Tag Archives: libraries

Self-publishing ebooks: Amazon KDP or Draft2Digital (D2D)?

Joanna’s experience and advice on using Amazon KDP and D2D for ebooks

Regular readers of this blog may remember my tale of woe when Amazon KDP terminated my publishing account. I eventually got it back but it was not a pleasant experience. Some of my ebooks are still available on KDP but I’ve been publishing most of the others on Draft2Digital (D2D). I’ve done enough of them now on D2D—as ebooks and also in print—to have some experience and lessons to share.

I’m not including print publishing choices in this blog because it would make it too long. Nor am I including Ingram Spark here, because my only experience with them is print publishing, not ebooks. I’ll include Ingram when I blog about print choices.

graphic figure with box on head, thumb downThere are upsides and downsides to publishing ebooks on Draft2Digital. Just as there are on KDP. Some of the downsides might not apply in every case, but I’ll explain what they are anyway. Then you can make up your own mind whether KDP or D2D is right for your ebooks.

Which platform wins the grinning yellow mug and which gets the down-in-the-mouth blue one? Your decision. Continue reading →

The Call of the Colophon

Sophie and the colophon:three shelves of sets of old leather-bound books with a tray of similar ages books in a variety of sizes and decorative bindings.

I first heard the call of the colophon when I was eighteen and entering on my first full time job.

To explain the background: in those days, if you wanted try for Oxford and Cambridge or a university abroad, many schools made you take your A Levels first. So you then stayed on for an extra autumn term to sit their individual entrance exams and, possibly, go then for interview. By the middle of December you were done, with a gap of two thirds of a year ahead of you.

In a newspaper, I found an interview for an “assistant’s” job going at London University Library.

The central building of Senate House, London University, showing its central white art deco tower against a blue sky, flanked by trees beyond the forecourtThen, as now, I loved libraries. And it would take me into glamorous Fitzrovia.

I lived in an outer suburb of London and had never worked further afield than a shop in a slightly more historic suburb, three miles closer to theatres, concert halls and Life.

I got the job — it was basically applied dogsbodying — and, along with it, entry into a whole new world. The Library was full of subterranean alliances, unfathomable codes of practice and, blissfully, a new language.
Including the colophon. Continue reading →

Medium Fiction

No, this blog is not about a new modestly priced genre for the  middle-aged, middle-gendered, middle-brow reader. This blog is about stories built around the figure of the professional medium. Because I’ve just read a cracking good one, and realised that it’s a subject I bump my nose on every few years. I don’t always like them, as you will see, but they often give me that little kick of electricity which means I never quite forget them.

Medium in All That Was LostThe Book that started this is All that Was Lost, by Alison May, published last Thursday.

The main character is, indeed, a professional medium. Very professional. One doesn’t entirely trust her but there is something oddly reassuring about her, though she clearly has some well-buried issues. She grows in stature throughout the book. Indeed, as in so many relationships, the reader alternately engages and retreats. I was 100% on her side by the end, though.

I found this a page-turner, intriguing and consistently engaging – and quite unlike anything else I have read this year. A refreshment to the jaded palate indeed. Continue reading →