon for $0.99c (currently 86p), and also on Smashwords for the same amount.
The original limited edition hardback can be found here.
If you want a free copy of "Lye Street", please visit http://www.facebook.com/UrbanFantasy for details. And if you want to "like" the page, that would be great.
Merry Christmas folks.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Facebook Page
A friends of mine has started a Facebook page to promote my work.
http://www.facebook.com/UrbanFantasy
If any fans would like to like it, then that would be cool.
http://www.facebook.com/UrbanFantasy
If any fans would like to like it, then that would be cool.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Mercury UFO Photo Analysis Reveals Spacecraft
A series of photos from a Nasa telescope shows what some people believe to be an enormous, planet-sized spacecraft in the sky next to Mercury. The mysterious object becomes visible as a solar flare passes over it, leading some ufologists to believe that it is actually a cloaked spaceship.
Nasa scientists claim that the object is merely an artefact of their image processing system, caused when subsequent images are superimposed on previous ones to improve clarity.
However, independent image processing reveals something far more difficult to explain.
If we start with the clearest of the Nasa images:
The object appears to show two parallel cylindrical structures.
Now, things become interesting when one adjusts the contrast levels, sets the CMYK gauss overlay into the ultra-range to compensate for the inevitable Doppler IR bleed out and micro-pascal quasi-interference. When these adjustments are made, it is just possible to make out more details in the craft structure.
A darker band is just visible towards the top of the structure. Further sharpening and image rectification using a Pascallian Callanetic Shunt algorithm reveals yet more detail.
Now we are about at the limit of recoverable detail. We can, however, reduce the contrast, quadra-filter for UV, and lighten the bromine quanta waves, to give a much clearer version:
The resulting image definitely appears to be a craft of some sort. One can clearly see what appears to be twin "nacelles" towards the stern (possibly a propulsion system?) and a disc like structure at the bow, possibly housing the bridge and/or tactical systems. Both appear to be connected to a central "body" or "lower hull" - perhaps housing an engine, sleeping quarters, or cargo space.
In light of this new evidence, it is apparent that Nasa's pathetic "image processing artefact" explanation is simply an ill thought out cover story for what many of us have suspected for years: that there is, in fact, a planet-sized invisible space ship sitting next to Mercury.
Nasa scientists claim that the object is merely an artefact of their image processing system, caused when subsequent images are superimposed on previous ones to improve clarity.
However, independent image processing reveals something far more difficult to explain.
If we start with the clearest of the Nasa images:
The object appears to show two parallel cylindrical structures.
Now, things become interesting when one adjusts the contrast levels, sets the CMYK gauss overlay into the ultra-range to compensate for the inevitable Doppler IR bleed out and micro-pascal quasi-interference. When these adjustments are made, it is just possible to make out more details in the craft structure.
A darker band is just visible towards the top of the structure. Further sharpening and image rectification using a Pascallian Callanetic Shunt algorithm reveals yet more detail.
Now we are about at the limit of recoverable detail. We can, however, reduce the contrast, quadra-filter for UV, and lighten the bromine quanta waves, to give a much clearer version:
The resulting image definitely appears to be a craft of some sort. One can clearly see what appears to be twin "nacelles" towards the stern (possibly a propulsion system?) and a disc like structure at the bow, possibly housing the bridge and/or tactical systems. Both appear to be connected to a central "body" or "lower hull" - perhaps housing an engine, sleeping quarters, or cargo space.
In light of this new evidence, it is apparent that Nasa's pathetic "image processing artefact" explanation is simply an ill thought out cover story for what many of us have suspected for years: that there is, in fact, a planet-sized invisible space ship sitting next to Mercury.
Paying too much for your eBook?
So it turns out that Apple, along with five of the worlds biggest publishers are being investigated for fixing the price of eBooks. Often - bizarrely - the eBooks cost more than the paper copies. Ian Rankin's THE IMPOSSIBLE DEAD is £7.79 for the hardcover, and a smidgeon under a tenner if you simply want the words but are prepared to forego the paper.
In my case, the digital version of SEA OF GHOSTS cost slightly less than the hardcover, but even that seems far too much to me. After all, with digital copies, there are no production costs whatsoever and virtually no distribution costs to take into account (simply maintaining servers and software). When I self published LYE STREET several months back, I priced it at 99 cents (about 80p), which was the lowest Amazon would permit me to sell it at. They still take 70%.
So why do some books cost more in this format? The government is partly to blame. VAT is charged at 20% on eBooks, but not real books. Why? Presumably because it is a handy source of revenue until enough people complain, and they are forced to stop it. While publisher price fixing appears to partly responsible, they can only charge these prices if enough people are prepared to pay them. That requires a large fan base. Authors like Ian Rankin and Stephen King already have large enough fan bases to make this sort of pricing feasible. Most other authors don't.
Almost every book in the Amazon Kindle Bestseller list is 99p. Those few titles that cost more are all by big name writers with millions of fans. For the rest of us writers, it seems to me that publishers have to bring down the price of our eBooks to compete in a very crowded marketplace.
In my case, the digital version of SEA OF GHOSTS cost slightly less than the hardcover, but even that seems far too much to me. After all, with digital copies, there are no production costs whatsoever and virtually no distribution costs to take into account (simply maintaining servers and software). When I self published LYE STREET several months back, I priced it at 99 cents (about 80p), which was the lowest Amazon would permit me to sell it at. They still take 70%.
So why do some books cost more in this format? The government is partly to blame. VAT is charged at 20% on eBooks, but not real books. Why? Presumably because it is a handy source of revenue until enough people complain, and they are forced to stop it. While publisher price fixing appears to partly responsible, they can only charge these prices if enough people are prepared to pay them. That requires a large fan base. Authors like Ian Rankin and Stephen King already have large enough fan bases to make this sort of pricing feasible. Most other authors don't.
Almost every book in the Amazon Kindle Bestseller list is 99p. Those few titles that cost more are all by big name writers with millions of fans. For the rest of us writers, it seems to me that publishers have to bring down the price of our eBooks to compete in a very crowded marketplace.
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