RIASS stuff:
Review: Not Just a Witch and Dial a Ghost by Eva Ibbotson'Rating: 
Cheery mischief with ghosts and witches. Just what I needed.
Review: Welcome to the Great Mysterious by Lorna Landvik'Rating: 
Giveaway:'Safe Haven'by Nicholas Sparks'(US only)
Other bookish stuff:
On the battlezone that is Amazon reviews'Attack reviews are hard to police. It is difficult, if not impossible, to detect the difference between an authentic critical review and an author malevolently trying to bring down a colleague, or organized assaults by fans. Amazons extensive rules on reviewing offer little guidance on what is permissible in negative reviews and what is not.
How RL Stine discovered Ray Bradbury:
Three Key Ideas from Digital Book World 2013 These include pricing innovations, new approaches to discoverability (including moving away from a previous overemphasis on social media), and authenticity in marketing. Random House has been praised recently for the authenticity of its Facebook page, which focuses more on promoting the content of a book, rather than using the medium as a sales channel.
Is Orwell overrated?'Much of [Orwell's Politics]'is the kind of nonsense screed against linguistic pet hates that anyone today might compose in a green-text email to the newspapers. So why do so many people still genuflect in its direction?First, it gives a list of writing tips. (Aspiring writers love to collect lists of writing tips instead of actually writing.) Second, it is savagely contemptuous of politicians and what they say, an attitude that never goes out of fashion.
Move books: a new publisher publishing books for boys
Amazon Childrens Publishing expands with more books for younger kids and teens'Two Lions will publish picture books, chapter books and middle-grade fiction (for kids ages 8 to 12), while Skyscape is aimed at teens. The imprints' first titles will be published this spring [northern hemisphere].
Some curious snippets on why writers write. My favourite is Sue Graftons: because I wasnt cut out to be a ballerina.
John Scalzi on the state of a genre title, 2013 There are arguments made for self-publishing, and many people will make them, but at this point, for the majority of self-published authors, self-publishing primarily gains you access to eBook sales. Print sales are difficult (because it is difficult to place books into bookstores, particularly chains, on a non-returnable basis), and by and large self-pubbed audiobooks are still an emerging market. Working with established publishers gets my work into as many sales channels as possible.
