Jack SpyWriter King | Author of Suspense

Writing and politics don’t mix

09/02/2010 · Leave a Comment

Krishna Sobti joins the roster of authors who declined various literary awards, sheds light on the politics of awards:

Sobti, the grande dame of Hindi literature, told The Indian Express from her Delhi home, “As a writer, I have to keep a distance from the establishment. I think I did the right thing.”

Sobti said an official from the Home Ministry had, as is the norm, contacted her three or four days before the announcement of the awards to inform her she had been chosen. “I told him, ‘let us stop this right here’. I did not want to create a din later, after the awards had been publicly announced. Then on the morning of January 25, I again got a call from the Ministry. The official said, ‘The nation wants to honour you.’ I told him, ‘Thank you very much. That’s very nice. But I am already honoured, I’m a Sahitya Akademi Fellow. That is the biggest recognition for a writer.’”  MORE

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eBook revolution fails foreign writers

09/02/2010 · Leave a Comment

All this talk about the Internet being a great democratizer of ideas, access, and reach proves meaningless for writers who create in languages other than English:

“Translations from Estonian are published mostly either by universities or by small publishing houses, and that brings fame and glory, but hardly any money.

E-books aren’t changing this much: the distribution opportunities change only in theory, because the language barrier doesn’t just disappear. On the contrary: The Internet is actually bolstering the role of English.

The chances that anyone apart from a couple of Estonians living in exile will read an Estonian-language book are next to zero. MORE

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Why proprietary e-Readers must die

08/02/2010 · Leave a Comment

The British Library will offer tens of thousands of public domain books for download. You can read them too… if you have a Kindle.

MORE than 65,000 19th-century works of fiction from the British Library’s collection are to be made available for free downloads by the public from this spring.

Owners of the Amazon Kindle, an ebook reader device, will be able to view well known works by writers such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, as well as works by thousands of less famous authors.

The library’s ebook publishing project, funded by Microsoft, the computer giant, is the latest move in the mounting online battle over the future of books.

While some other services, such as Google Books, offer out-of-copyright works to be downloaded for free, users of the British Library service will be able to read from pages in the original books in the library’s collection. MORE

And that’s why we do not need or want any proprietary technology. Give us the books without any conditions!

Jane Austen

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Guerilla literacy movement

08/02/2010 · Leave a Comment

Just hearing this makes your heart grow by at least two sizes:

The movement was founded by a group of journalists and social activists in 1975 to popularise literature among people in rural areas. “In those days, Marathi books were published only in big cities like Mumbai and Pune. Publishers ignored the rural areas. Granthali was formed in a bid to make books available to people in the rural areas,” says Sudesh Hinglaspurkar, one of the trustees.

Granthali borrows books from publishers of Marathi books and conducts exhibitions in rural areas. “So far, we have conducted around 800 such exhibitions and the response has been overwhelming. Educated people in the rural areas of Maharashtra were never exposed to this kind of literary movement and they welcomed our efforts wholeheartedly.” MORE

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e-Reader owners like their gizmos

07/02/2010 · Leave a Comment

Market research survey results:

E-Reader satisfaction is high among owners, according to a new report e-Reader Owners: Attitudes and Usage from leading market research company The NPD Group.  Almost all owners (93 percent) said they were “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with their device.  Only 2 percent of owners expressed any level of dissatisfaction.

Features are important to e-Reader owners.  According to the report, 60 percent of owners said wireless access was their favorite feature on their e-Reader; touch was mentioned by 23 percent of owners. [...]

Even with great features, e-Reader owners are still looking for more in these relatively new and still evolving devices. Some recommended improvements from owners include more book title availability, longer battery life, and color screens at 42 percent, 39 percent, and 34 percent respectively.  Content is important, and while almost half (46 percent) of owners said they were mostly satisfied with the selection of titles for their e-Reader devices, only 39 percent said they could find every title they were looking for.

But it seems that e-Reader owners aren’t married to their e-Readers to do their reading.  About three-in-ten owners say they use at least one another device for reading e-books, such as a PC or a smartphone. MORE HERE

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Your Facebook ‘Friend’ is a spy

06/02/2010 · Leave a Comment

The average person usually joins social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter to get to know others better. However, as the Dutch secret services AIVD (General Intelligence and Security Service) and MIVD (Military Intelligence and Security Service) point out, people should be careful when placing information on their personal sites.
 
Intelligence agencies often use social networking sites for more sinister purposes. On Friday, the Dutch intelligence agencies began a campaign to warn of the dangers of digital espionage. They say that foreign intelligence services often use these sites to gather information about people.

The intelligence services have published three brochures to inform potential target groups about the dangers. The brochure on ‘digital espionage’ describes the dangers of infected emails, visiting infected websites and how infected USB sticks are sometimes handed out as promotional gifts at conferences. In addition, social networking sites such as Facebook can also be an interesting source of information for foreign intelligence services.

“You do not have to avoid using Facebook, Hyves [a Dutch social networking site] and other similar sites, but you should keep in mind that they are available to third parties. Espionage is not something from thirty years ago. It is something which exists today in many different forms, and especially in the digital world.” READ MORE

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Social Media and Authors

05/02/2010 · Leave a Comment

Toronto Social Media Week concentrates on digital book marketing:

McFadden emphasized how valuable it can be for authors to market their books online during the pre-publication process, using Twitter and Facebook to reach a very specific audience. Instead of reaching readers through traditional book reviews and ads, readers can now find out about the writing process of authors, and in some cases, even their personality. [...]

