Back on line. Redux.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

...some things don't change...

should just change the date on my last entry and say I wrote it today, but that would be cheating...

For various reasons I haven't posted any entries to this web since last October and today I am in a position to change that and hopefully on an ongoing basis. (Yes, my stay in club prison was enjoyable. Thanks for asking.)

I have two new categories to add to my web site. 1. Don't Need THAT and 2. iTunes.

Don't Need THAT is a play on words. There are certain things we think we need, but we don't. That's not the that I'm referring to, but THAT as in "I knew that I was in trouble..." The THAT in the quote just isn't needed. You don't need THAT. I hope to create a collection of examples from published books. Maybe with time we will see that disappear except for all the needed situations. As for other that, that's for you to decide. It's personal.

Then there is iTunes. I have joined the iPod generation. I've long since listened to MP3s and CDs with a computer, but only recently bot a portable MP3 player of any merit (The Sansa Clip from Scandisk. I like it a lot.) As you can see from the iTunes stats, I have over 16,000 songs in my library. 94 GBs. They are all from CDs I have ripped. No file sharing downloads. I have so many CDs to rip, I bot a two 1 TB external hard drives just to store the music files (one for the originals, the second as a backup). Plus other backup processes. Too much effort gone into creating this library to see something happen to the files. As I learn something knew about this quirky program called iTunes, I may post an entry.

Posted 2010/03/17 at 15h58ET in JamesPiper.com.

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Please, Please, Please, No More

Saturday, October 8, 2011 ... what is the best way to start your novel ... C ount them. One. Two. I downloaded two thriller e-books from amazon.com, both published by the author, and they both started the same way: the character waking up and going about some morning ritual. Both books were in the top 100 bestsellers of Mystery & Thrillers Fiction. Both had many positive reviews. Those facts seemed encouraging, but once I read the opening scene, I stopped. I did not continue. But James that seems harsh? Perhaps, yes, but the writer is sending a signal with such an opening. It says, I have more to learn about writing thrillers for today’s audience. Why do I say that? Because a waking-up scene is mundane. It’s ordinary. It happens to us everyday. We don’t read thrillers for the mundane and ordinary. We read them for the extraordinary. We read them to live vicariously through the characters. We read them to be entertained. There is nothing in those waking-up scenes th...

Analysis of Amazon E-book Fiction Bestsellers (Week #1)

Sunday, October 30, 2011 ... trying to make sense of the amazon bestsellers and pricing for e-books ... E ach hour Amazon updates its bestsellers lists. I have taken a daily snapshot of the top 20 bestsellers in the e-book fiction list for the past week. See here . What can be learnt from these data? 1. 4 out 5 of the bestsellers are from print or traditional authors. Most are brand-named authors who dominate the print bestsellers. 2. Almost all of the authors have multiple titles to their credit. The author of The Help is a notable exception. 3. The e-book prices of indie authors are substantially lower than print authors. For the most part, their titles are priced at $0.99. 4. The books on the list fall into four categories: (i) pre-release from brand-named authors, (ii) new or recently released titles (iii) long-term bestsellers (greater than one year), (iv) backlist titles. Indie authors fall into (ii) and (iv). 5. The indie authors includes authors who ...

Checked Off

Sunday, April 11, 2010 ... one To Do is off the list ... I recently completed a task that was completely irrational. It was a fixture on my To-Do list because I always put it off. This week I decided to change that. I dug through my files of sketches and drawings and scanned them into my computer. A simple concept, sure, but tedious and time consuming. I suggest wearing latex gloves or buying hand lotion, but maybe that's a personal choice...Anyway, I now have a folder with 1.2 GBs of JPEG and PSD files. Here's an example from 1992. Right, where's that To-Do list? I want to sketch a line on it. Posted 2010/04/11 at 13h54ET in JamesPiper.com.

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