Isobelle Carmody launches Greylands and the Great eBook Debate

At midnight on the 4th July, Isobelle Carmody launched the Greylands ebook launch website - this website will self-destruct in a month, but until then you can read articles about eBooks, ePublishing, and reading from 30 different writers. The first article by Alex Adsett contains some interesting statistics about self-publishing, advice to new writers and optimistic views on indie publishing.

I urge you all, gentle readers, to visit this innovative site, read the articles and comment. I love the fact that Isobelle has taken this opportunity to provide readers with this extra reading experience. Look out for my own session as Guest Speaker over the coming days.

Continuum 8

Well, despite suffering from such bad asthma I sounded - and still sound - like a foghorn sounding warnings all weekend, I managed to survive Continuum 8, take notes and buy books. One of the things I found interesting about the whole weekend was the spirit of optimism. Optimism is not particularly prevalent around writing circles but both writers and small press publishers were quietly insistent about the resilience of the speculative fiction world. Indeed, publishers were quite vocal about the benefits of middle-list writers self-publishing -  self-epublishing - out-of-print back titles, individual short fictions or spin-offs which can be used as promotional material.

There are definite parallels between speculative fiction small press publishing and poetry small press publishing - and some of the same energy. Poets have always self-published, set up publishing co-operatives and worked together to send poems out into the world. E-publishing has been embraced by speculative fiction writers and poets and I think there are diverse opportunities in the new technologies for anyone willing to spend a little time learning and developing new strategies.

In the meantime, check out one of these new technologies at The Writer and the Critic.