What about the perils of Twitter? McFadden warned that while authors should feel free to tweet as they please, they must remember there can be consequences – for instance, she advises authors to keep their feelings about a negative review in check, no matter how angry you feel at the time. [...]

More Here: http://bit.ly/arK9U3

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Giant of literature advises aspiring authors

04/02/2010 · Leave a Comment

I haven’t had this much fun reading a book in a long time. I was laughing gregariously in a public space, and I learned something in the process. Here are some of the good advises given by one the world’s foremost literary classics (more in the book). Do not even think of writing a book before your read this ;)

“With regard to adding annotations at the end of the book, you may safely do it in this way. If you mention any giant in your book contrive that it shall be the giant Goliath, and with this alone, which will cost you almost nothing, you have a grand note, for you can put—The giant Golias or Goliath was a Philistine whom the shepherd David slew by a mighty stone-cast in the Terebinth valley, as is related in the Book of Kings—in the chapter where you find it written.

“Next, to prove yourself a man of erudition in polite literature and cosmography, manage that the river Tagus shall be named in your story, and there you are at once with another famous annotation, setting forth—The river Tagus was so called after a King of Spain: it has its source in such and such a place and falls into the ocean, kissing the walls of the famous city of Lisbon, and it is a common belief that it has golden sands, etc. If you should have anything to do with robbers, I will give you the story of Cacus, for I have it by heart; if with loose women, there is the Bishop of Mondonedo, who will give you the loan of Lamia, Laida, and Flora, any reference to whom will bring you great credit; if with hard-hearted ones, Ovid will furnish you with Medea; if with witches or enchantresses, Homer has Calypso, and Virgil Circe; if with valiant captains, Julius Caesar himself will lend you himself in his own ‘Commentaries,’ and Plutarch will give you a thousand Alexanders. If you should deal with love, with two ounces you may know of Tuscan you can go to Leon the Hebrew, who will supply you to your heart’s content; or if you should not care to go to foreign countries you have at home Fonseca’s ‘Of the Love of God,’ in which is condensed all that you or the most imaginative mind can want on the subject. In short, all you have to do is to manage to quote these names, or refer to these stories I have mentioned, and leave it to me to insert the annotations and quotations, and I swear by all that’s good to fill your margins and use up four sheets at the end of the book.

“Now let us come to those references to authors which other books have, and you want for yours. The remedy for this is very simple: You have only to look out for some book that quotes them all, from A to Z as you say yourself, and then insert the very same alphabet in your book, and though the imposition may be plain to see, because you have so little need to borrow from them, that is no matter; there will probably be some simple enough to believe that you have made use of them all in this plain, artless story of yours. At any rate, if it answers no other purpose, this long catalogue of authors will serve to give a surprising look of authority to your book. Besides, no one will trouble himself to verify whether you have followed them or whether you have not, being no way concerned in it; especially as, if I mistake not, this book of yours has no need of any one of those things you say it wants, for it is, from beginning to end, an attack upon the books of chivalry, of which Aristotle never dreamt, nor St. Basil said a word, nor Cicero had any knowledge; nor do the niceties of truth nor the observations of astrology come within the range of its fanciful vagaries; nor have geometrical measurements or refutations of the arguments used in rhetoric anything to do with it; nor does it mean to preach to anybody, mixing up things human and divine, a sort of motley in which no Christian understanding should dress itself. It has only to avail itself of truth to nature in its composition, and the more perfect the imitation the better the work will be. And as this piece of yours aims at nothing more than to destroy the authority and influence which books of chivalry have in the world and with the public, there is no need for you to go a-begging for aphorisms from philosophers, precepts from Holy Scripture, fables from poets, speeches from orators, or miracles from saints; but merely to take care that your style and diction run musically, pleasantly, and plainly, with clear, proper, and well-placed words, setting forth your purpose to the best of your power, and putting your ideas intelligibly, without confusion or obscurity. Strive, too, that in reading your story the melancholy may be moved to laughter, and the merry made merrier still; that the simple shall not be wearied, that the judicious shall admire the invention, that the grave shall not despise it, nor the wise fail to praise it. Finally, keep your aim fixed on the destruction of that ill-founded edifice of the books of chivalry, hated by some and praised by many more; for if you succeed in this you will have achieved no small success.”

Miguel Cervantes in Don Quixote.

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What is LOL

04/02/2010 · 1 Comment

Recently I came across two examples of inappropriate uses of the common online expression LOL. Both parties used it in emails, to express sympathy for the loss of a friend. Presumably they meant: Lots Of Love, noneteless it made my hair rise. LOL!

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Chopin goes on auction

04/02/2010 · Leave a Comment

Poland celebrates Chopin’s 200th birthday with a commemorative 20 PLZ note:

100,000 banknotes go on Internet auction, on Feb 9, and bids start at 25 PLZ, to the max of 50.

The note sports Chopin’s profile, a pic of his birthplace at Żelazowa Wola, and an original print of one of his Mazurkas. The reverse shows a Mazovian scenery.

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