I Love Amazon but the Fire Phone…Snore….
I followed a bit of the Amazon announcement during lunch yesterday, then recapped it later. I’m not exactly in the market for a new phone, I’ve had my Note 3 for almost a year and enjoy it just fine, but I was interested to see a new player on the market. Apple and Samsung have been conquering as far as smartphones go, and frankly it’s just sometimes fun to find a new gadget to want that I can’t necessarily have. After seeing what they’re offering though, I’m nothing but underwhelmed. Amazon is a fantastic company and I use them for a number of things. I’m a Prime subscriber (though I do prefer Netflix for streaming) and I love them for ebooks and music and most everything else. Oh, yeah, and they’re my numero uno for selling my own books. Nevertheless, they’re not the best hardware maker. I have a Kindle…
Updates On a Few Things
Yeah, I know, I know, been awhile since I posted anything. I’ve been involved with a work project that has tied up a lot of my time, just one of the joys of writing with a day job. I wanted to update on a few things, and since people tend to go to Story Arcs as well, it’s up there too. First, the writing is lagging hard and that’s my fault. FayTown Calling is a good month behind. I was hoping to send out a final call for beta readers the end of February and have it edited and out by May. That’s not looking on track though, I won’t send out to beta readers (which you can still be a part of, just comment or email me!) and don’t think I will until mid April. I have many things to change, tweak, and add, and a final polish to…
The First Chapter
Anne R. Allen put a post a few a week or so back (I am so glad to be caught up on Feedly now…) that discusses what all should be involved in a first chapter. The moment I saw it, I groaned. Here we go, something else to tear everything I think I know to ribbons. But I read it, because this was a new blog I added to my reader, and I nee to get a feel for it, and much as I didn’t want to admit it, these types of posts are important. Nothing is concrete, but the thing about being a new writer, one who hasn’t written for anyone I wasn’t related or married to, is not having the ability to gauge what is concrete and what is quicksand. I think I know my stuff, but who knows what that will mean to readers? And the first sentence, paragragh,…
Parallells Between Video Games Industry and Publishing Industry
Gamepolitics published Microsoft’s FAQ for the Xbox One today, and it’s really interesting to see some familiar ideologies. Ones I’ve been reading about in publishing. Namely, paranoia. Basically, if you don’t connect to the internet every 24 hours, it won’t play games. Publishers will have the option to disable used games. They can also choose what retailers will be able to participate and whether or not a fee will be applied to the trade in. They will have the option to disable allowing your friends to borrow games. They will have the option to disable game rentals. Now, it’s really too soon to tell, but if this is true, it reeks of a paranoia I would usually ascribe to Apple. They want to monitor every purchase you make and ensure they don’t lose one solitary sale. And if it were were digital sales only, it wouldn’t be as big a…