@meandmybigmouth
Currently writing a book about dogs. Don't really like dogs. Reading: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/meandmybigmouth Writing: https://meandmybigmouth.medium.com/ Selling: https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/meandmybigmouth He/him.
A shot of Jana and her band on stage. A few people in front of me. Red lighting makes the picture look rather pink.
A picture of the back cover of Jana's new album. She has signed it: To Scott, Fuck off, ♥️ Jana Horn.
Went to see Jana Horn at The Ivy House in Nunhead last night. It's a bit out of the way but a lovely venue and Jana was great.
I emailed you.
This trilogy is a deeply disturbing masterpiece.
But even if Penguin still had the rights, it only takes a week, if that, to get a print book scanned and digital files created from it.
It's a non issue either way.
All his early books seem to be republished by Bloomsbury in ebook formats. Not uncommon for one publisher to acquire a blacklist from another if they want the whole lot in one place.
Agents often push for that too.
Seems a strange complaint for him to make. Penguin no longer have the rights to his books, so no real reason for them to retain digital files.
I mean, you'd expect them to be somewhere in their archive but they are genuinely not needed, so...?
I helped an author with their submissions a couple of years ago. 35 different agents with 35 different requirements. Massive pain in the arse and no wonder people get it wrong.
Also, they could really help to dispel some myths on their website submission pages.
I'm thinking of writing an article about how literary agents are often their own worst enemies and are creating an environment in which it is really difficult for authors to actually find a home for often excellent manuscripts.
As opposed to one about all the mistakes authors make when submitting.
Guys, this remarkable music festival is talking place one street from my house. I will be able to hear every word.
Right Said Fred, Boyzlife, Chesney Hawkes... plus Dua Lipa, Taylor Swift, Abba and Ed Sheeran tribute acts.
New Gia Margaret song has dropped, fallen, landed, been placed...
I recently tried BookBeat but found that to be a rather frustrating experience and certainly more audiobook focused than e-book. You actually couldn't search for e-books at all via their desktop site.
Kindle Unlimited is an option, but you know, it's Amazon. They're evil.
Any recommendations?
I suspect the previous model didn't generate enough income, or maybe there were issues with allocating publisher revenue. But they're now getting zero income from me because it's hard to keep legacy subscribers when every aspect of your service is worse than it was before... and you charge more.
They also removed lots of useful functionality. E.g., each individual e-book's listing had a hyperlinked publisher name, and if you clicked on that, it would take you to every book that publisher had on the site. Great if you were a fan of indie or university presses, etc.
That has also now gone.
But a while ago they shifted to a credits model. You either paid for one credit a month, or three credits a month, to be used on unlocking e-books and audiobooks. And if you didn't use those credits within the month, you lost them. They did not carry over.
This is palpably a worse offer.
This was particularly attractive to me when it came to audiobooks because the market leader was, and is, Audible, where you only get a certain amount of credits per month.
With the e-book catalogue, there were lots of US titles that were hard to get in print in the UK.
This was all good stuff.
In its heyday, you could literally read as many ebooks and listen to as many audiobooks as you wanted for the same monthly fee. You could also gain extra months of membership by referring friends, and they offered some great perks, including, for a while, free membership to MUBI.
I have cancelled my membership to Everand, the ebook and audiobook subscription service. I was an avid user some years ago, when it was still called Scribd, because of its Spotify-style 'eat as much as you like' offer but so much has changed since then, and all of it for the worse.
1/10 If the last few days of Iranian strikes on Dubai have proven anything, it’s that a massive number of people completely despise the city and those living there.
And honestly? There are very good reasons to despise them.
A thread on the city of hypocrites 🧵👇
But is is permissible to read it in April?
Congrats, sir!
It is like the tea all over again!
Thank you x
Ahh, when your favourite musician is releasing a book of lyrics and photos but they are Swedish so the bookshops offering signed copies for pre-order won't ship to you because a bunch of fuckwits voted for Brexit ten years ago.
Always fun.
He famously has copies of almost all new released albums sent to a few of his homes. I wonder if he does something similar with books?
Richard VI
I think the world of political reporting would be improved greatly if journalists were allowed to end their questions with "...you fucking idiot?" more often.
"Why are you doubling down on this immigration policy, you fucking idiot?"
"Why chase the Reform vote, you fucking idiot?"
etc.
Purely for Elton and David.
Not overly interested in Elton John and his family, but have greatly enjoyed enlarging the photo on the National Portrait Gallery website to see how many of his books I can identify.
Also trying to work out the filing system.
Although it's never been a publication I would read, I do accept that some time in the past the Telegraph was an actual newspaper, albeit a right-leaning biased one.
But I genuinely don't think it actually qualifies as a newspaper anymore.
A double decker, how impressive.
